Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

Paper: New Material Design Inspired GTK Theme

| Date: December 18, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: customization, eyecandy, gnome, gnome3, paper, themes, ubuntu

Paper is a new material design inspired GTK theme, which is currently in beta. "Its design is mostly flat with a minimal use of shadows for depth", mentions its website, and it was developed primarily for the GNOME (Shell) and other desktops that make use of header bars.

Ideally, you'll need a complete GNOME 3.14 / 3.12 desktop to see what Paper is all about, since the theme uses custom colors for header bars / client-side decoration apps.

Paper GTK theme
Paper under Ubuntu GNOME 14.10

Fedora 21 Available For Download

| Date: December 09, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: distro, fedora, gnome3, linux


Fedora 21 has just been released, featuring the latest stable GNOME 3.14 along with other interesting changes.

With this release, Fedora is available in three flavors: server, cloud and workstation and below, we'll take a quick look at what's new in Fedora 21 Workstation.


GNOME 3.14 Released, See What`s New

| Date: September 24, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: desktop environment, gnome shell, gnome3, linux

After six months of development, GNOME 3.14 was released today and it includes quite a few interesting changes such as multi-touch gestures for both the system and applications, re-worked default theme, new animations as well as various enhancements for the code GNOME applications. Let's take a look at what's new!

How To Install GNOME 3.12 In Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 (Trusty Tahr)

| Date: May 13, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: gnome3, linux, ubuntu

GNOME 3.12 was released a while back but it wasn't included by default in Ubuntu 14.04, so here's how to install GNOME 3.12 in Ubuntu GNOME 14.04.

GNOME 3.12 Ubuntu 14.04

See What's New In The 14.04 Release Of Lubuntu, Kubuntu And Ubuntu GNOME

| Date: April 17, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: distro, gnome shell, gnome3, kde, kubuntu, linux, lubuntu, lxde, Trusty Tahr, ubuntu, ubuntu gnome

All the Ubuntu flavors reached version 14.04 (LTS) today. Below we'll take a quick look at what's new in Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME and Kubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr).

For Xubuntu, see: Xubuntu 14.04 Available For Download [Video, Screenshots]

All the Ubuntu flavors (except for the main Ubuntu version - with Unity, which is supported for 5 years) will be supported for 3 years.

Beautiful MediterraneanNight GTK 3.6 Theme Pack Updated

| Date: January 15, 2013 | View Comments | Tags: eyecandy, gnome3, themes, ubuntu, xfce

MediterraneanNight is a pack of 3 darkish GTK3 themes based on Gnome Cupertino available for both GTK3.4 (Ubuntu 12.04) and GTK3.6 (Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04) as well as for Xfce.

The beautiful theme pack has been updated yesterday, getting some interesting changes, but only for the GTK3.6 version:
  • new switches,
  • more rounded buttons,
  • improved Rhythmbox sidebar color,
  • Nautilus 3.6 changes: pathbar better spacing, improved icons sidebar color, changed the style of tabs (better readability),
  • many fixes and details like fixed OSD widget, checkbox and radiobutton symbols in menus, fixed Synaptic GTK3 toolbar and more.

Below you can see a few screenshots featuring the latest MediterraneanNight, MediterraneanDark and MediterraneanLight for GTK 3.6:

MediterraneanNight GTK3.6 theme
MediterraneanNight

MediterraneanNight widget factory
MediterraneanNight

MediterraneanDark
MediterraneanDark

2 Beautiful Dark Themes For GTK 3.6 Or 3.4 [Ubuntu PPA]

| Date: December 07, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: eyecandy, gnome 3, gnome3, gtk3, linux, themes, ubuntu, xfce

We've got quite a few requests to post some dark GTK3 themes, so here it is: DeLorean Dark and MediterraneanNight are two great dark GTK3 themes that support both GTK 3.6 (Ubuntu 12.10) and 3.4 (Ubuntu 12.04).



DeLorean Dark


DeLorean Dark is a beautiful GTK3 theme that supports the latest GTK 3.6. There's also a GTK2 theme available, which has been completely redesigned recently.

