How to add and use GNOME Shell extensions in Zorin OS

Zorin OS is in my opinion a fantastic Linux distribution for both novice Linux users and experienced Linux users who prefer a solid and productive out-of-the-box experience. Zorin OS has a lot of built-in options to customize the look and feel to your liking. This can be done easily with the Zorin Appearance desktop switcher and with quite a few built-in manual settings. For many, these options will be more than enough to personalize your Zorin OS operating system, but if you want to go a bit further to customize how your Zorin OS looks and operates, additional options are available. In this article, I will explain how to add and use GNOME Shell extensions in Zorin OS to make your Operating System even more your own.

Content of this article

1. What is GNOME
2. What are GNOME Shell Extensions
3. How to find, download, and install GNOME Shell Extensions in Zorin OS
4. My favorite GNOME Shell Extensions for Zorin OS
5. Final words

What is GNOME

For those relatively new to the world of Linux, I can imagine that the extensive arsenal of unknown terms and abbreviations can sometimes lead to confusion and perhaps even overwhelm. In this article, I will discuss GNOME and GNOME Shell Extensions. So, it is good to start with a short explanation of what GNOME is. 

First, there is a lot of confusion and differences of opinion about how to pronounce GNOME. For sure GNOME does not stand for the garden gnome, so according to many, you do not pronounce it with a silent G like NOME. GNOME is an abbreviation for “GNU Network Object Model Environment”. Next, GNU is an abbreviation for “GNU’s Not Unix”. So, “officially” GNOME should be pronounced as “guh-NOME” because GNU is officially pronounced as “guh-NEW”. But still, a lot of people prefer to “say it like the magical creature or the lawn ornament“.

Enough for now about how to pronounce things 🙂 

GNOME is very popular and in my opinion a very beautiful, modern, simple to use, and productive, free and open-source desktop environment (DE) for Linux. According to the official website, “GNOME is available to install through most GNU/Linux distributions“, but is also the standard Desktop Environment for many distributions, like Fedora Workstation, Vanilla OS, and Ubuntu. The developers of Zorin OS have also chosen to use GNOME as the foundation for their Linux distro, but they customized the vanilla GNOME experience into an experience that’s very unique and recognizable for Zorin OS. 

Out-of-the-box, Zorin OS offers already a deviation from the standard GNOME experience, but you can go even further yourself with GNOME Shell extensions. 

What are GNOME Shell Extensions

You can see GNOME Shell extensions as specific functional extensions that do not necessarily have to be developed and implemented by the developers of GNOME or Zorin OS, but that can be designed, coded, and distributed by any developer. These extensions are functionally diverse and can be added to your GNOME-based operating system by yourself. Think of adjustments to your application menu, power management, disabling auto-suspending of your screen, clipboard management, user themes, and even an extension to manage your extensions. Many of these extensions you will find in your top bar or bottom bar, depending on your theme. But there are also extensions that you will not see in the bar because they are activated and used differently. The visibility and behavior are therefore extension specific.

How to find, download, and install GNOME Shell Extensions in Zorin OS

There are several ways to find, download and install GNOME Shell Extensions, but I prefer the Extension Manager App. You can easily install the Extension Manager app via the built-in Software app in Zorin OS, which I usually refer to as my Software Center.

1) Open de Software app.

2) Search for Extension Manager.

Zorin OS shows you two options. One is the .deb version and the other is the more up-to-date Flatpak version. 

3) Choose the option you prefer.

4) Install Extension Manager.

Now that we have the Extension Manager installed, we can start looking for useful extensions.

1) Start Extension Manager.

On the Installed tab you see a User-Installed extensions section and a System Extensions section. In the System Extensions section, you see every extension that is already available in Zorin OS. Depending on the theme in Zorin OS some extensions are enabled or disabled, and on this overview, you can disable or enable extensions to your liking. Some extensions show a gear icon, which indicates that there are extra settings available.

2) Select the Browse tab.

Here you can search for extensions via the search section if you know what to look for, or you can scroll down and click Load More Results to browse through all available extensions. here you can also sort on Relevenace, Downloads, Recent, and Name. Here you also see the installable extensions and those that are already installed.

So, now let’s have a look at some nice extensions.

My favorite GNOME Shell Extensions for Zorin OS

As mentioned before, Zorin OS already uses several GNOME Shell Extensions and offers the configuration options that go with them out-of-the-box. So we don’t need to pay attention to some extensions, such as the popular Dash to Dock and Dash to Panel. However, there are several extensions available that allow you to further customize your Zorin OS. The following extensions are some of my favorites:

• Blur my Shell
• Caffeine
• Clipboard History
• Emoji Copy
• Vitals
• OpenWeather
• Trash Indicator
• Internet Radio
• Recent Items
• Extension List

Blur my Shell

The Blur my Shell gives you different options to add and manage blur effects to different parts of your Operating System, like the applications overview, the Dash, and the panels.

Caffeine

If you want to be sure that your computer won’t go to sleep due to the default power settings of your Linux installation, you’ll want to use a tool that gives you control over when and how long your Linux computer stays active. There are many applicative cases to think of where you cannot use unexpected behavior from your operating system, such as rendering/exporting your final video editing result or a long backup or restore process. Caffeine is an extension that makes it possible to disable the screensaver and auto-suspend. 

Clipboard History

There are different clipboard management extensions available for GNOME, but I personally like Clipboard History, as it is simple, has a search option, and provides a nice broad overview of all your copy actions.

Emoji Copy

Sometimes, we need Emojis to enhance our communication or just give a friendly tone to our text. Emoji Copy is a handy extension that is always available directly in your top bar or bottom bar after installation. It has search functionality and a handy categorized overview.

Vitals

A convenient and simple solution to see information about your computer’s temperature, voltage, fan speed, memory usage, processor load, system resources, network speed, and storage at a glance. 

OpenWeather

A nice extension that shows you at a glance various weather forecast information for any place in the world.

Trash Indicator

The Trash Indicator does what its name says: It indicates if you have trash in your bin. But it also offers a convenient way to see what is in the bin and provides the option to clean your trash bin immediately.

Internet Radio

If you suddenly feel like starting and listening to an internet radio channel, the Internet Radio extension is a handy solution. Always immediately available in your panel, just a click away from your favorite radio channels.

Recent Items

This is a very handy extension to quickly view and open recently used files and folders without having to start your file manager and search for the file you were recently working on.

Extension List

I want to close my list of extensions with Extension List. This extension helps you to easily manage all your extensions from your panel. 

Final words

Zorin OS comes with extensive customization options out of the box. From a built-in theme selector to various ways to customize the look and feel. But with GNOME Shell extensions you can take it a step further and enable a ton of useful functionality with just a simple click. I’ve explained what is GNOME, what are GNOME Shell Extensions, how to find, download, and install GNOME Shell Extensions in Zorin OS and I’ve given you a list of my favorite extensions for Zorin OS. This was just a small selection of the large number of extensions available. See for yourself if there is more available to make your Linux life a bit easier or more efficient.

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