Customizing Gnome even with breaking extensions in Gnome4x

[soumyatheman]

Hello, as the Garuda team told me to create a new thread on customizing Gnome with gnome40 onwards, I'm focusing on basics first. I'm focusing on some basic issues first that every regular user may face in Garuda Gnome.
1) Touchpad Gestures
So, with gnome 40 there are new touchpad gestures which works only in Wayland, but with two hacks it can easily work on Xorg.
i) First, we need one extension, x11 gestures
and
ii) Touchegg
Both are available in Aur and Chaotic-aur, also, I'd request to add x11-gestures package in chaotic-aur, and the most important thing is to remove the libinput-gestures, those make a serious conflict with x11-gesture and touchegg.

2. The Appindicators are something, that Gnome has totally ditched and the AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support is not working well anymore. Ubuntu's next release may fix the issues, but for now another extension called Unite will make it.

The option there, Show System tray in top-bar will save us for now. And I also hope that with Ubuntu 22.04 release I might be able to replace once again it with Ubuntu Appindicators. As we have two options in our hand now, I guess it'll not be troublesome anymore.

Now the customization part,
1) Extensions:
We need a few extensions, which specifically works in gnome-40
i) Gnome 4x UI Improvements
For better Workspace Overview
ii) Alphabetical App Grid
For Alphabetical App-grid, also will merge the apply-tiling-settings option from Manjaro(It's not an extension).
iii) GSConnect
If I'm not using Kde-Connect or this in Linux, then I'm a fool. Obviously a necessary thing.
iv) Clipboard Indicator
This extension is also very necessary for any user. And this also has a lot of options.
v) Caffeine/Espresso
Yeah, this is not so important but can be useful for any user.

2) Now the theming, well after a lot of research I have found some themes but still being frustrated with all their gnome-shell customizations I made my own forking from Adwaita, It's nothing but a bit more contrast and darker. Also, I have added a logo instead of the activities logo and a logo at the view-app-icon-grid logo. However, always open for better logo suggestions

And the darker thing I's talking about

If I get a nice wallpaper, I'll surely replace the black overview area also with that one. For icons, I think Fluent or the Beautyline or the pure adwaita anyone, is good, but I'll go for Fluent.

For Applications, Fluent Round dark or the Graphite Blue Dark is best, but I'll again go for fluent as the grayish tint of it makes a lot of apps look more coherent.

Fluent Round Dark

Graphite Blue Dark

Although for both the cases I'm totally against changing the shell theme. If anything needs to be applied in shell, it has to be a fork of Adwaita else it's gonna be too out of the place. And Obviously all these customizations will be available on the lockscreen too. A garuda logo(Garuda-Purple for now)

That's all of my customizations, as a new gitlab and github user (<1 year), I don't know how to make merge requests, please help me for that. And also, I'll surely work, if I get a small team, on the branding of Garuda with themes specially made for Garuda which will work on all editions(At least on KDE, Gnome, Cinnamon & XFCE).

And Finally a photo of my lockscreen, If I have a good wallpaper for lockscreen, I'll remove the logo and place the wallpaper there.

[jonathon]

Rather than going through each extension and querying the choices (e.g. using Unite to make Garuda look like an old Ubuntu), I'll instead point out that using distribution-supplied GNOME extensions is an unreliable way to customise GNOME.

Unless you want to maintain extension packages in the repos - with all of the issues that will create when GNOME breaks, or you forget to update the extensions, etc. - the best approach to maintaining a robust GNOME edition is to keep the configuration close to the upstream defaults.

Otherwise, with every new version of GNOME there will be many people who complain "the latest update broke GNOME", and they won't be able to fix it because they don't know how they have configured it.

GTK theme, icons, and wallpaper are all fairly robust. Extensions are not. It might be nice to see if there's a way to match the look of this edition to the others though.

On the other hand, if you think that this is achievable then maintaining your own spin of Garuda for a few GNOME update cycles would be a good way to see how it goes.

[BluishHumility]

Since the GNOME team openly refuses to support extensions, you have a potentially frustrating task ahead of you. I honestly don't really care for GNOME as it is, and I think it could really use a good many thoughtful extensions. But the fact that GNOME carelessly (and unapologetically) breaks pretty much every extension when they update is so aggravating I've learned to keep my distance.

Good luck to you! You certainly have your work cut out for you. P.S. I agree with your take on the "fluent" colors, I think the grey looks better.

[soumyatheman]

I'm not saying about making Garuda an old-Ubuntu, and for your kind information, I have made it so with Yaru theme and icons. I'm talking about fundamental issues. Garuda itself with its app called Garuda System Maintenance uses an appindicator and Ubuntu is the only guy who is working to keep appindicator alive in Gnome, others are just copying it. For now, Ubuntu's appindicator extension, do not work in Gnome 41, so, for an alternative I'm saying about Unite, which does the job. If there is no pre-installed appindicator support, what is the meaning of an appindicator in a system app. Also, Unite didn't break with introduction of Gnome 40, that very feature "System Tray On Top Bar" was still working then. And please stop being so skeptical, as the introduction of gtk4 broke a lot of extensions, but not every extension break with update, even I'm using all the extensions specified above from the starting of Gnome 40, and every single of them except the Appindicator stopped working with Gnome 41.2. However, I'm totally hopeful that before the introduction of any new gtk version, like gtk5 or so, there is going to be no major extension crisis anymore. And most extensions I mentioned, specifically works in gnome 40.
P.S: What does the Garuda Dev Team think about my customizations and opinions?

