TOPIC: CINNAMON
Restoring the menu bar on GNOME Terminal in a GNOME Shell session
25th July 2020By default, a GNOME Terminal instance does not display a menu bar and that applies not only in GNOME Shell but also on the Cinnamon Desktop environment. In the latter, it is easy enough to display the menu bar using the context menu produced by right-clicking in the window before going to Edit > Preferences and ticking the box for Show menubar by default in new terminals in the General section. After closing the Preferences dialogue, every new GNOME Terminal session will show the menu bar.
Unfortunately, it is not so easy in GNOME Shell, though the context menu route does allow you to unhide the menu bar on a temporary basis. That is because the requisite tick box is missing from the Preferences dialogue box displayed after navigating to Edit > Preferences in the menus. To address, you need to execute the following command in a terminal session:
gsettings set org.gnome.Terminal.Legacy.Settings headerbar false
This change permanently adds the menu bar and includes the previously missing tick box, which is selected when necessary. Although GNOME Shell has a minimalist design in some aspects, making this function difficult to access seems excessive.
Lightening of desktop background images on Linux Mint Debian Edition running in Virtualbox
22nd October 2018After a recent upgrade to Linux Mint Debian Edition 3 in a VirtualBox virtual machine that I had running its predecessor, I began to notice that background images were being loaded with more washed out or faded colours. This happened at startup, so selecting another background image worked as intended until the same thing happened to that after a system restart.
This problem is not new and has affected the Cinnamon desktop in the main Linux Mint variant (the one that is based on Ubuntu) and issuing the following command in a terminal session is a suggested solution:
gsettings set org.cinnamon.muffin background-transition fade-in
In my case, that solved the problem and the desktop background image display is as it should be since I executed the above. All it took was a change to a system setting.
Dropping back to a full screen terminal session from a desktop one in Linux
29th May 2014There are times when you might need to access a full screen terminal from a Linux graphical desktop. For example, I have needed this when installing Nvidia's graphics drivers on Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Another instance occurred on Arch Linux when a Cinnamon desktop update prevented me from opening a terminal window. The full screen command let me install an alternative terminal emulator, with Tech Drive-in's list proving helpful. Similar issues might need fixing on FreeBSD installations. These latter examples happened within VirtualBox, which has special requirements for accessing full screen command line sessions, which I'll explain later.
When running Linux on a physical PC, press CTRL + ALT + F1 to enter a full screen terminal and CTRL + ALT + F7 to return to the graphical desktop. In a Linux VirtualBox guest with a Linux host, these shortcuts affect the host instead. For the guest OS, use [Host Key] + F1 to enter a full screen terminal and [Host Key] + F7 to return to the graphical desktop. The default Host Key is the right CTRL key, unless you've changed it.
X sessions in GNOME and Cinnamon desktop environments support this functionality, but I can't confirm it works with alternatives like Wayland. Hopefully, this feature extends to other setups, as terminal sessions are occasionally needed for system recovery. Such mishaps are thankfully rare and should be virtually non-existent for most users.
Fixing Background Image Display in GNOME Shell 3.10
2nd May 2014On upgrading from Ubuntu GNOME 13.10 to Ubuntu GNOME 14.04, a few rough edges were to be noticed. One was the display of my chosen background image: it was garbled. Later, I discovered that there is a maximum width of 2560 px for background images in GNOME Shell these days and that things get messy beyond that.
In my case, the image width was around 6000 px, and I was used to it getting resized in GNOME Shell 3.8 and its predecessors. It appears that the functionality got removed after that though, so the workaround of manual image resizing in the GIMP needed to be employed. Though having big images open in memory creates an additional overhead, not handling them very well at all looks like a bug caused by setting 2560 px as a maximum screen width for the GNOME Shell panel and the complete removal of Nautilus from desktop rendering duties. Let's hope that sense is seen with ever larger screen sizes and resolutions coming our way.
