Ubuntu 23.04 Dev Builds Now Look a Pinch More Appealing… – OMG! Ubuntu!

No lie, the latest daily builds of Ubuntu 23.04 “Lunar Lobster” are looking a lot more luscious than usual.

For what I believe is the first time, Ubuntu devs have decided to ship a bespoke desktop background to be used exclusively in development builds.

And naturally the new artwork conveys a creative concurrence of the release codename.

Now typically, each new dev release of Ubuntu uses its predecessor’s artwork for the bulk of its development cycle. It only gains a custom wallpaper of its own near UI freeze. Not so with the Lunar Lobster, the next short-term release of Ubuntu ear-marked for emergence in April 2023.

The ‘Lunar Lobster’ Development Wallpaper

Long-time readers may recall I breathed a little too heavily over a batch of AI-generated jellyfish wallpapers shared on social media earlier this year. Those designers were masterfully extracted from the machine mind by Simon Butcher.

Well, Simon’s done it again. This time, he loaded the words “lunar” and “lobster” into the computer’s creative conscious, then set about carefully sculpting and refining the output until it looked like something truly special.

And lo:

Pretty clawsome, right?

The colours of the wallpaper are perfect. Purple as a colour is already synonymous with Ubuntu, but also with space (hence moons and stars). It works well. I also dig the form of the lobster. It’s layered in a way that makes it look as though it’s made from card or paper – the “DIY” construction vibes well the development release modus.

The new background will be available as an update to the ubuntu-wallpapers package in Ubuntu 23.04 daily builds in the next few days, so if you’re riding the dev wave — brave soul, you are — be prepared for the change!

If you’re not using the Lunar Lobster yet — i.e. pretty much everyone — but you don’t want to be left out of the fun, you can download this wallpaper from Launchpad using the link above. Extract the full Ubuntu wallpapers archive, then fish out the lobster (file name: warty-final-ubuntu.png) in 4K quality to use as you wish.

Let me know what you think about this rather mystical looking marvel, or just share your thoughts/experiences with AI-generated art in general, down in the cavernous comments hole below.

Thanks Ken

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