Dash to Dock is an extension for the GNOME 3 environment that allows adjusting various settings related to the dock. It modifies the default Ubuntu dock to macOS styled dock that ultimately helps to launch and switching applications quickly and conveniently.

How to install Dash to Dock on Ubuntu 20.10

To install “Dash to Dock” it is required you to have GNOME Tweak Tool. If you do not have this tool, then get it using the command as follows:

If you get the “Package not found” error, then add “universe” repository with the command given below:

After successfully installing the GNOME Tweak Tool, it is time to download the Dash to Dock extension.

To install Dash to Dock open browser and open the following URL:

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/

It will prompt you to install the browser extension first, click and install it.

After installation, you will be prompted with “Permissions” as shown below, hit the “Add” button.

The extension will be installed, and the icon will appear on the top right of the browser window, as shown in the following image:

Now search “Dash to Dock” extension and click on the button to turn it “On”.

And now, launch the “GNOME Tweak Tool”, go to the “Extensions” tab and enable it.

Click on the “Gears” icon to adjust the settings of this extension.

Position and Size

The first option you are going to see is “Position and Size”. There are several settings like:

• The positioning of the Dock
• Dock size limit
• Icon size limit
• Auto hiding dock

Launchers

The next tab is the “Launchers” tab. In this tab, you can check windows previews, workspaces, and monitors. The position of the “Applications” icon can be shifted either left or right as per your convenience, or it can completely be disappeared. You can enable and disable trash can as well.

Behavior

In the behavior tab, you can assign shortcut keys to the applications. Secondly, you can assign functions upon “Click Action” and “Scroll Action”.

Appearance

This option is all about modifying the appearance of the dock. The first option is changing the theme; you can assign a default theme or customize some options of the dock separately.

• Shrink the dash: Enabling this reduces space between apps.
• Windows counter Indicators: There are different indicators of active or open applications. For instance, dots, squares, segments, solids, etc.
• Dash Color: This option allows you to change the color of the dash, which is black by default.
• Opacity: It adjusts the opacity of the dash
• Force straight corner: The corners of the dash are round by default, but it can be made straight by enabling this option.

]]> https://linuxhint.com/install_and_use_gnome_tweaks_to_customize_linux_desktop/ Sun, 29 Nov 2020 17:40:27 +0000 https://linuxhint.com/?p=78476

If you have been using a Linux distribution with a GNOME based desktop environment for a long time, you must be aware about the transition of GNOME 2 / GTK2 libraries to GNOME Shell / GTK3. With the advent of GNOME Shell, many useful settings that existed in GNOME 2 based desktop environments were removed, hidden or relocated, making it difficult for the average user to find these settings. This article will discuss a tool called “GNOME Tweaks” or “GNOME Tweak Tool” that reveals some of these settings to end users in GNOME Shell based Linux distributions like Ubuntu. These settings are usually not available in main system settings (also known as GNOME Control Center).

Install GNOME Tweaks

You can install GNOME Tweaks in Ubuntu by executing the command specified below:

GNOME Tweaks can be installed in other GNOME Shell based Linux distributions from the package manager. In some distributions, you may find it by the name of “GNOME Tweak Tool”.

You can launch GNOME Tweaks from application launcher or by running the command specified below:

Customize Top Panel

GNOME Shell consists of a panel located at the top edge of the screen. It houses a system tray, an activities trigger and a clock centered on the panel. No settings are available by default to customize the layout or elements of the top panel. However, in “Top Bar” section of GNOME Tweaks, you can disable the activities hot-corner trigger, enable remaining battery percentage and customize the behavior of clock applet, as shown in the screenshot below:

Manage GNOME Shell Extensions

GNOME Shell extensions are official and third-party addons that extend the functionality of GNOME Shell. You can get these extensions from here. By default, extension settings are not revealed in GNOME Control Center. You can manage extensions from GNOME Tweaks instead, as shown in the screenshot below:

Latest versions of GNOME Shell now also include a new “Extensions” app that can be launched from the application launcher to manage installed extensions.

Manage Workspaces Settings

Workspaces are separate desktop areas where you can group running applications as per your needs. For instance, you can group a music player application and a video player application in a workspace dedicated for playing media or you can group a text editor application and a terminal emulator in another workspace intended for development of applications.

You can go to the “Workspaces” section of GNOME Tweaks to switch between on-demand dynamic workspaces or fixed number of workspaces. You can also configure workspaces to appear on primary display only or on all connected displays.

Change Behavior of Window Manager

GNOME Shell includes mutter as its default window and compositing manager. You can change its behavior from the “Windows” section of GNOME Tweaks. You can attach or detach modal dialogs, enable or disable window snapping and edge tiling, customize window focus behavior, change super action key (usually the key with Windows icon on keyboard) etc.

Customize Window Titlebar Behavior

The “Window Titlebars” section in GNOME Tweaks allows you to toggle minimize and maximize buttons and their placement on an application window. You can also change behavior of mouse clicks on titlebars and various actions mapped to them.

Add or Remove Startup Applications

You can use the “Startup Applications” section in GNOME Tweaks to add or remove applications that will automatically launch on a fresh reboot or on a new login session.

Note that this section in GNOME Tweaks doesn’t allow you to enter custom commands. There is another standalone application simply called “Startup Applications” that can be used to define custom commands.

Change Settings of Input Devices

“Keyboard & Mouse” section in GNOME Tweaks can be used to change behavior of various input sources connected to the system. You can change acceleration speed, touchpad behavior, and toggle-on some accessibility features.

Change Font Configuration

As font settings are not built into system settings, the only way to change font properties is to use the “Fonts” section in GNOME Tweaks. Here you can change font styles, their weights, and modify how they render by changing hinting, antialiasing, and scaling settings.

Change System Theme

You can go to the “Appearance” section to change GTK3 theme, GNOME Shell theme, icon theme, cursor style, and sound theme. Note that to change GNOME Shell theme, you may need to install the “User Themes” extension available here.

Other Settings

Lastly in the “General” section, you can change a few other settings to enable or disable system animations or change suspend behaviour when using battery powered devices.

More Advanced Settings

If you cannot find a particular setting in GNOME Tweaks, try using “Dconf Editor” to browse advanced settings. Dconf Editor is a central storehouse for managing settings of all modern applications based on GTK3 and GNOME 3. It is an extremely powerful tool and one wrong toggle or other change in settings can break your system. Tread carefully while using it, but if you know what you are doing, it is a pretty comprehensive tool to change almost every aspect of GNOME Shell based desktop environments.

You can install Dconf Editor in Ubuntu by executing the command specified below:

Dconf Editor can be installed in other GNOME Shell based Linux distributions from the package manager.

Conclusion

GNOME Tweaks is a pretty handy tool if you want to change some hidden settings without risking system breakage. End users trying GNOME Shell for the first time may not know about it. Linux distributions using GNOME Shell as their default desktop environment should have GNOME Tweaks pre-installed by default.

In the present era, the lives of the people have undergone a huge change from what it used to be a couple of years back. In the educational sector, books have fallen down the pecking order, and people now prefer watching videos explaining the concepts of their syllabus. A great example of this is YouTube, where videos on things like programming languages, economics, political science, and even geography are getting many viewers. The business sector has also gone through some innovation as now people can easily keep a record of important voice calls and conferences that might be needed for looking at the main highlights of the meeting. Even recording presentations and then sharing them with your clients or bosses have become the norm as this allows information to be passed from one to another in a much more efficient manner. All of these are just a few examples of why screen recorders are one of the most useful tools out there. Screen recorders can even be used for recording content that many people may find enjoyable, such as recording a game that might be on the rise in popularity or put up videos to explain any issues or problems that you might come across in your life, like checking to see how one can remove and adjust tires from a car. Hence, our discussion topic in this article is to look at how one can record their screens in Ubuntu using its default built-in screen recorder.

Tool to Use in Recording your Screen?

Linux has always been known for having a large set of tools available with similar functionalities, and the same is the case with the screen recording. There are several excellent applications that allow users to record their screens and play with them as much as they want. Kazam, OBS Studio, SimpleScreenRecorder, etc., are just a few examples of screen recorders that offer dozens of excellent features and are good choices to consider. However, rather than switching to installing applications, Ubuntu has a very excellent built-in screen recorder that comes preinstalled with it. It requires no application, no command-line option for running it, and has no long hassle of activating it. This easy to use and simplistic nature makes it a great alternative to have for screen recording and is worth looking at.

Packages to Install (Optional)

Before we move onto the process of using Ubuntu’s default screen recorder, there is one step that you can follow, which is completely optional but will help you later on if you are dissatisfied with the initial settings of the default screen recorder of Ubuntu.

To change the settings of Ubuntu, Dconf Editor is a graphical editor that allows you to tweak the parameters of your Ubuntu system. It is an extremely powerful editor that provides several functions to users that allow them to change the configuration settings of your system and provide a back-end to the applications settings API called Gsettings. Dconf Editor does not come preinstalled with the latest versions of Ubuntu, so to install it, run the following command into the terminal:

Recording your Screen

The process of recording your screen in Ubuntu using the default screen recorder is extremely easy. There is neither a shortcut for running the application nor any hidden application available. Rather, you can simply run the recorder by pressing the keyboard keys Ctrl + Alt + Shift + R. You will be able to see if the recording has started from the orange dot that will appear on the top of your screen in the tray area.

The duration of the recording, however, will only be active for thirty seconds (the 30s), and after that, it will automatically end. You can also manually stop the recording by once again pressing the keys Ctrl + Alt + Shift + R. The recordings from the screen recorder will automatically appear inside the Videos folder inside your Home folder once it ends. The recording will be saved in the webm file format, and that is the only format it supports. Default media player that comes preinstalled with Ubuntu does indeed support the webm file format.

The duration limit, however, is extremely small and not useful for making presentations or tutorials. To change this, open your Dash, where all your applications are installed, and write dconf editor in the search bar. When it appears, simply click on it to open it.

The editor will start by opening the following window:

Click on the gnome button at the top and then move the cursor down to the settings-daemon option and click on it.

Gnome Button:

Settings-daemon:

Next, click on plugins.

Now, inside the plugins menu, look for the media-keys option and click on it.

Scroll downwards till you find the max-screencast-length and click on it.

To change the duration size of your screen recorder, uncheck the default value button and then enter the value of the duration you want the recording to go to inside the text field next to the Customs value label. For having a recording with no time limit, simply enter 0. Click on the Apply button to make this change permanent, as seen in the circled area below.

For users more comfortable with the command line, you can also change the screen recording duration limit by entering the following command into the terminal:

Length here refers to the duration limit of the recorder you want to set.

So, Why Record your Screen?

