Linux distribution with full dark mode / dark theme support

Question

Over the last decade, I've been actively taking steps to reduce my reliance on Windows and switch to Linux as my primary OS. I can hear Izzy enthusiastically cheering!

I'm down to getting rid of my last 3 Windows-only applications, and I'm now engaged in the process of finding a suitable Linux distribution.

Having an OS that fully supports a dark mode (dark theme) is a hard requirement for me. The Windows ecosystem is a nightmare when it comes to supporting a dark mode. I'm hoping to find something much better in the Linux world.

To be dark mode compliant, all elements of the OS and applications running under it must support a dark background with lighter text. Ideally, the user will be able to set the values for these colors, as user-desired contrast plays a key role with dark user interfaces.

A key necessity is not having some user interface elements that are illegible or impossible to discern due to dark on dark or light on light elements (over 90% of Windows apps I have tested have this problematic issue).

Gratis is preferred, but not a requirement.

Requirements:

• Full dark mode support
• Open-source
• No telemetry (or telemetry that can easily be fully disabled before the first transmission)
• Stability for daily use

Answer 1

That's a tough one, I am curious for the answers if there are any.

In the meantime I would recommend having a look at Ubuntu Studio 20.10 (the one which introduces Plasma). From my brief look at it it seems to handle dark mode much better than earlier versions. Keep in mind that there won't be a "Dark Mode" switch, you would have to select the appropriate theme in the Settings (and there are dark ones by default I believe).

But I doubt all your requirements like user-settable colors or adjustable contrast will be fulfilled, unless you want to create a theme yourself.

Edit: Turns out, the latest 20.04 LTS release of Ubuntu Studio already has pretty good dark mode support as well.

Here some screenies of it with one of the dark themes (Adwaita-dark), out of the box without any application-specific tweaks:

As you can see, most apps honour it, but they may also implement their own color scheme - see Audacity. Audacity also has its proper Dark Mode however.