KI 3456 Linux @ UiB: GNOME desktop tweaks

2026-07-23

The GNOME3 desktop is powerful and infinitely flexible. Here are some suggestions how you can tweak it.

Generally, GNOME3 has more than enough power under the hood.

Depending on how many Linux desktop machines you use, it may be meaningful to tweak it or not. My own approach is that I accept GNOME as it is, otherwise I spent too much time customizing GNOME on too many computers.

However these are the changes that I always make:

Thunar filemanager

I prefer Thunar over Dolphin (which is the Ubuntu 24/26 default) - see KI 3446

Compose key

To produce characters that are not part of your national keyboard, I activate "Caps Lock" (which has no meaningful function on machines other than typewriters) as a composer key.
Open GNOME "Settings" and search for "Compo...". This will get you to "Keyboard". Turn the "Compose key" ON and map it to "Caps Lock".
Now you can press
<CapsLock> ss to get ß (German sharp s) or
<CapsLock> oo to get ° (like in °C)

Middle mouse key

Canonica made a change in Ubuntu 26: The middle mouse key is no longer active for paste. This is very annoying if you spend a lot of time in the terminal.

To fix the middle mouse button (which is often used for pasting selected text) in Ubuntu's terminal, you can enable primary paste emulation or check the system's mouse settings. [1, 2, 3]
sudo apt install gnome-tweaks

Open Extensions or Tweaks from your GNOME app menu.
Navigate to the Keyboard & Mouse or Mouse section.
Toggle Middle Click Paste to ON.