I’m a long time KDE / Plasma user and been rolling with Neon for as long as it has been a thing. So there are a LOT of learned habits.
Due to the requirement of all my company’s work devices being registered in Intune, I find myself having to switch to Stock Ubuntu as that is one of the few distros that Microsoft supports.
I know I can install Plasma Desktop on top of stock ubuntu but there is a risk that will break compliance and lock me out of work resources.
So I am just looking for ways to make Gnome look and feel a bit more familiar to me without ripping out it’s guts or adding a load of other packages that might break compliance.
Any suggestions on cosmetic tweaks or shell extensions that might ease the transition?
Although there are lots of customizations possible in any DE, if you really need to have Gnome then learn it, get used to it, adapt your workflow. A good musician just plays, doesn’t complain about the perceived “quality” of the instrument.
Is it a requirement to use GNOME specifically? You can install KDE applications on top of Ubuntu, giving you your desired desktop environment, but if you have to specifically use GNOME, that won’t work.
You can install a large number of extensions in GNOME. Some might make parts of GNOME look somewhat like Plasma, but I wouldn’t recommend it; it would end up being clunky.
As unhelpful as my suggestion is, I suggest that you take the time to learn GNOME. Once you have the fundamentals in hand, which should take only a few minutes, it’s intuitive to use.
Thanks @paddylandau Yes it does have to be the Gnome desktop.
Yes I will have to learn Gnome and I have dabbled in the past years age (gnome 3?) but I found it pretty frustrating. I am already working 12 hour shifts at work and need to be reducing the workload and not hampering it with working out how things work. @celticwarrior I am also a musician and multi-instrumentalist of 50+ years so perfectly adept at picking up new tools. But musicians also prefer the tool that simply feels like an extension of themselves, natural and not something you have to work at.
Rather than trying to force a KDE Plasma workflow mindset onto Gnome, I would suggest looking at how you can take advantage of dynamic workspaces to fulfill your needs.
Obviously, we are at a bit of a loss here as to what you do for work and how your normal workflow would look like.
Some people love working with multiple tabs open in the browser, others not.
Perhaps multiple virtual desktops would suit your needs?
Last thought: would you have the option to run KDE Plasma in a virtual machine with your setup?
Perhaps that might also help solve some potential teething issues.
Anyway, we are here to help and wish you the best of luck with the transition.
