Install GNOME Tweaks Tool on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

GNOME is a popular desktop used on many Linux distributions, including Ubuntu. The GNOME Tweaks tool allows users to modify and change the cosmetics in their GNOME desktop environment, which is popular amongst users that are not satisfied entirely with the GUI.

Some of the things you can do with GNOME Tweaks are edit font colors and scaling, disable animations for desktop speed improvement, change themes, manage GNOME extensions, bar changes, and much more.

In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install GNOME Tweaks on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa.

Table of Contents

Prerequisites

Recommended OS: Ubuntu 20.04.
User account: A user account with sudo or root access.

The tutorial will utilize the terminal interface, which can be found in the show applications menu.

Example:

Install GNOME Tweaks on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Update Operating System

Update your Ubuntu operating system to make sure all existing packages are up to date:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

The tutorial will be using the sudo command and assuming you have sudo status.

To verify sudo status on your account:

sudo whoami

Example output showing sudo status:

[joshua@ubuntu ~]$ sudo whoami
root

To set up an existing or new sudo account, visit our tutorial on How to Add a User to Sudoers on Ubuntu.

Use the following command with the root password to log in to use the root account.

su

Install GNOME Tweaks

The GNOME Tweaks package is by default available on Ubuntu 20.04’s repository, which means the installation is quite simple. First, in your terminal, execute the following command.

sudo apt install gnome-tweaks

Example output:

Type Y, then press the ENTER KEY to proceed.

Once installed, verify the package by using the apt-cache policy command.

apt-cache policy gnome-tweaks

Example output:

As above, GNOME Tweaks is successfully installed.

How To Launch GNOME Tweaks

With the installation complete, you can launch GNOME Tweaks in a few ways.

First, while you are in your terminal, you can use the following command:

gnome-tweaks

Alternatively, run the gnome-tweaks & command in the background to free up the terminal:

gnome-tweaks &

However, this isn’t practical, and you would use the following path on your desktop to open with the path: Activities > Show Applications > Tweaks.

Alternatively, if you cannot find it, use the search function in the Applications menu if you have many applications installed.

Example:

Now open GNOME Tweaks; from here, you can see the default landing page with lots of options to start customizing the look and feel of your GNOME desktop.

Example:

Next, go through the various options such as changing Windows, Appearance, and Top bars; customizing startup applications are some of the most sought-after changes most users would want to customize.

Example changing Window Titlebars:

Comments and Conclusion

In the tutorial, you have learned how to install GNOME Tweaks on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS desktop. Overall, GNOME Tweaks is a well-used tweaking tool that many Linux users have installed to customize the feel of their desktop on multiple platforms, not just Ubuntu. New users porting to Linux from Windows 10 or 11 can help make adjustments if you do not like the defaults of Ubuntu’s GNOME.

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