Customizing Gnome 3 (Shell)
Fabian Piau | Thursday March 15th, 2012 - 01:01 AMFebruary 22, 2013 : Post updated with information from Major Grubert on Ubuntu-fr forum to be compatible with Gnome 3.6.
I’ve been using Ubuntu for several years now, and like many users, I switched from Gnome 2 to Ubuntu Unity as display manager. I found lots of good ideas in Unity (very suitable for netbooks in particular), but it didn’t really convince me and I finally regretted my old Gnome 2 desktop.
After several months of using Unity, I decided to test Gnome 3, released Mid-Year of 2011.
After installing Gnome 3 and its Shell interface, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Gnome developers have taken a lot of good ideas from Unity, unless it’s in reverse… Even better, I find it more responsive and ergonomic. Only one drawback, user interface design is a bit poor especially compared to Unity.
Gnome Shell requires a little customization to be perfect. What you see below is what you can get in less than one hour !
After customizing
The following assumes you have already installed Gnome Shell.
- Then, install Gnome Tweak Tool, needed to customize Gnome 3 (show buttons in the toolbar, change theme, etc.).
sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool
- Add the user-theme extension (it unlocks an option in Gnome Tweak Tool to change the theme of Gnome Shell).
- Add the WebUpd8 PPA and install the Zukitwo theme. This is a direct download, but it will always be the latest version.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install zukitwo-dark-gtk-theme - Install the Faenza icon theme.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tiheum/equinox
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install faenza-icon-theme - Launch Gnome Tweak Tool and configure it as follows:
Theme configuration
The top bar in Zukitwo theme is transparent making a second menu shows up behind the top bar. If this is your case too, you can fix this by removing the old and useless global menu.
sudo apt-get autoremove appmenu-gtk appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-qt - To further improve the functionality, Gnome Shell has extensions support.
Gnome Shell is based on CSS. Install/uninstall of extensions is simply a mouse click from the Gnome Shell Extensions website, simply amazing !- Alternative Status Menu : replaces Gnome Shell Status Menu with one showing suspend, hibernate and power off.
- Analog Clock : shows an analog clock.
- Applications Menu : adds a gnome 2 style menu for applications.
- Battery Percentage Indicator : puts a percentage label next to the battery panel icon.
- Bluetooth icon remover : removes the bluetooth icon from the panel.
- Dock : adds a dock.
To position the dock at the left, you must edit a javascript file (yes !).
Open the file “.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/dock@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github.com/extension.js” and replace line 44 “const DOCK_POSITION = PositionMode.RIGHT;” by “const DOCK_POSITION = PositionMode.LEFT;” . - Extended Volume Indicator : switches output devices and adjusts application volume on volume indicator menu.
- Media player indicator : controls your media player.
- NetSpeed : displays internet speed.
- Places Status Indicator : adds a systems status menu for quickly navigating places in the system.
- Remove Accesibility : removes the accesibility button icon from the panel.
- Show Desktop Button : hides all windows and shows the current desktop.
- Shutdown Timer : adds a panel icon for delayed or scheduled power off.
- System Monitor : adds a system monitor (disk and CPU usage).
- Trash : adds a trash button.
- Weather indicator : displays the current weather of your location.
I did not find this extension on the official site, but you can use the following commands :
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome-shell-extensions
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-extension-weatherTo display the weather of your current location, you must configure the WOEID (Where on Earth IDentifier).
You can get it by going to the site weather.yahoo.com. Enter your city/zip code, click on the RSS feed and get the code from its URL. For example : for Nantes, the URL is http://weather.yahooapis.com/forecastrss?p=FRXX0072&u=f. Thus, the WOEID to use is FRXX0072.
- I’m getting used to application launchers (cf. my article about Launchy for Windows), I now use Synapse on Linux.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:synapse-core/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install synapseTo have a black color would best fits with the Zukitwo-dark theme, add this gtkrc file in the
~/.config/synapse/folder. - To put the finishing touches to your desktop, you can also install Conky to display the date and some additional settings (the example is taken from tux-planet).
sudo apt-get install conky-all ttf-ubuntu-font-family
wget -O ~/.conkyrc www.tux-planet.fr/public/conf/conky/conky-gotham
conkyDo not forget to make Conky to run at startup.
- If you use Firefox, add this personas to improve compatibility with the Zukitwo theme. If you use Chrome/Chromium, add this theme
- You can download the wallpaper that I use (2560 x 1600). This is the Leopard wallpaper from Apple.
