Gnome Desktop in Linux Mint 22.1

If you are here, it means that either you don't like the Cinnamon desktop environment or you prefer the GNOME desktop. Personally, I appreciate how customizable the Cinnamon desktop is, but it feels like Windows 7 out of the box. I prefer GNOME because it looks a bit more modern and saves the time needed to customize the Cinnamon desktop.

Basically, there are three different ways you can install the GNOME desktop in Linux Mint. I have included all three because, why not? My personal favorite option is the last one.

If you're looking for a short video tutorial, you can check it out 👉️ here.

Table of Contents

• Dependencies

• 1. Vanilla gnome desktop

• 2. Ubuntu desktop

• 3. Ubuntu minimal desktop

• Why not use Ubuntu instead ?? 😕

  • 1. Snap packages

  • 2. Nvidia driver issues

  • 3. Audio popping/click noise

Dependencies

To install the GNOME desktop, you need to install two packages that are not part of the Cinnamon desktop. To install these packages, we need to use the terminal. There is a graphical way available, but believe me, it’s a lot more hassle.

Just open terminal from menu or use CTRL + ALT + T

sudo apt install pulseaudio

sudo apt install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

1. Vanilla gnome desktop

Make sure the dependencies are installed and simply write the following code to install the vanilla GNOME desktop.

sudo apt install vanilla-gnome-desktop

2. Ubuntu desktop

Ubuntu by default ships with the GNOME desktop, so if you like the GNOME desktop of Ubuntu but don’t want to deal with Canonical, then this is the way.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

3. Ubuntu minimal desktop

This is a stripped version of Ubuntu desktop that doesn’t have bloatware and still includes all the core components of Ubuntu Gnome desktop.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop-minimal

Why not use Ubuntu instead ?? 😕 

I am sure so many people will have questions about why to go through this hassle when you can simply use Ubuntu. I was a huge fan of Ubuntu, and don’t get me wrong, I still use Ubuntu as one of my servers, but when I installed Ubuntu on my personal computer for the first time, I faced a few issues. Personally, I have done a clean install multiple times, but provided issues were constant.

1. Snap packages

It’s a good and a bad thing when a single company is providing support and managing the operating system. In this case, it’s a bad decision to stick with Snap because, from my personal experience, I wanted to try out installing an app via Snap, but it was unbearably slow. Finally I get why people hate Snap packages.

2. Nvidia driver issues

It might not be the universal problem, but I have a bit older machine with an NVIDIA 1050 mobile GPU. After installing NVIDIA drivers, my boot time was significantly increased, and I constantly faced screen flickering issues.

3. Audio popping/click noise

After installation, every time I am opening a video or audio, I hear annoying popping clicks. I have figured out the solution for that by going to the forums. It was happening because by default Ubuntu has power-saving capabilities for sound cards. If you have a similar issue, you can check it out on the forum.

4. Slow boot time and sluggish performance

Although I have a relatively good machine, it took around 45 seconds to boot up. For some people it might be ok, but after switching to Linux Mint, it’s around 25 seconds, so you can see the frustration. In addition to that, after boot, my PC was so slow that I had to wait another 2 minutes just to load the browser.

Conclusion

If you prefer the GNOME desktop over Cinnamon or you are fed up with problems in Ubuntu, this method should help you out. Install dependencies and install Ubuntu-desktop-minimal.

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