As I have mentioned in the past, I switch off between Xfce and Gnome desktops here. While in Gnome, I have a number of settings I have picked up in various places (bugs, talking to maintainers, various docs and blogs) and I thought I would share a few in the hopes that they would be of interest to others. You can use the ‘gsettings’ tool or the ‘dconf-editor’ GUI to set or check the current values of these keys. Of course some of them can also be set from the normal settings guis.

  • org.gnome.shell.overrides edge-tiling true – This lets you drag windows to the right or left edge and have them tile to 1/2 of the desktop. This goes along with dragging to the top of the screen to maximize an application.
  • org.gnome.software download-updates false – Disable gnome-softwares downloading of updates. Since I use dnf this saves me a bit of BW and also messages about needing to apply updates I already have applied.
  • org.gnome.nm-applet suppress-wireless-networks-available true – This disables the ‘There are open wireless networks” message. I only want to join specific wireless networks if I need something.
  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings hinting ‘slight’ – slight hinting works best with the fonts I like. I think this may now be the default.
  • org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences focus-mode ‘sloppy’ – I want to change focus when I move the mouse. I am pretty used to this from years and years now.
  • org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences auto-raise-delay 125 – and autoraise on focus change.
  • org.gnome.shell.window-switcher app-icon-mode ‘both’ – I want both the icon and the name in the alt-tab switching thing.
  • org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-format ’24h’ – 24 hour clock is what I am used to. 🙂
  • org.gnome.desktop.interface show-battery-percentage true – shows the battery % left in the menu bar. Handy when you are wanting to see how long you have left and you don’t want to pull down the menu.
  • org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-blink false – blinking cursors are evil. They suck power are distracting and should be disabled. (I could swear that I saw a site a while back that showed how to disable blinking cursors in any application or system you could name, but I can’t seem to find it now)
  • org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-show-date true – I like the date in the menu bar.
  • org.gnome.shell disable-extension-version-validation true – This disables the version check for extensions. Sometimes it helps, but usually if an extension doesn’t work for me setting this doesn’t help much.
  • org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad two-finger-scrolling-enabled true – I used to always use Edge scrolling, but it went away for a while and I retrained myself on 2 finger scrolling and it’s fine now.
  • org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad tap-to-click true – must have tap to click. Saves so much wear and tear on my hands and the touchpad. Just a gentile tap is all thats needed.

Do you have some favorite ones?