Recently, it has become popular among people to record their screens for their presentations, educational videos, and even gaming walkthroughs. For people that prefer simple to use screen recorder and do not want to get into the hassle of installing a new one, Ubuntu’s default screen recorder is an excellent alternative to have.

In this post, we will show you how to tweak and customize yourArchLinux themes with a tool called GNOME tweak. You’re probably familiar with GNOME tweak if you’re an advent user of GENOME 3. In case you don’t know anything about GNOME tweak, you’ll see in this tutorial what aspects of it make it a must-have. Following this tutorial, you’ll be able to make changes to the environment and personalize its appearance.

How to Install GNOME tweak tool

Go to the GNOME search bar and type tweak. If the tweak tool doesn’t show up, you’ll need to download it separately.

Load the CLI terminal and type in the following command to update the Pacman package repository:

To download the GNOME tweak tool from the official ArchLinux package repository, and type in the command below:

You’ll be asked permission to proceed. To confirm, press the ‘y’ button and then the enter key.

Launch the GNOME tweak tool

Go to the GNOME 3 search bar and type in “tweak,” and after having it installed, it’ll show up. Click the icon to launch the GNOME tweak tool. It’ll look something like this:

And now, we may finally get to personalizing the interface.

Switch between the light/dark theme

GNOME 3 has the light theme set on by default. You can change to a dark theme from the Appearances tab. Go to the section labeled Applications, which has a list box. Click on the list box and pick a dark theme of your choice.

Change Wallpaper background

Head over to the appearance tab, and in the section headed by the Backgroundlabel, click on the image button to set a wallpaper background of your choice.

Just below is the option to select and customize wallpaper for the lock screen.

Show/ hide the power status

Laptop users can make visible their laptop’s battery percentage. Just head over to the tab labeled ‘top bar‘ and switch the battery percentage option to ON

You should now see the battery displayed on the top right of the title bar.

Show the title bar buttons

You probably didn’t know this, but you can actually have minimized/maximize title bar buttons on GNOME 3, just like in Windows.

Just navigate to the Windows tab, and you’ll see the Maximum and Minimize options. Set each to ON. See the screenshot below for reference:

Also, notice how the buttons are set to appear on the right side of the top bar. You can toggle the option to the left if you want these buttons to appear on the left.

Enable/disable animations

One way to improve the processing speed is to disable the animations to save RAM. The animations are enabled by default, so you’ll need to disable it manually.

Head over to the Appearance tab and set the button in the animations line to OFF.

You will not be displayed animations after this.

Launch applications upon boot

You can add applications to the startup list to launch them automatically upon system boot. Head over to the tab labeled Startup Applications and click the button labeled +. A window will pop up with a list of applications installed on your system.

Select an application you want to start automatically upon boot and click Add.

The window will collapse, and you’ll see that the application you selected has been added to startup. You can add more applications to the startup this way.

Change to a different font

GNOME tweak tool comes with a wide selection of fonts to choose from for the desktop environment.

Click on the fonts tab and then click the button in the Window Title line and select a font of your choice.

The title will become of the font that you just chose. You can set different fonts for interface, documents, and monospace as well.

The tool also allows the configuration of Antialiasing as in the screenshot below:

With the + and – buttons on the Scaling Factor lets you select a size that is suitable for the screen resolution.

Have the desktop icons appear

With the GNOME tweak tool, you can enable the desktop icons that are disabled by default. Just head over to the desktop tab and  set the Icons on the desktop button to ON

You should now see icons for home(a folder) and trash(a trash can).

Wrapping up

In this tutorial, you’ve learned how to customize the graphical interface of GNOME 3 with the GNOME tweak toolkit. It is fairly easy to use, and it features a great many options to choose from to personalize how the interface looks on ArchLinux.

That’s all we have for you today. Hopefully, this tutorial was both helpful and easy to follow. Stick around for more posts like this and explore our blog for more Linux tutorials.

Until recently, Dash to Panel was limited to a single panel that combined application menus, taskbar and system tray. However, a new update for Dash to Panel was released a couple of months back, allowing users to create two panels. Using this new option, you can now emulate the classic GNOME2 layout, featuring a two panel setup for managing system tray and taskbar. This article will explain how to create this two panel layout using Dash to Panel GNOME Shell extension.

Installing Dash to Panel Extension

To install Dash to Panel extension, you must first enable support for installing shell extensions through web browsers.

To enable installation of GNOME Shell extensions in Ubuntu through Chrome, Chromium and Chromium based browsers, run the command below:

To enable installation of extensions through Firefox browser, install this addon for Firefox.

To enable extension integration in other GNOME Shell based Linux distributions, follow instructions available here.

Now to install Dash to Panel extension, simply visit the extension page in Chrome, Chromium, Chromium based browsers or Firefox and toggle it on. When prompted, click on the “Install” button. Once the installation has finished, Dash to Panel should automatically activate. In case you cant see Dash to Panel taskbar, logout and re-login to your desktop. You can also check the status of Dash to Panel extension from “GNOME Tweaks” app that can be installed through the package manager of your Linux distribution.

Configuring Dash to Panel Extension for a Two Panel Layout

Right click on the app grid icon on the Dash to Panel taskbar. Click on “Dash to Panel Settings”, as shown in the screenshot below:

Next, go to “Fine-Tune” tab and toggle on “Keep original gnome-shell top panel” option, as shown in the screenshot below:

You will now get a two panel layout with the original top panel remaining intact. The second panel, where the taskbar resides, may get duplicate system tray icons same as the top panel. To disable these icons, go to “Position” tab in Dash to Panel Settings and change visibility of individual elements, as shown in the screenshot below:

Your Dash to Panel two panel layout now should be complete. Note that by default, Dash to Panel uses an “icon only” taskbar. To get classic panel layout where each running app’s label is also shown, some more tweaks are needed.

Go to the “Behavior” tab and click on “Ungroup applications”.

You should now have a taskbar that shows both icons and labels for running apps, improving readability and accessibility. You can further tweak the behavior of taskbar labels by clicking on the cog icon just next to “Ungroup applications” toggle button.

Final Result

Here is a screenshot of Dash to Panel two panel layout on my desktop. After following the instructions above, you should get a layout identical to this screenshot. The bottom panel also allows you to show your favorite (pinned) apps, similar to the two panel layout commonly seen in classic GNOME setup and MATE desktop environment.

Conclusion

Many Linux users prefer the “classic GNOME” session where a two panel layout is provided using some extensions. These extensions are fairly basic and do not provide many customization options. Underneath, the classic session also uses GNOME shell session so there is no major advantage using it as far as performance is concerned. You may very well use Dash to Panel extension to get a two panel layout without installing an extra session that needs to be switched from the login screen.

In this article, we will explain how to install Gnome shell extensions on the Ubuntu system. Gnome extensions can be installed in Ubuntu using the following ways:

1. Using the Ubuntu repository
2. Using the web browser
3. Installing offline

Note: Note: We have explained the procedure and commands on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa).

To manage the extension and its related settings, you will need the Gnome Tweak utility. Use the Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcut to open the Terminal. Then run the following commands in Terminal to install Gnome tweak utility:

After running the above command, the system might ask for confirmation that if you want to continue the installation or not. Hit y to continue; after that, the installation will be started on your system.

To launch the Gnome Tweaks, hit the super key on your keyboard and type tweaks. Then from the search result that appears, click on the Tweaks utility.

The Tweaks utility will open in the following view:

Installing Gnome extensions

Let’s describe the ways to install Gnome extensions in our system:

Install extensions using the Gnome shell extensions package

The gnome-shell-extensions package in Ubuntu includes a set of extensions to add additional functionalities to Gnome shell. Gnome shell extensions package is included in the default Ubuntu repositories, so we can easily install it using the apt command.

Issue the following command in Terminal to install Gnome shell extension package:

After running the above command, the system might ask for confirmation that if you want to continue the installation or not. Press y to continue; after that, the Gnome-shell-extensions package will be installed on your system.

Now you will need to restart the Gnome shell. Hit Alt+F2 keyboard shortcut and then type r and hit Enter to do so. Now you will see the new extensions added to the extensions list. To enable an extension, switch the button in front of it to on position.

Install extensions from Gnome.org using the web browser

Gnome shell extensions can also be downloaded from its official website using a web browser. Open any web browser in your system and navigate to the following address:

https://extensions.gnome.org

To install Gnome shell extensions from your browser, you will need a browser extension (add-on). Hit “Click here to install browser extension”.

When the following prompt appears, click Continue to Installation.

Then click Add.

Once installed, you will be informed of it. Click Ok to close the dialog box. Now reload the website. You may receive an error at this step informing you about the native host connector is missing. If this is the case, install the native host connector using the following command in Terminal:

Now you are ready to install Gnome shell extensions on your system. Open any extension that you want to install by clicking on it.

Now on the extension page, switch the button to ON position.

You will see the following dialog. Click the Install button to download and install this extension.

Once the installation is completed, you will be able to use the extension. If you open the Gnome Tweaks utility, you will be able to see recently installed extensions. Use the ON/OFF switch to enable/disable the extension.

Install Gnome extensions offline

You can also install the Gnome extensions offline without an internet connection. However, for this, you will need to download the extensions beforehand. Open any browser and navigate to the following page:

https://extensions.gnome.org

Open any extension that you want to install by clicking on it. Then select the shell version using the drop-down menu. Once you have selected the shell version, another drop-down menu named extension version will appear beside this. Also, select the extension version using this menu.

By doing so, the following dialog will appear, asking if you want to open or save the file. Click on Save File radio button and click OK.

The downloaded extension file will be saved to your ~/Downloads directory by default. Now extract the folder and copy the extracted folder to the ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions directory.

Now move inside the extension folder that you have copied and opened the metadata.json file. Locate uuid (unique identifier) entry in the metadata.json file and note down its value. Now rename the extension folder to this uuid value. The value of uuid in the following example is systemMonitor@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github.com.

Now you will need to restart the Gnome shell. Hit Alt+F2 keyboard shortcut and then type r and hit Enter to do so.  If you open the Gnome Tweaks utility, you will be able to see recently installed extensions. Use the ON/OFF switch to enable/disable the extension.

You can also enable/disable the extension using the following command providing the uuid of the extension.

In the above example, the command would be:

This is how you can install Gnome extensions on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) system using various ways. I hope now you can easily add an extension to your Gnome shell.

