Readers like you help support How-To Geek. When you make a purchase using links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Read More.

Some people don't really ever change the default wallpapers on their devices, and I count myself in that category. Default and preloaded wallpapers come in all shapes and forms, and it's normal to see new operating system releases drop new wallpapers. The next update for the GNOME desktop environment on Linux, GNOME 45, is in the works with a snazzy pair of new default wallpapers.

GNOME 45 won't be out for a few more months, but development builds have given us a look at some important changes. The newest part that got updated isn't one that will dramatically alter your experience, but it will alter the way your desktop looks. There are new and updated GNOME wallpapers, including a rather radical change to the default wallpaper. GNOME's Adwaita wallpaper got a radical change in colors for both its light mode and dark mode versions. It's still a bunch of triangles, but the colors couldn't look more different. The palette of colors is switching from bright blues, pinks and purples to darker blues as well as oranges and reds.

The result is a wallpaper that still looks amazing, but gives off completely different vibes from the previous one. While the previous one was eye-catching because of its bright colors, the current one seems a bit more muted, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The brightest color we can spy in the wallpaper is orange, and even then, it's not even that bright.

If you're more of a dark mode enthusiast (albeit I'd argue the "light mode" wallpaper already fits like a glove on dark mode UIs), there's a proper dark mode wallpaper that's way darker. It has some browns to it, but it has a bit of a colder vibe, and some parts of it look almost dark. It's a good one to check out if you're after something dark, mind you, but then again, the light mode one is already pretty dark, so unless you're after something almost black, you might want to give the lighter one a spin instead.

You can download the full-resolution wallpapers from the GitLab repository for GNOME. They're just regular JPEG images, so they can be used easily on any platform.

Source: OMG! Linux