onion_knight via Whonix Forum:
OK I did a new test on a fresh Workstation 15 with
sudo apt-get install arc-theme --no-install-recommends
You reverted to a previous snapshot (or removed all previously installed
packages), then didsudo apt-get install arc-theme --no-install-recommends, and the result was the pretty result as above?
It did pull the following dependencies. I guess we cannot do without them.
If the answer to my above question is yes, then my answer to this will
be also “yes”. 
Not sure how they go with the other enhancements above, but for me, geany and terminator are a must and make life so much more comfortable.
Debian -- Details of package terminator in stretch - the horiz / vertical splitting, with easily changing text size in each is much more friendly to use than xfce terminal tabs or opening multiple windows.
Debian -- Details of package geany in stretch - defined as a fast and easy IDE but I prefer it over mousepad (or other programs) for any text file editing.
I also agree that the arc theme looks way better than the current one.
The answer is yes, I used a clean unmodified Whonix 15 version
Regarding package xfce4-goodies
After a brief reviewing, I agree that it is probably unnecessary in a VM scenario. I would maybe only keep the xfce4-screenshooter, but wouldn’t call it really necessary either.
Another suggestion that came to mind:
why not adding desktop icons? Also something that most users of classical OSes expect to see. Also, I remember that in Whonix 13 there were different shortcuts on the Desktop for Whonix-related stuff, such as Whonix-Check, Tor-Arm, Whonix-Documentation, etc. Why not having them also back on the desktop?
Here how it looks with desktop icons (activated by: desktop settings → Icons->Default Icons: Home, Filesystem, Trash, Removable Devices):
Other suggestion:
Default /home/user environment has only the Desktop directory. Why not adding the classical XFCE4 default user directories also during build? Also something expected by most users I would think:
Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Public, Templates, Videos
Not sure anymore, I think we didn’t figure out how to add them by default without a confusing warning when using them for the first time. Also when applications changed and desktop icons broke, users got concerned. Maybe we could resurrect these packages if anyone has ideas:
There should be at least /home/user/Downloads but it is broken due to this bug:
As for the others: there’s never been a question / feature request about those. I personally always found these too much. When doing backups, never knowing if something ended up there. Too much since not everything happens in the a single Whonix VM.
OK I understand the rationale. Maybe a Download directory could be added somewhere at the end of the build, with a simple mkdir command but probably non-critical.
As for simple Desktop icons (not whonix-related), what would you think? It’s not supposed to break or cause problems, and simple to add, but again, not critical I guess.
God, that looks so much better. I’m trying it in my working W14 though, and there are some problems.
My install steps:
Theme:
sudo apt install arc-themeIcons:
sudo apt install autoconf git
sudo gtk-update-icon-cache /usr/share/icons/Arc
Problems (which still persist after Workstation reboot):
But @onion_knight your screenshots are better. Is it Buster that fixes it, or the buster repo version of the theme (it’s clearly newer than the stretch one), or another variable?
I also first installed the theme via this direct deb and it was even worse. Mouse selection of both page text and address bar text in Tor Browser had no normal dark-colored bgcolor contrast, so it was unusable.
I’m happy to test a Whonix 15 OVA if need be. Maybe this theme upgrade should only be for W15 release and Buster.
@AnonymousUser glad you like it and thanks for testing!
Well, I wasn’t even aware the arc-theme existed as a package in debian stretch, always used github links (or worse, Ubuntu packages) before buster! So I don’t know why it’s not working on your side, maybe they actually fixed your issues with the buster version?
For the icons, you are right to mention the sudo gtk-update-icon-cache /usr/share/icons/Arc command that should be performed after install, although I am not sure which concrete issues it actually solves (other than the Icons panel in the appearance menu stops complaining about the lack of cache…).
It’s weird, did you make sure to also change the theme of the Window Manager settings? whisker menu->window manager->Style->Arc
Don’t know about this one, maybe a screenshot would help?
Yes, I know about that, some panel icons (for instance the Thunar icon) are not always working properly (still show stock Adwaita icons). Don’t know why, maybe related to panel configuration, I will try to look into that.
For sure. Whonix 14: security upgrades and major bug fixes only.