Also, the theme isn't just for GNOME (this includes Unity, Cinnamon, etc.), there are Xfce and Openbox themes available as well.

Here are some DeLorean Dark screenshots:

DeLorean Dark theme

DeLorean Dark theme

How To Customize GDM 3.6+ Login / Lock Screen (Change Theme, Wallpaper)

| Date: November 06, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: gdm, gnome 3, gnome shell, gnome3, linux, ubuntu

GDM3Setup, a tool to tweak the GDM3 login screen / lock screen, has been updated recently to support the latest stable GDM 3.6.


New Cinnamon 1.6 Release Adds 2D Session, New Applets And More Customization Options

| Date: September 18, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: cinnamon, desktop environment, gnome 3, gnome shell, gnome3, linux, linux mint, ubuntu

cinnamon 1.6
Workspaces can be named in Cinnamon 1.6

Cinnamon, the GNOME Shell fork used by default in Linux Mint 13 (Cinnamon Edition), has reached version 1.6, getting many new features: a new 2D session, workspace OSD, new applets and lots more!

Customize GTK3 / GTK2 Theme Colors Using `GTK Theme Preferences`

| Date: September 05, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: eyecandy, gnome 3, gnome3, gtk3, linux, themes, ubuntu, xfce, xubuntu

gtk theme preferences

Satya, who's behind some beautiful GTK and GNOME Shell themes, has created a cool new tool that lets you customize GTK theme colors.

Right now, `GTK Theme Preferences` (that's the name of the tool) works with any GTK2 and GTK3 theme and lets you customize the following:

uGet Download Manager Gets Ubuntu AppIndicator, Torrent And Metalink Files Support

| Date: June 02, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: appindicator, download manager, gnome 3, gnome3, linux, ubuntu, uget, windows

uGet 1.8.0

uGet is a GTK+ download manager that runs on both Linux and Windows. The latest uGet 1.8.0, released today, brings support for Torrent and Metalink files (by using aria2), Ubuntu AppIndicator as well as GTK3 support.

Other features in uGet 1.8.0:
  • speed limit control per download
  • sort downloads by column in “All” category
  • scheduler
  • new timestamp columns

To get the new Torrent and Metalink features, enable the "aria2" plugin in the options (it's disabled by default):

More GNOME Shell Extensions (MediaPlayer, noa11y, ActivitiesButton Logo)

| Date: May 26, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: fedora, gnome 3, gnome shell, gnome shell extensions, gnome3, linux, ubuntu

Before installing any extension in this post: remember that some GNOME Shell extensions might not be compatible with others and they may crash GNOME Shell. Only try to install them if you know how to fix this, just in case.


GNOME Shell Mediaplayer extension


GNOME Shell Mediaplayer extension lets you control applications that support MPRIS by adding a status menu icon:

GNOME Shell extension Mediaplayer

Install Gnome Shell (From GIT) In Ubuntu 11.04 / 10.10

| Date: October 20, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: gnome, gnome 3, gnome shell, gnome3, linux, ubuntu

Gnome Shell GIT screenshot - Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

Unfortunately there are no Gnome Shell daily builds in the Ricotz testing PPA anymore (for any Ubuntu version) and even though Ubuntu 10.10 has just been released, the Gnome Shell version in the official Ubuntu repositories is quite old so if you want to run the latest version of Gnome Shell (from GIT), you'll have to compile it. Fortunately, this is not as hard a I initially imagined (because the last time I've compiled Gnome Shell - around Ubuntu 9.04, it was a pain) thanks to the Gnome Shell testing thread @ Ubuntuforums.

By compiling Gnome Shell using the instructions in this post, all the packages the Gnome Shell script will download and compile will not replace any existing libraries and it will install in your home folder, so you don't have to worry about breaking stuff on your system (excluding here the build dependencies of course, which are usual packages from the Ubuntu repositories and will install just like any other package).

Before starting the process, here is a video I've just recorded with the latest Gnome Shell which includes a new notification area (notice how Dropbox is now only displayed in the Activities view) as well as a cool new feature (which is thanks to the latest Mutter): side-by-side tiling:

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