Hello, Linux lovers, we are going to see how to use Gnome shell extensions in open to 17.10 19.4
or any other Linux distribution that has no desktop environment. So what exactly is this Gnome shell extension
Gnome shell extension is basically a tiny piece of code that enhances the capability of your Gnome desktop
Now, in what sense? So for example, if you got a brand new Gnome desktop
you can install some add ons or plugins, these Gnomes shell extension which will do a specific task
For example, I have installed this Gnome shell extensions for weather display
So it displays the weather for me right on the top of the panel
Similarly, you can, I can have this installed this extension which shows what extensions do I have on my my
Gnome desktop here and I can just turn them on or off from here
For example, if I do this places status indicator, I'll have the places here
So you can see that you can access these instead of going to the file manager here
These are tiny, tiny plugins which are actually used for plenty of things
You'll find that it's really, really useful when you install these specific Gnomes shell extensions that you get more out of your Linux system
So let's see how to actually install them. There are multiple ways to do that and we're going to see the first way
which is the standard way. The way open two provides tiny set of extensions
So let's go here, install, no shell
oops extends, I have already installed it. So
it's already installed for me. Uh You will need a non tweaks tool for this
So you have to install that as well and that
has been installed as well. Sorry for that. But well, I have everything ready with me
So once you have installed the tweaks to, you can just start it and then you go into the extensions and there you will see
that you have some extensions already installed, uh some extensions I have installed later
but you will see like there are like 10, 12 extensions and you can turn them on or off from here pretty
neat. But there are like hundreds of Gnomes shell extensions and these 10 or 12 are not gonna cut it
because you, it's possible that you read about some super cool Gnome shell extension and you want to use that
And of course, then you won't find it in the standard set of extensions which is provided by your system
So what are you, what are you gonna do? You can actually use your web browser to install nom cell extensors
So just go to your web browser. Um what web browser are supported here
Firefox Chrome or Chromium and opera. So just to go for
cell extend oops S A. So
when you go here, you will see that there's an error which says that you have to use an add browser extension and a native
host application. So the first thing which you can always do is to install this browser extension
which is available, as I said in Firefox, Chrome and opera. So you have it installed just to refresh it and then you'll
see that the error has been changed because we need two things here
One is the uh browser extension. The other is the native host connector which should be installed on the system
So it's missing that. So let's go back to terminal and try to install this
Not try, we will install it actually this native host connector. Oops
sorry. Um But clumsy. This is actually called Chrome Gnome shell
which is surprising because you are using it for Firefox or opera
but it's still called Chrome Gnome cell extension. I don't know the historical reason for it
but this is how it's it is. So you install the host connector now
you should be good to install no shell extension from your web browser
OK. So we have refreshed it and now we shouldn't be seeing any errors
There you go. So it has been sorted by the popularity and it is showing all the extensions available
And there's this little catch actually what happens is that these all third party plugins
this means some other developers coded something pack it as an extension
but maybe he or she did it like two years ago. And after that
in two years, you will have like four new no desktop releases
So it is possible that that older one doesn't work with your current version to
sort out this problem. What you can do is you can say that compatible with current version and then you'll see that some
some of them has been removed, some extension, you don't see it anymore because it automatically knows which is your Gnome shell version
And then you can just, it can just sort it out for, for you
So no problem here. So let's say we want to install some cool no shell extension
Which ones we should go for? Do you know? Funny. Let's say we want to
check internet speed that speed. What do we get? Simple net speed
Will it be installed? So normally if I check a lot of time good and just
making sure. Ok. So what you'll see here is this tiny button which is just toggle it and
it will pop up for and install. And if you do that
normally it has been installed. So how exactly will you know which are the extensions which have been installed on
your system? One way is using the norm tweaks tool. And you there
you see it has been turned on another way and sort of better way is to use this website and go to install extensions
Even if you have not been logged in with an account, it will still find out the extensions installed on your system and
you can configure them here and the best thing and this is the only way to update your extension is through
the browser. You will see that there's a green mark here, which means there's an upgrade available for this extension
You won't find this feature in the gnome tweaks or even if you upgrade your system
your gnome shell extensions are not upgraded. So this is in my knowledge
the only way to upgrade an extension. So this is why it's
it's always better to use the web browser. So here it is
And if you want to delete an extension, well, you can just
for example, I don't want this one. Sure. And I just deleted it out of the system
If you refresh, you won't find it here. You the nom tweaks
you can configure the extensions but you cannot delete them from here
So this is very useful the browser. I mean it's one click install
you can see what extensions you have, you can upgrade them, you can delete them
you can configure them a lot of things. Let's talk about when you don't have internet at home
I mean, or for some reason you want to install it manually
which means that you don't have inter active internet connection, but you still want to do that
So what you can do is download this extension file and then just copy paste in a specific directory and you should be fine
It should be. So let's just install one of the apps uh compatibility
I just want it for my version radio, internet radio. So
this time we won't be using this. We will be using. I know that my version is 3.26
If you want to know how to see that, I guess that should be
you see 3.26 point one. So 3.26 should be fine to download extension version
latest and it has been downloaded. So let's go to this one here
and then you have you see something like this. So what we are going to do is just extract it and then we
will go to a specific directory with this copy rest, go to home control
edge to show the hidden files, go to local share. And here you will
find something called Gnome shell. Go there and there you see a directory called extensions
Oh, and here for there's little catch still here, it won't be available right
away because we have to do a tiny bit thing here which will just go with uh
just look for a file named Made editor dot Jason, open this file and you will find something called
U U ID, copy the, the, the value of this U U R D without the codes
and then go and you'll see that the U U id is not exactly the same as this file name
rename it. Ok. Normally this is how it's installed manually
So how do you do that? Let's we have to do, we have to
what we have to do is reset the NOM shell. So T plus function two will drop down the
command and there if you put R it will refresh or restart the NOM shell
So it has been restarted. If you go install extensions now it will show the internet video
it has been installed. You can also find it in extension here and
of course you'll find it here so you can just turn on and configure and do whatever you want
So that is how you install. And of course, I already show you how to upgrade and delete
I hope you like this. And perhaps you can tell me what are your favorite Noms shell extensions in the comments below
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Have a nice day. Bye bye