It's the sort of thing that did get me looking at adding on Cinnamon 2.2 for a while before setting background image scaling using the indispensable GNOME Tweak Tool was discovered. LinuxG.net has a useful tutorial on this for anyone with such an adventurous streak in them. For now though, I am OK with my set-up but the GNOME project's focus on minimalism could affect us in other ways, so I can see why Clem Lefebvre started the Cinnamon one primarily for Linux Mint and the desktop environment is appearing elsewhere too. After all, Gedit lost its menu bar in GNOME 3.12 so it's just as well that we have alternatives.
Update 2014-05-06: It appears that the desktop image bug that afflicts GNOME Shell 3.10 got sorted for GNOME Shell 3.12. At least, that is the impression that an Antergos instance in a VirtualBox virtual machine gives me.
Surveying changes coming in GNOME 3.10
20th October 2013GNOME 3.10 was released last month, but I only saw it when it appeared in the Arch and Antergos repositories. Despite stability risks, this showcases a strength of rolling distributions: they let you see the latest software before others. Otherwise, you might need to wait for the next Fedora release to view GNOME updates. This delay isn't always negative, as Ubuntu GNOME typically uses the previous version. Since many GNOME Shell extension developers don't update until Fedora includes the latest GNOME in a stable release, this approach ensures the desktop environment is well established before reaching Ubuntu. Debian takes this further by using a stable version from years ago, which has merits for system reliability.
As I regularly use GNOME Shell extensions, I'm interested in which ones still work, which need tweaking, and which no longer function. The main change in the top panel is the replacement of separate sound and user menus with a single combined menu. Extensions that modified the user menu now need reworking or abandoning. The GNOME project has adopted an irritating habit similar to WordPress, with frequent API changes that break extensions (or plugins in WordPress). However, GNOME should copy WordPress's approach to documentation, particularly for the API, which is barely documented anywhere.
GNOME Shell theme developers face challenges too. When I used Elementary Luna 3.4, a large border appeared around the panel, so I switched to XGnome Enhanced (found via GNOME-Look.org). The former theme is no longer maintained as its developer has stopped using GNOME Shell. Perhaps someone else could take it over, since it worked well until version 3.8. The new theme works well for me and will be an option if I upgrade to GNOME 3.10 on one of my PCs in the future.
Returning to the subject of extensions, I tested the included Applications Menu extension, which has improved stability and looks very usable. I no longer need to wait for the Frippery equivalent to be updated. The GNOME Shell backstage view hasn't changed much since 3.8, which may disappoint some, but the workaround works well. Several extensions I use frequently haven't been updated for GNOME Shell 3.10 yet. After some success before a possible upgrade to Ubuntu GNOME 13.10 and GNOME Shell 3.8 (though I'm staying with version 13.04 for now), I tried to port some of these to the latest interface. Below are my updated extensions, which you can use until they're officially updated on the GNOME Shell Extensions website:
GNOME 3.10 brings other modifications beyond GNOME Shell, which is mainly a JavaScript construction. Application title bars continue to be consolidated in GNOME applications, with a prominent exit button now appearing. You can still apply the previously mentioned modifications to Nautilus (also called Files), many of which work with other applications like Gedit. Gedit now includes useful 'x of y' numbering for search results, showing the current match number and total matches. The GNOME Tweak Tool has been overhauled, but no longer includes the setting for showing folder paths in Nautilus. To enable this feature, open dconf-editor, navigate to org > gnome > nautilus > preferences and tick the always-use-location-entry box.
The GNOME project continues on its path established a few years ago. While I wish GNOME Shell were more mature, significant changes are still coming, making me wonder when this will stop. This might be the result of introducing a controversial experiment when users were content with GNOME 2. Fedora 20 should bring more updated GNOME shell extensions. Antergos provides a good way to see the latest GNOME version if it remains stable. Cinnamon fans may be happy that Cinnamon 2.0 is another desktop option for the Arch-based distribution, one that I may discuss this further once the Antergos installer stops failing at package downloads. I'm setting up a separate VM to examine Cinnamon because it destabilised GNOME during a previous review.
