Today the official Ubuntu 12.04 default wallpaper hit blogs and news sites across the web, and left absolutely no surprises if you’ve been following the progress of the familiar “purple salad” over the past two years. Yes, it has more orange and a warmer tint, but it’s still the same purple and orange that we know and… well, we know it.

I will say, before I continue, that it is my favorite iteration of the wallpaper yet. I like that it’s warmer, and I prefer the orange glow because it provides a little more balance so that the purple doesn’t overpower it.

That being said, this is our big release.  This is our “8 Mile.” This is the point where we say look at us, start taking us seriously. We’re not some socially-awkward clan of neck-beards peddling a terminal and a kernel. We’re beautiful, functional, fast, and we also happen to be free- as in beer and freedom. This is where we say we’re not just some white kid from the East side of Detroit, we’re a skillful rapper here to represent. Or something.

[caption id=”” align=”aligncenter” width=”485”] “One shot, do not miss your chance to blow. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime.”[/caption]

I love Eminem, but I digress.

I know that it’s easy to change the wallpaper. It takes three seconds, and in all honestly probably couldn’t be made any simpler. I understand that everyone has different tastes, and what might be a slightly unsettling wallpaper to me may be a Mona Lisa to the majority of the world. But reading through posts and comments on Google+ and OMG! Ubuntu!, I’ve reached the conclusion that I’m not alone.

The wallpaper is one of the first things people see when they try Ubuntu for the first time. They partially judge the experience by how crisp and clean the desktop looks from the get-go. When you turn on a Mac, you see a clean design and a really nifty looking wallpaper. It’s elegant, clean, and says a little something about the operating system. WE should have that. We should have a wallpaper that makes people say, “if the stupid wallpaper is this cool, I’m sure the rest of the OS can only be even more spectacular.”

People do judge books by their covers. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In a world of millions of books, when you have two that seem to have similar content, which one are you more willing to pick up?

Just a thought.