Beginner's guide to the GNOME desktop environment for Linux

Contents

Introduction ⚓

So, you’ve decided to give Linux a try. Maybe you downloaded a flavor like Fedora or Ubuntu, got through the installation process, booted it up, and now you’re faced with this…thing. It kinda looks like a mishmash between Mac and Windows, but doesn’t really work like either. How do you even open applications? Where do you even start?

In this blog, I’ll try to answer these questions as best as possible to help you understand how to use this common Linux user interface, from a beginner’s perspective.

The user interface ⚓

When you first log into your Fedora or Ubuntu install, you might see something like this (ignore the “QEMU” bar at the top):

This is GNOME, the default user interface for a lot of different Linux variations and flavors. GNOME isn’t just an interface, it’s an entire ecosystem of applications, libraries, and organizations helping to build the Linux desktop you’re using. While it’s not important to know everything about GNOME, it will make some things in this blog easier to understand.

Note: The technical term for interfaces like GNOME is “desktop environment” or DE (sorry Germans!). For simplicity, we’ll just call it an “interface.”

GNOME has a core philosophy: get as much out of your way as possible so you can focus on your work. This results in a clean desktop without any clutter, but it does mean that some features that are obvious in Windows and Mac aren’t obvious here. I’ll try to cover these next.

Shutdown, logout, etc. ⚓

See the Wi-Fi, audio, and battery (if you’re on a laptop) indicators in the top-right corner of the screen? Clicking on those opens your system menu. You can access quick things like enabling/disabling Bluetooth, changing volume, and changing the screen brightness. The buttons at the top let you take a screenshot, access settings, lock the screen, and turn off the computer.

Applications ⚓

GNOME hides all of your applications in a separate view called the Activities view. You can open this in one of three ways:

1. Move your mouse to the top-left corner of the screen.
2. Click the “pill” looking icons in the top-left corner of the screen.
3. Press the “Windows” key on your keyboard (the one in the bottom left of your keyboard, between Ctrl and Alt).

In any case, you should see the desktop shrink and a dock appear at the bottom of the screen. This is also how you can see all of your windows side-by-side (for Mac users, this is the equivalent of exposé) and switch between virtual desktops (more on that later).

Most importantly, this dock shows your open windows. It also has this button that looks like a grid of nine squares:

Clicking on this button brings up your Applications list. This shows you everything you have installed, like the Start menu on Windows or the Apps view on Mac. If you have a bunch of apps, you can scroll left and right.

Note: You can also access your applications by pressing the Windows key twice in quick succession.

If there are more applications than GNOME can show on one screen, you can swipe left and right. But there is another (and in my opinion, better) approach: searching.

Searching applications ⚓

Instead of looking at a giant list of your applications, GNOME lets you search. As soon as you pull up the Activities screen, start typing, and GNOME will show any apps that match your query. You don’t need to know the exact name, either: GNOME searches categories, descriptions, and other metadata. For example, to see all of your web browsers, just type “browser” or “internet.” To see which games you have installed, just type “games.” This also works for system actions, like shutting down or rebooting.

Fun fact: this search feature is extensible AND customizable! Open Settings (by opening the Activities view and searching “settings”), click Search, and toggle the options you want or don’t want to see!

Settings ⚓

Settings is the GNOME equivalent of the Windows Control Panel. It’s where you can change how your system works, set up functionality, and view information about the system. It’s not nearly as extensive as Control Panel, but it covers the basics.

Open Settings like any other app. Select a category on the left (you can scroll down) and its options will appear on the right. There’s not much else I can add here, but I will recommend exploring and seeing what all is available. If you’re a laptop user, check your Power settings. If you want to control how virtual desktops work, check the Multitasking settings. And speaking of virtual desktops…

Using virtual desktops ⚓

GNOME (and many other graphical user interfaces for Linux) has a feature called virtual desktops. Think of a virtual desktop as a separate screen where you can open windows. You can actually see them in action right now: just open the Activities view, and you’ll see a second screen just off to the right (it will appear cut off). To access it, just click on it, and GNOME will pan over to it. You can open new windows here or drag and drop windows between desktops. You can also switch back to your first desktop, and the apps on the second desktop will keep running. Nice, right?

Pro-tip: To quickly access other desktops, put your mouse cursor over the pill icon in the top-left corner and move the scroll wheel.

You can change the number of virtual desktops, how they behave, and how many to have by going to Settings > Multitasking.

Additional customization ⚓

These options aren’t strictly necessary, but I recommend them for new users.

Tweaks ⚓

The default Settings app is kinda bare-bones, but fortunately there’s another app that lets you configure even more: GNOME Tweaks. You’ll have to download this separately since it doesn’t usually come pre-installed, but that’s easy. Depending on your distribution:

Fedora

sudo dnf install gnome-tweaks

Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweaks

Others

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

https://itsfoss.com/gnome-tweak-tool/ 🔗

My recommendation: go to the Windows section, scroll to Titlebar buttons, and enable the Maximize and Minimize buttons. This makes it look more like Windows and macOS. You can even choose whether to put them on the left or right side of the title bar!

Extensions ⚓

GNOME supports extensions, which are little JavaScript packages you can install to add functionality. GNOME hosts a repository at https://extensions.gnome.org/ 🔗.

WARNING: Be careful when installing extensions, as they can make GNOME unstable. Make sure to only download extensions that are hosted on extensions.gnome.org and have decent reviews!

Some of my personal favorites:

• AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support 🔗: adds a system tray to GNOME for apps that run in the background (like Discord).
• Dash to Dock 🔗 (or Dash to Panel 🔗): supercharges the dock so that it works more like the macOS dock.
• Another Window Session Manager 🔗: saves your open windows when you log out and reopens them when you log back in, like macOS.
• Random Wallpaper 🔗: changes your wallpaper on a timer interval and can pull from a bunch of different sources.

To install extensions from this site, you’ll need to install a browser extension first. The exact process depends on which Linux distribution you’re using 🔗. Once you have the extension installed, you can go to any plug-in on extensions.gnome.org and click install as long as it supports the version of GNOME you’re using.

Alternatively, you can install the Extension Manager 🔗 app and manage extensions this way.

Many extensions are configurable. You can configure them through extensions.gnome.org or the Extension Manager app.

Conclusion ⚓

There’s a lot to GNOME that I didn’t cover here, but hopefully this gave you a good starting point. If you want to learn more about GNOME, check out their website at https://www.gnome.org/ 🔗. If you have questions, join the Discourse at https://discourse.gnome.org/ 🔗. Your distribution probably also has a forum where you can post questions.

Also, GNOME isn’t the only interface. The other major options are KDE and XFCE, but there are dozens of smaller ones like Unity and LXDE. When you feel more comfortable using Linux, I’d encourage you to check these out too. You can have multiple installed and switch between them by logging out of your account and selecting a different one using the gear icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

Whether you stick with GNOME or try something different, remember to explore, tweak, and try new things. This is your system now: make it yours!