How to Make Ubuntu Look Like Mac OS X's Transparent Windows

Both macOS and Windows have been experimenting with blurred backgrounds recently. Ubuntu, on the other hand, appears to be somewhat outdated and out of date. There are a few options for getting the macOS-like transparent effects for app windows on Linux.

On Ubuntu, here's how to get macOS-style blurred windows.

On Ubuntu, enable the Blur Effect for GNOME Shell.

Transparent elements have been used in the GNOME shell in the past and present. GNOME, on the other hand, has always attempted to keep this to a minimum. There are a couple of addons that allow you to blur transparent components. The top bar, dash, and other components of the GNOME shell are all affected by the shell blur.

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Blur My Shell is one of the greatest extensions for this. If you're new to GNOME and its extensions, see our guide on getting and installing GNOME extensions on Linux.

In Linux, you can have Transparent Windows.

On Windows or macOS, the shell isn't the only place where transparency and blur are used. Apply translucent and transparent effects to all of the other windows on your Linux PC to make them look like Macs. Here are the procedures to make Linux windows with a transparent blur effect look like macOS.

Step 1: Make Rounded Window Borders in Linux

The first step is to make the window corners rounded like in macOS. For that, we can use the “mutter-rounded” package. For the initiated, Mutter is the window manager used on GNOME, responsible for, well, managing windows. While Mutter doesn’t officially support blurred windows, there is a patched version of Mutter, that does, called mutter-rounded.

Editor’s Note: This is a third-party patch that can potentially break things on your Linux PC. Proceed at your own risk.

Here is how you can install the mutter-rounded with transparent window support.

1.Open Software & Updates on your Linux PC.

2.Check Source code and click Close.

3.Now, open the Terminal from the dash or press Ctrl+Alt+T.

4.Enter this command to clone the mutter-rounded repository: git clone https://github.com/yilozt/mutter-rounded

5.Next, access the cloned Ubuntu directory in the cloned repository with this command: cd ./mutter-rounded/ubuntu_21.10

6.Use the included script to build an installable deb package with this command: ./package.sh

7.Finally, install mutter-rounded with this command: sudo dpkg -i *.deb

The packages will take a long time to build, and there will be a lot of text output in the Terminal. It may appear to be going nowhere, but it is, so patiently wait for it to finish. Similarly, installing the packages can take a long time.

You won't notice any difference right away after the installation is finished. By changing the window border-radius, you can see if mutter-rounded was installed. To check the default window border-radius, use the following command in Terminal.

"gsettings get org.gnome.mutter round-corners-radius"

You'll most likely get 14 in return. Change it to an other number, such as 16, or 8. This can be done with the command below.

"gsettings set org.gnome.mutter round-corners-radius 18"

Replace 18 with any number you like, but avoid entering huge numbers. Any open Windows will see the difference right away. By default, Gnome does not apply rounded edges to the bottom of windows. GNOME rounded edges on the window bottoms are also available with mutter-rounded.

Step 2: In Linux, you can enable window blurring similar to that of a Mac.

The window transparency and blur can be modified via the Terminal, just as most other GNOME settings. Using a GUI application like Dconf Editor, on the other hand, is significantly easier.

1. Open the Terminal from the dash or press Ctrl+Alt+T.
2. Install Dconf Editor with this command: sudo apt install dconf-editor
3. Open Dconf Editor from the dash.
4. Go to org > gnome > mutter.
5. Here, you’ll find the blur related settings such as brightness, opacity, etc.
6. Select blur-list.
7. Turn off the toggle next to Use default value.
8. In the input box below, enter the name of the window that you want to apply blur to inside the brackets within quotations. For example, to apply the blur to the Terminal, type [‘gnome-terminal-server]."

With a comma, you can create additional windows, as illustrated in the screenshot above. This is an opt-in feature rather than an opt-out feature because this is a patch and blurring windows can cause issues. To make windows transparent, you'll have to manually add them by class. It's also worth noting that this makes the entire window translucent.

That's it. Once you've completed all of the steps, your windows will look like the one shown above. The blur effect for windows on Linux looks great, but it may degrade your system's speed. You can use the translucent window effects on your Linux PC if your PC hardware can handle basic graphics requirements.