How to install an Ubuntu GDM login theme

It was this post about GDM themes in the new version of Ubuntu that prompted me to install the latest version of Ubuntu tonight.

GDM (short for Gnome Display Manager) themes are a fast and convenient way of changing the default login theme for Ubuntu with very little effort. Check out the Tech Source post I linked to above to see examples of sexy login screens you can simply download, install and use.

As usual, I'm going to walk you through installing a custom GDM theme in a few simple steps:

1. Download a few of these GDM themes to your Ubuntu desktop. Don't bother to extract them - the utility will do this for you.
2. Now, fire up the Login Window utility from System -> Administration. You'll need to input your admin password to continue.
3. When the preferences window loads, click on the Local tab and you'll see a list of available themes. Click on the Add button and browse for one of the packages you downloaded.
4. The newly installed theme should now be in the list - browse for it and select it as the default.
5. Ensure that the Theme setting is set to Selected only - otherwise, the login screen will cycle randomly between all the installed themes instead of the one you want.
6. Close the Login Window utility and log out of Ubuntu to test if the new theme is active.

There are some other cool options on the other tabs that might be worth investigating (as usual), but for the purposes of this tutorial, we just want to install the basic theme.

And for the record, I'm using the Underground Ubuntu theme from the list above. If you come across any other cool Ubuntu login themes, let me know about them, will you?

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