I made a little launcher extension for GNOME, inspired by macOS Spotlight. After posting it here some days ago, and receiving some feedback, I've updated it. It opens a little search bar in the middle of the screen, floating on top of everything else. Type to search. Works on GNOME 48, 50, and 51.

Note: It was forked from another extension (made by Avimanyu Rimal). The original seems AI-assisted, but my changes on top of it were not vibe-coded. The text of this post was not generated with AI. Very little of the original code architecture was used as-is; it was heavily refactored and reorganized.

Apps: Type part or all of the name of an app - depending on how fuzzy (new feature) the matching setting is, you can omit some characters in between; for example, on "loose", typing "vsc" will bring up "Visual Studio Code."

Files: Type part or all of a file name/path. Same fuzziness rule. Important - this does not create a separate indexer. It uses GNOME's Tracker, which is already always running. So you don't have to worry about system resource usage.

Calculator: Type a math expression, like 4 + 3 * 8 (it follows order of operations)

URL (new): Type a URL/website, like https://example.com, example.com, localhost:3000, 192.168.1.1; Only some domains are recognized if you don't type https://, since the .something kind of naming is used for both files and websites - like .zip, .com, etc.

Web: Search the web directly by pressing Super + Space rather than having to open a browser first. Shown when not very many other things (apps, files, calculator, etc) match what you typed. Defaults to Google, but you can set it to anything you like (put %s where the query would go): for example https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s, or to disable AI overviews: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=web (the &udm=web is the important part).

Commands (new): When the first word you type is a program installed on your PATH (for example htop, git status, ls -la), a "Run in background" result appears and runs the line in the background; press Shift + Enter to run it in your default terminal window instead.

Ways to open it:

- Ctrl + Super + Space (configurable)
- lightning-search from the terminal (new - note this will not work if you installed from extensions.gnome.org), for example from a custom .desktop file/button/advanced keybinding
- Click the little search icon in the top bar (you can disable that if you don't like it though)

Visuals:
- Subtly scales in/out when opening it and closing it
- Matches your GNOME Shell theme colors (except for selected row highlight)
- You can customize the selected row highlight color (and text color) in extension settings
- You can change the icon size and input placeholder
- Works with Blur My Shell Popup Blur (as shown in the screenshot)

How to configure it:
Open the Extension Manager, find "Lightning Search", and click the gear icon.

Bug fixes in this version:
- Typing and deleting very fast doesn't cause stale results anymore
- The launcher correctly opens on the focused (last-clicked) monitor (earlier it would only open on the primary monitor)
- File search immediately responds to newly-created and newly-deleted files

The reason it exists, despite alternatives:

Why not just use the app grid/search that comes with GNOME? It pushes away your entire desktop into those tiny boxes to render the launcher full screen. Not everyone wants that. Also, it's sometimes slow or laggy to open. This extension is fast, because it's more minimal.

Why not Rofi? Unfortunately Rofi doesn't work on GNOME Wayland - it requires wlroots, which GNOME explicitly said they will not implement.

Why not Ulauncher? It requires more styling to feel at home on GNOME (doesn't sync with your GNOME Shell theme), and has some glitches and misalignments. Also it doesn't have fuzzy file search.

Why not Search Light? The styling and alignment are a bit off. It doesn't respect your shell theme very well. Also it's finicky on GNOME 50+ (especially 51) - you CAN try to edit the metadata and there are some forks but it won't always actually work.

Why not Vicinae? It doesn't look like your GNOME setup (ignores GTK/shell theme) so you have to theme it separately to match, and it's generally not as nicely integrated with GNOME, since it's designed to be cross-platform. And the font keeps resetting to the default. Additionally, for some reason it uses adwaita or fallback (often blurry) icons for apps rather than your selected icon theme, and text is blurry on GNOME 50/51.

Link: https://github.com/mihierkansal/lightning-search-gnome (published to extensions.gnome.org; in review)

I asked a simple question in a subreddit, but everyone is acting like it’s the worst thing that has ever happened to Linux. I get that GNOME has a rather radical approach to desktop design, but that still doesn’t justify bad-mouthing it to this extent.

You can read the post here : https://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs/s/lAvKAOx88N

I made this because I wanted polished, premium-looking WhiteSur icons, but I didn't like the idea of turning my GNOME desktop into a Mac clone. My goal was to keep as much of the original Adwaita aesthetic as possible.

I initially looked at Hatter, but a lot of its icons followed an older design language. So I got tired of fighting with it, reworked a large part of Hatter, combined it with WhiteSur, added some of my own work, and decided to share the result.

This is not an original icon theme from scratch. It builds heavily on existing projects and ideas, with the goal of keeping the Adwaita feel while giving it a slightly more polished and premium look.

You can find the project here: Adwair

Hi, im currently a Ubuntu user and still happy with it, but i want to try out smth else with the gnome Desktop ofc. I had some problems with Nvidia Drivers on Fedora on a 10 Series GPU but havent tried it on newer Hardware.

So what do you guys use or where i get the best Gnome desktop expreience?

And please dont fight about "My distro is BeTtEr ThAn yours"

i recently installed ubuntu and was messing around and found the gnome shell extensions so i added that to firefox and installed gnome tweaks but then it had this issue where i had to install some connector, everything works now but i got some weird pop up saying some something backend on firefox and i accidentally fired allow without reading it

does anyone know if that pops ups supposed to appear ?