A look at Ubuntu GNOME 13.10
12th October 2013With Ubuntu GNOME 13.10's final release approaching, I decided to try the beta version to see what's coming. However, I accidentally downloaded and installed the 64-bit edition of 13.04 in a VirtualBox virtual machine. My plan to update this to the upcoming release failed due to instability, so I couldn't test an in-place upgrade to 13.10. Originally, I had intended to use this command:
gksu update-manager -d
However, I found another one when considering how Ubuntu Server might be upgraded without the GUI application that is the Update Manager. To update to a development version, the following command is what you need:
sudo do-release-upgrade -d
To upgrade to a final release of a new version of Ubuntu, drop the -d switch from the above to use the following:
sudo do-release-upgrade
There is one further option that isn't recommended for moving between Ubuntu versions, but I use it to get updates, such as new kernel subversions that are released:
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Rather than trying out the above, I downloaded the latest ISO image for the beta release of Ubuntu GNOME 13.10 and installed onto a VM that instead. Though it is the 32 bit version of the distro that is installed on my main home PC, it has been the 64 bit version that I have been trying. So far, that seems to be behaving itself even if it feels a little sluggish, but that could be down to the four-year-old PC that hosts the virtual machine. For a while, I have been playing with the possibility of an upgrade involving an Intel Core i5 4670K CPU and 16 GB of RAM (useful for running multiple virtual machines at a time) along with any motherboard that supports those, so looking at a 64-bit operating system has its uses.
The Linux kernel is 3.11, but that's not my main concern. Neither am I worried about LibreOffice 4.1.2.3 being included while GIMP (version 2.8.6) wasn't, since it can be added easily. What drew me to explore the upcoming release was the move to GNOME Shell 3.8, as I rely on many extensions. Like WordPress and its plugins, GNOME Shell has a difficult relationship with extensions, and I wanted to see which still worked. The backstage application view has changed. Now you either see all installed applications or must type the name of the one you want. Losing the categorical view from GNOME Shell 3.6 is a backward step, and I hope version 3.10 brings it back. Although you can add categories, the result is inferior to the original. Users shouldn't need to modify system internals for such basic functionality. With all these constant changes, it's unsurprising that Cinnamon has become independent with version 2.0, and that Debian considered not using GNOME for its latest version (7.1 at the time of writing, which wisely chose GNOME Shell 3.4).
Having had a look at other distribution that already have GNOME Shell 3.8, I knew that a few of my extensions worked with it. The list includes Frippery Bottom Panel, Frippery Move Clock, Places Status Indicator, Removable Drive Menu, Remove Rounded Corners (not really needed with the GNOME Shell theme that I use, Elementary Luna 3.4, but I retain it anyway), Show Desktop Button, User Themes and Ignore_Request_Hide_Titlebar. Because of the changes to the backstage view, I added the Frippery Applications Menu instead of the Applications Menu because I have found that to be unstable. Useful new discoveries have included Curtains Up and GNOME Shell Open Terminal, while Shell Restart User Menu Entry has made a return and found a use this time around too.
There have been some extensions that were not updated to work with GNOME Shell 3.8 that I have got working. In some cases, it was as simple as updating the metadata.json file for an extension with new version numbers of 3.8 and 3.84 to the list associated with the shell version property. All extensions are to be found in the .local/share/gnome-shell/extensions location in your home directory, and each has a dedicated file containing the aforementioned file.
With others, it was a matter of looking in the Looking Glass (execute lg in the box that ALT + F2 brings up on your screen to access this) and seeing what error messages were to be found in there before attempting to correct these in either the extensions' extension.js files or whatever JavaScript (*.js) file was causing the problem. With either or both of these remedies, I managed to port the four extensions below to GNOME Shell 3.8. In fact, you can download these zip files and install them yourself to see how you get on with them.
Advanced Settings in User Menu
There is a Remove Panel App Menu that works with GNOME Shell 3.8, but I found that it got rid of the Places menu instead of the panel's App Menu, so I tried porting the older extension to see if it behaved itself and it does. With these in place, I have bent Ubuntu GNOME 13.10 to my will ahead of its final release next week, which includes customising Nautilus too. Other than a new version of GNOME Shell, it looks as if it will come with less in the way of drama and a breather like that is no bad thing given that personal computing incessantly remains in a state of flux these days.
