Senior author, Open Source enthusiast.

Tuesday, February 18, 2025 at 15:16

Useful 10 GNOME Extensions for Ubuntu 24.04

This is once again our listing of ten useful GNOME Shell Extensions (from here will be called Extensions) for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS "Noble Numbat." We include in this listing extensions after we tested them first, among them are, Custom Command Menu and Dash To Panel, to give you a glimpse of how useful they are to our daily computing life with Ubuntu. They represent visual, productivity and repeatability improvements to your benefits. We hope this will enrich your user experience with Ubuntu a lot. Now let's start practicing!

(Ubuntu 24.04 shows Extension Manager application with Search page opens)

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.

How To Install an Extension

This article will only discuss the recommendation, not the installation of the extensions. However, because Ubuntu 24.04 or later now has different ways to install extension using an app called Extension Manager, we have published the tutorial for that.

1. Clipboard History

Clipboard History by SUPERCILEX saves every copy the user did to text (messages, commands, ...) and lets the user to pick one from saved copies to paste. We can also determine how many entry to save from 1 to 100,000. This extension provides Ubuntu GNOME capability almost on par with KDE Klipper on Kubuntu and arguably better in one spot: we can mark some entries with stars to pin them to top (for things we frequently paste). We said this because we use it for long time and we know how much helpful it is for our authoring and teaching life and of course we want that on Ubuntu GNOME too. Without this extension, by default Ubuntu only has copy-paste functionality for one item at one time just like Windows and other systems.

(Clipboard History in action. Notice that everything we had copied listed in it. Be aware to not copy-paste your passwords, otherwise they may show here.)

2. Network Speed Indicator

Network Stats by noroadsleft shows us a simple indicator of live network download and upload speed. Click it to show even more statistics. It is very useful especially if you often want to know your actual transfer speed as well as monitoring behavior of Ubuntu system itself (e.g. when does automatic updates occur?). If your internet access is limited/expensive, for example, you will appreciate it.

(Network Stats in action. Notice that it shows two networks of Ethernet and Wifi of ours. Your system may have more than that.)

3. Dash to Panel

Dash to Panel does what its name says that is combining top and left panel and move them to bottom. Actually, similar to this what Zorin OS did with their panel. We believe this will benefit many people across countries because many had already accustomed to either Kubuntu or Windows user experience.

(Dash to Panel in action. Notice that the top bar is now gone.
The system tray now at the bottom.)

4. Custom Command Menu

Custom Command Menu by storageb allows us to click a button as a certain command line we saved beforehand on the top bar. We can save several commands we frequently use and execute any of them anytime we need by a single click. Take example of one click Change Resolution or one click Update System or anything like that (see picture below).

(Custom Command Menu in action. Notice our three sample commands at right become three simple buttons on top "Update the system" and "Change Resolution" and "Change Wallpaper". You can make even more than that!)

5. Compiz Alike Magic Lamp

Remember the golden era of the classic Ubuntu? We had joy, we had fun with Compiz Fusion desktop effects and magic lamp. You minimize a window and it will be like "melted out" bit by bit to its icon on the Dash. This extension is called Compiz Alike Magic Lamp by hermes83, it is an "eyecandy", to make your desktop more beautiful. It's not too useful but very interesting to see. For those coming to Ubuntu from an Apple MacOS background, it could be an appealing factor too.

Worth mentioning: 3D Desktop Cube.

6. Astra Monitor

Astra Monitor by astra is a full featured system monitor indicator for Ubuntu top bar. It shows CPU, RAM, Disk, and Network statistics with tiny graphics in real-time. Not only it is very elaborate to begin with, it is also customizable.

(Astra Monitor in action. Pointer clicks to open the Network indicator showing a lot of info including transfer graph and upload/download activity)

7. ThinkPad Thermal

ThinkPad Thermal by faris_mujakic is an indicator for temperatures specific to Lenovo ThinkPad laptops. It shows CPU temperature in Celsius and Fan speed in RPM in real-time on our system (on different system it may show more depending on their sensors). Feel free to explore more extensions like this one!

(ThinkPad Thermal in action. Pointer clicks showing a listing of information about our system's temp and fan. It reads CPU = 48 Celsius and Fan Speed = 3700 RPM.)

Worth mentioning: ThinkPad Battery, Battery Health Charging.

8. Easy Screen Cast

EasyScreenCast by Andreas Dangel is a screen recorder extension for GNOME and we had been using it long before OBS Studio. It is able to record the whole desktop, a select application, a portion of screen, with or without audio, with or without webcam resulting in the worldwide recognized format WEBM. It supports MKV, OGG and MP4 too. Today, it is packed with more features and options including custom GStreamer pipeline and a lot more.

(EasyScreenCast in action. Pointer clicks showing Start recording button as well as some options under it.)

9. Executor

Executor by raujonas allows us to place output of command line we choose in the left, center or right side of the top panel. We can put whatever command we want. Take for example simply showing the operating system name and version "Ubuntu 24.04 LTS". Imagine a computer lab and you can do this to name each system so every screenshot will be automatically named. You can be creative and write or do anything else with it to suit your needs.

(Executor in action. Pointer points to the spot saying "Ubuntu 24.04 LTS" on top bar. Executor dialog below it showing more options can be added there.)

10. Hide Minimized

Finally, Hide Minimized by danigm allows us to hide minimized windows from overview. So, not all windows will be shown there. This makes everything simpler and cleaner. Also, those with a MacOS background will be happy with this. And this is the last extension recommended in this article. If you want to explore more, we offer you See More section below. Last but not least, we want to say thank you very much to all the developers of GNOME Shell Extensions especially those we use and recommend here.

(Hide minimized does not have any dialog nor any icon to see. Instead, minimized windows will be hidden when we press Super Key. This behavior simplifies things.)

****