MacOS desktop look-alike on EOS? 🍎

Desktop Environments All WMs
1

A little project underway:

My wife has a 2009 iMac (yeah, it leaks transmission fluid). I’d like to freshen things up for her and hopefully speed things, too … but need to keep the MacOS look and feel. Most any edition of an Apple OS would suffice.

I’ve been testing within VMs, installing fresh EOS ISO DEs, selecting either GNOME, xfce, or KDE - and then trying to modify things using various online github packages offered for this purpose.

Challenge: I keep hitting little obstacles along the way to keep me from the finish line…

E.g., GNOME is often cited as the best starting point, but recent changes (v50?) have made it hard to get GNOME “extensions” to load (user error?), which is needed for such a setup. “Dash to Dock” doesn’t work properly; “Plank” is no longer supported, etc.

And trying the other DEs, I can’t seem to stumble upon the right solutions, either. There’s always something that doesn’t load or function right (e.g., icons, cursors, etc.)

This is likely my own ignorance as to how to change key preferences/settings within these various DEs.

[I’m a longtime i3-wm user who recently switched over to wayland/sway - so primarily a “tiling” guy, not a GUI guru. Although I used Apple hardware for many years, so I’m quite comfortable with how that bloated eye candy works.]

Anyone have recent success with an effort like this? Or knows how to get it done? I’ve done a lot of YouTube’ing + general search. So far not having great success.

Again, my goal is to bring things so close to a MacOS environment that she can hardly tell the difference. (I’ll then provide ongoing maintenance via Arch/EOS behind the scenes. :green_apple:)

2

its pretty simple to theme kde plasma to look like macOS .. there are tons of themes alone in the kde store. should be simple enough..

i just dont think that newbies should really use 1 to 1 cloned themes from whatever they used before.. because that makes the brain think that it will also automatically work 1 to 1 like what they used before..

but whatever makes you, or your wife happy

3

Yeah, that’s how love works.

4

For icons

5

This might also be handy to have a look at.

6

Just take a look at Linux Scoop at YouTube

7

Thanks… lots of great leads (some of which looks like ground I’ve crossed recently). But will double check and report back on progress. :folded_hands:

8

There are several dock programs out there however you will need one specific to wayland and plank is pre wayland. There is plank-reloaded but like its predecessor it only supports X11. I think what is it crystal dock supports wayland?

9

IMHO Gnome is very Mac-ish out of the box + dash to dock and may be another icon set. You have rounded windows, very consistent look (at least if you choose libadwaita apps or at least GTK4 ported). Can be done in a few minutes to a 95% Mac.

Extensions not working for a new Gnome version usually is just a few days after a new Gnome has arrived. Can happen with 51 in the next days, but usually developers of most common extensions will take care before new Gnome is out. You should install with the browser add on from gnome extensions page ofrwith the alternative (blue iconed) extension-manager from AUR (can search and install and is more capable than the green iconed extension manager shipped with Endeavour Gnome)

Then there’s KDE which can mimic nearly anything. Depends how much time you’d like to spend. I guess it even can look like a Texas Instruments TI30 pocket calculator :wink: )

Options and settings for that (especially when you mix GTK and Qt apps) can be a bit hard to find and might need additional tools installed (kvantum, …). More work, but you can end up with a 100% Mac.

Cinnamon, XFCE. No idea, I used XFCE 10 years ago, quite capable, quick, but I don’t knwo how well designed themes are out there.

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11

Gnome +

dash to dock: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/307/dash-to-dock/
appIndicator: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/615/appindicator-support/

Maybe a custom icon theme and/or the “BlurMyShell” extension: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3193/blur-my-shell/

Gnome pretty much acts like MacOs out of the box.

LocalSend instead of AirDrop

I’m running this setup for the last couple of month on Tumbleweed, all extensions currently work without any problem. Not sure what happens when Gnome 51 hits the repositories. But with past version changes it was no big deal.

12

May be to add https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/10288/global-menu-for-gnome/

and https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4451/logo-menu/

to complete.

Although I am not a fan of top bar menu on big screens. Menu too far away from my active window.

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I don’t know how reliable those extensions are, but yeah these would push Gnome even further into the direction of MacOS.

14

Lots of great feedback above. Thanks to all!

I still experienced snags of one kind or another until I stumbled upon this particular set of instructions…

YouTube https://youtu.be/rPAqwBzHcw4 “Make GNOME Desktop Look Like MacOS”

What’s extra nice is that the author of the post uses EndeavourOS as his starting point. Nice plug for our very own EOS distro.

