Custom GNOME Shell

The Shell in GNOME 40 has some substantial changes from previous versions. Some of these changes don't work well with the Frippery extensions and aren't easy to address with extensions. It is to be hoped that future updates to the Shell will sort these issues out but in the meantime I've built a custom version with some "improvements".

Overview on startup

The Shell starts in the overview on login. This may be sensible when the only way to start new applications is to use the overview. With the Frippery extensions, though, applications can be started from the Applications menu or links to favourite applications in the top panel. Mostly I only use the overview to add favourites.

The custom Shell doesn't start the overview on login. To reinstate the previous behaviour either use dconf-editor or run this command as a normal user:

   gsettings set org.gnome.shell overview-on-startup true

Workspace switching animation

The code to display an animation when switching between workspaces no longer supports two-dimensional layouts, only a single horizontal row of workspaces. This results in unsightly left and right animations when moving up and down. Thus causing motion sickness.

It's possible to turn off animations entirely using GNOME Tweaks. The custom Shell adds a more fine-grained option that only disables the up/down workspace switching animation, leaving all other animations unchanged. To reinstate the ugly behaviour run:

   gsettings set org.gnome.shell workspace-vertical-animation true

The modified version of the Shell is available here:

• Fedora 37 RPM: gnome-shell-43.5-1.rmy1.fc37.x86_64.rpm
• Source RPM: gnome-shell-43.5-1.rmy1.fc37.src.rpm
• Fedora 38 RPM: gnome-shell-44.1-1.rmy1.fc38.x86_64.rpm
• Source RPM: gnome-shell-44.1-1.rmy1.fc38.src.rpm

The custom Shell and the Frippery extensions live in the frippery-utils repository which can be enabled by installing this RPM: frippery-release-1-2.fc34.noarch.rpm.

(Yes, it says 'fc34' but it works for later versions of Fedora too.)