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Do you want to make Ubuntu look like Mac OS X? If so, we’re going to show you how to do it, step-by-step.
![Mac Os Yosemite Theme For Ubuntu Mac Os Yosemite Theme For Ubuntu](/uploads/1/2/6/6/126676524/588955754.jpg)
A Yosemite theme I'm working on for Ubuntu 14.04, any suggestions would be really appreciated. Changelog: 0.1 Fixed Unity Launcher Indicators 0.2 Added Check-boxes and Radio Buttons Credit to the creator of the Cenozoic theme that I used as the base. Icons coming really soon! Pick the Right Desktop Environment. To achieve the most Mac-like look on Linux you. Choose the Right Desktop Flavour. There are several variants for the desktop environment like.
The whole point of using Linux is that you can do things like this
It doesn’t matter whether you have a bad case of Apple envy, or you simply appreciate the design aesthetic of Apple’s OS; there’s nothing wrong with aping the appearance of a rival operating system.
After all, the whole point of using Linux is that you are free to do things like this — and hey: you certainly can’t make macOS look like Ubuntu!
How To Make Ubuntu Look like a Mac
A stack of mac GTK themes, icon sets, fonts and cursors are available for Linux, just a quick Google away.
The ones included below are the ones we use/think give you the best Mac-like look on your Linux box, But don’t be afraid to explore DeviantArt, GitHub and other avenues if our choices don’t quite match with your tastes.
1. Pick the Right Desktop Environment
GNOME Shell
To achieve the most Mac-like look on Linux you need to use the most appropriate desktop environment and that is GNOME Shell.
This is not a slight against other desktop environments (DEs) as Unity, Budgie, MATE and Cinnamon can all be moulded to resemble Cupertino’s computing OS too.
But GNOME Shell is the most customisable desktop environment. This is a key ask in a task like this. GNOME Shell lets you theme and re-arrange everything you need to with the least amount hackery or fuss.
If you’re using Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or later you already have everything you need to get started, so skip ahead.
But if you don’t have GNOME Shell installed on Ubuntu you will need to install it first.
This is easy. Just click the button below and follow in the on-screen prompts (select ‘lightdm’ as the display manager when asked):
You’re also going to need to the GNOME Tweaks tool in a few steps time, so install that now too:
Once both installations are complete you need to logout and select the ‘GNOME Shell’ session from the Unity Greeter:
A word on using Unity
One thing GNOME Shell can’t offer, that the Unity desktop can, is global menu support.
Now, I don’t consider this to be a negative as more and more applications use use Client Side Decorations, making the need for a global menu redundant.
But if having an omnipresent set of app menus stripped across the top of the screen is part of the Mac experience you don’t wish to lose, stick with Unity.
2. Install a Mac GTK Theme
The single easiest way to make Ubuntu look like a Mac is to install a Mac GTK theme.
Our top recommendation is the ‘macOS Mojave’ theme by Vinceluice. This is a near-enough pixel-perfect clone of Apple’s OS skin, and is available in light and dark versions. It’s one of the best designed Mac GTK themes out there (it also has a matching GNOME Shell theme).
The ‘macOS Mojave’ theme requires GNOME 3.20 or later, so you’ll need to be running Ubuntu 16.10 or later to use it.
If you’re running the older Ubuntu 16.04 LTS release you can use the competent ‘macOS Sierra’ clone created by the B00merang project:
Tip: How To Install GTK Themes
Once you download your chosen macOS theme from the link(s) above, you will need to install it.
To install themes in Ubuntu first extract the contents of the archive you downloaded, then move the folder inside to the
~/.themes
folder in your Home directory.If you do not see this folder press
Ctrl + H
to reveal hidden folders. Next, find the .themes folder or create it if it doesn’t exist. Move the extract folder mentioned above to this folder.Finally, to change theme, open
GNOME Tweak Tool > Appearance
and select your chosen theme (and the GNOME Shell theme, if you also downloaded one).3. Install a Mac Icon Set
Next grab some a Mac Icon set for Linux. A quick Google will throw up a bunch of results. Most, sadly, aren’t complete enough to function as a full icon set, so you’ll also want to use (and in some cases manually specify) a fall back icon theme like Faba, or Papirus.
