Theming GNOME (Requested by valtteri459)

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
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**************Moved to Linux Tutorial Section********************
***UPDATE 3/22/2015
IM A JACKARSE... I forgot to include a link to gnome look... Here you Go everybody
Gnome Look Dot Org (CLICK ME)

@valtteri459 So as per request I will be introducing a basic method to

Theming Gnome

RELEVANT Distributions for the command line
OpenSUSE 13.2
General guide on extraction and location for themes
All distros. Its not specific because its the same on all gnome distros for themes to be found in the user directories home in the hidden folders

So the memeber who made the request actually wants to know how to install a specific theme so I will be using it as an example.

First things first no matter which distro we are on (in his case opensuse so adapt the code to your distro) we need to get our latest updates
Open the terminal (ctrl + alt + T )

sudo zypper refresh
sudo zypper update

After everything is done we need to get the gnome tweak tool (in some cases depending on if you built your distro yourself with all the packages you want it may be available. In the case of a standard open suse 13.2 gnome installation it wont be included normaly.

in the terminal execute these commands to get gnome tweak tool

zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:13.2/standard/openSUSE:13.2.repo
zypper refresh
zypper install gnome-tweak-tool

Now that we have that lets proceed to finding our theme we want. In the case of @valtteri459 he wants 2 specific elements. I shouldnt say theme... more like EYE CANDY
We will start with a color theme. As per request
http://www.ravefinity.com/p/download-ambiance-radiance-flat-colors.html is the color theme I will be providing the commands for.

So let us talk a little about themes.

Basically GNOME allows you to modify many different elements of its desktop.. Whether it be the shell... the login screen (GDM) or icons sounds and other lovely things.

Each will get sorted into its own location. I need to point out the icons and shell themes are the same on most distros. In fact they will be contained in hidden folders inside the users home folder
Examples : Themes go in the /home/insert your username here/.themes

SO to start out this theme he has will come in the form of a tarball for opensuse

tar -xzvf /yourcolortheme.tar.gz

Once it is fully extracted..

nautilus .

If you forget the period it wont open to your home directory which you need. Open preferences and show hidden files... Then create a new folder named .themes in your home directory if it is not already there.

go inside and in the case of this theme there are hundred of possible themes located inside.
Choose one e.g. ambience-orange .. go inside its folder and find the GTK3.0 folder... Now copy the entire contents of the gtk3.0 directory to that folder.. in a folder named after your theme and its subset. Voila we have our app settings and assets there...
I CAN NOT STRESS ENOUGH>>> DO NOT USE SUDO PERMISSIONS WHEN WORKING WITH THEMES... It screws a lot of things up.. I have seen it first hand...
Now in the case of his theme he need the vibrance icon theme installed as well.

To install icons

The Rave Finity GTK icons
Alrighty Icons are wonderfully simple... Download the package... then

tar -xzvf /path to icon tarball .tar.bz2

once extracted go into the folder via the command

dolphin .

Navigate to the folder and then choose the selected top level folder in his case.. it isnt seperated into GTK3.0 and all the others .. because it is a GTK theme natively... So copy the entire vibrance color-(insert color here) folder and move it to the .icons hidden folder in your home directory.

You basically do the same thing for sounds and other eyecandy with the exception of GDM.. which is distro specific so we will not be covering it in this guide.... Hope this helps

GO TO THE GNOME TWEAK TOOL AND IN THEMES AREA.. Everything should be there.. if you select it and its corrupt.. either your download was corrupt or you missed something

I am sorry that I was not very detailed as this was meant to be generic...
I followed the steps detailed here and I can confirm all is working well in Opensuse 13.2 for this theme... If you have questions feel free to ask or PM me if you dont want it to be public.. Do not be shy.. i wont judge :D

Contribution by @Willdrick

4 Likes
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Nice guide, I won't lie when it came to modifying gnome on opensuse I was lost. Hopefully this will help the newbs.

1 Like
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Its actually the same on everything.. except for GDM LOLS.... its all stored in hidden file folders in the home directory

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ahh yes, i got what i was searching for, big thanks to you, you are an amazing person, now i am forever happy, at least until i run into my next issue, whatever it might be :)

1 Like
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No problem... I'm always happy to assist.. I figure you have to learn somewhere.. I'm not like some veterans who say Google it lols

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thanks once again, now i have the gnome experience i like

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goddamit now I can't decide between unity and gnome3.
I started with unity so I'm more familiar with it but I saw that gnome is more customizable, but when I installed it I couldn't customize stuff like I wanted and couldn't find stuff that I had in unity, but unity is so cartoony, I like flat dark themes... I CAN'T DECIDE

1 Like
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Well that sounds like a personal problems lols.. Go with gnome 3 it's far better than unity and does not spy on you or send your data to companies... I wrote this guide for customization.. Please follow it as said... You will be able to theme how you wish to...
Gnome Look (CLICK ME) has a great repo of eyecandy

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Add http://extensions.gnome.org/ to that linky linky you've got there. There are several UX improvements to be had as extensions.

Some of my Favourites:

Applicatons Menu: Replaces the "Activities" button with a start menu-like launcher. It doesn't remove the default hot corner so you have both modes
Caffeine: Adds a tray icon that can toggle screen/system power saving. It toggles automatically when using fullscreen programs. must-have if you play games with a gamepad or watch movies.
Dynamic top bar: Makes the top bar transparent unless you maximize a window
Launch new instance: Clicking on a sidebar icon on overview will always open a new instance of that program
Top Icons: Moves the hidden icons from the bottom drawer to the top right corner.
Volume Mixer: adds sliders for adjusting volume per-program, like the expanded windows mixer

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Consider it done