Ubuntu 24.10 is released in October and will mark the 20th anniversary of Ubuntu. So it’s only fitting that the release offer a few ‘easter eggs’ in honour if its past.
And there’s nothing as retro-Ubuntu than the colour brown, right?
In a nod to the first ever Ubuntu release, Ubuntu 4.10 ‘Warty Warthog’, Ubuntu 24.10 will include a ‘warty brown’ accent colour1 for users to tinge their systems with.
Ubuntu 24.10 includes the GNOME 47 desktop2, and among the new features in GNOME 47 is accent colour support.
“Er, doesn’t Ubuntu already have that?”, you ask.
Yes, it does – the distro has patched in its own implementation since 2022.
But with upstream GNOME adding accent colour support officially, Ubuntu doesn’t need to patch it in, so will migrate to the “official” approach (albeit retaining most, though not all, of the Yaru accent colour palette, defaulting to orange as one would expect).
For Ubuntu 24.10, ‘warty brown’ will be added to the pool of accent colours you can pick from, with the colour being applied to UI elements such as toggles, switches, and hovers, and a number of Yaru icons, including folders.
But that’s not all…
Ubuntu developers also add “support for playing a startup sound” to GNOME Shell 47, and include the ”warty startup sound” in the Yaru sounds package for when the option is enabled.
Want to hear it?
Most of are familiar with Ubuntu’s iconic login sound, but the original Ubuntu 4.10 startup chime is entirely different. Long, ethereal, contemplative, rather than short, punchy, and rhythmic. My first version of Ubuntu was 7.10 so I hadn’t heard Warty’s startup sound until now.
More nods to Ubuntu’s past are likely to be added in the upcoming anniversary release (I’d be amazed if the very basic wallpaper wasn’t recreated and added) — I’ll keep you posted as/when/if I spot any more…
- It is a different shade to the brown accent colour present in Ubuntu 24.04. That one, ‘bark’, is replaced by this retro-hued ‘warty brown’ ↩︎
- GNOME 47 hasn’t yet been released, and is not currently in Ubuntu 24.10 daily builds. ↩︎