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Install GDM Settings in Ubuntu 22.04 to Configure Login Screen

Last updated: October 3, 2023 — Leave a comment

This simple tutorial shows how to install GDM Settings 1.0, a properly working version, in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS via PPA.

GDM Settings, aka Login Screen Manager, is a graphical configuration tool for GNOME Login Screen. With it, user can easily configure following things for the login screen:

  • Background image or color.
  • Theme, icons, and cursor.
  • font and scaling factor.
  • top bar text color and background color.
  • Mouse and touchpad settings.
  • Disable user list.
  • Sound, night light, logo, etc.

The tool is keeping updated. At the moment of writing, the latest version is 4.0 Beta with initial GNOME 45 support. And, it provides official packages through both Flatpak and AppImage packages.

However, latest releases packages often do NOT work properly or even refuse to launch in Ubuntu 22.04, probably due to using latest GNOME run-time, while 22.04 sticks to Gnome 42.

In my test, the last version that is working good in Ubuntu 22.04 is GDM settings 2.0. You can try it by downloading the AppImage, however it does NOT build into native .deb package due to minimum requirement of LibAdwaita 1.2. For choice, I built the 1.0 version that is working good with Ubuntu 22.04’s native GTK4 and LibAdwaita libraries.

Install GDM Settings 1.0 via PPA in Ubuntu 22.04

I’ve built GDM Settings 1.0 into this unofficial PPA for only Ubuntu 22.04 users who prefer apps in native .deb format.

To install it, simply press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. Then, run the commands below one by one.

  • First, add the PPA by running command: 
    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

  • Then, install the login manger settings via command: 
    sudo apt install gdm-settings

For choice, you may also download & install the deb package directly from the link below:

Download GDM Settings (1.0 DEB)

After installation, search for and launch it from ‘Activities’ overview screen and enjoy!


NOTE: Changing GDM background might break login screen and run into “Oh no! Something has gone wrong.” issue. Use the tool as your own risk, or see Step 5 in this tutorial if you’ve already run into problem.

Uninstall

To remove the tool, press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal and run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove gdm-settings

Also, remove the Ubuntu PPA by running command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps
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Single Command to Change CPU Power Mode in Ubuntu 22.04

Last updated: October 2, 2023 — Leave a comment

This simple tutorial shows how to switch CPU power mode between ‘Performance’, ‘Balanced’, and ‘Power Saver’ using Linux command in Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.04, and Ubuntu 23.10.

GNOME has options in both ‘Settings’ and top-right system status menu to change CPU frequency by switching between ‘Performance’, ‘Balanced’, and ‘Power Saver’.

It’s useful for saving battery life while being able to get better performance when gaming or doing heavy work.

For users who want to bind the options to keyboard shortcuts, or make the function into script or even application, here’s the single command to switch the power mode.

Single command to change Power Mode in Ubuntu

NOTE: This tutorial is only tested in Ubuntu (GNOME ONLY) with Intel CPU, though it should also work in Fedora workstation and Debian 12 with GNOME desktop.

The power mode setting option is handled by the power-profiles-daemon. It has a command line tool powerprofilesctl to check current and switch power profile.

To switch power mode to ‘power-saver’ for example, just press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and run command:

powerprofilesctl set power-saver

In command, replace power-saver with balanced or performance as you want.

After making change, verify by running command:

powerprofilesctl

In the output, the one with an asterisk ‘*’ in the beginning is the power profile currently in use.

For those who want to do the job through D-Bus interface, run the single command below instead:

gdbus call --system --dest net.hadess.PowerProfiles --object-path /net/hadess/PowerProfiles --method org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.Set 'net.hadess.PowerProfiles' 'ActiveProfile' "<'power-saver'>"

Also, change power-saver in command with balanced or performance as need.

View CPU Speed / frequency in Real Time

As mentioned, you can verify CPU power mode by simply running powerprofilesctl command.

For choice, you may also see CPU frequency (aka clock speed) in real-time by running command in terminal:

watch -n 1 "grep \"^[c]pu MHz\" /proc/cpuinfo"

It will show you the speed for all CPU cores, and update every 1 second. As you want, you may replace number 1 in seconds (e.g., 2 for 2 s, or 0.5 for 500 ms).

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How to Update Whisker Menu (App Launcher) to 2.8.0 in XUbuntu 22.04

Last updated: September 29, 2023 — Leave a comment

This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest Whisker Menu, the main menu for launching apps, in XUbuntu 22.04, Linux Lite 6.6, and Linux Mint 21 XFCE Edition.

The default main menu (aka applications menu, or start menu) in Debian and Ubuntu with XFCE Desktop is Whisker Menu. It’s a free and open-source project being developed by gottcode.org.

XUbuntu 22.04 includes Whisker Menu 2.7.1, while the latest version has now reached v2.8.0. For users who want to try out new features and receive bug-fixes, here’s how to install it step by step.

What’s New in Whisker Menu 2.8.0

For multiple monitors, you may have more than one instances of the menu in panel. In the case, the default Super shortcut key always open the menu in primary monitor.

To trigger the Whisker Menu in other monitors, user can bind xfce4-popup-whiskermenu -i ID-number to a keyboard shortcut. To get the ID-number, open ‘Panel Preferences -> Items’ and move mouse over the Whisker Menu applet to see the tooltip. It’s NOT the PID, but seems to be applet sequence number.

Also for keyboard users, the new release can trigger the menu in screen center by binding xfce4-popup-whiskermenu -c to a shortcut key.

The appearance settings menu has been redesigned in the release. There’s a new “Position profile on buttom” option. With it, user can put the user figure, Settings, Logout buttons in either top or bottom of the menu.