Customising Nautilus (or Files) in Ubuntu GNOME 13.04
12th September 2013The changes made to Nautilus, otherwise known as Files, in GNOME Shell 3.6 were contentious and the response of the Linux Mint was to create their own variant called Nemo from the previous version of the application. On the Cinnamon or MATE desktop environments, the then latest version of GNOME's file manager would have looked like a fish out of water without its application menu in the top panel on the GNOME Shell desktop. It is possible to make a few modifications that help Nautilus to look more at home on those Linux Mint desktops, and I have collected them here because they are useful for GNOME Shell users too. Here they are in turn.
Adding Application Menu entries to Location Options Menu
The Location Options menu is what you get on clicking the button with the cog icon on the right-hand side of the application's location bar. Using Gsettings, it is possible to make that menu include the sort of entries that are in the application menu in the GNOME Shell panel at the top of the screen. These include an entry for closing the whole application, as well as setting its preferences (or options). Running the following command does just that (if it does not work as it should, try changing the single and double quotes to those understood by a command shell):
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides '@a{sv} {"Gtk/ShellShowsAppMenu": <int32 0>}'
Adding in the Remove App Menu GNOME Shell extension will clean up the GNOME Shell a little by removing the application menu altogether. If, for some reason, you wish to restore the default behaviour, then the following command does the required reset:
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides '@a{sv} {}'
Stopping Hiding of the Application Title Bar When Maximised
By default, GNOME Shell can hide the application title bars of GNOME applications such as Nautilus on window maximisation and this is Nautilus now works by default. Changing the behaviour so that the title bar is kept on maximised windows can be as simple as adding in the ignore_request_hide_titlebar extension. The trouble with GNOME Shell extensions is that they can stop working when a new version of GNOME Shell is used, so there's another option: editing metacity-theme-3.xml but /usr/share/themes/Adwaita/metacity-1. The file can be opened using superuser privileges using the following command:
gksudo gedit /usr/share/themes/Adwaita/metacity-1/metacity-theme-3.xml
With the file open, it is a matter of replacing instances of ' has_title="false" ' with ' has_title="true" ', saving it and reloading GNOME Shell. This may persevere across different versions of GNOME Shell, should the extension not do so.
Disabling Recursive Search
This discovery is what led me to bundle these customisations in an entry on here in the first place. In Nemo and older versions of Nautilus, just typing with the application open would lead you down a list towards the file that you wanted. This behaviour was replaced by an automatic recursive search from GNOME Shell 3.6 where the search functionality was extended beyond the folder that was open in the file manager to its subdirectories. To change that to subsetting within the open folder or directory, you need to install a patch version of Nautilus using the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dr3mro/personal
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
The first of these adds a new repository with the patched version of Nautilus, while the second combination installs the patched version. With that done, it is time to issue the following command:
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences enable-recursive-search false
That sets the value of the new enable-recursive-search option to false for searching within an open directory. It also can be found using Dconf-Editor in the following hierarchy: org -> gnome -> nautilus -> preferences. The obsession of the GNOME project team with minimalism is robbing users of some options, and this would be a good one to have by default too. Maybe the others should be treated in the same way, even if you need to use Gsettings or Dconf-Editor to change them to avoid clutter. Having GNOME Tweak Tool able to set them all would be even better.
Installing the Cinnamon Desktop Environment on Sabayon Linux
26th January 2013During the week, I did an update on my Sabayon system and GNOME 3.6 came on board without too much of a bother. There was no system meltdown or need for an operating system re-installation. However, there was one matter that rankled: adding and updating extensions from extensions. gnome.org was impossible. The process would create a new folder in ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/ but not fill it with anything at all. Populating from another Ubuntu GNOME Remix 12.10 machine didn't seem to achieve the needful, and I am left wondering if it is down to the version of GNOME Shell being 3.6.2. However, even adding an entry for the current version of GNOME Shell to metadata.json for one plugin didn't appear to do what I wanted, so resolving this issue needs further enquiry.
