My Pantheon Desktop on Fedora

Updated January 18, 2018. I first wrote this article for Fedora 25 but it works for later versions of Fedora as well. I’m currently using Fedora 27.

I read on a blog that the Pantheon Desktop was available for Fedora, and that it was a simple GUI that imitated the Mac OS interface. This is what I did to install it:

1. After logging into root with Terminal, I used gedit to create a file in /etc/yum.repos.d and named the file decathorpe-elementary-stable.repo

sudo gedit /etc/yum.repos.d/decathorpe-elementary-stable.repo

2. I copied the following code into the file and saved it.

[decathorpe-elementary-stable]
name=Copr repo for elementary-stable owned by decathorpe
baseurl=https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/decathorpe/elementary-stable/fedora-$releasever-$basearch/
type=rpm-md
skip_if_unavailable=True
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/decathorpe/elementary-stable/pubkey.gpg
repo_gpgcheck=0
enabled=1
enabled_metadata=1

3. I ran the command in root:

# dnf install -y pantheon-session pantheon-desktop

After that I rebooted the PC and was able to log into Pantheon from the login screen.

I figured out how to add more apps to the bottom dock from the application menu in the upper left hand corner. Just find the app you want to add, right click on it, and left click on the Add to Dock option. I also removed the apps in the dock I didn’t want by just right clicking on the app and un-checking the Keep in Dock option.

However I did not like the default black background in open applications such as LibreOffice Writer and Bluefish. A tweak program to add different themes is available for Ubuntu, but not yet for Fedora. But by serendipity I found a command on https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/questions/45/how-can-i-add-more-themes-on-elementary-tweaks that fixed my problem! Now open application backgrounds are white with black fonts!

$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme “CoolestThemeOnEarth”

Later I learned that running gnome-tweak-tool can also change the default theme. Just run gnome-tweak-tool (you may need to install it first) and then go to Appearance and change the GTK+ dropdown box to the color scheme that suits you.

The cool thing about Pantheon is that there is no clutter. The bottom dock is always visible when no applications are open or when they are in smaller windows, but when an application is open in full screen, the dock with its icons disappears. It reappears again by moving the mouse to the bottom of the screen.

And if I open another application from the applications menu, it will add the icon of the new running application to the dock! I really think this is cool! It’s better, in my opinion, than adding the open app icon to yet another menu bar as is done in Gnome. But it seems I can only open up one instance of Terminal at a time. This used to be the default in Gnome but I was able to change it with a tweak program. I still cannot figure out how to do that at the time of this post, but I don’t mind the default.

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