4 Incredibly Simple Ways to Customize Budgie Desktop in Linux
======
If you ask me to make the MATE desktop modernized with added features and GTK support, I may come up with something like Budgie!
Budgie is an impressive desktop environment (DE) that provides you with a familiar layout along with a unique user experience.
So, how can you customize the Budgie desktop to elevate your experience? Fret not; I got your back here with some essential tips to tweak your Budgie experience.
I will help you do the following:
* **Change wallpaper**
* **Change themes, icons, and cursor (the easy way)**
* **Customize panel**
* **Customize dock**
Let us get started! 🤩
### 1\. Change the wallpaper of Budgie DE
The Budgie desktop comes with some beautiful wallpapers pre-installed.
To change the wallpaper on Budgie's desktop, all you have to do is follow two simple steps:
1. Right-click on the home screen and choose `Change Desktop Backgroun` option
2. Select the image, and it will be applied to your home screen
![Click to enlarge the image][1]
But if you don't like the available options, you can always download wallpapers from the web.
Once done, open the file manager, navigate to where the image is located, right-click on the image, and choose the `Set as Wallpaper...` option.
![][2]
### 2\. Change the desktop theme, icons, and cursor theme
Traditionally, we download themes from the web, extract the downloaded file, and move files to the respective directory to [apply the theme on Linux][3].
![][4]
But that takes a while and may not be the quickest way to do it. You are free to explore it above if you are curious.
And that's where the **ocs-url** tool comes into play.
A tool that will install any theme (from portals like _gnome-look.org_ ) with a single click.
💡
Gnome-look.org and pling.com are a network of sites by [Opendesktop.org][5] to help you find themes, wallpapers, icons, and other goodies in a single place.
It is in no way officially affiliated with any desktop environment.
But the sad part is that it is not available in the package manager of any Linux distribution, which means you have to install it on your system manually.
So first, go to the [official download page of the ocs-url][6], go to the `Files` tab, and download packages for your system:
![][7]
Once done, open your terminal and change the directory where the file was downloaded. For the most users, it will be the `Downloads` directory:
```
cd Downloads
```
Now, use the following command for your Linux distro:
Next, open the `Plank preferences` and change to the recently installed theme.
I changed mine to `Monterey -Dark inline`:
![][33]
#### Add docklets to have more features
Think of docklets as applets but for the dock but unlike applets, you are not given many options.
To add/remove docklets, first, open the `Plank preferences` and go to the `Docklets` menu to list the available options:
![][34]
Now, if you want to add docklets, simply drag them to the dock:
![][35]
But what if you would like to remove the added docklets?
Well, that's pretty simple! Just drag them out of the dock and they will be removed:
![][36]
### Ready to Get Started With Budgie?
Sure, you can always install a Linux distribution with Budgie desktop environment baked in—for convenience.
However, you can also choose to [install Budgie][37] on your existing distro, such as Ubuntu:
![][4]
For this tutorial, I utilized Ubuntu Budgie. The steps work for Budgie desktop no matter the distribution you use.
_💬 How do you customize your Budgie desktop experience? Do you want to add any tips to this article? Share your experiences in the comments down below._