Meanwhile, I added the Cinnamon desktop environment using the following command and will be using that from now on. If the GNOME Shell extension issue ever gets sorted, I may move back, but there is no rush. GNOME 3.8 sounds like it's bringing an interesting option that makes use of the approach Linux Mint took for version 12 of that distribution, and I can await that, especially if it avoids the need for adding extensions on a personal basis like now.
sudo equo update && sudo equo install cinnamon
With the installation completed by the above command, it was a matter of logging out and choosing the Cinnamon entry (there is a 2D version too) from the session dropdown menu on the login screen to get it going. Then, it was a matter of tweaking Cinnamon to my heart’s content. Getting a two panel layout required logging out and in again as well as choosing the appropriate setting in the Cinnamon Panel options tab. Next, I decided to check on what themes are available at cinnamon.linuxmint.org before settling on Cinnamint 1.6. It all feels very comfortable, apart from not having an automatically growing list of workspaces that are a default offering in GNOME Shell. That goes against the design principles of Cinnamon though, so only hopes of someone making an extension that does that are left.
Sorting a kernel upgrade error in Linux Mint 13
30th November 2012Linux Mint 14 may be out now, but I'll be sticking with its predecessor for now. Being a user of GNOME Shell instead of Cinnamon or Mate, I'll wait for extensions to get updated for 3.6 before making a move away from 3.4 where the ones that I use happily work. Given that Linux Mint 13 is set to get support until 2017, it's not as if there is any rush either. Adding the back-ported packages repository to my list of software sources means that I will not miss out on the latest versions of MDM, Cinnamon and Mate anyway. With Ubuntu set to stick to GNOME 3.6 until after 13.04 is released, adding the GNOME 3 Team PPA will be needed if 3.8 arrives with interesting goodies; there are interesting noises that suggest the approach taken in Linux Mint 12 may be used to give more of a GNOME 2 desktop experience. Options abound and there are developments in the pipeline that I hope to explore too.
However, there is one issue that I have had to fix which stymies upgrades within the 3.2 kernel branch. A configuration file (/etc/grub.d/10_linux) points to /usr/share/grub/grub-mkconfig_lib instead of /usr/lib/grub/grub-mkconfig_lib so I have been amending it every time I needed to do a kernel update. However, it just reverts to the previous state, so I thought of another solution: creating a symbolic link in the incorrect location that points to the correct one so that updates complete without manual intervention every time. The command that does the needful is below:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/grub/grub-mkconfig_lib /usr/share/grub/grub-mkconfig_lib
Of course, figuring out what causes the reversion would be good too, but the symbolic link fix works so well that there's little point in exploring it further. Of course, if anyone can add how you'd do that, I'd welcome this advice too. New knowledge is always good.
A place for GNOME?
21st September 2012There has been a lot of doom and gloom spoken about the GNOME desktop environment and the project behind it. These days, it seems to be the fashionable thing to go constantly criticising it, especially after what Linus Torvalds said. KDE went through the same sort of experience a few years ago and seems to have got far enough beyond it that some are choosing it instead of GNOME. For a good while, it was the other way around.
Since its inception, the GNOME Shell has attracted a lot of adverse comment. However, since my first encounter, it has grown on me to the point that I added it to Ubuntu and Linux Mint and use it as my default desktop environment instead of Unity, Mate or Cinnamon. The first of these may not be so surprising because of the unique approach that has been taken. The use of lenses and an application launch bar are items to which I could adapt, but it is the merging of application menus and title bars with the top panel of the desktop that really puts me off it. Application window buttons can be moved to the right everywhere but on this global menu, so I tend to view things from afar instead of using it every day. There just is something about the experience that won't grow on me. Strangely, that also applies to my impressions of KDE, albeit differently; there just is something less slick about the appearance of the bottom panel, the plasmoids and other items like them.
