Ways You Can Customise The Gnome Desktop.

If you have just started using the Gnome Desktop you may have noticed it is a bit different from the start menu of more simple Linux desktops such as Mate or Cinnamon. Also if like me you were a Windows 7 users before you switched to Linux you may be a bit put off by the start screen style start menu in Gnome. Some people have said it is like Windows 8 but although it looks a bit like that it is nothing like the horrible Metro start screen that was in Windows 8. I advise that you take the time to learn to use the start menu on Gnome. It has an excellent search feature and you can install MenuLibre or any one of the menu editors to edit the start menu and add items to it as well.

Gnome Menu On Debian 12 Bookworm.

I am using Debian 12 Bookworm with the Gnome Desktop and it comers with both Gnome Tweaks and Gnome Shell Extensions. Gnome Shell Extensions enables you to both search for and add extensions to Gnome. Such as the Arch Menu which gives you the Cinnamon style start menu that you have on Linux Mint and the Cinnamon desktop. Also there are many other menus to choose from in the Arc Menu settings. You can choose from the Brisk Menu that is on Mate or even the Xfce Start Menu and many others.

You can also personalise your desktop with system sounds so it will play different sounds every time you open an app or open and close Windows. You can enable the system sounds using Dconf Editor which gives you access to settings not visible in Gnome but they are there. You can even enable a start up sound which is what I also love. Since we had start up and shutdown sounds on Windows as well as other notification sounds which you can enable on Gnome and most other Linux desktops. Although I have yet to figure out how to get a shutdown or log out sound on Gnome. As several of the tutorials I read on the web did not work for me. The start up and other notification sounds do work and are fun to have.

Another thing you can do on Gnome is to change the desktop background to a plain background if you don't want wallpaper. You can do this also in Dconf Editor. You simply set the desktop background to no wallpaper in Gnome Tweaks then type chose the desktop background color code you want in Dconf Editor. I use a KColor Chooser for this which is a color picker tool but there are others you can use for this. Just pick a color then copy and paste the color code in Dconf Editor where it says background color. You now have the background color of your choice in my case pink but you can change the desktop background color to anything else you want. Also you can add icons to your desktop as you can see here in my pictures.

Nautilas is a good file manager but it's not as good as Nemo. I prefer to use Nemo as it has better features than Nautilus does. You can use Nemo in Gnome since Nemo is based on Nautilus and set nemo to be your defualt file manager as I have done. You can also get Nemo to draw the desktop icons by adding the command nemo-desktop to the Start Up Programs Settings. Or the start up file to the start up folder as I had to do on Debian. Since start up programs settings is not in Debian Gnome, but it is on Ubuntu and Linux Mint which I also use.

There are also many wallpapers you can use if you also like desktop wallpaper. I use the wallpapers from Linux Mint which I have backed up to a DVD from my Linux Mint laptop. So I can install on any of my computers.No matter what versions of Linux I am using. You can also download Linux Mint themes and icons from Linux Mint Packages website if you want them on Debian.

Also I have installed Gnome Extension Manager which enables me to search for other Gnome extensions I can add to Gnome. It saves having to go to the website and it will install any extensions that you find.So long as it is compatible with that version of Gnome and most of the extensions are.

As you can see in my images there are several ways you can customise Gnome to make it your own desktop. The same as you can in other desktops. So there are still a lot of things you can do on Gnome. It's not so different from the other desktops.

Gnome Desktop with the Arch Menu.

  You can choose to have a plain desktop background as you can see here.

 

Here is Nemo running on Gnome desktop.