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GNOME 46 Beta Released for Testing

Last updated: February 19, 2024 — Leave a comment

GNOME 46, the default desktop environment for next Ubuntu 24.04 and Fedora 40, now is in Beta stage. It’s now the best time for developers to test their applications and shell extensions.

Gnome 46 features explicit Global Search for the Files, redesigned Privacy settings page, added new System panel in Gnome Control Center, and support headless remote login. See more new features about GNOME 46.

The Beta release was announced few days ago, and it marks the start of the UI, feature and API freezes. The changes in the release include:

  • Support PKCS #11 smart card authentication in Epiphany (GNOME Web).
  • Add command line options to gcr-ssh-agent
  • Modernises the look of the Bluetooth properties dialogue
  • GNOME COnnections now has support for domains, and certificate verification for RDP
  • Improve image and os rename display in the welcome dialog.
  • Add Preferences dialog for Gnome Music. Remove Songs view, and drop old-style selection mode
  • Add Microsoft 365 provider for online accounts.
  • Add keyboard model configuration support
  • Improve default and High Contrast styling
  • Add openSUSE Leap distro upgrade plugin for GNOME Software
  • Add new-window action for gnome-text-editor.
  • Loupe image viewer now has Shift+Delete shortcut to permanently delete image
  • Postpone the “Network View” in Nautilus.

For more about the beta release and installer image for testing purpose, see the official announcement. And, the final release of GNOME 46 will be available in next month, see the Wiki page for schedule.

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How to Disable Mobile Broadband Menu Option in Ubuntu 22.04

Last updated: May 5, 2024 — Leave a comment

This simple tutorial shows how to get rid of the “Mobile Broadband” menu option from the upper right system status menu in GNOME Desktop.

GNOME, the default desktop in Ubuntu and Fedora Workstation, has built-in support for mobile broadband. If your computer (usually laptop) has a built-in SIM card slot, then it will show you the “Mobile Network” page in Settings and “Mobile Broadband” option in upper right menu.

For those who rarely use this feature, the option is useless but makes the menu longer. So, it’s a good choice to completely disable it!


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How to Get Classic GNOME 2 Session in Ubuntu 22.04 & 24.04

Last updated: February 13, 2024 — 3 Comments

This simple tutorial shows how to install and enable the Classic Gnome 2 style desktop session in Ubuntu 22.04 and/or Ubuntu 24.04.

Though the title said for Ubuntu, this tutorial also works in Debian 12 & 11. Fedora, Arch, and their based systems also have corresponding packages for the similar job.

As far as I know, there are 3 ways to get back the classic Gnome 2 layout. They include:

  • Option 1: gnome-flashback -traditional desktop session based on GNOME technologies.
  • Option 2: gnome-shell-extensions – Classic Gnome 2 layout through some Gnome Shell extensions.
  • Option 3: MATE Desktop – a free open-source fork and continuation of Gnome 2 Desktop.

Option 1: Gnome Flashback


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Top New Features in GNOME 46, the Desktop for Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: February 10, 2024 — Leave a comment

GNOME 46 reached UI, ABI/API, and feature freeze stage today. Let’s see the top new features in this popular desktop environment.

GNOME 46 will be the default desktop environment for Fedora 40 Workstation, Ubuntu 24.04, and optional in Arch, Manjaro, etc Linux.

It continues polish the desktop appearance by redesigning the improving the core app experiences.

GNOME Files, aka Nautilus, to have explicit Global Search mode, allowing to find files and folders in all search locations. And a “Search Settings” button is available to filter search results.


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How to Disable Recent Files in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: January 16, 2024 — 1 Comment

This simple tutorial shows how to disable (or auto-delete) “recent” files tab in left side-bar of file manager in Ubuntu 24.04 & 22.04.

GNOME Files, aka Nautilus file manager, has a “Recent” tab in left side-bar, which include all the recent opened photos, videos, and documents.

It’s useful for user or applications to quickly re-open recent edited files. However, when working at a public place, it can be better to disable this feature since it may contain sensitive data.


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GNOME 46 Alpha is out! Better Remote Desktop & Flatpak Support

Last updated: January 14, 2024 — Leave a comment

GNOME announced the first alpha of the next 46 release few days ago on last Friday.

