The default wallpaper of Ubuntu 24.10 ‘Oracular Oriole’ (and the official release mascot artwork) has been unveiled.
A visit to the local temple mystic wasn’t required to predict that an oriole would take centre-stage in the Ubuntu 24.10 wallpaper. Animal mascots are a recurring feature1 of Ubuntu’s default background since Ubuntu 17.10 ‘Artful Aardvark’.
So it is – a geometric oriole bird motif sits ensconced within circles, with moons and other arcane symbols (echoing the ‘oracular’ element) surrounding it:
Also included are a ‘light’ and ‘dimmed’ versions, with the latter being used when system dark mode is activated:
Now, I know it’ll sound twee and a tad pretentious, but I find the circular aspect in the mascot artwork symbolic of Ubuntu in relation to its community: the distro is very much the central point around which users, volunteers, developers, and enthusiasts coalesce.
Too cheesy? ;)
BUT WAIT — THERE’S MORE.
Alongside the new default wallpaper are an updated set of backgrounds sourced from the community. Among them a fantastic modern remix of the original Ubuntu 4.10 ‘Warty Warthog’ wallpaper – not a 1:1 clone and, in my opinion, a better interpretation for it.
Ubuntu 24.10 is Ubuntu’s 20th anniversary release (Ubuntu 4.10 was the first, back in October 2004) so this wallpaper will vibe very nicely with the celebratory easter eggs included in 24.10 (I won’t spoil those here so if you want to know, read that post).
Finally, in a further nod to its past, Ubuntu 24.10 makes a new ‘LTS legacy wallpaper’ package available to install. This contains high-resolution versions of Ubuntu’s default wallpapers from 6.06 LTS through to 24.04 LTS.
Let me know what you think of this new wallpaper down in the comments!
- Prior to this, only Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10 wallpapers featured mascot animals ↩︎