[mandog]

Well i have used gnome for 20 years and most of what i hear bad is hearsay and at the most bullshit.
Extensions its a good thing that they need updating every few months that is a plus point not a negative, as far as themes go i'm using the same theme for the last 4 years and the same for the shell theme based on mac before that i was using the arc theme.
The hate unfortunately is nothing more than rivalry from days of old that has turned into a hate campaign by some users just like systemd :ie somebody said
I wish you luck just don't get disheartened by users negativity let it help you to achieve you goal.

[soumyatheman]

I have opened all the merge requests of GDM customizations for now. Let's see what the DEV's say. They haven't checked the codes yet, I guess.

[tbg]

I do not use Gnome, and the following is only my personal opinion.

Perhaps, you have only started using Garuda and are unfamiliar with Gnome's history here. It was at one point contemplated dropping the Gnome edition completely, because of all the extra work required and issues surrounding any major Gnome update.

The team has enough on their plate supporting the huge list of DE's and WM's we already supply. Editions that proved too much work to maintain in the past (such as Deepin) were dropped to ease the burden on the dev team.

As Gnome has a very large following it was not dropped completely, but was moved to a more vanilla format to reduce the work required to keep this edition in circulation. I can't see the team wanting to reverse course with the distro's Gnome edition by including more extensions that will contribute to breakages down the road.

If you feel like maintaining a community edition of your own fully by yourself that's great. However, the goal with the community editions is to lessen the devs load, so you are pretty much on your own going that route.

If the dev team were big Gnome users there might be more desire to customize Gnome. However, as Gnome is not the DE most devs involved with Garuda use, don't expect a lot of development effort to be expended on Gnome.

That is simply my perspective on the matter.

Good luck with your efforts.

[soumyatheman]

I'm using Gnome since 2020 middle, when I have just started my Linux journey, I used Garuda Gnome with the 3.36 and 3.38 versions. That time there were a lot of extensions with whom I's introduced to for the first time, like-unite, transparent-shell, tweaks and extensions to system menu etc. You can double-check if I am saying anything wrong. However, the point is I don't want that any of the Garuda Devs take the burden of customizing Gnome with continuously breaking extensions, I'm ready to take that on my own, and already I have taken the first step, making my first ever iso. What I want is that you guys make my version of Gnome as your official version, I'm ready to accept and hear every hate and shouts from the user regarding any issue of gnome. Also, I need some aur's to be available in repository. If the Dev Team don't agree with my first request, at least listen to my second request of making some aur's as repo packages. Those are very necessary. Those aur's are:
1) Dbus-x11
2) Fluent icon theme
3) Fluent round icon theme
4) Gnome Shell Extension Espresso
5) Extension Gs Connect
6) Extension Unite
7) X11-gestures

Also, I will host my iso today and will give the link creating a new thread. Anyone willing can test it, I'm 1000% guarantying that it's gonna be as stable as the official gnome version is. Thanks in Advance

[SGS]

@soumyatheman

What I want is that you guys make my version of Gnome as your official version, I’m ready to accept and hear every hate and shouts from the user regarding any issue of gnome.

That’s sweet of you, but the hate always falls back on Garuda Linux and not the individual maintainer.

The developer team has a private life and can’t just look after your interests,
your pestering here and on Telegram isn’t really helping.

It would have been nice if you had participated in the forum since using Garuda Gnome here with suggestions for improvement , and also in general.

[soumyatheman]

Okay, that's my fault, and obviously sorry for my continuous annoyance everywhere, I just wanted to make Garuda better, but not by my completely childish behavior. I have decided to make a Garuda Gnome Customized edition and upload them in my cloud drives and host a site about that in my GitHub and Gitlab account. Will share it to the telegram group also⁣ However, I'll try my best to keep it as stable as every other edition. Thanks for all the support from you guys. And Sorry also from the core of my heart. But I'll be grateful if you all make those packages available in repos please

[Naman]

@soumyatheman

X11-gestures

Don’t worry about that. I am currently testing libinput-gestures, in Cinnamon. After I check its reliability, I will add it one by one to each edition.

@soumyatheman

I’m 1000% guarantying that it’s gonna be as stable as the official gnome version is. Thanks in Advance

I like your confidence and eagerness and willingness to do things.
But we have to be very careful and test each thing ourselves to ensure reliability.

The most important thing about Gnome is its userbase. After Dr460nized editions, most used edition is Gnome. So, we are obviously reluctant to take the risks there.

Also, you are very new to community as well as maintaining own distro thing. So, kindly be part of the community and try to learn swimming, before plunging into the ocean.

[soumyatheman]

I agree with you, and I'm from now on this forum always, helping and guiding and taking guide from everyone. I'll also make a GDM customization thread, where I'll write about customizing the GDM in details. And also thanks to all of you for guiding me so much. Within this small-time, I have learned a lot.

[soumyatheman]

By the way the dbus-x11 package is very necessary for every xorg user, as it allows using dbus-launch under xorg, can we get it in repo asap?

[SGS]

1024×1024 101 KB

This topic is for requesting new packages. Reporting broken Packages on the repository. Packages which need recompilation.

[Naman]

I don't know why you need dbus-x11 when dbus is included in official Arch repository
https://archlinux.org/packages/core/x86_64/dbus/
Does it provide something special?

[soumyatheman]

Yes obviously, dbus-launch is the feature, with the dbus package dbus-launch only works in wayland but with this package it works also in xorg, making it easy to use any gnome app as root user and also allows using dconf-editor. By the way how can I request for packages in that topic, I'm getting no option.

[SGS]

@soumyatheman

I’m getting no option.

Copy and paste your text to this thread, after the last post there.

[soumyatheman]

I guess I'm not allowed yet.

[SGS]

Let me check, maybe you do not have the TL to post there.

I ask @dr460nf1r3 if it is possible to add.
But I know he is very busy this weekend.

[dr460nf1r3]

I added the package to our repo nevertheless