Customize GNOME Desktop in Ubuntu with a Clean Look

This tutorial gives you some easy steps to customize GNOME Desktop with a clean look with minimal effort. Here’s how.

If you are bored with the usual look of your favourite GNOME Desktop, then you are on the right page. Let’s install some themes icons and do some tweaks to uplift your desktop. We will transform this below desktop (GNOME 40.5 with Ubuntu 21.10).

Ubuntu Desktop with GNOME – Before Customization

This customization session will use the great-looking Colloid GTK theme, Mkos-Big-Sur icons, a cool cursor theme with additional extensions, and Conky.

Customize GNOME Desktop and uplift it with a Clean Look

Installation

First, setup the GNOME Shell Extenstion by running the following command from the terminal.

sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell

Thenopen this page and add the plugin to your browser (Chrome/Firefox) for GNOME Extension.

Add Browser Add-on for GNOME Shell Extension

Install the Extensions Flatpak application which you may need to change settings of GNOME Extensions.

Install Extensions App

After that, install GNOME Tweaks tool using the following command from the terminal. We will use this utility to change the Themes and other settings.

sudo apt install gnome-tweaks

Download the Colloid GTK Theme from the below link. After download extract the files. Then copy the extracted folder to ~/.themes in your home directory. If the folder doesn’t exists, create it. After you done this, open a terminal and run the install.sh file.

Download Colloid GTK Theme

Download the Mkos-Big-Sur icon theme from the below link. Once it is downloaded, extract the files and copy the parent folder to ~/.icons in your home directory.

Download Icon theme

Download the below cursor theme and follow the same steps as above. Copy the extracted folder to the ~/.icons directory. Then open a terminal and run the install.sh file.

Download Cursor Theme

Now, it’s time to install Conky and some extensions that would eventually give your GNOME Desktop a clean look. To install Conky and a Conky manager, open the terminal prompt and run the below commands.

sudo apt install conky

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tomtomtom/conky-managersudo apt update && sudo apt install conky-manager2

Now, open each of the below links for the extensions and install them in sequence. To install, open the page and click on the ON/OFF toggle switch (see below image). It would ask for your admin password and permission to install.

GNOME Extension – Page

Configurations

After completing the above steps, it’s time to do some basic configurations. You may see some of the changes when you installed the GNOME Extensions above. For example, the clock should already be shifted to the right side when installing the Move Clock extension above.

Tweaks

Open the Tweaks tool (search from the application menu) and go to Apperance.
Change the Application theme to Colloid Dark, Cursors as Vimix Cursors, Icons as Mkos-big-surand Shell Theme as Colloid Dark. If you want, you can choose the light theme and different option.

Apply Themes

Arc Menu

Open the Extenstion application and go to the Arch Menu Settings.
Change the menu layout to Alternative Menu Layout > Raven.
Change the application menu button to some icons you prefer. For this guide, I have downloaded a GNOME icon from here. And applied it via Arc Menu Settings > Button Appearance > Browse Icon. And it should look like this.

Arch Menu – Raven

Enable Shrink the dash
Customize windows counter indicator = Dashes
Enable Customize Dash color
Customize Opacity = Fixed
Opacity to 12%
Open Dash to Dock settings from the Extension application. In the Appearance tab, change the below items:
In the position and size tab, change the Dock position to bottom and Icon size limit to 39px.
You can start Conky if you like and download a nice wallpaper which goes with Colloid theme. For this demonstration I have chosen a nice grey-ish wallpaper which looks stunning with the dark theme.