Anyhow, it worked flawlessly even with the newest GNOME version. So I actually cataloged the steps described, which I’ll share here (for future generations :wink: ) to spare having to watch the entire video (although it’s nicely done and not too long anyhow).

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Creating MacOS Theme on GNOME Linux

[Note: Can do this inside a Virtual Machine for testing]

[Suggestion: Unless you’re testing in a VM, before customizing GNOME, make a Timeshift backup for future easy restoration.]

Install GNOME desktop environment (e.g., using EndeavourOS ISO via USB thumbdrive) and then…

sudo pacman -Syu

Install FlatPak

sudo pacman -S flatpak

Visit https://flatpak.org/setup and follow instructions to add flatpak repository:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Reboot system and flatpak apps should be available (can use sudo reboot now)

Install additional needed packages:

sudo git curl wget go sassc

On flathub.org install Matthew Jakeman’s GNOME “Extension Manager”

Can search, or use:
https://flathub.org/en/apps/com.mattjakeman.ExtensionManager

Open “Settings” on desktop and make adjustments:

Multitasking: Enable Hot Corner and Active Screen Edges features

Visit OpenDesktop.org (used to be pling.com) and find “Cupertino iCons”

Download preferred icon pack, e.g., Cupertino-Sonoma.tar.xz

Navigate to Downloads, double-click to extract zipped files

Enable hidden files in file mgr, and create new “.icons” folder: ~/.icons

Copy (or cut) extracted Cupertino icons folder into new ~/.icons folder

Get wallpapers (in addition to any others as preferred from the web):

git clone https://github.com/vinceliuice/WhiteSur-wallpapers

Navigate to new directory: cd WhiteSur-wallpapers/

Execute the script files found there: ls \*sh

e.g., sudo ./install-wallpapers.sh, sudo ./install-gnome-backgrounds.sh

Right-click on GNOME desktop to change background wallpapers

Get theme components

clone git https://github.com/vinceliuice/White-Sur-gtk-theme.git

Execute cd into directory and see sudo ./install –-help for add’l info

…or run this: ./install.sh -n WhiteSur -t all -m -N stable -l –shell -i apple -h bigger --round

Same directory, install tweaks utility: ./tweaks.sh -g -nd -b \~/Downloads/SequoiaLight.png

Close Firefox (if running) to install browser extensions:
Without root privileges: Run ./tweaks.sh -f flat -F

Override gtk themes (replacing with MacOS themes) for any flatpak applications:
sudo flatpak override -–filesystem=xdg-config/gtk-3.0 && --filesystem=xdg-config/gtk-4.0

Enhance user interface with GNOME Extensions. Open “Extension Manager” from GNOME desktop

Open “Browse” tab and install the following extensions:

  • Blur My Shell
  • Burn My Windows
  • User Themes
  • Dash2Dock Animated
  • Search Light (if updated for current GNOME version)
  • GNOME 4x UI Improvements
  • Compiz Window Effect
  • Compiz alike magic lamp effect
  • Coverflow Alt-Tab

Make the following settings adjustments under “Installed” extensions list:

Coverflow Alt-Tab:
“Animations” tab: Easing function” “easeInOutQuart”
“App Switcher” tab: enable “Make App Switcher Behave Like Window Switcher”

Blur My Shell
“Panel” tab: disable effect
“Dash” tab: disable effect

Burn My Windows
Disable “Fire” effect and enable “Focus” effect (smoother window transitions)

Search Light (if available)
Add a short cut for opening Search Light, “control + space” would be MacOS-like
Under “Appearance”:
Set Width=0.26, Height=0.40, Thickness=1px, Border radius to maximum, enable background blur

Go to “Tweaks” application on GNOME desktop:
Under “Appearance”: Change “Icons” to Cupertino-Sonoma, and change Shell & Legacy Apps to WhiteSur-Dark-Blue (or other preference)
Under “Windows”: “Titlebar Buttons” enable Maximize, Minimize, Placement = Left
Under “Click Actions”: enable Center New Windows

Reboot to apply all of these changes.

= = = = = = = = = = = =

STEPS TO UNINSTALL MacOS THEME:

cd WhiteSur-gtk-theme/
./install.sh -r

To remove GDM, firefox, flatpak theme effects:
sudo ./tweaks.sh -g -r
sudo ./tweaks.sh -f -r
sudo ./tweaks.sh -F -r

Open “Tweaks” application on GNOME desktop
Under “Appearance”: select standard (non-MacOS) icon, Shell, legacy app themes
Under “Windows”: Titlebar placement = right

Open “Extension Manager” and disable (or delete) all of the MacOS-related installed extensions

Reboot to apply all of these changes.

[Also: Consider using Timeshift to restore previous system state.]