Trying out different Gnome Extensions frequently? The new “Extension Manager” app is really a good choice to make life easier!

We usually install extensions by browsing through the Gnome Extension website and using the on page on/off switch. Then, manage the settings via a separate ‘Extensions’ app. However, Ubuntu’s pre-installed Firefox does not support the process since it’s a Snap package.

Without installing anther browser package and opening the site time by time, a new project “Extension Manager” has been created as an “App Center” for Gnome Extensions.

Manage installed extensions

The app integrates an “Installed” tab to enable, disable, remove extensions and manage their settings, just like “Extensions” app does.

In the “Browse” tab, it allows to search extensions with “Popularity”, “Downloads”, “Recent” and “Name” filters. And, it provides button to install extensions directly from search results that are compatible with your Gnome edition.

Search and install extensions

Like Ubuntu Software (or Gnome Software), user may view the details about an extension in a separate page with screenshot, description, supported Gnome versions, and reviews.

Extension Detail page

Install the Extension Manager in Ubuntu & Other Linux

For Ubuntu 22.04, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, paste the command below and hit run to install the package:

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-manager

Run sudo apt update to refresh package cache on a brand new system in case the command does not work.

After that, you may click the top-left “Activities”, then search for and open the application:

For old Ubuntu releases and other Linux, the application is available to install as universal Flatpak package. Do the setup first, and then install the package from Flathub page (Run the bottom command).

How to Remove Extension manager

For any reason, you may remove the extension manager by opening terminal and run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove gnome-shell-extension-manager

If you installed it via the Flatpak package, use this command instead to remove it:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data com.mattjakeman.ExtensionManager

And remove useless libraries via flatpak uninstall --unused.

Want to set a certain size of your desktop icons and/or change the spacing between them? Here’s how to do the job in Ubuntu 22.04.

Ubuntu 22.04 defaults to GNOME desktop 42 and uses an extension called “Desktop Icons NG” (DING in short) to handle shortcut icons on desktop.

It provides 4 icon sizes (“Tiny”, “Small”, “Normal”, and “Large”) in ‘Appearance‘ settings for choose from.

Change icon size via Appearance settings page

If somehow the default icon sizes do not meet you need, then you may edit the source file and customize the 4 sizes manually.

1. Edit the config file

Firstly, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to edit the file which is located in ‘/usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/[email protected]/’ directory:

sudo gedit /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/[email protected]/enums.js

sudo is required as it’s a system wide extension and you need to type user password to authenticate when running the command.

When file opens, you’ll see the first line (except the comments) defines the icon sizes in pixels:

var ICON_SIZE = { ‘tiny’: 36, ‘small’: 48, ‘standard’: 64, ‘large’: 96 };

Just change the number 36, 48, 64 and 96 will replace the corresponding ‘tiny’, ‘small’, ‘normal’, and ‘large’ icon sizes.

And, change the numbers in lines of “ICON_WIDTH” and “ICON_HEIGHT” will adjust how large the square area that each icon takes. It’s the orange area when you drag and drop an icon, which can be useful if you want to change the icon spacing.

NOTE: The change will take place for all system users. For single user only, you may copy the extension folder to local directory ‘.local/share/gnome-extensions’. However, the option in “Appearance” won’t work for the local copy.

2. Apply change

After editing and saving the config file, search for and open “Gnome Extensions” app.

App to Manage your extensions

Install the tool via sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-prefs command if you don’t have it.

When the app opens, turn off “Desktop Icons NG” extension and turn it on again will apply the changes you made in previous step.

Want to change the background wallpaper or just set another color for Ubuntu Gnome login screen? Here’s how to do the trick in Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04!

As you may know, the GDM background is not easy to modify since GNOME hard-coded the CSS into a .gresource file. Thankfully, there’s now a graphical configuration tool can do the job for Ubuntu 22.04 and higher.

It’s GDM Settings, a free open-source tool not only for changing the background for GNOME login screen, but also supports for configuring login screen for following things:

• Change the Fonts.
• Tweak top-bar color, background.
• Configure sound, mouse and touchpad.
• Disable User list.

