Graphical Theme for the Columbia Astrophysics Lab computer network

It would be nice to see a visual theme for the Configured Workstations on the CAL network.

Anyone interested in submitting a suggestion should e-mail dkg about it.

There would be two basic elements to any proposed CAL theme: a login screen theme, and a desktop background. It would also be nice to have a customized splash screen at startup.

login screen theme

we're using gdm for this. a reference guide to creating gdm themes can be found ​here. Examples of gdm themes can be found ​here.

desktop background

Background wallpaper can be as simple as a 1024x768 or 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 jpeg or png. Even better would be something in vector graphics form (svg or eps) which we could scale cleanly to different sizes.

splash screens

a splash screen shows up as the system is booting. a simple png or jpeg sized at 420x300 should be fine, as would a vector illustration of roughly comparable aspect ratio. Be aware that there will be little icons representing services that show up overlaid along the bottom of the image after login.