To avoid all of that hassle you may wish to use the fabulous ‘La Capitaine‘ icon pack.
What’s great about La Capitaine is that it’s a proper Linux icon set, with custom macOS inspired icons for many Linux apps and not just a direct port of mac icons to Linux. It’s also totally open-source, and is available to download from Github.
How to Install Icon Themes
Once you’ve downloaded your chosen theme from the link(s) above you need to install it. To do this first extract the contents of the archive you download, then move the folder inside to the
~/.icons
folder in your Home directory.If you don’t see this folder press
Ctrl + H
to view hidden folders. Next, find the .icons folder or create it if it doesn’t exist. Move the extract folder mentioned above to this folder.Finally, to apply, open
GNOME Tweak Tool > Appearance
and select your chosen theme.4. Change the System Font
If you’ve used Mac OS X / macOS at some point in the past few years you’ll know it has clean, crisp system typography.
‘Lucida Grande’ is the familiar Mac system font, though Apple uses a system font called ‘San Franciso’ in recent releases of macOS.
A quick Google should turn up plenty more information (and links to download San Francisco font) but be aware that neither font is not licensed for distribution — so we can’t link you to it, sorry!
Thankfully there’s an open-source alternative to ‘Lucida Grande’ called Garuda. It’s even pre-installed out of the box on Ubuntu, so you don’t need to go on a font safari to find it.
Head to
GNOME Tweak Tool > Fonts
and set the ‘Windows Titles’ and ‘Interface’ fonts to Garuda Regular (or any other font you wish).If you use Unity you can use Unity Tweak Tool to change the font on Ubuntu.
5. Add a Desktop Dock
Ask people what a Mac desktop looks like and chances are they will mention its ubiqutious desktop dock. This is a combined application launcher and window switcher.
If you opted to use GNOME Shell back in Step 1 install the excellent Dash to Dock extension from the GNOME extensions site. This dock can be adjusted, tweaked and tune to look exactly like its macOS counterpart.
Dash to Dock doesn’t look very mac-ish by default so you will want to dive in to the
GNOME Tweak Tool > Extensions > Dash to Dock > Appearance
to change the colour to white, and lower the opacity.Plank Dock
If you chose to stick with the Unity desktop you can set the Unity Launcher to hide (
System Settings > Desktop > Behaviour
) and install Plank, a desktop dock, to handle app launching and window switching:Plank can be configured with all sorts of themes too, making it easy to replicate the Mac OS X experience. Gnosemite is a faithful mac Plank theme worth a look.
![Ubuntu Ubuntu](/uploads/1/2/6/6/126676524/275917233.jpg)
That’s it; we’ve achieved our aim to make Ubuntu look like a Mac — now it’s your turn.
We’d love to see a screenshot of your mac-inspired creation so do feel free to share one in the comments.
Apple took the attendees at its annual developer conference WWDC on a tour of OS X 10.10 Yosemite, the next release of its popular desktop operating system due this fall.
Amongst the multitude of changes, updated apps and interface improvements of the refreshed desktop was one feature that those of us using Ubuntu will detect a faint whiff of familiarity about…
Spotlight just got scoped.
Online Sources Come to Spotlight
Part GNOME Do and part Unity Dash, the new Spotlight is a refinement of various features those of us on Linux have been using for the past few years.
If you’re not familiar with Apple’s OS X (and since you’re reading an Ubuntu-based website there’s a good chance you’re not) Spotlight is a desktop search tool for finding and opening your installed apps and documents.
Until now it’s been chained to the top of the screen – a drop-down box with one-line results. For the upcoming release of Yosemite Apple has reimagined it into something more akin to the Unity Dash that ships in Ubuntu.
In 10.10 pressing Command + Space opens a Spotlight box in the centre of the screen. As a search term is entered into the text box a scrollable list of results, complete with previews, appears within it.
In some ways it’s reminiscent of GNOME Do (itself partly inspired by an older Mac app called Quicksilver) or Synapse, albeit with Unity Scope usefulness thanks to the integration of results from select online sources, such as Wikipedia and iTunes.
