CUSTOMIZING GNOME: BUILDING EXTENSIONS FROM SOURCE

When working on Ubuntu 22.04, the default GNOME desktop is stable but sometimes lacks the visual polish needed for a highly customized dual-boot setup. While you can install extensions via the browser, building them from source gives you the latest commits and greater control over the build environment.

One of my favorite visual tweaks is "Blur my Shell", which adds a clean, frosted glass effect to the overview, dash, and panels. Here is how I usually compile and install it directly from the repository.

[1] PREPARING THE ENVIRONMENT

First, you need to ensure you have the necessary build tools and GNOME dependencies installed. Open your terminal and fetch the required packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install git gettext nodejs npm gnome-shell-extension-prefs

[2] CLONING THE REPOSITORY

Next, clone the Blur my Shell repository from GitHub. I prefer keeping my source builds organized in a dedicated directory:

mkdir -p ~/builds && cd ~/builds
git clone https://github.com/aunetx/blur-my-shell.git
cd blur-my-shell

[3] COMPILING AND INSTALLING

The extension uses Make for its build process. Running the install command will compile the schemas and place the extension in your local `~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/` directory.

make install

Once the installation completes, you need to restart the GNOME Shell. If you are on X11, you can hit `ALT + F2`, type `r`, and hit Enter. If you are on Wayland, you will need to log out and log back in.

[4] ACTIVATION

Finally, enable the extension. You can do this via the GNOME Extensions GUI app, or directly from the terminal using `gnome-extensions`:

gnome-extensions enable blur-my-shell@aunetx

SYS.LOG: The shell should now have a blurred, frosted background instead of the harsh solid grey. This approach works for almost any open-source GNOME extension on GitHub.