Linux color schemes and wallpaper color generators
A color scheme is what makes a desktop look like one piece: the same palette in your terminal, bar, editor and GTK apps. There are two ways to get one. Fixed palettes such as Catppuccin, Nord, Gruvbox, Tokyo Night, Rosé Pine, Everforest and Kanagawa come with ready-made ports for many applications. Generators such as pywal, wallust, matugen and hellwal compute a palette from your wallpaper and write it into your configs through templates.
A third group themes everything from one source: Tinted Theming maintains the Base16 and Base24 schemes and builders, and Stylix applies one palette or wallpaper to a whole NixOS system.
18 entries · each pinned to an exact upstream version · updated
All 18 entries, compared
Filter in the catalogue →| Setup | Works with | Difficulty | What it changes | Maintenance | Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 CatppuccinCentral repo of the pastel palette, with links to ports for hundreds of apps. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Manual setup | Changes: Nothing for you: follow the upstream guide | Active | Stars: 20k |
 GruvboxThe original warm retro palette for Vim. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Manual setup | Changes: Nothing for you: follow the upstream guide | Active | Stars: 16k |
 GoghHundreds of terminal color schemes installable with one script. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Advanced | Changes: own installer | Active | Stars: 10k |
 Tokyo NightTokyo Night for Neovim, with extras for terminals and many apps. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Manual setup | Changes: Nothing for you: follow the upstream guide | Quiet | Stars: 8.2k |
 NordOriginal specification of the arctic Nord palette. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Manual setup | Changes: Nothing for you: follow the upstream guide | Quiet | Stars: 6.9k |
 KanagawaDark palette inspired by Katsushika Hokusai, for Neovim and terminals. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Manual setup | Changes: Nothing for you: follow the upstream guide | Active | Stars: 6.4k |
 EverforestComfortable green-based palette, originally for Vim. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Manual setup | Changes: Nothing for you: follow the upstream guide | Active | Stars: 4.3k |
 StylixNixOS module that themes the whole system from one palette or wallpaper. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) · NixOS | Advanced | Changes: sudo | Active | Stars: 2.4k |
 wpgtkGUI and template manager for pywal palettes, GTK and Openbox themes. | Works with: Any desktop (X11) | Advanced | Changes: 1 package | Active | Stars: 2.2k |
| Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Moderate | Changes: 1 package | Active | Stars: 2.1k | |
 Rosé PineSoho-vibes palette with ports for many apps. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Manual setup | Changes: Nothing for you: follow the upstream guide | Active | Stars: 1.6k |
| Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Advanced | Changes: 1 package | Active | Stars: 862 | |
 pywal16Maintained pywal fork with 16-color output and more backends. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Advanced | Changes: 1 package | Active | Stars: 819 |
 Tinted ThemingHome of the Base16 and Base24 schemes, templates and builders. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Manual setup | Changes: Nothing for you: follow the upstream guide | Active | Stars: 468 |
 Catppuccin HyprlandSoothing pastel color themes (Mocha, Macchiato, Frappe, Latte) for Hyprland. | Works with: Hyprland (Wayland) · Arch Linux, NixOS, Fedora, Void Linux | Easy | Changes: 2 folders in ~ | Active | Stars: 425 |
 ChameleonScript that changes your theme automatically based on the wallpaper. | Works with: Any desktop (X11) | Advanced | Changes: own installer | Quiet | Stars: 192 |
| wallustFast pywal-like palette generator written in Rust, with templates. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Advanced | Changes: 1 package | Active | Stars: 184 |
| pywalGenerates and applies a colorscheme from your wallpaper. | Works with: Any desktop (Wayland & X11) | Advanced | Changes: 1 package | Archived upstream | Stars: 9.1k |
Avoid or migrate
These still install, but their projects have stopped. Pick a maintained alternative for a new setup.
How to choose
- A palette is only as good as its ports: check that the apps you use (terminal, editor, GTK, bar) have one.
- Generators need a template for each app; they shine when your setup already uses them, like many Hyprland dotfiles.
- Check maintenance: the original pywal is archived, and maintained forks or alternatives exist.
Questions
What is the difference between pywal, wallust and matugen?
All three generate a palette from your wallpaper. pywal is the original, now archived, with pywal16 as a maintained fork. wallust is a faster pywal-like rewrite in Rust with its own templates. matugen produces Material You palettes and is common in Quickshell and AGS setups.
What is Base16?
A standard that describes a color scheme with 16 colors, so one template per application can render any scheme. Tinted Theming maintains the Base16 and Base24 specifications, schemes and builders.
Can I use one color scheme for my whole desktop?
Yes, with ports or templates for each app. On NixOS, Stylix does this from one setting; elsewhere a generator like wallust or matugen writes the same palette into every config you give it a template for.