gnome-force-animations

Bring back GNOME Shell desktop animations on machines where GNOME silently turns them off:

• software rendering — llvmpipe / swrast, which is what virtual machines without 3D acceleration (virtio-gpu without virgl, VirtualBox/VMware without 3D, cloud instances, …) report; and
• remote desktop sessions — GNOME Remote Desktop (RDP) or the built-in VNC server, which ask GNOME Shell to disable animations while connected.

Built for Zorin OS 18 but works on any distro with GNOME Shell 45–48 (Ubuntu 24.04+, Fedora 39+, Arch, …). A best-effort legacy variant for GNOME 40–44 is included too.

Everything is user-scoped — no sudo, no system files touched.

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The problem

You are on a VM (or a machine using the software renderer) and the desktop has no animations at all: no overview zoom, no workspace slides, no window open/close transitions, no Quick Settings slide. Settings → Accessibility → Reduce animations is off and

$ gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface enable-animations
true

…is already true. Yet nothing animates.

Why it happens

GNOME Shell (since 3.36) decides whether to run animations in js/ui/main.js:

_shouldEnableAnimations() {
    if (this._handles.size > 0)          // remote-desktop (RDP/VNC) handle
        return false;

    if (global.force_animations)         // the official escape hatch
        return true;

    const backend = global.backend;
    if (!backend.is_rendering_hardware_accelerated())
        return false;                    // llvmpipe / software rendering

    ...
}

When it returns false, Shell calls St.Settings.inhibit_animations(), which overrides the enable-animations GSettings key. So there are two independent triggers:

1. Software rendering. is_rendering_hardware_accelerated() is false for llvmpipe/swrast, so animations are disabled.
2. An active remote-access handle. GNOME Remote Desktop always creates its screencast session with disable-animations = TRUE, and the _handles check runs before the force_animations check — so while you are connected over RDP/VNC, even gnome-shell --force-animations does not help.

Note: Zorin OS ships optional "jelly" / magic-lamp effects as separate extensions that are off by default. Those are unrelated to this bug — see Optional: Zorin OS effects.

What this does

• Adds a tiny GNOME Shell extension that:
  • sets global.force_animations = true (fixes cause 1), and
  • reverses the animation inhibition Shell applies for remote-access handles (fixes cause 2).
• Adds a systemd user drop-in for both the Wayland and X11 session units so the official gnome-shell --force-animations flag is passed at startup (redundant belt-and-suspenders for cause 1).

Requirements

• GNOME Shell 40+ (45+ recommended).
• gjs (installed with GNOME; used to edit enabled-extensions).
• systemd --user for the --force-animations drop-in (optional — the extension works on its own).
• A logout/reboot to apply.

Install

Quick install (from the release zip)

No clone needed — grab the prebuilt extension and install it with gnome-extensions:

# download the latest release asset
curl -LO https://github.com/ArchDityaa/gnome-force-animations/releases/latest/download/gnome-force-animations.zip

gnome-extensions install --force gnome-force-animations.zip
gnome-extensions enable force-animations@local

Then log out and back in (or reboot). See Verify.

The zip bundles only the extension, which already fixes both causes above — the systemd drop-in is optional belt-and-suspenders.

• On GNOME 40–44 use gnome-force-animations-legacy.zip instead.

From source (recommended)

git clone https://github.com/ArchDityaa/gnome-force-animations.git
cd gnome-force-animations
./install.sh

Then log out and back in (or reboot).

Verify

./diagnose.sh

A healthy result shows force-animations: YES and state: ACTIVE.

Manual checks:

# the running shell got the flag:
tr '\0' ' ' < /proc/$(pgrep -x gnome-shell | head -1)/cmdline

# the helper extension is active:
gnome-extensions info force-animations@local | grep State

Uninstall

./uninstall.sh
# then log out / reboot

Optional: Zorin OS effects

If you also want Zorin's signature effects (window wobble, magic-lamp minimize, desktop cube, 3D window switcher), enable them explicitly:

gnome-extensions enable zorin-window-move-effect@zorinos.com   # wobble
gnome-extensions enable zorin-magic-lamp-effect@zorinos.com    # minimize
gnome-extensions enable zorin-desktop-cube@zorinos.com         # cube (changes workspace switching)
gnome-extensions enable zorin-spatial-window-switcher@zorinos.com  # 3D Alt+Tab

They are opt-in on Zorin, so they being off is not a bug.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	What to check
Still no animations after login	./diagnose.sh; make sure you actually logged out/back in.
Works locally, not over RDP/VNC	The extension is what neutralises the remote handle — confirm state: ACTIVE.
Animations are choppy	Expected on llvmpipe (CPU rendering). See the real fix.
Extension not listed	The user extensions folder did not exist when Shell started; log out and back in.

The real fix: hardware acceleration

Animations will always be smoother with a real GPU. If this is a VM, enable 3D acceleration on the host:

• virt-manager / libvirt: VM → Video → model Virtio and tick 3D acceleration; connect with a local SPICE/GTK display.
• QEMU: -device virtio-gpu-gl -display gtk,gl=on (or egl-headless).
• VirtualBox / VMware: enable 3D acceleration in the VM settings.

Then glxinfo -B should report something other than llvmpipe and Accelerated: yes.

How it works

The extension is ~50 lines. It connects to the shell's MetaRemoteAccessController::new-handle signal after Shell itself has connected (Shell connects while initialising its UI; extensions load later), so for each handle it runs after Shell inhibited animations and simply calls St.Settings.uninhibit_animations() to undo it. See extension/gnome45/extension.js for the annotated source.

Compatibility

GNOME Shell	Variant used	Notes
45–48	extension/gnome45	Tested on GNOME 46 (Zorin OS 18).
40–44	extension/gnome44	Best-effort, untested by maintainer.
< 40	—	Not supported.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

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Bahasa Indonesia

Masalah: Di VM / mesin dengan software rendering (llvmpipe), GNOME Shell mematikan semua animasi desktop walaupun enable-animations sudah true. Selain itu, sesi GNOME Remote Desktop (RDP) juga meminta animasi dimatikan, dan permintaan itu didahulukan di atas opsi --force-animations.

Solusi cepat:

Cara termudah — unduh zip rilis lalu pasang (tanpa clone):

curl -LO https://github.com/ArchDityaa/gnome-force-animations/releases/latest/download/gnome-force-animations.zip
gnome-extensions install --force gnome-force-animations.zip
gnome-extensions enable force-animations@local
# lalu log out & login lagi, atau reboot

Atau dari sumber:

git clone https://github.com/ArchDityaa/gnome-force-animations.git
cd gnome-force-animations
./install.sh
# lalu log out & login lagi, atau reboot
./diagnose.sh          # untuk memverifikasi

Skrip ini hanya mengubah berkas milik user (tidak perlu sudo). Untuk animasi yang benar-benar mulus, aktifkan akselerasi 3D di sisi host VM (lihat bagian The real fix).