Continue Reading…

Ubuntu 22.04 has a new in-shell screenshot UI for taking screenshots and recording desktop. The old default screenshot app (GNOME Screenshot) is no longer available out-of-the-box.

For those somehow sticking to the old screenshot tool, here’s how to install it back and configure keyboard shortcuts in Ubuntu 22.04.

old default Gnome Screenshot app

Install Gnome Screenshot:

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run the command below will install the app back from Ubuntu universe repository:

sudo apt install gnome-screenshot

Type user password (no visual feedback) for sudo authentication and hit Enter

Install Gnome Screenshot

After installation, you may search for and open the app from ‘Activities’ overview screen.

Or use the steps below to set up keyboard shortcuts for this tool.

Set shortcut keys for GNOME Screenshot:

By default, you may press Shift+Print to immediately capture the full-screen, and use Alt+Print to capture focused app window. And, Print key is used to bring up the in-shell screenshot UI. For choice, you may replace the shortcuts keys via Gnome Control Center.

1. Firstly, open system settings (aka, gnome-control-center) from system tray menu:

2. When it opens, navigate to ‘Keyboard‘ in the left. Then click ‘View and Customize Shortcuts‘ in bottom right.

3. If you want to re-bind Print, Alt+Print, Shift+Print shortcut keys via other screenshot actions, disable them (press Backspace in set shortcut dialog) in under ‘Screenshots’ shortcuts page.

4. Next, go back ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ page, scroll down and select “Custom Shortcuts“. Then you may click ‘Add Shortcut’ (or ‘+’ icon) button to add new custom shortcuts.

• Name: type name of the shortcut as you prefer.
• Command:
  • gnome-screenshot --window – grab the current active window immediately.
  • gnome-screenshot --area – start area selection.
  • gnome-screenshot – capture the full-screen immediately.
• Shortcut: click ‘Set Shortcut…’ and press the key combination to bind the keyboard shortcut.

For more command line options of Gnome Screenshot, run man gnome-screenshot in terminal.

That’s all. Enjoy!

GNOME 42 is out! The upcoming Ubuntu 22.04 LTS will take use it as the default desktop environment.

If you’ve tried out the latest update of Ubuntu 22.04 development build, you should already see the brand new appearance of the GNOME desktop.

It introduced the new ‘Appearance‘ settings page, with options to switch between Dark and Light mode. As well, each wallpaper has both dark and light editions that changes automatically.

GNOME 42 Appearance Settings

Ubuntu has ‘Appearance’ settings page for a few years. In Ubuntu 22.04, the page has been modified. While wallpaper selection is available in ‘Background’ tab, it provides light/dark switch along with new accent color, desktop icons, and dock settings.

Ubuntu 22.04 Appearance Settings Page

The Gnome Screenshot app has been replaced with the desktop’s built-in screenshot UI. Just press ‘Print Screen‘ on keyboard to bring up the UI. Then, you may take a screenshot of selection area, app window, or full-screen. It as well has ability to record your desktop or selection area.

The UI supports keyboard shortcuts. However, it won’t work once you changed the trigger from ‘Print Screen’ to another.

• V – switch between screen capture and recorder mode.
• s – selection area.
• c – full-screen.
• w – app window.
• Enter / Space / Ctrl+C – capture

Gnome New Screenshot UI

Many apps has been ported to GTK4 + libadwaita, but Ubuntu 22.04 is said to avoid GTK4 due to theme issue. You’ll see some apps has 4 corners rounded (e.g., Files and Image Viewer) which are GTK4. While, others are GTK3 apps that have sharp bottom corners.

GNOME 42 introduced 2 new defaults apps: Gnome Text Editor and Gnome Console. The latter is really my favorite. However, Ubuntu 22.04 still uses Gedit and Gnome Terminal at the moment!

2 New Default Apps in GNOME 42

And, GNOME finally uses Microsoft’s RDP protocal to provide remote desktop service, which is more secure that the VNC connection. User may get the settings in ‘Sharing’ tab in Gnome Control Center.

Other changes in GNOME 42 include:

• Videos player (Totem) and Gnome web have hardware accelerated support.
• Improved file indexing and full-screen app handling to reduce energy consumption.
• significantly enhanced input handling.

Get GNOME 42:

If you’re an Ubuntu user, I would recommend to try out Ubuntu 22.04 daily build ISO or just wait for the final release. Or, you may try the GNOME OS Nightly.

Ubuntu 22.04 finally merged desktop icon settings into System Settings (Gnome Control Center). However, it only provides few options to toggle display ‘Home’ folder, change icon size and new icon position.

By right-clicking on desktop and select ‘Desktop Icons Settings’ from pop-up menu, it will bring up the ‘Appearance‘ settings page as the picture below shows:

Ubuntu 22.04 only provides few Desktop Icons options

What if you want to show the trash can, removable devices (e.g., USB drive) on desktop? They are hidden settings! Here I’m going to show you how to configure them in Ubuntu 22.04.

Single Command to Toggle Display Trash Icon on Desktop

The gsettings command is always the most efficient way to configure hidden settings in Ubuntu.

If you’re OK with Linux commands, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and paste the command below into it.

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.ding show-trash true

By hitting enter, you should see the trash can desktop icon immediately!

To hide the icon again, simply run the command below to reset the key:

gsettings reset org.gnome.shell.extensions.ding show-trash

In addition, you may hide the Trash icon from left dock via command:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock show-trash false

Use Dconf Editor to toggle display Trash icon & more Desktop Icons Settings:

The ‘Dconf Editor‘ tool provides a graphical interface to configure these hidden settings in Ubuntu.

1.) Firstly, search for and install Dconf Editor in Ubuntu Software.

Ubuntu Software always sucks! It does not launch in my case at the moment of writing this tutorial. So, there’s no screenshot for it.

You may also run the command below in terminal to install the ‘Dconf Editor’ tool.

sudo apt install dconf-editor

2.) Search for and launch the tool from ‘Activities’ overview screen:

3.) When the app opens, navigate to org/gnome/shell/extensions/ding. Scroll down, and you’ll see the on/off switch for the ‘show-trash’ key, as well as many other settings for desktop icons.

That’s all. Enjoy!

The development build of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS finally shifts to GNOME 42 (in Beta now) in recent update with many visible changes!

Firstly, the default wallpaper ‘warty-final-ubuntu.png‘ revealed. It’s no longer the old Ubuntu 21.10 wallpaper, but the brand new one:

Ubuntu 22.04 Wallpaper

The default Yaru theme has been updated. System menu, notification, and context menus look even better with more rounded corners and no border.

And, finally switching light and dark mode in ‘Appearance’ setting applies the full system colors! Though it seems to have a bug, which won’t work after selected a non-default accent color.

As you see in the picture above, Ubuntu 22.04 now supports for changing the accent color. Not only the highlight and check-box colors, but also the icons of ‘Ubuntu Software’ and folders follow the changes!

As well, the new Circle of Friends Ubuntu logo has been applied in the development release.

Thanks to GNOME 42, pressing PrintScreen on keyboard now open the new screenshot UI. It can take screenshots of selection area, app window, full screen, and record desktop or selection area.

New ScreenShot UI

Other changes in the Ubuntu 22.04 Dev update:

• Stick to Gedit and Gnome Terminal, while Gnome 42 switched to Gnome editor and Gnome console.
• Keep Gnome Screenshot app, though there’s built-in screenshot UI.
• Avoiding GTK4, though Files (aka nautilus) and Image Viewer (aka Eye of Gnome) are now GTK4.
• And more.

Known issues:

• 1. Change wallpaper in ‘Background’ settings only apply for current system color (Light or Dark).
• 2. As mentioned, use non-default accent color will make system menu, context menu of app icons on dock always light.

Can not navigate in Activities overview and app grid screen using Tab or arrow keys? Here’s how to re-enable the feature via extension in GNOME 40 & 41.

In GNOME 3.x, user may press Tab or down arrow and then left/right keys to navigate between app windows in the overview screen. Also, the keys can be used to navigate in ‘Show Applications’ app grid.