Method of Installing Gnome Tweak Tools on Ubuntu 20.04:

For installing Gnome Tweak Tool in Ubuntu 20.04, you will need to perform the following steps:

1. Launch the terminal in Ubuntu 20.04 by clicking on the Activities tab located on your terminal and then typing terminal in the search bar that appears. Then click on the search result to launch the terminal window. Alternatively, you can even press Ctrl + T or right-click anywhere on your desktop and choose the Terminal option from the menu that pops up. The newly opened terminal window is shown in the image below:

2. Like always, it is highly recommended to update your system before installing any new tools or packages. In this way, you not only ensure a smooth installation of your new packages but also that your system is all set to run the latest updates. For doing that, you will need to type the following command in your terminal and then press the Enter key:

This command is also shown in the following image:

3. Once your system has been successfully updated, the next thing that you need to check is whether the Universe repository is enabled on your system or not. For checking that, you will need to type the following command in your terminal and then press the Enter key:

This command is shown in the image below:

4. If the Universe repository is already enabled on your system, then you will get a message like the one shown in the following image:

5. After receiving this message, we are all set to install the Gnome Tweak Tools on Ubuntu 20.04. For doing that, you will need to type the following command in your terminal and then press the Enter key:

This command will take a sufficient amount of time to execute depending upon your Internet speed. It is also shown in the image below:

6. As soon as the installation process completes, type the following command in your terminal and then press the Enter key:

Alternatively, you can also click on the Activities tab located on your desktop and then type tweak in the search bar that appears and click on the search result to open the Tweak Tool. This command is shown in the following image:

7. If the installation process has been completed successfully, then the Tweak Tool will appear on your screen, and it will look something like this:

8. By now, the installation of the Gnome Tweak Tool is done. However, you can also install additional extensions that are used with this tool to provide you with more customization options. For doing that, you will need to search for all the available extensions for the Gnome Tweak Tool. This can be done by typing the following command in your terminal and then pressing the Enter key:

This command is also shown in the image below:

9. Once the execution of this command is completed, it will display a list of all the available extensions for the Gnome Tweak Tool on your terminal as shown in the following image:

10. Now when you know about all the extensions that can be used with this tool, you can either install a single extension according to your requirement, or you can even enable all the extensions at once. For enabling a single extension, you will need to type the following command in your terminal and then press the Enter key:

Here, replace EXTENSION_NAME with the name of that specific extension that you want to enable. In this example, I wanted to enable the weather extension. Therefore, I have replaced EXTENSION_NAME with the weather, as shown in the image below:

11. However, if you want to enable all the extensions at once, then you will need to type the following command in your terminal and then press the Enter key:

This command will take some time to execute as it is responsible for enabling all the available extensions for the Gnome Tweak Tool. It is also shown in the following image:

Conclusion:

In this way, you can easily install the Gnome Tweak Tool along with its extensions on Ubuntu 20.04 and hence customize the interface of your Ubuntu system.

Enabling Custom GNOME Shell Themes

Ubuntu, along with many other GNOME-based distributions, does not allow user-made custom themes by default. To load user themes, a GS extension and a hidden tweaks utility need to be installed. You can install the required extension and GNOME tweak tool in Ubuntu by running the following command:

Launch the “Tweaks” app from the application launcher and go to the “Extensions” tab in the sidebar. Enable the “User Themes” extension, as shown in the screenshot below. Be sure that the “Extensions” toggle is enabled at the top.

Once you are finished with this step, close and relaunch the Tweaks app. Now, you will be able to change the GS theme from the “Appearance” tab.

Creating the Necessary Files for Theme Customization

To customize an existing theme, you will need to create a new GS theme that builds upon the original theme. This way, you can change only selected parts of the theme, without changing the entire theme. Any untouched part of the original theme will be kept as is. Running the commands below will create a new custom theme named “mytheme” in your $HOME directory.

You can use any text editor to enter your own customizations in the “gnome-shell.css” file created by running the command above. Once you have entered the required code, you can select the “Mytheme” theme in the dropdown menu in the Tweaks app, as explained in the first section of this article. Note that you will need to log out and log back in for the changes to take effect. Alternatively, you can also press <ALT+F2> and input “r” in the popup input box to reload the GNOME shell.

Finding the Base CSS File

If you want to use the original CSS file as a reference, you will need to find and extract it first. Third-party themes may directly include a “gnome-shell.css” file, making it easy to use as a base for CSS customization. However, default system files may include “gnome-shell-theme.gresource” files instead. You can find the default system GS theme located at the “/usr/share/gnome-shell/theme” path. Inside this directory, you will find the gresource file under another folder of the same as the name of the default system theme. In the latest version of Ubuntu, you will find the gresource file at the “/usr/share/gnome-shell/theme/Yaru” path. Copy the gresource file to another folder and run the following command:

After entering the command above, you will receive the following output:

The fourth line in the output above gives the correct path to the CSS file. To extract it, run a command in the following format:

You can now refer to the “output.css” file obtained above and use it as a base for customization. Some examples of CSS customization are mentioned below. These examples do not cover all use cases but will give you a basic idea for how to proceed. Note that no explanation will be given for the CSS rules mentioned below, as they are beyond the scope of this article. You can refer to the CSS reference documentation from W3Schools or Mozilla for more information.

Changing Font Properties of System Theme

The following code will change the font properties of the default system theme. The font style will be changed to Noto Sans and the font size will be changed to 12 pt.

If you are using a third-party GS theme, you may need to import its CSS file first by specifying the full path, as shown in the example below:

If a CSS file is not available for importing, you can extract it from the gresource file, as explained above.

Changing Panel Background Color

To change the panel background color to red, use the following code:

Changing Width of Toggle Switch

Use the code below to change the width of the toggle buttons:

Conclusion

With some knowledge of CSS rules and properties, you can easily customize almost all aspects of a GS theme. However, it is important to locate the correct base CSS file to use it as a reference and avoid a lot of guesswork.

Enabling Installation of GNOME Shell Extensions

To install and manage GNOME shell extensions directly from the official extensions website, you must first install browser plugins. These plugins are available by default in some Linux distributions.

In Ubuntu, you can install plugins for Chrome by running the command below:

The integration plugin for Firefox can be downloaded here. Installation instructions for other Linux distributions are available on the official GNOME wiki.

You may need to restart your browser to finish plugin installation. Once plugin installation has completed, you can directly install and enable the extensions from the official GNOME shell extensions website.

Arc

The Arc GNOME Shell extension brings a new menu layout to your desktop. In many ways, this shell is similar to the main application menu launcher you will see in Windows 10, though it does come with some unique features of its own. The Arc menu also integrates well with popular dash-to-dock and dash-to-panel shell extensions.

The main features of the Arc menu include:

• Integrated search bar, akin to the search bar in the default GNOME shell application menu
• Supports tooltips and right-click quicklists
• Supports navigation through keyboard
• Apps are neatly classified into separate categories
• Supports user-made custom shortcuts
• Comes with 17 menu presets, including a touch-optimized layout, a Unity-style layout, a dashboard-style layout, and more
• Supports theming of menu with custom, user-selected colors
• Supports pinned/favorite apps
• Settings can be imported and exported for quick customization
• Supports invoking menu through default “Super” hotkey
• Can completely replace the default GNOME shell menu

To install the Arc menu extension in Ubuntu, first run the command below to install the required dependencies:

Install and download the Arc menu extension here.

Frippery

The Frippery applications menu is a replica of the classic GNOME 2-style dropdown menu. The Frippery menu is pretty minimal and provides a list of applications that are cleanly separated into various category heads. This extension is perfect for those who are not looking for many features and who want a good, old-school dropdown menu layout for accessing apps.

The Frippery applications menu is available here.

Classic Mode

The Classic Mode menu, or simply “Applications Menu,” is an officially supported alternative menu extension for the GNOME shell. This application menu is a part of the official classic mode that comes with the GNOME shell. The Classic Mode menu does not come with any customizations and can be considered an extremely watered-down version of the Arc menu. All you get with this menu are some categories and applications classified under the categories.

Install the Classic Mode application menu here.

Application View Columns

Application View Columns is an established standalone application menu extension. It is designed to increase the number of visible items in each row of the default GNOME shell menu dashboard. In simpler terms, it increases the column count in the default menu.

Install the Application View Columns extension here.

Once the extension has been installed, a new slider will be created in the default power menu located at the top right corner of the GNOME shell interface. You can easily tweak the column count by moving the slider.

Conclusion

These are some alternative menu extensions available for the GNOME shell. While there is not great variety in these extensions, some extensions, like the Arc menu, are highly customizable. You can tweak the Arc menu for a classic look and feel, as well as customize it for a modern, dashboard-like layout. This article has provided you some useful information about application menu extensions to use in the GNOME shell.

When Ubuntu is clubbed with GNOME, it opens up the door to the large world of tweaking and customization. There is a large pool of themes available for GNOME users which will give your GNOME desktop fresh new look.

So, in this article, I’m going to share 12 best GNOME themes to give your GNOME desktop a whole new look.

1. Arc Theme Pack

Arc Theme Pack is a collection of regular and dark themes, it is one of the most widely used themes. The reason behind its popularity is its elegant look and straight forward design. It comes with three theme variants viz. Arc, Arc Dark, and Arc Darkest.

This theme pack will definitely give your desktop a dynamic look with so many options available.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

2. Flat Remix GNOME Theme

Flat Remix GNOME Theme is a collection of five themes, regular, dark, darkest, Miami, and Miami Dark. This is another beautiful theme collection for GNOME desktop and in addition, you can also add Flat Remix GNOME icon theme pack which gives new look and feel to app icons and folder icons.

As you can notice in the above screenshot, the theme looks beautiful and elegant. All the theme variants are beautifully crafted and it gives the top panel a transparent look.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

3. Sweet Theme Pack

Sweet Theme Pack is a collection of sweet and beautiful looking themes. Theme pack comes with various variants crafted in material design. All the themes blend well with the GNOME desktop and give a refreshing look.

This is a modern-looking theme which you should try on your GNOME desktop. The color palates used throughout the theme are elegant and eye-catching.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

4. Adapta Colorpack Theme

Adapta themes are another one of the most used theme packs by GNOME users. It is a flat design theme and features various options to choose from in a single-color pack. To be specific you have 19 options to choose from at your disposal.

I personally like material design and all the themes in this pack make full use of that. Everything looks neat and clean with an Adapta color pack.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

5. Telinkrin/Arrongin Themes

This is a 2-in-1 theme that features two modern and well-designed themes with different variants for each. There is not so much difference between both themes except color pattern.

Arrongin is focused on red color which gives theme Ubuntu-like feel while Telinkrin is more focused on KDE’s default blue color. Even the color pallets are based on Ubuntu and KDE for both, themes still look more beautiful and modern than default Ubuntu and KDE themes.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

6. Numix

Numix is one of the most popular and first desktop and icon theme provider of Linux and its distributions. I have been a fan of Numix themes from the start especially its icon themes. Over the years it hasn’t lost its place when it comes to providing most modern themes for Linux users.

Material designed with an elegant color scheme gives Numix themes a beautiful look. This theme pack also features more options in different color schemes so that you can choose the one you like.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

7. Hooli

Hooli is one of the most underrated GNOMES, I’m saying this because it hasn’t got enough recognition despite being there for quite some time now. It also features material design and elements of the Adapta theme but overall look makes it different from the rest.