Let’s see what’s new in the desktop for next Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

First of all, every Gnome release has a new default wallpaper. This time, it’s a blue background embrace the rounded triangle. And, in this release GNOME backgrounds now favors JPEG-XL as a format. I don’t have any photo images in .jxl format. But it seems that Gnome now supports for setting the file format as background wallpaper.

Gnome 46

GNOME Remote Desktop now supports headless remote login via GDM, through for RDP only. And, a systemd service is introduced for single user headless setups. As well, Gnome-Control-Center and classic session are allowing to run in headless mode.

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GNOME Has New System Load (CPU, RAM, etc) Indicator on Top Bar

Last updated: September 2, 2024 — Leave a comment

Don’t remember how many tools, I’ve written about, for monitoring CPU, RAM, Network, and other system resources usage in Ubuntu. But, there’s a brand-new for GNOME, the default desktop environment.

It’s Astra Monitor, a free open-source tool provides highly customizable interface on Gnome top-panel, to monitor CPU, GPU, RAM memory, disk storage, network usage, as well as hardware temperature, voltage, and fan speed.

It supports displaying the data in real-time bar, history graph, percentage number, with user selected order, in left, center, or right corner of panel.

Aster Monitor on GNOME Panel

Besides having quick glance at system resource usage, user can also click on the indicator icon to pop-up a rich drop-down menu with detailed information. By moving cursor over the menu can also display even more about the hardware, resource load, processes, and so forth.
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Gnome Files (Nautilus) is adding More Beginner Friendly Options

Last updated: December 31, 2023 — Leave a comment

Gnome Files, aka the default Nautilus file manager in Ubuntu & Fedora workstation, keeps moving with new features!

In the passed few month, there are minor but beginner friendly features merged into this popular file manager. They include “Enter Location” menu option, sidebar toggle button in sidebar, and badge icon to folder icon in ‘properties’ dialog.

NOTE: The new features introduced in this post are merged to master branch but NOT released yet! They may be available in next GNOME versions, backport to current, or even removed!

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Enable Fedora style background logo in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: May 4, 2024 — Leave a comment

Fedora workstation displays Fedora logo on the desktop for the default wallpaper, now there’s an extension that can do the similar job in Ubuntu Desktop, Arch, and Manjaro Linux with GNOME 42 ~ 46.

It’s “Desktop Logo”, which allows to add any user selected image into desktop as background logo, resize and place it in top-left, top-center, top-right, center, bottom-left, bottom-center, or bottom-right of screen.

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New Tool to Display CPU/Memory Load Graphs on GNOME 45 Top Panel

Last updated: November 21, 2023 — Leave a comment

For Ubuntu 23.10, Fedora 39, Arch and other Linux with GNOME Desktop 45, there’s now new system tray applet to monitor system resource utilization.

There are quite a few tools for monitoring system resource utilization. While, Gnome-Stats-Plus is a new one that adds real-time graphs in right-corner of top-panel, allowing users to keep a close eye on their system’s performance.

By moving mouse cursor over the indicator icon, it will show you a bigger graph with real-time and historical CPU load, memory usage, network speed, and swap area usage.

And, clicking on the icon will launch system monitor application.

How to Install the SystemStatsPlus indicator

The indicator is available as a Gnome shell extension, which so far supports only GNOME 45.

1. Install gtop library

First, open terminal (press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard) and run command to install the gtop system monitoring library:

sudo apt install gir1.2-gtop-2.0 libgtop2-dev

For Fedora run sudo dnf install libgtop2, and Arch can install it via sudo pacman -S libgtop command.

2. Install the Gnome Extension

Ubuntu 23.10 can first launch App Center, and use it to search & install “Extension Manager” app.

Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu Software/App Center

Then, launch “Extension Manager” and use it to search & install “SystemStatsPlus” extension under Browse tab.

For Fedora 39 and Arch Linux, simply open the extension web page via the link below:

SystemStatsPlus

Then, use the ON/OFF switch to install it. Install browser extension via the link in the page, if you don’t see the toggle switch, and refresh.

3. Restart Gnome Shell

The indicator applet should appear in top-panel immediately after installation. If NOT, try restarting Gnome Shell.

For the default Wayland session, just log out and back in to restart the shell.

In the classic Xorg session, user can press Alt+F2, type r in pop-up ‘Run a command’ box, and hit Enter.

Uninstall:

To uninstall the extension, either use “Extension Manager” or “Gnome Extensions” app (both available in Gnome Software).

Or, turn off the toggle switch in the extension web page via the link button above.

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