Most development is focused on latest Whonix version only.
onion_knight via Whonix Forum:
OK I understand the rationale. Maybe a Download directory could be added somewhere at the end of the build, with a simple
mkdircommand but probably non-critical.
chroot script style so to speak. That’s ideally avoided. Better to implement as much as possibly with packages. Why:
As for simple Desktop icons (not whonix-related), what would you think? It’s not supposed to break or cause problems, and simple to add, but again, not critical I guess.
Ah, that did it! Thank you.
Ah, I’d have to set up a testing W14 for that. But it’s not a big deal-breaker for now. Let me live with the theme for a week and see if I still find it hard to use. It may be fine after some adaptation.
I also find that the file browser / desktop text is blurry by default (on my machine) and I can make them nicely sharp at Appearance > Fonts by changing Hinting and sub-pixel color settings.
Not sure if we tend to customize images with little setting choices like that as well? I’d love it, if possible, makes Whonix by default more appealing for people and increases adoption.
As long as users can agree on some set of settings I don’t see any reason to not make those the default.
Most things agreed here are ready for implementation.
There’s an integrated sanity test: implementation isn’t easy (unfortunately) so the implementer only implements what it liked by oneself anyhow.
Other earlier accepted wishlist items:
@Patrick @Algernon Great, I’ve got several suggestions then (one of which was this theming issue), and in good time I’ll bring them up in their own threads. 
Still very much liking this Arc theme. I can see a lot of users tolerating and adopting Whonix more, simply because it feels closer to Windows in its sleekness.
I also love how with XFCE desktop you can close a maximized window with the mouse by instantly shoving it into the top RH corner screen pixel without having to carefully watch where you put the cursor, even with this Arc theme (Arc looks like Linux Mint now in XFCE). You can’t do that in Linux Mint despite the same button appearance, and also GNOME you can’t do this, which is a UI pet peeve I have with GNOME.
On Windows, you can. Windows users are used to little conveniences like this. I have been used to it my whole life.
So with the right theming, XFCE may be the most Windows-like Linux Desktop we can choose. I’m glad we’ve already defaulted to Whisker Menu, and I have a few other UI tweaks (just settings changes) which make it slightly further more Windows-like.
(I still think GNOME for an amnesic Linux host OS for Whonix - like Tails does - might be best to differentiate it from Whonix VM for the user to not confuse them, and would work well if it’s considered not the most favorable desktop and thus fit being the one not in use as one’s daily Whonix UI.)
Strange bug with Arc theme (in my VirtualBox Whonix).
The following behavior happens:
Press VirtualBox host key and then alt-tab to allow your host OS to switch windows away from your workstation VM for a second.
Come back to Workstation VM. Observe that the current active window became minimized and/or shrunk to a weird bottom part of the screen.
Only happened since installing this theme. Anyone else can reproduce?
We can differentiate with wallpapers and themes. This point is a weak argument for adopting a resource heavy DE.
Ah, of course. I vote to do that then.
I now think that XFCE with a modern-looking theme like Arc is good enough to measure up against Tails, given the resource-light advantages of XFCE (which will be even more important in a live system due to being only in RAM). Also would save time in development and troubleshooting across host and guest Whonix systems that we develop.
Another negative observation about Arc-icons (in my W14):
It hijacks the default icon for a lot of apps.
Opera, Firefox, Recoll, Mousepad, GIMP, VLC, Thunderbird, Firefox ESR, the list goes on.
This is good as the official icon for these famous apps is not only usually superior to the silly one Arc-icons replaces them with, but they lose their recognizability.
I’ll continue doing more theme exploring, I’ve got more to report later.
As always with Linux, we have to roll our sleeves up a bit if we want to customize it how we like it. But at least we can.
as written in https://forums.whonix.org/t/tails-whonix-its-doable-heres-how-can-we-offer-it-as-a-variant-like-qubes-whonix/7148/38
The case for porting Whonix to GNOME should be made in a separate thread
too. It would have to compare RAM and performance in VMs too. Not sure
how realistic that is. We only got Whonix ported XFCE since the code for
the port was contributed while at the same time KDE was eating too much
RAM and too slow.
This is because: