#gnome 3

What’s New in Zorin OS 12.2

Zorin 12.2 has been released and announced by The ZorinOS team, it the second maintenance update to the Zorin OS 12 series, and also the most advances Zorin OS version ever released.

This release featuring the latest Zorin Desktop environment, based on Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (Xenial Xerus) and powered by the Linux Kernel 4.10 series, which means that it offers support for the latest hardware components available on the market, including the most recent PC’s and laptops.

GNOME 3.26 - See What's New

GNOME 3.26 "Manchester" has been officially released by GNOME Project’s Deveopment team, brings new features and many improvements. The highlights from this release include a new look for the Settings application, which has a new navigation sidebar and improved network and display settings, and browser synchronization thanks to the Firefox Sync service. Color emoji are now supported throughout GNOME and will be visible wherever they appear. GNOME 3.26 also includes ways to insert emoji into chats, messages and documents. Other improvements include enhanced system search and folder sharing in Boxes.

Hello folks and welcome back to Linux Life.  Well since last episode I have changed the i7 desktop version of ArcoLinux from Mate to Budgie.

This was because the way Mate was handling certain programs minimised was being a bit problematic.  Some times programs would not reopen once minimised.  Also because I have plans to dual boot the machine,  I did not install this version via UEFI so it was causing issues with the Multi boot setup.

Now I admit the last time I used Budgie was with Ubuntu Budgie and the Software store app crashed every time I installed a program so it did not last very long on the test machine I used it on.  However because ArcoLinux is based on Arch it’s primary source of installing software is through Pacman or Pamac.  It still has the Software app but I will come back to that point in a bit.

Now Budgie is a complete lightweight rebuild based on Gnome 3 what has been changed I have no idea but lets just say me and Gnome 3 have not had the best relationship.

Antergos used it as its installer base and due to the issues with Cnchi it caused many a headache to get it installed.  I also don’t like the huge icon launcher thing that looks like it fell out of the Fisher Price factory as it has no category sorting and you have to search through tons of icons to find what you want.  OK there is a search bar but that’s fine if you know what the app you want is called.

Now Budgie still has this horrible icon launcher but because I use Cairo Dock I have moved the most used apps to it so I very rarely use the launcher and on my CD dock it has an Application Menu applet which has a categorised listing of programs should I need it.

Anyway installation was painless but when it loaded the first time after install I could not get my wifi to connect.  It would not accept the key.  I had entered it about five times and was getting frustrated.  I pulled up the settings for wifi and sure enough it could see my router.

However I have no idea why but my keyboard layout was set to Belgian instead of UK English so it was set as an AZERTY keyboard with odd accents.  Once I set the keyboard to the right language I could enter my wifi key and I could now connect to the internet.

ArcoLinux still won’t automatically sign you in even though I did set it in the installer options.  Don’t know why that is but it’s not the end of the world.

Now because Budgie is pretty much Gnome 3 in sheep’s clothing the application menu was at the top like Mac OS.  Now for the Mac that’s fine as you can use the icons but Gnome 3 does not have any icons on screen unless you add an extension to put them on screen.

Now this brings me onto extensions, why Gnome 3 does not keep all it’s settings in one place like everyone else I will never understand but the base settings is just rudimentary and if you want to change Appearance of things like themes you have to go to separate setting menu using the Tweaks app.

So I wanted the Application panel bar on the bottom of the screen I tried dragging it but no joy.  It would not move.  So I had to find an extension to do so this is where it uses the Software app.  I had to install an extension called the MMOD loader then turn it on using Tweaks before I could move it.  What a carry on.

I’m sure there was another way such as using the SUPER key which is apparently the Windows key and Shift probably but I never tested that method as I only learned that much later.

So now the Applications bar was on the bottom and the MMOD added the Favourites next to  it which was handy, however when it moved down.  Where in the top it said Applications so you could click it was now just a blank space.

After a bit of fiddling around looking in Tweaks and finding no joy I went to the internet and guess what it needs another extension of Application settings which gives yet a further setup panel.

However I managed to get an icon back and it allows you to customise the text it displays so not complaining. You can also change the icon used so now I have a metal Arch logo.  Which looks quite good so bonus points there.

Now I wanted to change the look certain other bits such as the icons so I had to go back to Tweaks.  Now I managed to change from the dark look to Adwaita which is a more standard white.

I know Dark Mode is the in thing due to Mac OS Mojave and at times I don’t mind it.  However for all the theming changed the main bar was still black.  Adwaita was not available for the Shell which is what the bar is known as.

So off I went to Gnome-Look.org which has the largest selection of Gnome themes including Gnome Shell.  Every one in the list was either black or some weird colour I did find the Adwaita-White theme but the download button was disabled for it for some reason.

After a bit of searching about I settled on a theme called Square Glass which made the shell look like transparent glass. OK so after downloading I had to figure how to install the theme.

Now as I had User themes turned on via Tweaks apparently there should be a .themes directory in my home directory there wasn’t.  Even when I created it and moved the theme in there no joy.

OK off to the Internet I trot.  Eventually I had to log in as root move the extracted theme to /usr/share/themes and finally it worked.  Only thing that is a little annoying is the shutdown buttons when you close the panel is transparent as it should be but the Shutdown, Restart and Cancel buttons are black.

I’m sure there is a way to change this as technically the theme is just a CSS file I believe so there is probably a way to change it. If you know how to alter them.  I am sure there is a guide somewhere on how to do it.  I will have to see if I can find one.

Since I was changing themes I decided to change the Grub theme as ArcoLinux does not use a graphical boot it’s a text one which looks rather lame.  Gnome-Look.org has a selection of Grub themes and I now have a nice green Shodan for System Shock 2 ASCII style theme.  Luckily Gnome 3 has a nice tool called Grub Customiser which makes it simple to change theme one you install them to /etc/boot/themes.

So that has been my journey through this change.  Reason I discovered the SUPER key move trick was because when I installed Davinci Resolve 15 it did like the Mate version did and the application was off the end of the screen.

When you move the app using the SUPER key (their capitalisation not mine) method rather than dragging like any other it seems to jump in stages.  Which is odd.

Now that I have it set up with all the extensions and I have managed to set the themes  and stuff it’s actually working fine.  Sure it still has that silly icon launchpad  but due to me using Cairo Dock I very rarely have to use the silly thing.

So why it is known as Budgie I don’t know as it’s really just Gnome 3.  However for all I have criticised Gnome 3 but it does the job once you get it how you like it. It seems pretty stable.

Anyway that’s enough waffle for this episode.  Man this was a long one.  So all I need  to do is install the Hackintosh as the other operating system so that it is set up to dual boot.

Ubuntu-Gnome.

Set up exactly the way I want it, with the sidebar going all the way and unhidden, my running apps up top in the corner, and a v cool background from the Ubuntu-Gnome project.

Great little distro and way improved from the last time I did anything with Gnome 3.

Ubuntu Gnome 17.04