Color highlighters used in this theme make the theme stand out from the rest. Just try the Hooli theme on your GNOME desktop and enjoy its beauty.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

8. Lexis Theme

Lexis is another beautifully crafted theme for the GNOME desktop. The top panel is cropped to only necessary part and everything else is removed. Dash Dock background is also removed, hence only app icons are visible.

While using this theme desktop screen looks clean and beautiful.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

9. Ultimate Maia

If you have used Manjaro GNOME then you will find Ultimate Maia theme quite familiar. Ultimate Maia is a replica of default Manjaro GNOME theme. The theme is polished well with rich green color which makes this theme look elegant.

It also offers other color variants to choose apart from the regular green color theme.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

10. Ant Theme

The ant theme design is inspired by the macOS theme in many ways but not exactly the same. The richness of colors used makes it the most eye-catching one. The theme pack comes with three variants with each one dynamically different from others.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOA

11. Marwaita Pop Theme

If you like the look of Pop OS theme then you will like this Matwaita Pop theme for the GNOME desktop. It is developed by the System76 theme and comes with an icon pack similar to the Adapta theme pack.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

12. Mcata GTK Theme

Mcata GTK theme gives your GNOME desktop look and feels of macOS. It also comes in various variants which also includes dark mode also. Dark mode theme looks really good and eye-catching with its modern and slick design.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Conclusion:

So, these are the 12 best GNOME themes of 2020 which you should try to improve your GNOME desktop experience. If you use any other themes on your GNOME desktop than those listed here feel free to share your view with us at @LinuxHint and @SwapTirthakar. ]]> https://linuxhint.com/15_ways_customize_desktop_gnome_tweak_tool/ Sun, 07 Jun 2020 17:31:34 +0000 https://linuxhint.com/?p=60915 Customizing your desktop is the best way to improve the look of your desktop and improve performance. I always like to customize the appearance of my desktop and perform tweaks to help me boost productivity.

To customize your desktop, the GNOME Tweak Tool is the best customization tweak you will ever get. GNOME users must be well familiar with this tool, which is popularly known as Tweaks.

This article will show you the 15 best ways to customize your desktop using the GNOME Tweak Tool. The customizations listed below are performed on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa, running the GNOME desktop environment. If you have other distros, do not worry; these customizations will also work on other Linux distributions running the GNOME desktop environment.

1. Change Theme

The appearance of my desktop is very important to me. I keep changing themes regularly, which not only gives my desktop a fresh look, but it also gives me a feeling of freshness and motivation.

You can select a theme for your Applications, Cursor, and Icons from the themes that are available by default, or you can also download various themes. Check out the best themes for GNOME desktop here.

2. Change Desktop/Lock Screen Background

This option in the GNOME Tweaks Tool allows you to change the background of the desktop and lock screens. Here, you may choose from the available default images, or you can use wallpapers you have downloaded yourself.

You can adjust the scaling of the image according to your screen size.

3. Animations

Under the General tab in GNOME Tweaks, you may disable animations to improve the performance of your desktop. Here, you may also choose whether to suspend the session when the laptop lid is closed.

There is another option, called Over-Amplification, that can be used to increase the volume over 100% on your system.

4. Extensions

Extensions are the best thing about the GNOME shell. With the help of extensions, you can completely revamp the look and functioning of the GNOME shell. You can find the 25 best extensions for GNOME here.

Under the Extensions tab in GNOME Tweak Tool, you can enable/disable extensions and tweak the extension settings.

5. Fonts

Bored of the default fonts on your desktop? You can download new fonts and apply them to your system using the GNOME Tweaks Tool. As indicated by the screenshot below, you can change the font for the interface text, document text, monospace text, and legacy window titles.

You can also tweak hinting, intialiasing, and scaling factors under the Fonts tab using GNOME Tweaks.

6. Tweak Keyboard & Touchpad

Here, you can tweak the keyboard settings and configure additional layout options. But the option I find most useful here is that you can automatically disable the touchpad on your laptop when you are typing something.

This becomes useful especially when you are typing fast and your palm touches touchpad accidentally, and the cursor moves to some other random location, slowing down your process and increasing error frequency.

7. Set Startup Applications

Here, you can select any application to start automatically as soon as your system starts. If you use some application regularly, then this might be a useful Tweak tool customization for your desktop.

8. Tweak Top Panel

You may perform various Tweaks Using the Top Bar option in the GNOME Tweaks Tool, as you can see in the screenshot below. For example, you may enable or disable the activities overview hot corner and battery percentage.

You may also tweak the settings for the clock and calendar on the top bar, and show the weekday and seconds with the clock.

9. Windows Titlebars

Using this option in the Tweak Tool, you can manage the settings for the application window. Here, you may choose whether to maximize or minimize options that appear in the titlebar. You may also swap the position of these options between top-right corner and top-left corner of the application window.

Here, you may also set what a double-click, middle-click, and secondary-click will do to the application window.

10. Workspaces

You can manage workspace behaviour using GNOME Tweak Tool. There are two options to choose from: dynamic workspaces, which are automatically created and removed as per user need; and static workspaces, in which the number of workspace is fixed.

You can also configure where the workspaces are displayed, whether on the primary display, or on span displays.

11. Add & Enable OpenWeather Extension

If you add this extension to your desktop, then you can keep track of weather conditions at your location, or at any other location around the world, right from your desktop.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

12. Install & Enable DropDown Terminal

If you need to regularly use the Terminal in your work, then you might have to quickly switch between windows. With the DropDown Terminal, you can directly access the Terminal with a single keyboard click. When you no longer require the Terminal, then you may click the same button and the Terminal will disappear.

This button is the ~ button, which should be just above the Tab button on your keyboard. Download the DropDown Terminal extension using following link and enable it using the Extensions tab in the GNOME Tweak Tool.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

13. Enable Desktop Icons

By default, desktop icons are disabled on GNOME. You can enable these icons using the Extensions tab in the GNOME Tweak Tool.

14. Add Workspaces to Dock Extension

Adding this extension to your desktop will add extra features to your desktop. With this extension, you can thumbnail all currently running activity overviews into a small dock for quick access.

15. Add Various Extensions to Customize Desktop

Recently, we shared an article about the 25 Best Extensions for GNOME. You can go through this article to choose extensions that suit your needs.

Conclusion

This article went over 15 ways to customize your desktop with the GNOME Tweak Tool. Feel free to share your experience with us at @LinuxHint and @SwapTirthakar.

Today, I will introduce you to the 25 best GNOME extensions to enhance your GNOME Desktop experience. All 25 extensions are tested on latest Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, so all these extensions should also work on older Ubuntu releases. So, let’s get going!

1.Dash to Dock

Switching between applications is not that simple in GNOME, but with the help of the Dash to Dock extension, you can not only switch between apps faster but also add your favorite applications to the dock for quick access.

This dock is highly configurable, and you can put it on any side of your screen. You may also introduce custom themes and perform size adjustments.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

2. Caffeine

Isn’t it annoying when your Operating System goes into sleep mode? To prevent this while you are working on something, use the Caffeine extension. When you add the Caffeine extension, you will see a mug icon appear.

An empty mug means that normal rules will be applicable, i.e. go to sleep; but when the mug is full, the extension will not go into screenshot screen or sleep mode.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

3. Clipboard Indicator

This is a useful extension for GNOME users that allows users to add up to 50 entries on the clipboard that can be used for future needs. This function also allows you to cache clipboard history.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

4. Workspaces to Dock

This extension will allow you to transform GNOME Shell’s overview workspaces into an intelligent dock. In simple words, you can thumbnail all currently running activity overviews into a small dock for quick access.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

5. EasyScreenCast

This is great extension for those who need to record their screen for work. EasyScreenCast will help you record your GNOME shell screen and audio at the same time. This is a great GNOME extension for video tutorial creators on YouTube and other platforms.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

6. GSConnect

The GSConnect extension will help you connect your Android phone to the GNOME desktop so that you can access messages, perform calls, and access other data on both devices. You will need to install the KDE Connect App on your Android phone for integration. You can see how I connected my phone to the GNOME Shell in the screenshot below.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

7. Screenshot Tool

Screenshot Tool extension will conveniently help you capture, copy, save, and upload a screenshot in just one click. I find this extension very useful because of the many options it offers, as you can see in the screenshot below.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

8. Appfolders Management Extension

The Appfolders Management GNOME extension allows you to organize various applications in folders of your choice. Isn’t that a great function to have in the GNOME shell? Once you install this tool, you just have to right-click on the app icon in the application tray and click “add to folder.”

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

9. Apt Update Indicator

This is one of the most useful extensions you will find for GNOME shell. The Apt Update Indicator directly notifies you from the notification bar on the top if there is any Apt package update available for your installed packages.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

10. Auto Move Windows

If you work on multiple virtual desktops, then the Auto Move Windows extension is going to make that experience much more convenient. Using this extension, you can set any application to automatically open on the virtual desktop that you assign to the application.

This process is very simple, and once your perform this action, the assigned application will automatically open on the designated desktop.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

11. CPU Power Manager

I find this extension very useful, especially while working on a laptop. This extension gives you control over how your computer’s resources are going to be used at any given time. This will improve the overall performance of the system.

At present, this extension is only for computers having Intel CPUs on board. Due to the broad applicability, extensions like these should be made available for all machines.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

12. Extensions

The Extensions extension is great GNOME Shell tool that allows you to manage all of your extensions. For example, you can enable/disable or change extension settings right from the top panel on the GNOME desktop screen.

This saves the time of having to enter GNOME Tweaks and then also going into Extensions when tweaking your extension.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

 13. OpenWeather

OpenWeather is another great Shell extension that helps you keep track of all weather information at your location or any other location of your choice across the world.

