DEV Community: Animesh Singh

A guide to ricing (customization) on GNOME.

Animesh Singh — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 20:38:24 +0000

Last post, we picked a Linux distribution. Now it's time to make your workflow to suit YOU so you can get all snug and comfy working on the desktop the way you like. After all, all the Linux users promised you complete freedom, didn't they?

STEP ONE: Required Apps

GNOME Tweaks: This is an app that allows you to change Icon themes, Cursor Themes, Sound Effects, System Fonts, Startup Apps, Appearance, etc.
Extension Manager (Flatpak ONLY): Allows you to download Extensions from extensions.gnome.org, and plays a HEAVY role in customisation.

STEP TWO: Desktop

TWEAKS:

Open Tweaks and choose your options from the side bar. You can install icon themes, like Papirus, Tela, or YAMIS (Yet Another Monochrome Icon Set) and more.
Or you could install a custom cursor! Bibata Ice, Yaru, and others are great cursors.
Or change the Font. I personally rock Google Sans and JetBrains Mono for the Monospace Font.

EXTENSIONS:

Open Extension Manager and Browse Tab. Browse your extensions and install to your liking. ** However, worth noting is that many times, your GNOME Extensions might not support your GNOME Extensions. I personally avoid using such Extensions but feel free to use them. **

Here are the extensions I would suggest:

Blur My Shell: Transparency effects to everything. Must have.
Dash to Dock: For the Mac feel. Takes your Dash panel out of the Preview to the desktop.
Dash to Panel: For Windows and people used to traditional Taskbar like workflow.
Customize Clock on Lock Screen: Allows you to tweak every bit of the lockscreen clock, including allowing you to display a terminal command! I use Fortune.
WACK: MacOS style clock on Lockscreen. Super clean.

BUILDS! (if you want to make it feel a bit proprietary)

Google:

FONT: Google Sans (obviously), Monospace: Google Sans Mono (on GitHub)
Cursor: Bibata Modern Ice
Wallpaper: Any Google Pixel Wallpaper
Icons: Vector Icon theme (Outdated), Papirus Dark OR Trinity Icon Theme (GitHub) OR Tela Circle
Extensions: Dash to Panel, Blur My Shell

NOTHING:

FONT: Roboto, NDot55, NType-57 (GitHub)
Cursor: Bibata Classic Ice
Wallpaper: Abstract Wallpaper, preferably black and white, with Lenticular effect from lentlay.vercel.app
Icons: YAMIS
Extensions: Dash to Dock, Blur My Shell

That's it. Go crazy with your newfound freedom of customization.
On a different desktop environment? No problem! Guides to XFCE, Cinnamon and KDE Plasma coming soon.

Thinking of switching to Linux? Please read before you do!

Animesh Singh — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 19:10:28 +0000

If you are ON Windows right now and are going to switch to Linux because either (or none) of these reasons:

A: Tired of the bloatware and adware
B: Windows hogging your space
C: "better for development"
D: Native Git support
E: Better Terminal
F: Claude Code

You should read this! I am Animesh. I daily drive Linux and I have had experience with using GNU/Linux for two whole years, so I can give an experience on how it feels to work with Linux.

COMPATIBILITY

Often times, if you utilize a Windows-only tool (like Adobe, MS Office), you have no way but to replace it with a FOSS or other native equivalent, like DaVinci Resolve, or LibreOffice or OnlyOffice.

DISTRO-CHOOSING

Linux isn't an operating system. It's a kernel on which most distros and 'OS' are built upon. However, not every distro is the same. Some come with extensive customization, but with a steep learning curve, some come with an easy to use interface. Here are my top contenders for a distribution.

BEGINNERS - "I NEVER TOUCHED A TERMINAL"

If you belong to this category, no problem! Given the mass migration to Linux thanks to Windows being... well we won't talk about that.

Linux Mint: The Most Familiar UI. Windows-like workflow, built on giants like Debian and Ubuntu.
Zorin OS: The most polished Windows-like, also built on giants like Debian and Ubuntu. Minimal tweaking out of the box.
Nobara Linux: Mainly built for gaming, but uses the BORE kernel which pumps out the little bit more of juice out of your computer.

