One of the great benefits of Linux is how you can shape it as you see fit. There are lots of different ways to customize your own desktop — you can even change how your icons look! Macintosh desktops have two defining features: the application dock and the menu bar. This guide will try and imitate them on Linux, along with other things.
Basic Theming
Before anything else, if you want your desktop to look like a Mac’s, you’ll need to install the right themes. A Linux theme called macOS Sierra does exactly that. To download it, enter these lines into your terminal:mkdir $HOME/.themes
cd $HOME/.themes
wget https://github.com/B00merang-Project/macOS-Sierra/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zipIcon Themes
The Gnome Yosemite icon theme closely matches the macOS appearance. Like application themes, the way to adjust them varies between desktops. The terminal commands below just focus on installing it:sudo add-apt-repository ppa:numix/ppa && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install numix-icon-theme-circlesudo sh -c "curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Foggalong/hardcode-fixer/master/fix.sh | bash"
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ActusOS/GnomeYosemiteIcons/master/download_from_github.sh | sh
sudo apt-get install curlThe Plank Dock
Apart from the Unity desktop, the other guides will assume you have Plank. It’s a taskbar that integrates well with the Linux macOS theme. To install it, type this command in to your terminal:sudo apt-get install plank
Regardless of your desktop, this should start up Plank, along with its configuration window. In the Appearance section, change the Theme to Gtk+. This will make the dock look like the one in macOS once you make some adjustments later on.
If you want to hide that anchor icon, you’ll need to change a hidden setting. To do this, enter this command into your terminal:
gsettings set net.launchpad.plank.dock.settings:/net/launchpad/plank/docks/dock1/ show-dock-item falseMake Unity Look Like macOS
The Unity desktop is generally found on Canonical’s Ubuntu operating system. Since it takes some cues from macOS, it’s also really easy to change.
As you can see, Unity already has a dock and a menu bar by default. All you need to do is make some visual adjustments. This is easily achieved using the Unity Tweak Tool, which allows you to change some hidden desktop options. Install it with this terminal command:
sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool
Final Touches
In the Unity Tweak Tool, return to the Overview menu. From there, go into the Theme entry located under the Appearance category. From there, select the Macos-sierra-master theme. Your applications should now have a very Mac-like feel to them.
The theme also comes with a nice wallpaper. To get to it, first hit Ctrl + L in the file manager. This allows you to enter in a location:
/home/USER/.themes/macOS-Sierra-master/
By default, Unity’s menu-bar only shows options when you hover your mouse over it. To make it behave like macOS, open your System Settings app, then go to Personal > Appearance > Behaviour > Menu visibility. Select the always displayed option underneath it.
GNOME
Unity is based on GNOME, so it makes sense that both desktops are very similar to each other. As such, there’s not much you need to change.The Dock
If you followed the instructions at the beginning of the article, you should now have a dock. However, to keep using it on reboot, you’ll need to add it to your startup applications. The easiest way to do this is through the GNOME Tweak Tool. Install it with this command:sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool
Changing the Theme
Inside the GNOME Tweak Tool, go to the Appearance section. Change the GTK+ theme to MacOS-Sierra-master. Both your application windows and the Plank dock should change in appearance. As a final touch, change your wallpaper by heading to the Desktop section in the Tweak Tool. In there, click on the Background Location button.
You’ll be presented with a way of choosing a new wallpaper. A Mac-like one is located with your theme (named Wallpaper.jpg), so navigate to it at ~/.themes/macOS-Sierra-master. You might have to show hidden files to see this folder. If that’s the case, right click in the file selection window, and click the Show Hidden Files entry.
Plasma
With the release of Plasma 5.9, it’s possible to make KDE’s signature desktop very much like a Mac. Unfortunately, because of how new it is, many Linux operating systems won’t ship it yet. I recommend using KDE Neon to make use of it — it should be relatively stable and reliable.
KDE’s offering prides itself on its power and flexibility. As such, it can match macOS in appearance a little more than GNOME can. However, it’ll take a bit more work.
