Beautiful ARC GTK Theme for Linux

ARC GTK Theme is a flat theme with transparent elements for GTK 3, GTK 2 and Gnome-Shell. It has been successfully tested on wide range of Linux operating systems including Ubuntu 14.05, Arch Linux, Freya, Fedora 21 & 22, Debian 8.0, openSUSE 13.2 and many more.
With some selected parts of the window, like GTK Header Bars and the sidebar in Nautilus as the figure above. This looks like on OS X Yosemite, we got a style that is used sparingly and to great effect.
I’ve tested Arc theme then it works almost the same on Unity, GNOME, XFCE, Buggie, Pantheon, Cinnamon but the transparent effect only works on some specified app.

Arc GTK Theme
Arc GTK Theme

Requirements

  • Gnome/GTK 3.14 or 3.16
  • The gtk2-engines-pixbuf package only for Debian/Ubuntu based distros.
  • The murrine engine. This has different names depending on your distro.
    • gtk-engine-murrine (Arch Linux)
    • gtk2-engines-murrine (Debian, Ubuntu, elementary OS)
    • gtk-murrine-engine (Fedora)
    • gtk2-engine-murrine (openSUSE)
    • gtk-engines-murrine (Gentoo)
    Arc Element Styles
    Arc Element Styles

    Install Arc GTK Theme

    Because it’s still under active development, you don’t find the way to download the stable or installable package except build it by yourself.
    Important: Remove all older versions of the theme from your system before you proceed any further.

    sudo rm -rf /usr/share/themes/Arc
    rm -rf ~/.local/share/themes/Arc
    rm -rf ~/.themes/Arc

    Arc can install from AUR, it’s named as gtk-theme-arc-git. I found prebuilt packages for Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and openSUSE are available at here.
    To install Arc theme on Debian derivatives like Ubuntu / Linux Mint / Elementary OS …, use the commands below:

    sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Horst3180/xUbuntu_15.04/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/arc-theme.list"
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install arc-theme
    

    Use Arc GTK Theme

    If you’re using XFCE4, you can set it on in Settings / Appearance. On others Destop Environments like GNOME, Unity… Arc can be activated from Tweak Tools then enjoy the pleasing look of your Linux distro.

    Arc Activate
    Arc Activate

    To get updates & want to contribute, bug report, feel free to visit the official homepage of Arc.
    Arc GTK Theme on Github

Leave a Comment