There’s also a “downside” in the release. User can no longer drag menu border to resize it. Instead, there are new “Menu width” and “Menu height” setting options to resize the menu. For more about the new release changes, see its official page.

Install Whisker Menu 2.8.0 via its Official PPA

The software developer has an official PPA contains the latest Whisker Menu packages for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.04, Ubuntu 23.10, and their derivatives.

(X)Ubuntu, Linux Mint XFCE Edition, and Linux Lite users can follow the steps below one by one to install it:

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open up a terminal window. When terminal opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gottcode/gcppa

Type user password (no visual feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. Then, Linux Mint users need to manually refresh the system package cache, by running command:

sudo apt update

3. Finally, install the latest version of Whisker Menu by running command:

sudo apt install xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin


After installing the package, log out and back in. Then, right click on the menu and go to ‘About‘ to verify its version!

For Debian 12 with XFCE Desktop, user can download and install the .deb package directly from the PPA packages page.

How to Uninstall

To restore the original Whisker Menu, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to install ppa-purge tool:

sudo apt install ppa-purge

Then, purge the PPA which will also downgrade the menu to the original version:

sudo ppa-purge ppa:gottcode/gcppa

In case the command above failed for you, you may manually remove the PPA by running command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:gottcode/gcppa

Then, remove the Whisker Menu package by running command:

sudo apt remove xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin

And, install back the original version via command:

sudo apt install --reinstall xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin
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How to Set Custom Shortcut to Tile Windows in Ubuntu 23.10

Last updated: September 28, 2023 — Leave a comment

This is a beginner’s guide shows how to set custom keyboard shortcut to tile windows in Ubuntu 23.10 Mantic Minotaur.

Ubuntu 23.10 introduced enhanced tiling window support with a new system extension. With it, user can easily arrange all opened windows side by side by either mouse dragging or keyboard shortcuts.

The extension supports both “edge tiling” to automatically resize and fill a window to left, right, top, or bottom screen half, and “corner tiling” to tile a window to top-left, top-right, bottom-left, and bottom-right screen quarter.

The default keyboard shortcuts use “Super + number pad key” combination. But, some laptop and PC don’t even have a number pad. In the case, you have to set custom shortcuts. And, here’s how to do the job in 2 ways.

Method 1: Use Extension Manager

Firstly, press Super (Windows Logo) key to open overview screen. Search for and launch the new “App Center”.

When it opens, search and install “Extension Manager” app.

Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu Software/App Center

Next, launch “Extension Manager” by searching from the overview screen.

When the tool opens, scroll down and find out “Ubuntu Tiling Assistant“. Finally, click its setting icon to open the configuration dialog.

In the pop-up dialog, navigate to “Keybindings” tab, scroll down and click your desired tile action under “Edge Tiling” and “Corner Tiling” and press a key combination on keyboard to set as new shortcut.

Method 2: Use single command to set custom tiling shortcut

For those who are familiar with Linux command, the thing can be done by running gsettings command.

Firstly, search for and launch a terminal window from the overview screen.

When terminal opens, run command to set custom shortcut (Alt + q for example) for tiling to top-left quarter:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.tiling-assistant tile-topleft-quarter "['<Alt>q']"

In command you may replace tile-topleft-quarter with one of the tile actions below:

  • tile-left-half
  • tile-right-half
  • tile-top-half
  • tile-bottom-half
  • tile-topright-quarter
  • tile-bottomleft-quarter
  • tile-bottomright-quarter

For the shortcut value, there must be quotation marks both inside and outside of bracket. And, the commonly used functions keys include <Control>, <Alt>, <Super> and <Shift>.

For example, set Ctrl + Alt + E to tile window to top-right corner by running command:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.tiling-assistant tile-topright-quarter "['<Control><Alt>e']"

One tiling action can have 2 or more shortcut keys, for example, set both Alt+a and Ctrl + Left Arrow to tile a window to left half:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.tiling-assistant tile-left-half "['<Alt>a', '<Control>Left']"

 

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How to install Clang 17 or 16 in Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04

Last updated: September 26, 2023 — Leave a comment

This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest Clang compiler 17 and/or 16 in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 23.10.

Ubuntu includes several versions of Clang in its system repositories. But, it rarely builds newer releases into Ubuntu stable repositories.

You can easily install Clang 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 by running sudo apt install clang-xx (replace xx with major version number) command in terminal.

For the most recent 16 and 17, they are also easy to install via the official apt repository.

Step 1: Download the Automatic installation script

The official Clang repository, so far supports Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.04, and Ubuntu 23.10. It has a script to make adding repository and installing Clang as easy as few Linux commands.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When terminal opens, run command to download the official installation script:

wget https://apt.llvm.org/llvm.sh

You may also use the script in Debian stable, though you may need to install wget first.

2. After downloading the script, add executable permission by running command:

chmod u+x llvm.sh

Step 2: Use the script to install Clang

The script automate the process of adding the official apt repository, updating package cache, and installing specific Clang version into your system.

All this can be done by running a single command. For example, install Clang-17:

sudo ./llvm.sh 17

Replace 17 with 16 for installing Clang-16, or even 18 if it’s already released when you see this tutorial

During the process, it will ask to hit Enter to confirm adding the apt repository. Then, you may just wait until the process done.

Step 3: Verify

If everything’s done successfully, just run clang-xx --version and/or locate clang-xx to verify.

Uninstall

To remove the repository added by the script, just open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to remove the corresponding source file:

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/archive_uri-http_apt_llvm_org_*.list

And, remove the repository key file via command:

sudo rm /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/apt.llvm.org.asc

Or, launch “Software & Updates” and remove source line and key from “Other Software” and “Authentication” tabs.

To remove Clang packages (replace 17 accordingly), just run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove clang-17 lldb-17 lld-17 clangd-17
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