As you can see in the above screenshot, it looks quite attractive, and you may make any necessary tweaks you may require.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

14. Panel OSD

Panel OSD is an interesting extension that allows you to customize the location of the desktop notification. You can use this extension to set the notification to appear at your preferred location on the desktop.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

15. Refresh WiFi Connections

There is no option to refresh WiFi connections on Ubuntu and other Linux distributions. However, this extension adds this much-needed option. You can now connect easily to any available WiFi network through the use of the Refresh Wifi Connections extension.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

16. Drop Down Terminal

Drop Down Terminal is a must-have extension. I would recommend this extension to every GNOME user. Terminal is the kind of app everyone needs on Linux. With this extension, it is easy to access the Terminal on GNOME just by using the drop-down menu or by using a keyboard shortcut. The keyboard shortcut to Open or Close Drop Down Terminal is the key just above the Tab key on the keyboard; i.e., the ~ Key.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

 17. Activities Configurator

Activities Configurator is another cool GNOME Shell extension. This extension allows you to customize the activities button, as well as the panel appearance. You can tweak and add many features to enhance your desktop functionality. You can also change the background color and adjust the transparency.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

18. TopIcons Plus

On GNOME desktop, it is not that easy to use certain apps, such as Telegram, Drop Box or Skype, which heavily rely on the system tray. This is because the app tray is normally hidden. The TopIcons Plus extension puts GNOME system icons back where they should be. You can also customize the size, style and position of the icons in the extension settings.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

19. Applications Menu

The Appications Menu adds the traditional Start Menu to the GNOME desktop. This menue features some of the most used apps. The Applications Menu extension is quite useful, as you can launch favorites directly, but there is some limitation in that this extension cannot be customized.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

20. Section Todo List

Selection Todo List is a simple, yet quite useful, extension for GNOME users. You can simply add your to-do entries and even sub-entries in this drop-down extension. This extension doesn’t have as many features as you would expect, but still, I find it quite useful.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

21. Internet Radio

If you love listening to music or radio while working, then Internet Radio is the must-have extension for you. This extension allows you to listen to many internet radio streams at one place. There are buttons to play/stop, title notifications, and volume adjustment, which make this extension very easy to use.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

22. You2ber

You2ber is a GNOME Shell extension for the popular YouTube downloader youtube-dl. This extension will help you download any video and audio media content from YouTube. You2ber also offers some customizable options before download, like video quality, audio quality, destination to save audio/video file, and a subtitles download option.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

23. NetSpeed

NetSpeed is simple extension that shows the internet speed in a drop-down from the top bar on GNOME desktop. As shown below, both download and upload speed are displayed in this extension. If you right-click right the mouse, the extension will display the sum of the download and upload speeds.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

24. Time ++

Time ++ is a great extension that offers many different functions under one roof. This extension features an alarm clock, stopwatch, time tracker, pomodoro, and todo.txt manager.

Time ++ is one of the most useful timekeeping extensions for GNOME users.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

25. Desktop Icons

There are no desktop icons available on GNOME by default, and this extension overcomes that limitation. By using this extension, you will feel at home with a display of icons on the display, particularly if you are a Windows user.

CLICK HERE TO INSTALL

These are the 25 best GNOME shell extensions to improve your overall GNOME desktop working experience and productivity. If you use any helpful extensions other than those listed here, feel free to share your experience with us at @LinuxHint and @SwapTirthakar.  ]]> https://linuxhint.com/better_than_gnome/ Sun, 05 Apr 2020 05:01:07 +0000 https://linuxhint.com/?p=57655 Gnome is a fantastic way to run your desktop but it is not right for everyone. Maybe, you may like to switch to another for specific tasks. For performance reasons, user and computer, you may want another desktop. This is particularly interesting for people who work with specific activities. A programmer becomes accustomed to using the keyboard and a graphic designer may need more power. In this post you will hear about some other desktop environments and their benefits and drawbacks.

Why change to another window manager or desktop environment?

As hinted earlier, each window manager has their own philosophy. GNOME is trying to help and add helpful features, including notifications, extensions and other fun stuff. For many users this is bloat, it just loads the computer and the senses. When you decide that your current window manager is not the best choice for you, you must start by identifying what is wrong with your current situation. Are you running out of resources starting your main application or are you just tired of unwanted notifications? Perhaps, you just want to be the cool hacker who made your own. Just decide, here are some pointers about where to go once you have decided.

Tiling and floating windows.

One interesting aspect of window managers is that, it is not hard coded that your windows “float” around your desktop. Floating means that your windows can have any place, almost any size and shape on the desktop. If you run all your applications in full screen mode, then you might as well tile them. A tiling window manager takes the application and gives it all the space available. The first window covers the whole screen, the next application takes one half and shoves the first one to the side. There are many other ways to share the screen. With this system, you also have work spaces or tags to make it possible to have any application in full screen.

Initially full of features or bake your own?

When you get a regular distribution, GNOME comes with a bunch of features that you may or may not want. As in GNOME and other common systems, you can also add extensions. When you start digging for other solutions, you will see that there are choices that range from having it all from the start till almost useless without tinkering. All of these suggestions point to systems where this choice have been made deliberately.

DWM

In this comparison, the dwm manager, form suckless tools, is the “bake yourself” variety. The initial code is just 2000 lines long and has a very sparse set of features available in that code. In fact, the designers state that it is not recommended to install the vanilla version from your distribution. Instead, you should look through the available patches and choose the features you need and compile them yourself. It may sound hardcore but if you choose just a few patches and use the right method, you should be able to so it even with limited C coding experience. Yes, that is correct; the whole thing is written in C. If you want anything interesting on your taskbar, you need to use and external tool. For picking a file to run, the suckless tool dmenu, unless you find rofi more appealing. This manager is great for keeping resource management to a minimum and give you a clean desktop. You need to do some hacking before it looks good for you though.

Awesome WM

This window manager is focused on being a tiling manager that is fast and efficient. It has sane defaults with its own logo as the desktop background. It also shows a decent taskbar with a few indicators, if you hover over the desktop and right-click, you have an application drop-down list available. You can also bring up a sheet cheat with a single keyboard shortcut. Yes, you use a keyboard shortcut to find all other shortcuts.

The main idea is to tweak this yourself, though. The configuration file is written in the Lua language. Fortunately, you can pick up other peoples configurations from GitHub. There you can also find widgets and new functions. When you want to make your own, you can start by just changing an existing theme. It will be an advantage to learn the Lua language but hardly necessary since the sample files are easy to understand.

Resource usage is minimal and it supports floating windows, which is good to have for some applications. The developers focus on implementing standards from the Freedesktop website as efficiently as they can muster. They also aim to retain the control about if it will be active with the user.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon was started because they did not agree with the idea that the application launcher menu in GNOME would disappear. At first it was just an extension but has now expanded to an entire desktop. This desktop has a more traditional desktop and feels light and nimble despite having many features. You can extend it with “spices” to make it look nice and add desktop decorations. This is for people who like to decorate and wants things to work out of the box.

Enlightenment

Enlightenment has many features, focused on being a floating window manager, though supports tiling in case you are so inclined. You will end up with a neat taskbar, lots of opportunity and a fast desktop.

Conclusion

Thanks to the Free and Open Source philosophy of Linux, you have the power to change your computing environment as you wish. With this freedom comes the responsibility to take action and put in the effort when you feel the need to improve your life. You must make this a transition that helps you, not stops you from working. Instead set a schedule with all the tasks you need to perform to improve your computing experience. The learning curve will feel like a lot of resistance, this is a sign that it may be worth it!

Users community

The majority of people are users. Asking developers to answer all the questions from each and every user is unreasonable. That’s why we need user communities to share the high-level tips about the user experience. The first place to go is the official page.

When you have scoured that page, and you still are lost, continue to some others. The discourse site is full of interesting user and development questions. They also include announcements about new releases. You can ask your own questions, please be civilised. The site is well organised and has a lot of activity.

The site is https://discourse.gnome.org/

If you want to use other means than web pages, you may be interested in IRC channels and mailing lists. You can find options on the community page maintained by the GNOME foundation.

If you do, there are several choices to use IRC in GNOME. Polari is one of the better to find IRC channels related to GNOME. To download Polari, you can use the built-in Ubuntu software installer. The developers uses GitLab, to develop and you can find a flatpak version on their GNOME project page.

For other places, where you can find more information and discussions, there is also a Reddit group for the more active discussions. They are also more spread on users and developers.

These are probably the first places to go for more information and help when you have user questions about GNOME. The GNOME wiki is a comprehensive source of information.

Developer Community

Developers have long used mailing-lists to keep the conversation going and they still are using them. They are using GitLab to keep on top of the development but many times they need another forum to plan new features and float new ideas. To follow the code and issues go to their repository. They have many sub-projects so you can focus on a special detail.

https://gitlab.gnome.org/explore/groups

The best place to find the mailing lists are on their official site. You can see that this contains GNOME and related applications so choose before you join.

https://mail.gnome.org/

The list is long and includes special lists for planning, applications and announcements. There are also many lists for documentation, where you can get experience and create a good reputation in the community. The most powerful part of the mailing lists is that you can scan the old messages to see how they have arrived at the current solutions. You can then also avoid asking questions about bugs and decisions that has already been answered.

Question Sites

To ask questions, it is a good idea to go to the right site, Stack Exchange is a good idea for this. The [gnome] tag has several thousand questions you can look through.

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/gnome

A more active site is ask Ubuntu, they have over 8000 questions with the GNOME tag. They also have many tags with with part gnome.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/tagged/gnome?sort=MostVotes&filters=NoAcceptedAnswer&edited=true

As mentioned earlier Reddit is a great place to discuss issues and get comments. This is moderated by the GNOME foundation themselves so will be clean and insightful.

If you are developing your own applications or extensions, you have more places where you can ask questions. Notice that if you are building an application, it is good to look for Electron as this creates an application that can run on GNOME, and other platforms. There are many other ways to make applications for GNOME but JavaScript has risen to the top for simple ones that are not heavy on CPU resources. Stack overflow is your obvious friend in this regard.

Conclusion

When you start using GNOME, you have a lot of good documentation to follow. Sometimes, it is nice to ask a question about your particular problem. This is best done on the wiki or other forums where helpful folks are usually prepared to listen and send you suggestions. Remember to give back to the community by answering questions that you already have the answer to. If you are developing, you can many times go to the sites that handle JavaScript or whatever other programming language you are using.

What are the extensions changing?

This may seem like an irrelevant question but as you start troubleshooting, you need to know this. Any extension is actually adding code to the gnome-shell. Due to this, your desktop will crash due to a bad extension so test carefully before trusting any code. It is a good idea to remember this both when you are installing other people’s extensions and when you are coding yourself.

You can learn how to make an extension quickly if you know JavaScript and you follow the documentation at the GNOME wiki. You can start by using the standard tools which create the required files for you. There are only two required files, though, so creating them yourself is not a big task.

How do you install other people’s extensions?

Before you decide to make your own extension, it is a good idea to see what is already around. This way, you also have an opportunity to check out how they are written. The best way to learn to program is to combine tutorials with seeing others code. The official way to install an extension is to use the GNOME extensions webpage. With the help of a plugin, you can control your extensions using your browser (Firefox and Chrome). You also have the option to download the whole directory tree yourself. If you do, you need to place the whole thing under your home directory. The files go in its own directory under: ‘~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/’. For system configurations, you put it in ‘usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions‘, but only do that after you have validated it and if you are administering the computer for many users. You can find many extensions on GitHub and other similar sites. In this case, you really must try it under your user, or even a temporary user.

What has been done before?

