Ubuntu? That’s a Bullfinch, Not an Oriole
Here’s something lighthearted for you—unless you’re pedantic about ornithology, in which case you won’t be so chirpy: it seems a Bullfinch found its way into Ubuntu 24.10 ‘Oracular Oriole’.
Did someone leave a window open?!
If you have upgraded to Ubuntu 24.10 and changed the default wallpaper you will have noticed some of the supplementary (i.e., non-default) desktop backgrounds prominently feature an ‘oriole’ bird.
Or what the artist thinks is an oriole bird, as it turns out.
Ubuntu’s Bullfinch Bird Bug
According to a bug recently filed on Launchpad, home of Ubuntu development, one of the supplemental wallpapers included in Oracular Oriole says it’s of an oriole but, on closer inspection with eyes, isn’t:
When I choose the wallpaper /usr/share/backgrounds/Oriole_by_Julian_Tomasini.jpg, there should be an oriole shown on the desktop. Instead of an oriole, the wallpaper displays a bullfinch, a different species of bird.
Hmm.
Curious to find out for myself, I fed the background in question to Google Lens—not the most accurate of helpers but Bill Oddie blocked by number after I dissed his taste in loud shirts, so I was out of bird specialists to consult.
The result?
It too identifies the bird in the ‘Oriole_by_Julian_Tomasini.jpg’ picture as being a bullfinch, not an oriole:
How could the wrong bird slip through the net?
Ubuntu sources its supplementary backgrounds from its users. Community contributed artwork helps to foster a sense of involvement (as other Linux distros opt for images taken by professional photographers or digital art created by studious designers, not all of whom use Linux).
But understandably, not every one who submits a wallpaper for inclusion in Ubuntu is a bird expert, even if their photo contains a bird.
I’m not sure I could tell an oriole from a bullfinch if I’d snapped a pic of one in a tree – could you?
And while the desktop team at Canonical is chock-full of wonderful people from all walks of life, pooling a multitude of talents and interests, expecting bird-watching to to rank among them is a bird-brained assumption.
Don’t flap, it’s just art!
I’m not reporting on this because it’s a serious issue that people are going to spit feathers over.
It’s just a bit funny, a typo1 of sorts — a welcome reminder to not take things too seriously. I’m writing this post with my tongue firmly in my cheek.
And although this is technically a bug, a “fix” isn’t technically needed.
Sure, Ubuntu could rename the underlying file to accurately reflect that it shows a bullfinch and not an oriole, but as most users won’t see the file name (without visiting /user/share/backgrounds) it doesn’t matter if it stays incorrect.
Besides…
What are birds? We just don’t know…
Bullfinch or oriole? Doesn’t matter – Ubuntu doesn’t have to fix this because art is subjective.
They could pretend the wallpaper is an ornithological Rorschach test, there to let us Ubuntu users read our own meaning. Some see an oriole… Some see a bullfinch… Some see an angry bat eating a human on toast—oh, just me, that one.
Or they can act like the mislabelling is biting commentary2 on society’s growing distrust of facts, science, and the conspiracy of Big Reality® to brainwash us into thinking that reality is the state of things as they actually exist, and not what we think/want/prefer to exist!
And without dropping you in an existential black hole, have you even asked what makes a bird a bird?
Having dOnE mY oWn rEsEaRcH I’ve since learned birds are not real.
Joking aside, this is presumably just human error.
Heck knows we make a lot of those as a species – to which the critically endangered Bahama Oriole can attest.