Given that Mate and Cinnamon continue the GNOME 2 approach to things that dominated my home computing for much of the last five years since I turned to Ubuntu, my decision to use GNOME Shell instead of either come as a surprise. It isn't that the environments aren't slick enough, just that I have come to prefer the way that GNOME Shell handles workspaces, spawning them as you need them. If that could be an option in Cinnamon, then it might become my desktop of choice. However, that seems to go against the philosophy of the project, even if someone adds and extension for it.
For a time, I played with going with LXDE rather than either Unity or GNOME Shell; as it happened, my first impressions of the latter weren't so positive until I spent a day with the GNOME variant of Fedora 15. Being not dissimilar to GNOME 2 in the way that it worked was the main attraction of LXDE and my initial use of it was with Lubuntu running on a netbook; the LXDE version of Linux Mint 12 now runs on it so there hasn't been so much change on that machine.
Sometimes, the only way to deal with change is to have a look at it to see what's coming and to decide what you need to do about it. In the case of GNOME Shell, my day with Fedora 15 on a backup PC changed my impressions, and Linux Mint 11's GNOME 2 desktop looked a bit old-fashioned afterwards. In fact, I popped GNOME 3 on there and have been using it as my main desktop environment ever since.
With computing, there always are some who expect things to just work and be the way that they want them. The need for extra configuration is a criticism that still can be levelled at GNOME Shell. Before going with Mate and Cinnamon, Linux Mint went the same way for a while, leaving me to wonder what can be done with such an approach. Will someone else pick up that baton and do the handiwork so that users don't have to do it? Not yet, it seems. Since no one is following the lead of Linux Mint 12, the need for user tweaking remains, even if I have found which ones work for me.
The first place to begin is GNOME's Extensions website, from where I raid a few extensions every time I do an operating system installation. The Alternative Status Menu extension is among the first to get added so that I have the shutdown option again on the user menu, a common criticism of the default set up. Since I always install the GNOME Tweak Tool from the distro repositories, I add the Advanced Setting in User Menu extension to get an entry in the status menu that grants quick access. Frippery Bottom Panel comes next on the list because of its workspace switcher and application window list. Others like Frippery Move Clock, Monitor Status Indicator, Places Status Indicator, Removable Drive Menu, Remove Accessibility, Shell Restart User Menu Entry and User Themes follow in some order and make things feel more pleasing, at least to my mind.
You aren't stuck with the default theme, either, and I have chosen Elementary Luna from deviantART. For adding your own themes, the above listed User Themes extension is needed. Because I want the Frippery Bottom Panel to match the top panel, I tweaked its stylesheet and that's where the Restart User Menu Entry extension comes in handy, though some care is needed not to crash the desktop with constant shell restarts.
Doing the above makes GNOME Shell really amenable to me, and I wouldn't like to lose that freedom to customise. Saying that, the continued controversial changes aren't stopping yet. Those made to the Nautilus file manager in GNOME 3.6 have caused the Linux Mint project to create Nemo, a fork of the software, and Ubuntu is sticking with the previous version for now. Taking some action yourself instead of just complaining loudly sounds like a more positive approach, which makes its own statement. However, at a time when many want the GNOME project team to listen to users, the new Nautilus appears and is not to be what they needed to see. Could the project go on like this? Only time can answer that one.
While it appears that many have changed from GNOME to other desktop environments, I haven't come across any numbers. A reducing user base could be a way of sending a message about any discontent, one that makes use of a great feature of free software: there is plenty of choice. If the next version of Nautilus isn't to my taste, there are plenty of alternatives out there. After all, Cinnamon started on Linux Mint and has gone from there to being available for other distros too; Fedora is one example. Nemo could follow suit.
Now that GNOME's constituent applications are seeing changes, GNOME Shell may be left to mature. Computer interfaces are undergoing a lot of change at the moment and Microsoft Windows 8 is bringing its own big leap. Though controversial at the time, change can be a good thing too and us technical folk always like seeing new things come along (today saw the launch of the iPhone 5 and many folk queueing up for it; Google's Nexus 7 ran out of stock in its first weeks on the market; there are more). That could be what got me using GNOME 3 in the first place, even if my plan is to stick with it for a while yet.