You may wonder what extensions people have designed before you? Some interesting ones are; Weather indicator in the taskbar, Pomodoro Timers, and systems indicators. You can also find a drawing program Draw On The Screen, which you call with Super-Shift-D. Very handy if you want to annotate a screenshot. If anything about the GNOME desktop annoys you, like a notification you would like to avoid. Look around, most things have tweaks in the shape of an extension. The activities button is not appreciated by all, so hide it with an extension. You can even get assistance when making your tea!

The best way to start

When you are tempted to start making your own, you need to learn JavaScript though you can use other languages for the main logic of your program. Your extension will complement the gnome-shell code which makes it useful to know enough JavaScript for troubleshooting. There are scripts ready to build your extension, use those and then look for similar extensions that you can study to see how they are implemented. The official starters documentation is good to get you started. You first need to identify what your extension will do. Will it have a drop-down menu, panel menu or maybe animations. You can find which one does what through the documentation, but here is a short breakdown of a few features.

Clutter – Lays out the graphical components. St – GNOME Toolkit, use these to create Boxes, Bins and more. Tweener – Commonly used for animations, not part of GNOME.

These are the three main components that you can use to make an extension. The documentation is very technical so look for examples wherever you can. The best way to learn is to use one part at a time.

More tutorials

It can be very helpful to follow a few tutorials, just don’t overdo it, the best way to learn is to make mistakes. Still, it is easier to climb the learning curve with a tutorial.

A nice tutorial showing the exchange rate as collected from transfer wise. A longer one here shows many more details and is more detailed. The tutorial is from 2012 but is still valid in many ways.

Conclusion

To start making GNOME extensions, your first challenge is to find good documentation. The second is to have a game plan for what you think your need should do. It will be very interesting for you if you have the JavaScript base that is required, though you can probably get through the existing tutorial even with rudimentary skills in JavaScript.

The format of the package

When you want to change your GNOME desktop, you can do so with theme files that you choose from ‘Appearance’ in the Tweaks interface. Here, you will find that you can choose between ‘Applications’, ‘Cursor’, ‘Icons’ and ‘Shell’. This gives you all the flexibility you need but it may look strange when you change the shell theme and have no application theme. To solve this, you need all the themes to match. Many themes contain only the shell or only the GTK+ (Application) part.

You can also create your own icons and pack them in a standard file. You can run in to similar problems here. If you have icons or fonts that do not match your theme, at best it looks silly. In some cases text will not be visible because icons and background are the same colour.

Packed files

The many files, fonts and decorations you need, are stored in the below user directories.

Icons: Unzip Icons in ~/.icons folder GTK/Shell Theme: Unzip GTK and Shell themes in ~/.themes folder Cursor: Unzip Cursor themes in ~/.icons folder Fonts: Unzip Fonts in ~/.fonts folder

A full theme has all these files built in and contains a file: index.theme. The files points out all the files to ensure that you can have a your icons match font style. You will also make the applications look like they match each other.

This code shows the different themes you want to use. There are more details for this file so make sure you look here when you use theme. This way, you get the best look for you. To switch to the specific theme, you need to change the values one by one.

What is the files format?

In each theme, you have a structure of directories. These directories contain the resources that your CSS files point to. You should use existing standards to make it easier for users of the theme. A good example is the Forest theme, the tree is below.

Here, you can see the gnome-shell.css file. Those files tend to get long because it points out all elements on the desktop. However, there is method to the madness so follow along with a few examples. The code uses all the common CSS functions, a dot (.) for classes and a hash (#) for named elements. They group these to create an even look.

Inside the files, you have names of all the boxes and icons. You can see how they work through a toolkit, called St (Shell Toolkit). From the main StWidget, the system creates StEntry, StButton and StDrawing Area, plus a few others. Knowing this, you can understand what you are looking at in the CSS. While you look be prepared to look up things in the documentation, though knowing some basics will help you navigate better.

The code above, from the Forest-Dark theme, shows the definition of a checkbox that uses the StBin for its definition. Most of the names will be obvious from their names. However, if you are uncertain, check GNOME Documents for guidance. The best strategy to make your own theme is to base it on an existing one and edit it to your own taste.

What image formats are supported?

The file format for all graphical components can be SVG and PNG. The best is to use SVG since it scales better for different sizes. This is also the most commonly used. Even though, the format scales well, make sure to test it in many scales. The graphic itself also has to be designed to be clear in all supported scales.

What else do I need to create a theme?

Most of a theme is created by writing correct CSS but when you want to have your own icons, you need more. For Linux, you have Inkscape to create SVG graphics. It will be beneficial to have your favourite code editor, it helps a lot when you hack CSS. The idea is to code using web technologies after all.

Where do I find examples and tutorials?

Most existing projects are available on https://www.gnome-look.org/, though many beautiful themes are also available on Deviant art. There are a few tutorials but most of them are how to install a new theme you downloaded. Below is a good start to explore themes.

https://www.worldofgnome.org/making-gtk3-themes-part-1-basics/

https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/theming.html

Conclusion

It is great to be able to tweak your desktop environment; this is what you stare at all day. With themes for GNOME, you can do it in every detail. Remember, your desktop is a complex beast so be prepared to learn and start with a template or an existing project.

There is a graphical application to view ‘GNOME Logs’. You can use the GNOME Logs application to get an overview.

Most systems will have journalctl

In Linux, the dominant initialisation system is systemd. This system also keeps your daemons and services alive during ordinary operation. GNOME is no exception, any problems can be traced with journalctl.

Use systemd!

While keeping the system running, systemd also logs any events that happens. This includes major events and errors. The logs are saved in a common file that you can read with journalctl. Usage seems clunky to start with but is actually smooth if you know some regular expressions. It also has ways to filter out information.

The most direct way to find out what is going on and dig through the logs is to do it for your own identity. You need to use the numeric identity, which usually is 1000 but check with the ‘id’ command.

The result is your users id. Plug it in to your check of the logs.

All logs from your user will appear, no need to pipe it to ‘less’, it behaves like the same way. For you who are not fans yet. In less you can search for strings with grep-like features and filters.

Other log files

In earlier versions of GNOME, it used the standard error file. Lately, GNOME has changed where it logs, many sites report using ~/.xsession-errors, since several version, it no longer uses this file.

Watch out, GNOME does not write to this file. If there are text in this file, you have started another window manager! You can find data about your current session in var/log/syslog, it have many details available.

Filter using grep or ‘less’ to find what is ailing your system.

Advanced troubleshooting

You may have the desktop lock up. If this happens, check if you have keyboard response. If you do, press ctrl-alt-<Fn> where Fn is usually F3, to open virtual terminal (vt) 3. The reason is that GDM uses F1 for vt 1 and your session uses vt 2, leaving vt 3-6 for you to make your own commands. You can then use that terminal to do troubleshooting or open even open an x-session.

If you are developing or are in contact with a developer to troubleshoot a serious shell problem, you need more detailed logs. To check for serious hangings you need to recompile gjs and js52 and then look for the core dump.

Patch-files https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME/Troubleshooting

The patch and compile procedure is simpler than you might think, it is covered in the link. The package to check for where the core dumps is not available on vanilla systems. You need to install the package yourself.

When it is installed you can list the core dumps using the new tool.

When you have done that, send the dumps to the project page https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues Only keep the debugging package on your system while debugging. You will only need it for troubleshooting!

Looking at an application at a time

The first thing to do if you have problems with an application, is to start it from the command line. You can let the output run on the terminal or send it to a file for later processing. Using regular expressions is very useful for this work also.

Filtering per application

If you have a special application that is giving you problems, you can also filter inside the systemd. To do this, you must find the PID you are running and then choose that PID from journalctl.

Use the result as PID in the next command.

Any problems interacting with GNOME will appear here. This does not show what is going on inside the application. To send to a separate file use the below command.

Again, here you can and should pipe it through tools such as ‘grep’, sed and others to get the most relevant information in your log.

Conclusion

Most troubleshooting for GNOME, should be done using the journalctl command. It is only if you have serious problems, you need any thing else. Before you start reporting problems, also find the regular syslog files. They contain most of the information. You have the option to use graphical presentation software for checking files. Once you have long logs, make sure you know how to process files with regular expressions. If you have serious problems or are looking for a new window manager use another virtual terminal to explore.

How heavy is GNOME?

Many see GNOME as heavy on resources, this can be shown by measuring the amount of memory and CPU it uses but is it worth it? Other Desktop Environments are designed to be lighter, but you may be using the features. This does not mean that your computer is bogged down by GNOME alone, to make sure, you need to measure what is running and how much load it takes. Some applications, think graphics, simulations and compiling, can drain your system of resources in a heartbeat. Make sure you know what is the problem. No blame game, find facts.

How do you check the load?

To find the facts, you need tools to check the load. Some of these are graphical, some are command line. Depending on your needs, and habits, you may prefer different options. Here you can see what is available.

System monitor, this software shows the whole system in a graphical form. You can also drill down to specific applications.

Figure 1: System Monitor in Action

This gives you a view so you can see what is going on. On the command line, you have commands that gives a single result and the ones that stay open, viewing the situation.

The first is ‘free’, this shows how much memory you have free and how much is used. Use this command to see how much swap you use. It is very common that swapping itself slows your computer down.

The most similar to the system monitor is ‘htop’, this software starts on the terminal and covers all of it. This tool shows all processes and the overall swap and load values. Use this to identify the memory hogs.

You can sort according to memory usage, CPU and time on the system. Using the time option, you can find the ones that are started at start.

Where are those pesky programs?

Which ones are auto started? With the tools mentioned above you can identify which ones are the biggest thieves. You will have any the auto started applications available in ~/.config/autostart/ and ~/.config/autostart-scripts/. Only the former is usually filled with anything, few use the scripts. The autostart directory has links to desktop files. This way you can just remove the links to stop it from starting without removing the application from your system.

Checking the Extensions

Many extensions are not that well tested, check how much memory and load they need. If you have heavy load, you can easily kill all extensions with a click in the Tweak tool.

Figure 2: Turning of Extensions is easy in GNOME Tweaks!

This is a good place to start. If you find that it helps, you can turn off one at a time to hunt it down.

Where can you trim?

Best places to trim are extensions. You can also trim down your theme, but this is usually futile since it has little bearing on the performance. To make sure, switch to a high contrast theme, they have simple icons. An odd thing that may take your CPU is the clock, sometimes it makes a difference just to turn off seconds.

How much can you trim?

You can remove pretty much all the extensions, but the main system that comes with GNOME is a little tricky to trim down. Evolution is one culprit, the designers have put dependencies to Evolution from GNOME. This means removing Evolution, removes GNOME! Odd, if you want to use another email and calendar solution, or none. You can, however stop the execution of it by setting the permission bits. Check out the solution by Leon Manukyan.

If you want to get really crazy, you can switch out the gnome-shell, check out Regolith!

