Hey everyone,
thank you for all of the suggestions. In the end, I’ve bit the bullet and upgraded. Spoiler alert! The world didn’t come to an end.
I am amazed that no one responded regarding the fact that theming is and always has been an essential part of Linux. Doesn’t anyone miss the custom themes? Don’t get me wrong, looks are not everything and in the end, Gnome is just a small in between step to launch software.
Speaking of, a few days ago I’ve installed UE5 and because of that need to include Windows into my setup but that is a story for another day.
I miss my macOS look and as always, sometime in the future, someone will come up with a way to implement themes once again. I’ve even tried KDE but it is not my thing. Other than that, once I switched off all of my customization settings, the upgrade went smoothly.
Congrats on your successful update! It’s not talked about much, but essentially until most apps e.g. core Gnome and third party maintainers, update their apps to GTK4/libadwaita, themes are going to be a bit wonky consistency wise. Themes still work in GTK2/3 and themes to a certain degree still work in GTK4 as well, but require some unsupported workarounds that are really only meant for developer testing. Gnome devs have started the groundwork for a recoloring API, not a full blown theme API, but it’s a step in the right direction and that should hopefully see a release by Gnome 43. But these things all take time, most work is volunteer and only when time is available do third party devs get a chance to update their stack.
In a nutshell, if you use the default theme, e.g. Adwaita/dark or maybe even the Yaru theme too (they do work closely with the Gnome devs after all), your experience will be more or less consistent (though not 100% yet). But if you were to fast forward say one year from now when most work has progressed, you’ll see a lot more consistency with the apps that updated their libraries. There will be some third party apps for various reasons that will need to stay on GTK3 for a while, but most apps will eventually fall under the GTK4 helm or will be replaced by something newer that conforms to these new libraries.
I’m not a huge fan of the inconsistency this can create, but I do understand where the Gnome devs are coming from and what their plans are moving forward. And while I don’t always agree with every single one of their visions, so far Gnome still gives me the best workflow and DE experience that I like, so when things change I try my best to adapt and incorporate them into my workflow. Things will get better, it will just take some time and some patience!
Very nice theme. My inner QA prefers that all these changes be configurable from the built in OS settings. This would allow better regression testing through releases. For myself I am trying to fiddle less and just do my work on the system.
I’ve tried Gnome 42 for a few days and as I write this post, my latest browser bookmarks, logins and home directory files are being backed up. For my needs, XFCE is more suitable. I’ve mainly fell in love with Gnome because for the fractional scaling which was needed with dual 4K screens. I have since switched to singe ultra wide 1440p monitors and use ssh instead of samba. XFCE has many beautiful themes and all in all is a speedy little devil.
Just a heads up, Xfce also uses the GTK toolkit, albeit just not the newest and latest version like Gnome uses. Eventually Xfce will update their GTK toolkit to be more in line with upstream. Now Xfce development is a lot slower than Gnome, so this change won’t happen for quite a while (I’d guess something like 1-2 years). By that time I’d imagine/hope any GTK4 woes and issues are all adjusted and fixed and more robust feature-wise in that time.
With all that said though, it’s your system so by all means use whichever makes you happiest while running EndeavourOS
You can actually theme the libadwaita windows, at least with themes which have been updated fairly recently. After you put your theme in the usr/share/themes folder like normal, open the folder of the theme you just installed, then go into the gtk4 folder and copy the two css files (gtk and gtk dark). Paste those files into your .config/gtk4 folder. Then log out and when you come back your libadwaita windows will be the same as whichever theme you copied the files from
Hi Archnoob,
I think that the install script did all of that upon running it. Ever since I got my old theme back, I am a happy camper once again. I just got so used to it.
If I install a new theme, I will consult your advise/instructions to make the switch.
Thanks - v
P.S. Nice to see the panel at the bottom. I have never considered that.
I use the extension Dash to Panel to move the panel around and customize it. I like the panel at the top but not when I’m using the internet, which is what I do 90% of the time on my laptop. I find the top area too busy with a maximized browser and panel
