Personalizing one’s computer in order to reflect one’s personality, likes or dislikes, passions, and other life views is a thing most of us take for granted.
Most Linux distributions are not exactly known for their customization potential, and most GNOME-based ones are no exception. For instance, if you want to change the lock screen background on most Ubuntu, you can resort to a few scripts, and some apps that are just overly complicated to install.
Or, you can check out Lock screen background, a tiny yet super-useful (at least in this instance) GNOME Shell extension that allows you to add an extra degree of personalization options to your GNOME system by allowing you to change the lock screen background image.
Change the lock screen image with a few mouse clicks
The extension itself is pretty straightforward. It can be installed from the EGO website just like all shell extensions of this sort. It’s recommended that Ubuntu users install the gir1.2-clutter-1.0 library beforehand. To do this, open a Terminal window and run the following command: “sudo apt install gir1.2-clutter-1.0”
To actually change the background image from GNOME’s lock screen, simply access the extension’s Settings section, select the desired background image from its dedicated location, and that’s about it.
Please note that you may be required to restart the system once before the extension becomes active. The extension is enabled by default, however, to disable it, you need to either delete it or go to its Settings section and use the dedicated Turn OFF switch.
Verdict
Just like most GNOME Shell extensions, Lock screen background is not a particularly impressive piece of kit. It does, however, serve its purpose quite nicely and gets the job done, which is all that matters.
