Hello World,

In this post, we are continuing our journey in customizing Ubuntu 20.04 look’n feel. It all started with our post about installing Ubuntu 20.01 on a physical machine (see Ubuntu – Installing & Customizing Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop on a Physical machine). To go the extra mile, we have shown how easy it would be to personalize the Operating system and make it yours or integrate nicely in a corporate environment.

This post raised some additional questions/comments/recommendations. For example, some users asked us if it was possible to use a slideshow as wallpaper. Yes, this setup is easily achievable and we have described one of the multiple ways to achieve this (see Ubuntu – Create Slideshow Wallpaper on Ubuntu 20.04 – Quick Tip)

This post is investigating the possibility to control the blur effect on the lock screen….Let’s see if this settings can be changed….

Overview

Ubuntu 20.04 is taking advantage of Gnome shell 3.36 which has introduce some small changes in the look ‘n feel of the login screen and the lock screen. One nice change (we think) is that gnome shell has simplified the configuration of the wallpaper and lock screen image. In Ubuntu 20.04, you do not have to set an image for wallpaper and then set an image for the lock screen. The image you have selected will be used automatically in both places.

The other change that has been introduced is the Blur effect on the lock screen. This might have been inspired by Windows 10 operating system. The blur effect is cool and is not really causing issues or discomfort. By default, when the screen locks out, you will see something similar to the picture below

Click the Picture for better Resolution

Some people or organization might not want to blur the image in the lock screen. On the contrary, they might want to use their lock screen, desktop wallpaper, login screen background to display a specific image in order to create a strong visual identity. The Blur effect is in this specific case probably not helping the purpose

How to Control the Blur Effect on lock screen ?

After searching for a way to control the blur effect on Ubuntu 20.04 (and thus on Gnome shell), we came across a gnome extension that seems to do the job quite well… This would be probably the easiest way to allow such customization. The gnome extension is called Control the Blur Effect On Lock Screen and can be found at https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/2935/control-blur-effect-on-lock-screen/

Installing the gnome Extension

Depending on your current configuration, you might need to perform the following steps or you might not. Let’s assume that you never installed any gnome extension, you will need to perform the following steps

Step 1 – Using Firefox browser, go to the page host the Control-blur effect extension (or any other gnome extension you might want to install). If you never installed any gnome extension, you will need to first install the chrome extensions. Click on the link