Take the 2-minute tour ×

I've searched in Google and looked in another questions, but still I can't solve this problem! I want to install GNOME-shell theme. So I'm trying to enable user-theme-extension in GNOME tweak tool. But I can't enable it. It has a yellow triangle near it says

"extensions does not support shell version"

What should I do? How can I install GNOME shell themes?

share|improve this question

5 Answers 5

you are using gnome-tweak tool....,following this step

1. Shell Extensions -> user theme Extension --> enable(on)
2. alt + f2 -> "r" -> enter

Backing to gnome-tweak, you go to the Theme. You will see a workable function of shell-theme.

share|improve this answer

Don't use firefox or chrome to install the add-on from the website, you should use the default gnome browser which goes by the names web and epiphany.

share|improve this answer
how to open gnome browser? –  ARUL Jun 21 at 4:02

This means the gnome-shell version you are using is not matching with the version the extension was made for.

Are you on Ubuntu 12.04? the official gnome3 ppa doesn't provide the gnome-shell-extensions package for Precise(12.04). But the Gnome-shell testing ppa does. So you can try adding it to your list of repositories. But use caution because they are unstable builds.

share|improve this answer

You could try adding the webupd8 gnome3 ppa. This ppa has some of the best gnome-shell extensions, including the user-theme extension. you can add this ppa by typing the following in the terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/gnome3

followed by:

sudo apt-get update

next try installing user-theme extension with:


This works for me on my version of gnome-shell, if it doesn't work please post your version of gnome-shell here.

source: http://www.webupd8.org/2011/10/official-gnome-shell-extensions.html

share|improve this answer
didn't work for me.. still - I can't enable the User themes extension in the "SHELL EXTENSIONS" section.. how do I know my shell version? –  Samyon Sahnovitch Jul 4 '12 at 13:23
type in terminal gnome-shell --version –  19J94V Jul 4 '12 at 13:55
3.5.3 btw thanks for helping :)))) –  Samyon Sahnovitch Jul 4 '12 at 16:51
try git clone git://git.gnome.org/gnome-shell-extensions then go in that directory cd gnome-shell-extensions then do ./autogen.sh –prefix=$HOME/.local – enable-extensions=”user-theme". Log out and in, and check if it works. this version should work with gnome-shell version 3.5.2 (there's not yet a version 3.5.3 available) –  19J94V Jul 5 '12 at 20:21

Search a ppa for your version of Ubuntu that contains the gnome-shell-extensions package: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+ppas?name_filter=gnome-shell-extensions For Precise, https://launchpad.net/~noobslab/+archive/gnome works perfectly. Install this package, and the user-themes extensions from extensions.gnome.org will function correctly.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer


