I’m trying to limit the number of layered apps I have in Silverblue and so I installed Refine from the Software app instead of installing Gnome Tweaks as that’s not available as a Flatpak. However, it won’t change cursors nor will it even show the themes and icons I have. I have tried to put them in ~/.themes and /usr/share/themes and they don’t appear. I did download a theme from the Software app and it appeared in Refine but doesn’t work. Has anyone else used Refine and if so how did you install the themes, icons, and cursors?
I am also avoiding to layer packages unless really needed. In case of GNOME Tweaks vs Refine, I already have my recurring gsettings commands saved as notes.
For the rare cases I needed GNOME Tweaks, I installed it in a container, launched it from there, ran my setups and forgot about it.
As for themes not working, you would need to have them installed both as RPM packages, in order to work with GUI apps from the base image, and as Flatpaks from the same remote as the Flatpak apps that would need to follow such themes.
E.g. I am chosing themes for legacy GTK apps only (adw-gtk3-theme more specifically, in order to follow the look of libadwaita). In oder to have the GNOME Disks app following such theme, I have to layer the adw-gtk3-theme package, but if I want the same for Geary installed from Flathub, I have to install the org.gtk.Gtk3theme.adw-gtk3 and org.gtk.Gtk3theme.adw-gtk3-dark runtime extensions.
And then, of course, set up such theme with GNOME Tweaks, or from the CLI:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme "adw-gtk3" ; gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface color-scheme "default"
or
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme "adw-gtk3-dark" ; gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface color-scheme "prefer-dark"
Wow, that’s a lot of steps just to install a theme. According to what I’ve found it should be just a matter of placing the theme, or icons, or cursors folder in either ~/.themes or /usr/share/themes and then Gnome Tweaks or Refine should show them and apply them when selected.
Well /usr is read-only on Fedora Atomic, which only leaves you with the home folder for direct copying of theme files. I don’t know why GNOME Tweaks doesn’t pick it up though.
I prefer using packaged formats (RPM or Flatpaks) for themes, as it gives me better control over the installed files.
Yes, that is correct and I tried putting them in the home folder. Have you installed any themes that are .tar.gz files and not RPM or Flatpaks?
Not until now. However, for your troubleshooting I have just downloaded a tar.gz theme from gnome-look.org, unpackaged it into my newly created ~/.themes folder, installed GNOME Tweaks in a Toolbx container and started both GNOME Tweaks and Refine. I have identified the downloaded theme in GNOME Tweaks, but not in Refine. Choosing this theme in GNOME Tweaks has effect, but as expected (and as the setting name suggests) for legacy GTK apps only (e.g. GNOME Disks, dconf-editor).
Notice that the libadwaita-based GTK4 apps are designed to use the Adwaita theme by default, so in order to have custom themes for GTK4 apps, you’ll probably need to take additional steps to either patch libadwaita (wouldn’t recommend), or find themes that have installers, which would take care of the system adjustments (again wouldn’t recommend, unless you trust them and understand what the installers do). Note that this is a GNOME feature for GTK4 apps not to be able to load custom themes.
Thank you for the troubleshooting and information. Hmmm…maybe I should switch to KDE Plasma. I do like to tinker with visual settings and personalize my PC.
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Indeed, KDE Plasma is more customizable. In case of Fedora Atomic that would be Kinoite.
You could use them both for a while and settle on the one that better suits you.
Lol, yep I’m just now setting up KDE Plasma on a VM. Is there a way to transfer a VM to bare metal if I do like it?
While technically possible, I’d recommend to install the system from scratch, given that you’re just starting to use it. If needed, you could back up the home folder from the VM and restore it after having installed the system on bare metal, in order to retain the user settings.
Either way you choose, if you need further help on such topics here on Fedora Discussion, I suggest opening a new thread, they’re off-topic here.
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