Ubuntu 8.04's Hardy Heron has recently perched on millions of desktops worldwide, but what does the future look like for the darling of the open source world? Now entering a new 2-year art developent cycle, Ubuntu's continuing quest for "pure, unadulterated, raw, visceral, lustful, shallow, skin deep beauty" has begun again in earnest. Bleeding edge desktop effects [youtube, music] are already creeping into the official distribution and the community is eagerly awaiting the new graphical look, promised as a ground-up re-imagination in the next release, Intrepid Ibex. Watch this space.
posted on Apr 28, 2008 - View this thread

Social Wallpaper. A community effort to classify, rank, and distribute high resolution images for use as computer wallpaper.
posted on Aug 12, 2007 - View this thread

Hi-Res Photos for the Masses! How about that bandwidth?
posted on Jul 2, 2007 - View this thread

Abnormal Behavior Child's got some interesting things to look at and watch or play with. Site self-describes as "visual poetry". {second link's got flash/sound}
posted on Apr 17, 2007 - View this thread

Mandolux - photographic desktop wallpapers. Just keep hittin' previous.
posted on Aug 20, 2006 - View this thread

The Evolution of the Desktop 1984-2007
My oh my, how far we've come.
posted on Aug 13, 2006 - View this thread

BumpTop is based on the long standing idea of piles as a desktop use metaphor, this seems to bring it to life at last. Will this sort out your desktop?
posted on Jun 21, 2006 - View this thread

"Desktop Earth 2.0 is a wallpaper generator for Windows. It runs whenever you're logged on and updates your wallpaper with an accurate representation of the Earth as it would be seen from space at that precise moment." The images are fantastic. Oh, and it's free. (See similar - via digg).
posted on Mar 10, 2006 - View this thread

desktop subversibles ... a collection of background subversions and awareness applications for the desktop.
posted on Oct 30, 2003 - View this thread

Homeland Security Threat Monitor is a small Windows application that runs in your system tray, showing the current terrorism threat level. Features blinking notification of increased threat level! [via Small Values of Cool]
posted on Feb 25, 2003 - View this thread

Mac takes control of Windows! A very useful addition to the Mac desktop for those who administer Windows-based servers. This handy utility allows you to start a Terminal Services session on a Windows machine.

This and a nice X Windows client lets my little 'ol iBook show the big iron who's the boss!
posted on Jul 18, 2002 - View this thread

"Motty is fast, simple and free." Football is quite rubbish, but this is great for us office prisoners.
posted on May 14, 2002 - View this thread

Drempels Animated desktop wallpaper software. Floaty nebulous. Nuff said.
posted on Apr 30, 2001 - View this thread

Screen Wars, a decent stab by Stephen Levy from Newsweek/MSNBC at summarizing the changes afoot in desktop OS GUIs. Credit where credit is due for some notable Apple alums; more faith than is justified in .NET.
posted on Dec 5, 2000 - View this thread

Desktop Imperium is a related site to see for folks who think vir2l is cool. Among other things, the interface stumbles closely enough to being usable that you can figure out what's being presented -- free wallpapers, in an abstract, Matrix meets Tron meets Jackson Pollack mode.
posted on May 14, 2000 - View this thread

If you think webcams are cool and the k10k desktop gallery is great, you've got to see this woman's desktop. The ultimate in exhibition, updated every 5 minutes, showing whatever she's working on.
posted on Feb 4, 2000 - View this thread