Some common problems

As mentioned earlier, the extensions can cause problems, they are not tested with your particular system so you may run in to compatibility problems.

Many lagging problems occur in Mutter, which is the underlying compositor. There are also blocks and stutter in the screen on occasion when you use dual monitor and Wayland. These problems are known faults, fixed in Gnome 3.36.

Tracking down faults

Most fault tracking requires tracing and special tools, you have them all available but you need to practice to use them. If you want to know more, check out the tools that the maintainers use (Stochastic).

If you think you have too many new or old programs, these are the important directories to look inside. They get big though, so settle down and take notes and be prepared to ask questions.

To fix overload due to the clock, change this value using gsettings:

Conclusion

You can do many things to get your GNOME session to take a little bit less memory and perhaps less load on your CPU. However, some things are just design flaws that you need to wait for a solution or join the developers and improve it yourself. They always appreciate input, so start by learning how to report faults the correct way. Good trouble reports speed up resolution time.

The pieces that starts GNOME

At boot of your system, you have set which target that needs to run by systemd. This post assumes systemd! Still assuming standard, GDM3 starts. This is a minimal gnome-shell started by systemd. You can check with the systemctl command.

GDM acts as the login prompt. When you have logged in, the other components are started. Here is what they do;

• Gnome-session; The first task for gnome-session is to make sure all components are available. This is defined in the .session file. The system searches for these file names in usr/share/applications You can, optionally choose a directory where you have auto start applications. The other option is to run it with the failsafe option. This removes all user applications, use this for troubleshooting.
• Gnome-shell; The gnome-shell creates the desktop, containing the design components. It uses Mutter extensively.
• Mutter; Mutter uses Clutter to act as the standard window manager for GNOME.
• The applications; GNOME comes bundled with many applications, by default. You can look them through at https://help.gnome.org/users/.
• Extensions; Extensions are JavaScript that change the behaviour of gnome-shell and may add a function up in the top bar.

How they interact

Which part starts which and what keeps everything running during operation?

The developers of GNOME are testing everything with systemd in mind. This means that it all starts with systemd. You can check the status of the service with the command.

This service is the one that starts it all. From here the system starts everything else, first it checks what is needed to start. When the process starts, it calls the gnome-session binary which looks for dependencies. It then prepares the session by looking through the many directories that control your start. When you use the ordinary setup, the next part to start is gnome-shell.

Gnome-shell controls your desktop, this is the part where you can add extensions. The shell also activates the top-bar, opens your applications and calls the graphics libraries to place stuff on your desktop.

When gnome-shell needs to handle the desktop, mutter takes over and makes it look good. It is the X11 window manager and on Wayland it acts as the compositor.

What is running during operation

Once GNOME has started, you will have many processes running. These processes keep your system running and are standby for your requests. They are listed below.

• dbus-daemon; This keeps communications running between different applications that has implemented it. One example of this is notifications from hardware to your top bar.
• gnome-keyring-daemon; This daemon keeps your passwords and login credentials if supported by the application.
• gnome-settings-daemon; This daemon will always keep your choices of icons, fonts and other settings.
• gnome-shell; The program that runs your desktop, it is this program that interprets any extensions, makes the bars and docks available.
• pulseaudio; This is used for audio settings and for detecting any new hardware.

There are other processes that support special features, including the gvfs that handles the GNOME virtual file system. This is what makes it possible to reach SSH, DAV and all your online accounts.

Conclusion

GNOME is a powerful system, which makes it easy to achieve many things. Sometimes this comes at a higher cost than you want. To make sure you have full use of GNOME while allowing your system to keep up, you need to know about some settings. Knowing these, you can also make things look the way you want.

What can you change in the GNOME desktop?

You can change everything but the wisest is to use tools and change only what the tool allows. If you are developing your own window manager, you will need to manipulate the files under ‘etc/gnome‘. As a regular user or administrator, you should use the tools and your home directory.

The most common change is to change the theme and adding or removing extensions. The possibilities with these are vast.

How can you change the GNOME desktop?

GNOME is configured using a database file in ‘etc/dconf/db/ibus‘, this file has a special format that is not humanly readable. The format is a database as you may guess from the name and path. The standard way to tweak this is the dconf editor. The dconf editor is useful for changing values that affect the behaviour of your desktop.

When you start dconf, it comes with a warning. Heed the warning, you can make GNOME behave very strange. You can also use it as a command line tool.

If you don’t want to use the graphical interface, maybe you want to use a script, you can use the gsettings command line tool. You also have files in your home directory, at ~/.config/dconf/user.[xxxx]. The value will vary. Inside the file you have the database. Reading it with a text editor shows garbage, after the GVARIANT string. To see values, use the the dump command. The result will come out as a below.

Figure 2: Dumping dconf using dump parameters.

When you use dbus-launch and gsettings together you can set your applications behaviour. To check it, use the list command or if you want all keys, the list-recursively version.

These are advanced changes, the more common user changes are the ways you can add and remove extensions and using the standard settings tools.

GDM configuration

The main way you change gdm is to use a regular file in ‘etc/gdm3‘ and ‘/etc/dbus-1/system.d/gdm.conf’. There are a number of files there, they are organised in directories.

The directories have clear names, making it easy to understand what they are for.

When the tools cannot be used for your personal settings, use ~/.xsession.

Desktop Theme and Looks

Your desktop have colours and fonts, these are controlled with theme files. When you have small changes to make,, you can use ‘Appearances’ and change the view a piece at a time. From this point, you can also install theme files. The files are ‘~/.gtkrc-2.0’ which the appearance application changes this file. When you are comfortable, create your own file named ‘~/.gtkrc-2.0.mine’, this file overrides the stuff from the earlier file.

Many themes will be available, or stored, in the themes directory.

In this directory, you can unpack themes here to use them for you.

Applications that run at start

Applications that start during login are set for the whole system using the below directory.

The corresponding file in your home directory, the file is ‘~/.config/autostart/’. for each application, there need to be a *.desktop file. The file itself is quite simple while it still has options for which file to execute and working directory. Many other options are available but this needs a deeper discussion how it works. Most of the times, you will uses ‘Tweaks’ to add an existing application. Tweaks will the create the file.

Adding Extensions

Most extensions add a little icon in your top bar and gives you some drop down information from there. The code is a JavaScript project that call the gnome-shell executable. You can find extensions in both a global directory and a user directory. The global directory is ‘usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions’, this directory is important to know since you may have the same extensions installed twice. Once by using apt, and then once by your regular user. Your user directory is ‘~.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/’, this is where you install extensions when you use your browser to install.

Conclusion

When you start tweaking your GNOME desktop, it is worthwhile to know where the files are, so you are prepared to check and adapt to changing needs. It is also fun to tweak the desktop ton your own liking, when you have your own ideas you should figure out what the tools are doing to secure that you can check if there are any problems with the tools or certain things just cannot be changed with the tools.

In the case of any Linux distros, DE (desktop environment) is one of the most important defining factors of user experience! It’s because Linux isn’t so graphical. The job of a DE is to provide the necessary UI and functionalities that you’d expect from a “desktop”.

GNOME is one of the top-tier DEs, both in terms of popularity and feature. Let’s have a look at how to install GNOME on openSUSE.

The GNOME Desktop

The GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) is a common desktop environment you’ll come across in many Linux distros. It’s an open-source project actively developed by the GNOME Project via the GNOME Foundation and the community. GNOME started its journey back in 1999 and it’s still going strong! Some other popular desktop environments like MATE, Cinnamon, and Unity etc. are forks of GNOME.

GNOME isn’t just a desktop environment. It’s also a whole ecosystem of applications for all sorts of purposes. Known as GNOME Apps, the list includes Rhythmbox, GNOME Twitch, Geary, Calendar, Anjuta, Disks, and a lot of others.

What makes GNOME so popular? Well, it’s better to experience it by yourself than reading a bunch of text, right?

Installing GNOME

GNOME implements the classic “desktop” metaphor in an elegant manner. Because of its immense popularity, all the major Linux distros (including openSUSE) support GNOME. We’ll be using YaST as it’s the safest and easiest way to manage desktop environments.

Search YaST in the menu.

Enter the root password.

Select “Software Management”.

From the “View” drop-down menu, select “Patterns”.

As you can see, all desktop environments are placed under the section “Graphical Environments”. Right-click on “GNOME Desktop Environment (X11)” and select “Install”. We’re going with the x-server version because x server has been around for years, it’s mature and compatible with most of the programs. If you’re adventurous, then you can go ahead with Wayland as well.

This is an optional step, so you can skip it if you want. You can also choose to uninstall the previous desktop environment. In my case, it’s KDE Plasma and its related apps.

When you’re ready, click “Accept”.

The list will give you a short summary of what changes are being made. Click “Continue”.

It’s going to take a while to download and install/uninstall the necessary packages. Have a cup of coffee in the meantime!

Once the installation is complete, it’ll show a short report of the installation process. Click “Finish”.

Reboot your computer.

From the bottom-left corner, select “GNOME” from the drop-down menu.

Voila! GNOME is the desktop environment now!

Tweaking GNOME

GNOME is an extremely customizable desktop environment. Almost every single part of it is subject to customization. There are a number of ways to do so. In this section, let me introduce some of the ways you can do so.

GNOME Background

This is the simplest form of customization. Suitable desktop background can definitely impact the experience. To change the desktop background, right-click on any empty space on the desktop and select “Change background”.

Here, you can set a different wallpaper for the normal desktop and the lock screen.

GNOME offers a default set of wallpapers. To install the GNOME wallpapers, fire up a terminal and run the following command. Learn more about zypper and its usage.

Let’s check them out.

‘

Well, these are not your only option. There are tons of beautiful wallpapers all over the internet. Unsplash is my favorite place to get high-resolution wallpapers.

GNOME Tweaks

It’s a part of the GNOME Apps family. GNOME Tweaks is a powerful tool for customizing the look and feel of GNOME.

GNOME Tweaks should already be installed when installing GNOME. However, if it’s not installed for some reason, run the following command to install GNOME Tweaks.

Launch it from the menu.

Feel free to experiment around the settings. As long as you put a little bit of effort into understanding what changes are being made, there’s a pretty little chance of things going wrong. If things go wrong, then you know where to reset it.

Final thoughts

If anything goes wrong at any point, the community is a great place to get help. Both openSUSE and GNOME are widely popular and there’s a good chance that your problem is already solved. Check out the openSUSE forum.

Enjoy!

What are GNOME Shell Extensions?

GNOME Shell extensions, as the name suggests, extend the functionality of GNOME Shell desktop. They work somewhat similar to Chrome and Firefox add-ons. A shell extension is capable of doing trivial things like hiding an icon in the system tray as well as providing a full fledged app based on native GNOME or third party APIs. These extensions have been developed by official GNOME developers, distribution maintainers and a number of third party developers.