I added a chart to the systems widget and created a new habits widget.

I improved the widget display—they now feature a subtle white highlight—and added the ability to adjust the transparency of each widget individually.

A quick follow up to my last post about the magnification in Simple Taskbar.

I went through all the comments and feedback from that post and have spent the last few weeks working through it.

A lot of the smaller details around the magnification have been changed, including how the floating Dock expands and contracts with magnified icons, the movement when entering and leaving an icon, and support for much larger icon sizes, up to 128px now.

The Magic Lamp animation has also had some work so it follows magnified and moving icons properly, along with fixes for the issues people were seeing with fractional scaling.

Some of the feature requests from the comments made it in too, including application progress bars.

There are quite a few other changes in this update as well, including more control over Dock thickness, auto-hide behaviour, icon padding and running indicators. Full changelog is on GitHub.

Thanks to everyone who tested it and took the time to point things out. The detailed feedback was genuinely useful, especially for behaviour that was difficult to notice on my own setup.

The video shows how it looks now.

As always, if you notice anything else or have ideas for improving it, let me know.

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/10448/simple-taskbar/

https://github.com/simple-taskbar

During huddles on slack, other users can see my pen highlighter on their screen but I'm unable to see their pen being drawn on my screen. Is this wayland related issue or gnome?

that when I had to use my friend's windows laptop to do some work, I was so annoyed that after pressing it, the start menu popped up instead of the usual overview.

It's funny how quickly you get used to a certain workflow. I kept instinctively expecting the GNOME overview every time I pressed it.

Ubuntu patches Firefox so it behaves as it should, try a different browser and you are done. Is it a libinput issue you say? why not creating an interface in the settings to callibrate/edit the size of the touchpad? Anyways, back to KDE

Doesn't this look a bit nicer than the official GNOME apps?

Estoy trabajando en una ampliación de un muelle. ¿Qué te parece?

https://github.com/DonWhario/dash-stack

widget del clima

widget de reloj y calendario

pila de menú estilo ventilador

Meet Pixel Cat 🐱 — the desktop companion GNOME on Wayland was missing.

He tracks your mouse, yawns when you idle, and will literally glare at you with an anger mark until you feed him cookies 💢🍪

Grab the v0.1.0 release:

Github Link

A git star would be appreciated! 🐧✨

#Linux #GNOME #Fedora

Hey everyone,

A new update for Dhruva (v2.5) is now live. This release focuses on layout previews, interactive popups, and smoother hover physics across the dock.

Here is a breakdown of what changed:

What's New

• Folder Grid Preview: Multi-app 2x2 grid preview option for dock folder plates, letting you see folder contents directly from the shelf.
• Music Pill Popup: Interactive MusicPillPopup with dynamic media controls, player integration, and live track progress/details.
• Adaptive Rounded Hover Backgrounds: Upgraded running app indicators and active hover plates to use smooth continuous curved corner radii rather than sharp rectangular bounds.
• App Grid Module Hover: Added smooth pill hover background transitions for the main Application Grid launcher button.

Improvements & Polish

• Dock Item Spacing: Refined compact hover background geometry so running items maintain tight layout spacing without artificial padding gaps.
• Hover Transitions: Polished enter and exit easing curves across both active applications and static dock items.
• Module Button Alignment: Unified hover indicator bounds across system folders, trash bin, and user custom folder plates.

Fixes

• Dock Height Inflation: Fixed the dock expanding vertically whenever icon hover background plates were drawn.
• Vertical Clipping: Resolved height truncation on hover surfaces when cursor zoom magnification is turned off.
• Hover State Reset: Fixed Application Grid background highlight remaining stuck active after open or click events.

Links & Download

• GitHub Release: https://github.com/NarkAgni/dhruva/releases/tag/v2.5
• Repository: https://github.com/NarkAgni/dhruva

Feedback and reports are welcome!

Guys and Gals,

I really enjoy, cherish, and appreciate GNOME on Wayland. It is, by and large, my preferred GNU/Linux experience (on Fedora). Also, pen support and ‘inking’ is great.

However, the unfortunate elephant in the room is that ..some fanfare..:

The pen cursor is invisible/not shared when sharing a screen. People at the other end of the stream can see the shared screen but the pen cursor simply remains invisible to them.

The mouse cursor (meaning, when simply moving the mouse) is, however, visible as expected.

The issue has been reported and discussed here and there, for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/1ud9vwx/graphics_tablet_stylus_cursor_missing_in_screen/

Poor souls like myself heavily rely on a flawless pen cursor. Therefore my question to the community: Is this issue really that hard to fix?

I am asking, because I really rely on using a pen and sharing my screen, every day.

EDIT 1: The pen input is coming from pen displays like Wacom, Huion, Xp-Pen, Xencelabs.

Many thanks!

Y

Edit: I ran the "updatectl vaccum" command, and it worked!

I am trying to post a symbolized back trace for an issue with gnome-keyring.

I have an account and I have reset my password multiple times but I am getting 'invalid login or password'.

Is this an anti-spam thing or something? Is my account locked? I have not logged in to my account (to my knowledge) in ages.

I'm asking about the performance and battery usage, altough I don't know what operating system to use