Obviously the idea of collating a set of search results is not exclusive to Ubuntu. A number of apps, OSes and projects have tried to do similar things over the years, including the aforementioned GNOME Do.
What gives Apple’s attempt a faint dose of the familiar is the use of previews. Wikipedia snippets. Music playback options. In-preview actions. In iOS 8 Spotlight will even recommend applications you don’t have installed but thinks you might like — sound familiar?
No longer is the tool confined to simply finding and launching local files and documents. Spotlight can now offer up information from online sources like Wikipedia, Yelp and Bing. Some types of information, such as movie show times, local restaurants and map results, are automatically localised. Impressive contacts, e-mail and iMessage integration was also demoed.
Their implementation is, based on what they showed off, arguably more intelligent than that in Unity. Unnervingly so. Apple, through various features demoed, repeatedly touted the privacy protection being baked into apps, APIs and other features.
Unlike Unity, however, Apple isn’t throwing the whole kitchen sink into the mix. You won’t be served shopping results nor will you have to rummage through obscure music titles and irrelevant weather results to find what you want.
It’s not always who created an idea, but whose implementation is better. Until the first betas of OS X 10.10 are made available in the summer we only have a polished pitch to go on. But, as distasteful as some may find it, if it works as good for me as it does for them, I’d say Apple has moulded something pretty awesome out of what can all too easily result in a total mess.
Beyond Similarities, Towards Convergence
We’ll leave the full rundowns to dedicated sites like MacRumors and The Verge. What’s interesting is that, as with the previous two releases, features at the heart of a Linux distribution have been remoulded and baked into Apple’s desktop OS.
Past the similarities of Unity’s Scopes, Mac OS X 10.10 also adds a few other bits into the mix that relate (however tangentially) to Linux.
For example, it now comes with a new look inspired by the translucent “layered” design of iOS 7. While there isn’t quite anything like the new theme available on Linux, we all take for granted the extensive theming capabilities offered by Linux desktops. There are literally hundreds of themes available, spanning all sorts of styles, catering to every fad, whim and fancy that passes by.
For long-time OS X users a bit of translucency and an optional dark theme seem revolutionary.
Also touched on at WWDC was something particularly intriguing.
The ‘Continuity’ feature Yosemite debuts intrigues me more than anything else touted by Tim Cook during his keynote. From afar it also looks like an alternative take on convergence.
Download Ubuntu For Mac
Whereas Canonical is fixated on unifying the OS, UI and display server at a code level – thus allowing for the same apps to run on all devices but display a different face depending on the screen size – Apple appears to be content to let a phone be a phone, a tablet be a tablet, and a desktop OS be a desktop OS. The emphasis seems to be less on binary unification of devices and more on how seamless the user experience between them is.
Through Continuity Apple users will be able to start work on a document, typing an e-mail or reading a webpage on an iOS device and then instantly ‘pick up’ on OS X right from where they left off. And vice versa.
Google is said to be preparing something along similar lines in Project Hera. Looking ahead further Android may even soon be able to enable seamless connectivity to a big screen through the Chromecast and Android TV, with the UI adjusting to match — something that would make Ubuntu’s wired ‘dock to become PC’ feature seem old fashioned before it’s been built!
Various iPhone features will also be available on the desktop version of OS X 10.10. Users will be able to make and take calls, send and receive SMS messages. Being able to answer a call on your desktop even though your iPhone is in your bag downstairs is a trivial sounding feature, but one that is a great example of how seamless and connected a user experience in a multi-device world should be.
Conclusion
It’s too early to tell if Apple’s attempt at fusing online and local results will fare any better than Unity’s attempt. But what is clear is that despite the flak levelled at Canonical on its introduction, they were ahead of the curve in seeing the potential.
Unity 8 on phones and tablets already introduces a number of key changes to Scopes aimed at addressing a lot of past criticism. The result sits in stark contrast to that being offered by Apple in Yosemite and iOS 8.
Install Mac Os On Ubuntu
With such form, one can’t help but wonder if, this time next year, we’ll once again be firing up a new draft to write about yet more Ubuntu features being embraced by the Apple faithful…