Installing Browser Integration Add-ons

To install a GNOME Shell extension on your system, first you have to enable a native connector browser addon recommended by GNOME developers. Without this addon, you won’t be able to download and install extensions from official extension repository available online.

The official integration add-on for Chrome browser can be installed in Ubuntu using the command below:

You can also install this add-on from Chrome Web Store if it is not available in your distribution’s repository.

GNOME Shell integration add-on for Firefox can be installed from here.

After you have successfully installed the add-on, you will see a new GNOME paw icon in your browser when you launch it next time.

Installing Extensions from the Online Extension Store

Now that browser integration has completed, you are ready to install some extensions. Go to GNOME shell extensions repository available here to browse a list of available extensions. By default, extensions for all GNOME Shell versions are shown. You can click on “All versions” dropdown menu to narrow down results to a specific version of shell.

To check GNOME shell version on your system, run the command below:

To install an extension, first click on its name to go to its detailed listing page.

On the extension details page, click on the on / off toggle button to initiate installation.

Click on “Install” button when prompted.

That’s it, selected extension is now successfully installed on your system. Some extensions require you to logout from an active desktop session to work. It is possible to force reload GNOME Shell by pressing <ALT + F2> key, entering the letter “r” in the visible input box and hitting <Enter> key. However this method may cause unexpected behaviors, crashes and freezes on your system. So the ideal solution would be to close all your running apps, logout and re-login.

Updating, Configuring and Removing Extensions from the Online Extension Store

You can easily manage shell extensions installed on your system from the online store itself. Go to “Installed extensions” link in the top bar to see a list of all the extensions installed on your system. From there, you can update (upward arrow icon), configure (wrench icon) and remove an extension (cross icon).

Syncing Extensions with Your Google Account

You can sync installed shell extensions with your Google account (Chrome only). Right click on the native connector extension icon on Chrome’s top bar to access its options.

Enable “Synchronize GNOME Shell extensions list” option by checking the radio box in front of it.

Managing Extensions Using Gnome Tweaks App

To configure, enable and disable gnome shell extensions on your desktop, you can install gnome tweaks app by running the command below:

After installing the app, launch “Tweaks” app from application launcher. Click on “Extensions” entry on the left sidebar. From here, you can toggle and configure extensions. This method works even if you don’t have an active internet connection and doesn’t require you to use online web store to manage extensions.

Managing Extensions Using a Hidden App Not Visible in App Launcher

Running the command below will launch a hidden app dedicated to extensions management.

This method works even if you don’t have tweaks app installed. This also doesn’t require an active internet connection to work.

Installing Extensions Without Web Based Store and Browser Integration Add-ons

So far we have seen that extensions can be installed and managed using the online web store and they can be configured using offline desktop apps as well. However, it is possible to completely bypass the online web based store and browser integration add-ons.

You can use “Ubuntu Software” app store shipped by default in Ubuntu to install GNOME shell extensions. Launch “Ubuntu Software” app from application launcher and go to “Add-ons” > “Shell Extensions”. All you have to do is click on an extension’s listing to go to its details page and install it from there. Clicking on “Extension Settings” will also launch hidden extension management app mentioned above.

Conclusion

Using GNOME shell extensions is a good way to extend your desktop with additional functionality. However, installing too many extensions can slow down your desktop and there is always a risk of a misbehaving extension crashing the entire desktop. Like any other third party app, you should also be vary of installing any random extension, as there is always a change of malicious app getting into your system. Even though almost all extensions are open source, you should install them from known and trusted sources only.

Which is the most popular desktop?What makes it start?

What GNOME needs to get started, values you want to supply…

From the beginning and with small systems, you will put values in ~/.xinitrc. The simplest file will just contain ‘exec gnome-session’. A more reasonable file would look like the one below.

Using this approach is not the default way to do it. This approach assumes only one choice of desktop environment. This assumption is no longer valid for most systems. Distributions nowadays use a display manager, since GNOME is the default desktop they have chosen GNOME’s own GDM3 as the display manager. On most systems, you will start from GDM3 and have a control file that sets things up.

Where do you start GDM3?

If you used a regular distribution, gdm is already installed and the default login. You may want to switch to other display managers, a popular option is SDDM. To install it, you use your package manager. At the end of the installation, you are prompted to choose which manager you want to use. The script sets the correct manager for your next boot. If you want to switch back, just run the below command.

The same menu will appear and you can choose which one you want to run without uninstalling any of them. What happens is that the text string in the file /etc/X11/default-display-manager is changed to point to the correct display manager. In systemd machines, the ‘display-manager.service’ makes sure it starts and keep running. The daemon named logind is the general daemon, which you can check using systemctl.

GDM3 reads /etc/gdm3/custom.conf to get its correct configuration. In this file, you can set your system to login automatically. You can also set xdmcp parameters and security settings. Here, you can also enable debugging in this file.

After GDM has started, you are greeted with your login page. On this page you can choose which desktop environment you want to use. Those choices comes from files in usr/share/xsessions. One example is the default one from Ubuntu, seen below.

The values in GDM – The session Desktop file is an init style file as shown below. The entries control the session by setting values for the desktop.

You have many options in this file, the main ones are Exec and TryExec. The first one starts the desktop, in this file gnome-shell. The second one, checks if the binary file exists. Using the TryExec statement, you can have GDM3 ignore the entry if it does not exist.

Another important file is /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/gnome.session. This file clarifies the required software for this session.

How do you change your own desktop?

Once you have chosen GNOME, gnome-session starts to look around for a number of files. In the directory $XDGCONFIGHOME/gnome-session/saved-session, gnome should have saved the last session.

To have specific applications start when your desktop starts, you can add them to the autostart directory. They are listed below.

You can also set the same values with the built-in tweak tool.

The component that runs your desktop, the graphical part, is gnome-shell. Gnome-shell reads data from the gnome-session file. Any applications are available in usr/share/application. Information about applications and mime-types are available in the usr/share/application-registry directory.

The gnome-shell creates everything for your desktop, the system settings are in usr/share/gnome*. You also find the settings for many gnome applications here. For your personal settings, they are in ~.local/share/gnome-[Name of app] for certain applications.

Conclusion

When GNOME starts, there is a lot happening. It is good to have a basic grasp of this process, so you can either solve problems or tweak how it works to your own preferences.

In this article, I am going to show you how to use GNOME Terminal app. So, let’s get started.

Basics of GNOME Terminal:

GNOME terminal on Ubuntu 18.04 looks as follows.

You can type in a command and press <Enter> to run the command. The output of the command should be printed on the screen.

Working with Tabs and Windows:

You can create a new tab from File > New Tab.

You can create a new terminal window from File > New Window.

If you create a new tab, it will be displayed in the tab bar. You can click on any tab to switch to it.

Creating a new window will open up a new terminal instance.

To close a window, click on File > Close Window.

To close the active tab, click on File > Close Tab.

Setting Terminal Size, Character Set and Resetting it:

From the Terminal menu, you can set a character set, change the size of the terminal and reset the terminal and clear the outputs of the terminal.

To change character set/encoding, select a character set/encoding from Terminal > Set Character Encoding.

You can resize the terminal to some predefined sizes as you can see in the screenshot below.

To reset the terminal, click on Terminal > Reset.

If you also want to clear the terminal screen, click on Terminal > Reset and Clear.

Once you reset the terminal, press <Enter>.

The terminal prompt should be displaye.

Searching Terminal Screen:

You can search the terminal screen for specific string. To do that, click on Search > Find

Then, type in your search query and press <Enter>.

You can do a case sensitive search (check Match case) and use regular expression (check Match as regular expression) as well.

You can click on  to go to the previous and next match respectively.

Hiding Menubar:

To hide the menubar, uncheck View > Show Menubar.

The menubar should be hidden. To bring back the menubar again, right click on the terminal and click on Show Menubar.

The menubar should appear again.

Full Screen Terminal:

To switch to full screen mode, click on View > Full Screen.

To exit out of full screen mode, click on View > Full Screen again or press F11.

Zoom In and Zoom Out:

You can click on View > Zoom In to zoom in and View > Zoom Out to zoom out of the terminal respectively.

Zooming in can help make text readable, while zooming out can help fit more text on the terminal.

To reset the terminal display, click on View > Normal Size.

Selecting Text, Copying and Pasting:

To select all the text from the terminal, click on Edit > Select All.

All the texts should be selected.

Now, to copy the selected text, click on Edit > Copy or Edit > Copy as HTML. Copying as HTML will preserve the colors and font settings where you will paste it. Otherwise, it will be just plain text.

You can also select specific text from the terminal, right click and copy it.

To paste text to the terminal, right click on select Paste.

Configuring GNOME Terminal:

To configure GNOME terminal, go to Edit > Preferences.

From here, you can configure some global and profile specific settings of GNOME Terminal.

Global Configuration of GNOME Terminal:

From the global General tab, you can set whether to show the menubar by default.

On the global Shortcuts tab, you have a list all the configured shortcuts. If you want to be a Linux power user, this can be a goldmine for you.

If you want to change the shortcut key of something, just double click on it and set your new shortcut keys.

Configuring GNOME Terminal Profile:

To configure the default Unnamed profile, select the profile.

From the Text tab, you can

• change the terminal size
• set custom fonts and change the font size
• change spacing
• set the shape of the cursor and configure it to blink
• enable or disable terminal beep (terminal bell)

From the Colors tab, you can,

• set what color scheme to use for text and background
• set selected text color (highlight color)
• set cursor color,
• set transparency,
• select a color palette or set your custom color palette.

To set custom background and text color scheme, or transparency, uncheck Use colors from system theme.

Now, you can select a color scheme from one of the Built-in schemes.

You can also set custom colors.

To set transparency, uncheck Use transparency from system theme and check Use transparent background and adjust the slider to get your desired effect.

From the Scrolling tab, you can set whether to show the scrollbar, whether to scroll the terminal when new content is printed on the screen (Scroll on output), the number of lines of output to cache (Limit scrollback to).

From the Command tab, you can set what you want to happen when you double click to run a shell script.

From the Compatibility tab, you can set the character set or encoding of the Terminal.

Creating new GNOME Terminal Profiles:

To create a new profile, click on the + button from the Profiles section.

Type in a name for the new profile and click on Create.

The new profile should be created. Now, configure it the way you like.

You can clone the profile (Clone…), rename it (Rename…), delete it (Delete…) or set it as the default profile (Set as default) if you want from the profile dropdown menu.

If you have multiple profiles, GNOME terminal will let you pick one while creating a new tab or window.

I created a new window using the Test profile. The two terminal instances have different profile applied to them. So, they look very different than each other.

So, that’s how you use GNOME terminal app. Thanks for reading this article.