Something that we all like is to customize the devices we use to the maximum and a great detail in computers is to change the mouse cursor , especially in Ubuntu Linux . In Windows, doing it is something extremely simple that does not require a guide to achieve it. However, in Ubuntu it is somewhat more complex. Likewise, there is no need to worry because it is not something too difficult to say, it just takes a little patience..
Where can I get more Ubuntu cursor layouts?
To change the mouse cursor in Ubuntu Linux, the first thing we will have to do is download and install themes. Where can we get them from? We can do it from Pling, it's a website where artists and creators upload files on Linux-related topics.
Therefore, the first thing we will do is enter pling.com from our web browser. Once we are here, we will proceed to look for the sidebar and we will click on the “Linux/Unix Desktops” option..
After this, we will have to select the option "Linux/Unix Destops" and we will be able to appreciate a new sidebar. Here we are going to look for the “Cursors” option and click on it.
Once we select Cursors, we will see several cursor themes that we can use on our Ubuntu Linux desktop. We can view them by popular designs by clicking on the "Assessment" tab or searching among those that are available..
When we find the cursor that we like, we are going to click on it to go to the cursor page. Then we will select the “Files” tab and download it for free.
Install a cursor theme in Ubuntu
Here comes the part that may seem a bit trickier. However, it is relatively easy to achieve it, for this we will have to start by opening a terminal window on the desktop. To open it, we are going to have to press Ctrl + Alt + T on our keyboard or by looking for “Terminal” in the applications menu.
Once we have the terminal window open, we will have to use the cd command and move to the "Downloads" folder or where we would have downloaded the file.
cd ~/Downloads/
Next, we will have to execute the “Is” command to be able to view the contents of the “Downloads” directory.
In the command window we can search for the theme we downloaded and we will have to highlight its name with the mouse. For example, if we have downloaded “oreo_white_cursors.tar.gz”, then we highlight this in the terminal.
After highlighting the name, we will right click on it and choose the "Copy" option to copy it to the clipboard.
Now we will have to extract the files and we will have to write the following command to extract them:
For TarGZ/TarXZ files, we are going to have to write “tar xvf” followed by the file name, we can right click and “Paste”. For example: tar xvf oreo_white_cursors.tar.gz
To extract ZIP files, we will have to write “unzip”. It would look like this: unzip oreo_white_cursors.tar.gz
After extracting the files, we will have to execute the “Is” command again to be able to view the download folder. Inside this folder we will look for the extracted theme and we will highlight it with the mouse. Basically, we will look for a folder with the same name, but without the extensions. For example, “oreo_white_cursors”.
When we have the folder highlighted we will select copy to add it to the clipboard. Next, we will type the “mv” command to install the cursor theme. In the example, the theme folder is called "oreo_white_cursors" it is possible that it is different on your computer, so you will have to modify it.
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/icons/
mv oreo_white_cursors/ ~/.local/share/icons/
Change mouse cursor theme in Ubuntu Linux
Once the new cursor is installed, we are going to have to activate it and the best way is to use the Gnome Tweaks application. Although first we will have to install the program.
We will open a terminal window by pressing the Ctrl + Alt + T keys and use the command “sudo apt install gnome-tweaks” without the quotes.
Once the application is installed, we will press the “Win” key on our keyboard. Then we will write “Tweaks” and select the application in the search results.
With the application open, we are going to look for "Appearance" in the left sidebar in Settings. In this new section we will look for “Themes” and then we will go to “Cursor”. We will see that a drop-down menu is available and from here, we can select the one that we have previously installed.
