Pretty Ubuntu

I love Ubuntu. But since it moved from Gnome2 to Unity desktop, I can't use it anymore. By other words, I hate Unity. Fortunately, there is great project Linux Mint, based on Ubuntu (and Debian, for you choice); and it is very good alternative to use. Linux Mint guys developed its own desktop environment, called Cinnamon, and it is convenient, clear-looking and, btw, open source. It is fork of Gnome shell, based on Gtk+3, so you are able to run a lot of Gnome-compatible applications.

Sometimes it's impossible to install any linux distro you want, but Ubuntu only (for example, restrictions of you company policy). In this post I will describe how to make you Ubuntu look like Linux Mint.

Installing Cinnamon

First of all I suggest to install Cinnamon desktop.
Add next line into /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com qiana main upstream import

It's need to change bold word to other version name. The version name depends from your Ubuntu version. I used qiana version, that means Linux Mint 17, because my Ubuntu is 14.04. See this link to find relevant version name.
After that, run as root:

apt-get update
apt-get install linuxmint-keyring
apt-get update
apt-get install cinnamon

Installing linuxmint-keyring package will fix gpg error. Now, you should log out and log in again choosing Cinnamon session (just click at Ubuntu icon at the right from user name in log in screen and choose Cinnamon session)

Below are few additional commands that helps to make Ubuntu looks exactly like Linux Mint.

Installing Gtk theme and icons

To install theme and icons, run as a root:

# install theme
add-apt-repository ppa:noobslab/themes
apt-get update
apt-get install lmint-theme
# install icons
add-apt-repository ppa:noobslab/icons
apt-get update
apt-get install lmint-icons

That's it. Now, open settings and use installed theme and icons.

Issues

At some distro it is possible to face with some annoying issue: black background of windows. Regarding this bug report, it looks like Ubuntu floating scrollbar causes it. To fix it just run into terminal

gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode normal

Links

Also, I would like to add several links that will help you to tune Cinnamon with themes, extensions and panel applets.
Themes
Applets

Good luck!