How to install the Cloudy GTK theme on Linux
The Cloudy GTK theme is a modification of the famous Arc theme. The design is that of material design, and it is stylish. It offers up a unique, bluish theme that reminds users of a cloudy sky.
The Cloudy theme comes in a variety of different colors, including light grey, soft grey, dark grey, light blue, dark blue, and soft blue. If you’re a fan of blues and greys and love material design, follow along to get the Cloudy GTK theme working on your system.
Downloading the Cloudy GTK theme
The Cloudy GTK theme is meant for both GTK3 and GTK2 desktop environments so that it will work on everything from Gnome Shell, to Cinnamon, Budgie, to more traditional desktop environments like Mate or XFCE 4. However, before we talk about setting up the theme, we must download it.
Cloudy is hosted on Gnome-look.org, a popular Gnome GTK theme website. On the site, they have several different download options available. Take a look around for the “Files” tab, and select it.
Upon selecting the “Files” tab, you will notice several different TarXZ archives available for download. Follow the instructions below to learn how to download these archives.
Note: in addition to being available on Gnome-look.org as TarXZ archives, the theme is readily available for download on GitHub. However, be warned that if you want to download the theme files from GitHub, you must install the Git package on your Linux PC, as it does not come standard on all operating systems.
Light Grey
To get your hands on the light grey version of the Cloudy GTK theme, find the Cloudy-Light-Grey.tar.xz file in the “Files” tab, and click on the blue button to download.
Dark Grey
Want to use the dark grey version of Cloudy GTK on your Linux PC? Locate the Cloudy-Dark-Grey.tar.xz file in the “Files” tab, and click on the blue button to start the download.
Light Blue
Interested in using Cloudy GTK’s light blue variation? Sort through the “Files” list available on Gnome-look.org and find the Cloudy-Light-Blue.tar.xz file in the list. Once you’ve found it, click on the blue download button to get your hands on it.
Dark Blue
Looking to use the dark blue version of the Cloudy GTK theme on your Linux PC? Look through the list of files in the “Files” tab on Gnome-look.org. From there, click on the blue download button next to Cloudy-Dark-Blue.tar.xz to get it.
Soft Blue
Want to use the soft blue version of the Cloudy GTK theme on your Linux computer? Here’s how to download it. First, look at the “Files” tab on Gnome-look.org for Cloudy-SoftBlue-Dark.tar.xz. Then, find the blue download button next to it and click on it with the mouse to start the download.
Soft Grey Dark
To use the soft grey dark variation of the Cloudy GTK theme on your Linux PC, do the following. First, go to the Gnome-look.org page for Cloudy GTK. After that, find Cloudy-SoftGrey-Dark.tar.xz on the list. Then, click on the blue download button next to it to start the download.
Soft Grey Light
Need to download the soft grey light variation of the Cloudy GTK theme to your Linux PC? Sort through the “Files” tab on Cloudy GTK’s Gnome-look.org page and locate Cloudy-SoftGrey-Light.tar.xz. After that, click on the blue download button next to it to get your hands on it.
Extracting the Cloudy GTK theme
As the Cloudy GTK theme files come in a TarXZ format, we must extract it using the command-line. To start the extraction process, press Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard to open up a terminal window. Then, use the CD command to move into the “Downloads” directory.
cd ~/Downloads
Once inside of the “Downloads” directory with your Linux terminal session, use the tar command to extract the contents of the Cloudy GTK TarXZ theme files.
tar xvf Cloudy-*.tar.xz
When the files are extracted, the Cloudy GTK theme files will appear in your “Downloads” directory.
Installing the Cloudy GTK theme
Installing GTK themes on Linux can go one of two ways. The first way is installing it as a single-user, which means that only the user that installs it has access to the theme. The second way is system-wide, which allows every user on the system access to the theme. In this guide, we will demonstrate how to set up Cloudy GTK in both ways.
Single-user
Installing Cloudy GTK as a single-user is best done if you’re the only one using your Linux PC. To start the installation, open up a terminal window and use the mkdir command to create a new “.themes” folder in the home directory (~).
mkdir -p ~/.themes
Next, use the CD command to move the terminal window into the “Downloads” folder (if your terminal isn’t already there.)
cd ~/Downloads
From the “Downloads” folder, use the mv command to place the theme files into the “.themes” directory.
mv Cloudy-*/ ~/.themes/
System-wide
If more than one person is planning on using Cloudy GTK, system-wide installation is the way to go. To start the installation, move the terminal window into the “Downloads” directory (if it’s not there already.)
cd ~/Downloads
Once inside of the “Downloads” directory, make use of the sudo -s command to elevate the terminal window to root privileges.
sudo -s
Finally, install the Cloudy GTK theme files to the /usr/share/themes/ directory in the root file system.
mv Cloudy-*/ /usr/share/themes/
Enabling the Cloudy GTK theme
You’ve set up the Cloudy GTK theme on your Linux PC, but installing it is not enough. You must enable the theme on your desktop environment if you want to begin using it.
To enable the theme, open up “Settings” and click on the “Appearance” or “Theme” settings. Then, change the default theme to Cloudy GTK. Or, if you’re having issues getting it working, follow one of the links below!
