Wandering Pixel is a GNOME Shell extension that moves 1 pixel back and forth along the top of the screen. The purpose of this is to work around any of several issues in GNOME Shell and/or Mutter, by forcing part of the screen to be redrawn constantly. It's 1 pixel, and it's only slightly less dark than the top bar, so you should never notice it.
Bugs that can be worked around by Wandering Pixel:
- GNOME Shell issue 3369
- Mutter issue 1471
- Mutter issue 1516
- Mutter issue 1561
- More? If you are aware of others, please let me know by opening an issue!
I've never written a GNOME Shell extension before and really just fumbled through this. PRs to improve it are welcome!
The recommended installation method is to install via the official GNOME Extension page.
For a manual installation, follow these instructions:
- Download the extension and copy it (or create a symlink) to your GNOME Shell extensions directory:
cp -r <path-to-extension-directory> ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/[email protected] - Restart GNOME Shell: On X11:
Alt+F2→r→Enter; On Wayland: Log out and back in - Enable the extension via GNOME Tweaks, GNOME Extensions, or command line:
gnome-extensions enable [email protected]
- Does not work when applications are in full-screen mode. This prevents GNOME animations.
- Increases CPU usage.
- Reduces frame rates.
- Confirm the Wandering Pixel extension is enabled.
- Confirm GNOME animations are enabled.
- Confirm GNOME animations are working.
- Test another extension that uses animations (e.g. Example 7 from here - note the youtube video that demonstrates the difference when animations are enabled).