Navigation via Tab/Arrow keys in overview screen

However, in Ubuntu 21.10, Fedora 35 or other Linux with recent GNOME 40/41 desktop, you’ll find the keys no longer navigate unless you first hover over an app window in overview.

This is a GNOME bug will be fixed in the next GNOME 42. In current releases, an extension is available to re-enable the function so you can:

• use Arrow keys to navigate app windows in overview. However, Tab key does not work in my case.
• use Tab and/or Arrow keys to navigate app icons in ‘Show Applications’ app grid.

Install the Extension to Fix Overview Keyboard navigation:

1. Firstly, install chrome-gnome-shell package if you’re running Ubuntu. To do so, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard and run the command below:

sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell

2. Next go to the extension web page and switch on the toggle button to install it:

If you’re first time installing a GNOME Shell extension via browser, you may not see the on/off switch until clicking the link to install browser extension.

NOTE for Ubuntu 21.10: the pre-installed Firefox is Snap package so far does not support installing Gnome Shell extension, use another browser or install Firefox as classic deb package.

The extension should work immediately after installation, just press Super (Windows) key or click on upper-left ‘Activities’ to bring up overview and try out the shortcut keys.

Want to display your avatar icon in the top-right corner system menu? Here’s an extension to do the job for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.10, and Debian 11 with GNOME desktop.

You know, many Linux desktops (e.g., KDE Plasma and Cinnamon) display the icon/figure of user account in the system start menu.

GNOME however does not have the classic style ‘start menu’ by default. Instead, user may add the avatar icon into upper-right corner system tray drop-down menu (aka system menu).

Install Avatar Extension:

The function is implemented by a small extension called ‘Big Avatar‘. It so far supports GNOME version from v3.36 to 40.

1. Install ‘chrome-gnome-shell’

Firstly, make sure you have installed the chrome-gnome-shell package, which is required for installing Gnome Extensions in Ubuntu from web browser.

To install it as well as extension management tool, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. Then, run command:

sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell gnome-shell-extension-prefs

2. Install Big Avatar Extension:

NOTE: Firefox as Snap (pre-installed in Ubuntu 21.10) so far (Feb, 2022) does not support for installing Gnome Extensions! Use another browser or install Firefox as classic DEB.

Now, go to the link button below in web browser and turn on the toggle icon to install the extension:

If you don’t see the toggle icon, try installing browser extension via ‘Click here to install browser extension’ link and refresh the web page.

3. Configure Avatar icon size:

The icon should appear immediately after installation. However, the icon size is NOT looking good.

To adjust it, search for and open ‘Gnome Extensions‘ app from Activities overview screen. When it opens, click on the gear button and change the value accordingly.

That’s all. Enjoy!

As you may know, Ubuntu supports for displaying custom text message in the default GDM login screen. There’s now an extension to do the job for the lock screen!

Similar to Android lock screen owner info functionality, it allows you to add your message to the GNOME lock screen.

Custom text in lock screen

The extension is called ‘Lock Screen Message’. At the moment, it supports GNOME 40 and 41. Which means, you may install it on Ubuntu 21.10, Fedora 34/35, Arch Linux and Manjaro etc.

Install Lock Screen Message extension:

1. Install ‘chrome-gnome-shell’:

Firstly, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to install the ‘chrome-gnome-shell’ package and Gnome Extensions app if you don’t have it:

sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell gnome-shell-extension-prefs

This package enables the ability to install Gnome Extensions via a web browser.

2. Install the Extension:

Next, click the link button below to go to the extension web page and turn on the slider icon to install it:

If you don’t see the toggle icon, install the browser extension via the link in that page and refresh it.

NOTE: The pre-installed Firefox in Ubuntu 21.10 is a Snap package that does NOT support for installing Gnome Extensions so far. Use another browser or install Firefox as deb.

Finally, search for and open ‘Gnome Extensions‘ from overview screen.

Manage Gnome Extensions

And, click on the gear button after that extension to input the text message to display in lock screen.

That’s all. Enjoy!