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. Continue Reading…
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!
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.
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.
Since Ubuntu 23.10 with default GNOME 45 desktop, there’s no longer app menu indicator in top-panel next to workspace indicator (previously ‘Activities’).
It’s an indicator menu for current running app window in focus, which has few basic options such as “New Window” and “Quit”.
GNOME has proposed to replace the app menu with a new way for indicating window focus. GNOME 45 takes the first step by removing it from top-panel.
For those who prefer the top panel app menu, it’s easy to get it back by using an extension. And, here’s how to do the trick step by step.
Get back App Menu Indicator in GNOME 45/46
NOTE: This tutorial should work in Ubuntu 23.10, Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 39, Manjaro, Arch, and other Linux with GNOME 45/46.
For Ubuntu 23.10 and Ubuntu 24.04, firstly launch App Center, then search for and install “Extension Manager” app.
Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu Software/App Center
Next, launch “Extension Manager”, and use it to search & install the “App menu is back” extension, under Browse tab.
After installing the extension, the app menu should be back in top-panel, next to the ‘pill and dot’ workspace indicator once you selected any app window.
For Fedora 39 and other Linux, just launch web browser and go to the extension page in EGO via the link below:
Then, use the ON/OFF switch in the page to install the extension. In case you don’t see the toggle switch, install web browser extension via the link it prompted and refresh the page.
This is a quick tutorial shows you how to quickly access the source of all your installed GNOME extensions in Ubuntu, Fedora Workstation, Debian and other Linux with GNOME.
Gnome extensions are usually installed to “.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/” directory. While, system built-in extensions are available in “/usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/“.
For developing or debugging purpose, you can open that folder every time to access the sources. However, GNOME has a built-in debugger and inspector tool that can also do the trick quickly.
Quick access source of extensions via Looking Glass
1. First, press Alt+F2 on keyboard to launch the ‘Run a command’ dialog box. Then, input lg and hit Enter.
2. The Gnome debugger and inspector tool, aka Looking Glass, will drop-down from the top.
There, just switch to “Extensions” tab, then, you’ll see all the installed extensions, either enabled or disabled.
And, each extension has 3 links:
View Source – open the source folder of extension in a new Nautilus window.
Web Page – open the extension web page in default web browser.
Show/Hide Errors
Looking Glass Indicator
To make life easier, there’s also an extension to add a panel indicator in top-right. So, you can access it easily by a single mouse click. Which, also has a drop-down menu:
Restart Shell (Xorg only).
Reload Theme.
Open Extensions Folder.
Open Themes folder.
To install the indicator, first search for and install “Extension Manager” from either Ubuntu Software or App Center.
Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu 22.04+
Then, launch and use “Extension Manager” to search and install “Looking Glass Button” under Browse tab.
The extension so far supports all current GNOME versions. For Fedora, Debian, etc without ‘Extension Manager’, just go to extension web page via the link below:
The new tiling assistant extension in Ubuntu 23.10 and Ubuntu 24.04 has indicator support! Here’s how to enable it and fix the missing icon.
Ubuntu introduced a new system extension called “Tiling Assistant” since 23.10. With it, user can easily tile window to half or quarter of screen either via mouse dragging or keyboard shortcut.
The extension also has an indicator applet on panel, allows user to select a layout to start tiling with ‘Super + Tab’ look like menu for all opened windows. See the short video:
The feature is useful, however lack of indicator icon on panel, possibly due to bug or building issue. This tutorial is going to show you how to enable the indicator as well as add back the icon, so it will look like the screenshot below:
Step 1: Enable the Indicator Applet
To enable the indicator, user can either run single command in terminal or use ‘Dconf Editor’ configuration tool.
Option 1: Press ‘Ctrl + Alt + T’ key combination on keyboard to open terminal. When terminal opens, run the single command below to do the job:
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.tiling-assistant show-layout-panel-indicator true
Option 2: Or, first search for and install “Dconf Editor” from App Center.
Then, launch “Dconf Editor” and navigate to org/gnome/shell/extensions/tiling-assistant. Finally, scroll down, find out and turn on ‘show-layout-panel-indicator’.
Step 2: Fix missing icon issue
As mentioned, the indicator is missing icon on panel. To fix it, you may install the community version of “Tiling Assistant” from EGO (extensions.gnome.org), then copy the icon files to use for system built-in extension.
1. First, open App Center, then search for and install “Extension Manager“.
Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu Software/App Center
2. Then, launch “Extension Manager” and use it to search and install “Tiling Assistant” community edition under Browse tab.
3. You do NOT need to turn on the new installed ‘Tiling Assistant’ extension. Here, we just need the icon file from it.
Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, when terminal opens, run commands:
navigate to the user installed extension directory:
cd ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/tiling-assistant@leleat-on-github/
after that, just copy the ‘media‘ sub-folder to system extension directory. To do so, run command:
sudo cp -R media /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/tiling-assistant@ubuntu.com/
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter.
Finally, use “Extension Manager” to turn off and turn back on ‘Ubuntu Tiling Assistant’ to apply change. And, remove the user installed ‘Tiling Assistant’ extension. Or, simply log out and back in.
This simple tutorial shows how to install GDM Settings tool to configure the Gnome Login Screen in Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
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:
Ubuntu 23.10 with GNOME 45 has replaced the top-left ‘Activities’ with a workspace indicator. By hovering over it, you can use mouse scroll to switch workspaces.
This is done by a simple extension called “Workspace Scroll”. Like the volume icon, with that extension, you can move mouse cursor over the top-left indicator, then scroll the middle mouse button to switch workspaces (aka Windows’ Virtual Desktop).
This can be useful for mouse heavily users, since it saves you a few mouse clicks!
UPDATE: THIS BEHAVIOR NOW IS DEFAULT OUT-OF-THE-BOX!!! You don’t have to follow any tutorial, just move mouse cursor over the workspace indicator and scroll middle button.
In the recent update of Ubuntu 23.10 daily build, the GNOME desktop has been updated to v45 beta. And, here are some visual changes.
The default wallpaper now has a dark variant. Meaning changing Ubuntu Desktop to dark style will also change to dark style wallpaper. Though, the final wallpaper is not revealed yet!
The ‘Files’, aka Nautilus file manager, has been redesigned with more stylish layout. Which, supports drag and drop web image into file, and implements Global Search.
Redesigned Nautilus File Manager
And, there’s new system extension to enhance tiling window support. Not only half screen tiling, it also support tiling window to quarter screen size, with either drag’n’drop or keyboard shortcuts, as well as features such as Tiling Pop-up and Tiling group.
By going to ‘Settings’ -> ‘Ubuntu Desktop’, you’ll see the new toggle options. Though, you can get even more by using “Extension Manager”.
Via the latest Gnome Shell package updates, the top-left ‘Activities’ button is finally replaced by an indicator. Now, it displays a white pill that indicates which workspace you’re on. Depends on how many workspaces you have, all others are indicated via gray dots.
As well, you may found the app menu, to indicate which app window is on focus, has also been removed. Though, the new Window Focus animation is not implemented at the moment.
They are even more great new features in Ubuntu 23.10. To try it out, just download the latest daily build image from the link below and install it in either real or virtual machine.