Here are some additional screenshots to give you a better idea…
After customizing - 2
After customizing - 3
After customizing - 4
Your article on customizing gnome 3 is excellent.
I would be very happy to have a customized desktop like you showed.
As you might be aware, the current versions of Gnome Shell, Gnome Tweak Tool, and User-Theme extension does not seem to work very well and hence you’ll see that orange bubble/triangle saying that the user theme extension is not enabled.
So a work around was I got from internet is
“Gnome Shell uses dconf to store it settings, and the tweak tool essentially changes the dconf settings to make various configurations. You can easily use the dconf-editor to directly manipulate the dconf settings if you know which settings relate to what configuration changes. Most of the dconf settings are like key-value pairs. For changing the theme, you’re required to have the theme folder in ~/.themes and have dconf-editor installed. Using dconf-editor, navigate to org > gnome > shell > extensions > user-theme and change the value for the key called “name” and you’re done.”
:~/.themes$ lsCOPYING panelbg.png Zukitwo Zukitwo.emerald
INSTALL README Zukitwo-Dark Zukitwo-Shell
So I gave the value for “name” as “Zukitwo”.
But still I have the old black top panel. What must be missing?
Once again, excellent piece of work and “thanks” from the ubuntu fans here.
Thanks for your message. I have recently updated Ubuntu from 11.10 to 12.04 and did have some troubles with the user theme extension.
And like you, I did have the orange warning too, so impossible to change the default gnome shell theme… When I try the install command :
$ sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-extensions-user-themeI got this error :
Reading package lists... DoneBuilding dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
gnome-shell-extensions-user-theme : Depends: gnome-shell-extensions-common but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
I’m not sure exactly how but when I check again later, the orange warning was simply disappeared…
I read carefully my terminal history and I think it was thanks to these 2 commands :
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/gnome3sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-extensions
It should fix the problem. That’s worked for me and I got my Zukitwo theme again
You don’t need to change manually dconf setting (I suggest you to revert all the changes you have done).
Yes, the same happened for me too. After I restarted my system, the orange balloon disappeared.
Thanks again.
In your screen shots, for the currently open window, the name and the icon is displayed on the top bar. I think this was the default feature in gnome 3.
But after I changed, I get only the name.
I’ve also lost the icon after my upgrade!
Uh, I suspect the Zukitwo theme… I didn’t investigate because this is minor and at the same time, there are some other graphical improvements with the latest version of Zukitwo.
But you can refer to the Zukitwo page and ask the creator. The latest version was on 2012.06.12 and there could be a new version that fixes it in the future.
Actually, the Zukitwo designer removes the icon on purpose. To get the current application icon back, you have to modify a few lines in the gnome-shell.css file of the theme. Do exactly the contrary of this tutorial.
This tutoriel corresponds has my expectations and returned my desktop as I wished it, thanks man!
Salut,
Je suis sur Ubuntu 12.10 et j’ai suivi le tutoriel quasiment à la lettre mais j’ai deux soucis :
J’ai toujours l’icône orange sous Tweak Tool et j’ai eu beau faire les manips que tu as indiquées et redémarrer, rien n’y fait… Impossible de choisir le shell theme.
L’affreuse barre qui apparaît à cause de la transparence est toujours là même après avoir désinstallé l’ancien menu global.
Des idées ?
En tout cas, super tutoriel, merci !
Premier problème résolu : il fallait activer l’extension User themes sur le site de Gnome :
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/19/user-themes/
Je cherche toujours pour mon horrible barre de titres, si je trouve je reviens le dire.
Merci! Bizarre que la commande
sudo apt-get autoremove appmenu-gtk appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-qtne donne rien, j’ai ubuntu 12.10 et ca avait fonctionné, peut être qu’une mise à jour a changé la donne depuis. Je ne peux pas trop t’aider là.Alors pour ceux que ça intéresserait, mon problème est réglé, j’ai désinstallé le thème du point 4, j’ai ajouté le dépot :
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes
sudo apt-get update
duquel j’ai installé le dernier thème Zukitwo :
sudo add-apt install zukitwo-theme
et tout est rentré dans l’ordre.
[...] D’ailleurs, si vous utilisez Ubuntu et Gnome Shell, voici le tutoriel pour personnaliser votre interface graphique comme la mienne. Le fait de patcher le kernel ou d’obtenir un kernel panic me fait peur tout [...]
Super tuto !
Je suis novice et cela m’a bien aidé !