INTERMEDIATE - "HEY, I AM NOT TOO ROUGH"

This category is for people who have had slight experience with Linux Terminal or have used WSL often.

Fedora: This one did not make the Beginners because it has a certain policy which doesn't allow proprietary software, and you have to enable RPMFusion to even install your basic apps (if they are proprietary). Lot of initial setup time.
Debian: The Giant. It is quite a hassle to set up, even in the GUI Mode. Super barebones, you need so much to install before even beginning to use your system. Requires familiarity in nerd speak.

ADVANCED - "RAVAGE ME PLENTY"

This category... why are the advanced people even here? This category of distributions is for the Terminal enthusiasts and absolute top notch nerds. Requires quite a hefty bit of knowledge in system

Arch Linux: "i use arch btw" it's a phrase heard very commonly when you first think of Linux. The users don't lie. It is a soul draining process to install, because you configure your system down to partitioning YOURSELF. No GUI does it for you.
Gentoo: It's not difficult because you get a GUI, it is difficult because YOU (yes, YOU) compile the packages FROM source to even begin installing them. Gentoo is also very barebones, which means a lot of packages need to be built from source. Good Luck taking your time on that.

Well, end of post, folks. I hope this post educated you more and now you are more informed about everyone's favorite penguin operating system.

Second Brain on Obsidian WITHOUT a Subscription!

Animesh Singh — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 14:19:47 +0000

So, you want a second brain but without a fancy subscription? No problem! We all want to go a bit cheap.

Enter: Obsidian. My favorite note taking app. Simply... brilliant. The graph view is addicting.

Make sure Obsidian is installed on your computer.

APPROACH ONE

ANTIGRAVITY

First, you need Antigravity. This one is a fancy new IDE, but this one gives you Claude Opus 4.6 WITHOUT a subscription!

NOTE: This is made on Obsidian WITHOUT using ANY plugins!

Now how to begin making your second brain:

Create a new vault on Obsidian.
Create a new .md file (or click on the new note on the app)
Write down all you need Claude to know. Your projects, skills, ideas, etc.
Open Antigravity, create a new Workspace and point it towards your Obsidian Vault.
Choose Claude Opus 4.6 (Thinking) from the Agent Manager menu.
Ask Claude to analyse your .md file and then on basis of that, ask it to do whatever. For example:

"Create a multiple .md notes for Obsidian with linking for one specific focus point and link all other skills, projects, ideas, etc. to that one. Improvise on certain aspects and keep words to a minimum in each .md file."

The limitations of this are that you have massive rate limits on your free plan, which means you will run out of credits and usage. However, it's not necessary you do this with Claude. You could pick GPT-OSS, or any of the Gemini models.

HOWEVER, if you are too picky about this...

APPROACH TWO

TERMINAL BASED LOCAL AGENT

This approach REQUIRES a beefy computer that can run heavyweight models (or lighter models, but they do cut down on accuracy significantly)

Make sure you have your model of choice and Ollama up to date.

Configure your Local Model

ollama pull qwen3.6-coder:32b

Install & Connect Cline
Open VS Code.
Go to the Extensions Marketplace (Ctrl+Shift+X or Cmd+Shift+X) and search for Cline. Install it.
Open the Cline panel on your sidebar and click the Settings icon (gear).
1. Configure the provider settings:
  
  API Provider: Select Ollama
  
  Base URL: http://localhost:11434
  
  Model ID: Select qwen3.6-coder:32b (or your preferred local model)

Now, create a new Obsidian Vault and point VS Code towards it. Use Cline to ask the model to analyse your .md file filled with projects, ideas, etc. Ask it to create more .md files in a similar manner you would ask Claude to do so.

For this, qwen isn't suggested, but you should use GPT OSS or Gemma 4 (or above) in this case. They will make your second brain come out wonderfully.

Cover image credits to: Victor Hugo Germano.