Plasma’s Menu Bar
As of Plasma 5.9, you can now have a global menu just like macOS. To start off, right-click on your desktop, and select Add Panel > Application Menu Bar. You’ll get a blank panel at the top of your screen. Click on the hazard sign inside it. This will open up a settings window that will let you change how application menu bars are displayed.
Go to Fine Tuning > Menubar style > Application Menu widget. Once you’ve applied this setting, the hazard sign should go away, and application menus should show up on top. For some reason, while the menu bar was visible in Firefox, it wasn’t functional. Your mileage may vary!
Once you’re done with this, fill the panel with some suitable widgets, by right-clicking on it, and selecting the Add Widgets option. I suggest using similar widgets to the bottom panel. After all this, remove the bottom panel by clicking on the hamburger menu and selecting More Settings > Remove Panel.
Starting Plank Automatically
In your System Settings, go to Workspace > Startup and Shutdown > Autostart > Add Program. You should be able to find Plank located under Utilities. This stops you from manually starting the dock every time you log in to your desktop.
Adjusting Appearance
Interestingly, Plasma puts its icon themes in a different location. Because of this, you’ll need to move your macOS icon theme folder elsewhere. Use these terminal commands to do this:cd $HOME/.icons
cp -r GnomeYosemiteIcons-master/ ../.local/share/icons
Having done this, return to the settings menu, and go to Appearance > Application Style > GNOME Application Style. Under the GTK Themes section, select macOS-Sierra-master. Then, change your icon theme to Yosemite Icons.
Then, go to Window Decorations, and select the Get New Decorations option. Search for a theme called Breezemite and install it. Set it as your decoration theme.
Finally, to hide the toolbox in the corner of your desktop, click on it and select Configure Desktop. In the Tweaks menu that will pop up, disable the Show the desktop toolbox option.
Cinnamon
Without any modifications, the Cinnamon desktop looks more like Windows than macOS. Fortunately, this is very easy to change.Move the bottom panel to the top by right-clicking on it, then going to Modify panel > Move panel. This should leave you with something a bit more Mac-like. Afterwards, remove the desktop icons in the panel by right-clicking on them, and selecting the Remove option.
You may also remove the window list applet (if you prefer it to a global menu) by right-clicking on it, selecting Configure the window list, then clicking the Remove button.
Adding a Menu Bar
An extension for Cinnamon called Global AppMenu provides the desktop with a menu bar. The app itself is apparently going to be ported to GNOME soon, but at this point in time, it works fine. To install it, enter these commands in:cd ~/.local/share/cinnamon/applets/
wget https://github.com/lestcape/Global-AppMenu/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip
cd Global-AppMenu-master
mv globalAppMenu\@lestcape/ ../
rm -rf Global-AppMenu-master master.zip 
Having done this, you should now be able to add the Global Application Menu applet to your panel. You can also drag it to a place of your liking by enabling Panel edit mode (right click on the panel).
If you’re using a Linux operating system other than Ubuntu, you might have to install some extra programs to get things working. Ubuntu has them by default, but others might not:
sudo apt-get install appmenu-qt appmenu-qt5 unity-gtk2-module unity-gtk3-module
Automatically Starting Plank
If you followed the steps at the beginning of the article, Plank should be active on your desktop. However, it won’t show up on a reboot. To fix this, open up the Startup Applications menu in the settings manager. From there, look for Plank in your list of applications (they’re sorted alphabetically).
Now if you restart your desktop session, you won’t have to manually start the dock up.
Themeing Cinnamon
The Cinnamon desktop needs a bit more tweaking than other desktops. Open up System Settings > Appearance > Themes. You’ll be presented with a few theme options. Change everything but the Icons and Mouse Pointer entries to macOS-Sierra-master. Then, change the Icons entry to use GnomeYosemiteIcons-master.
For some final touches, you can change your wallpaper to something more Mac-like. Open up the Backgrounds setting, then add the ~/.themes/macOS-Sierra-master folder as a new background directory. You may have to show hidden folders to see it.
The Final Results
As you can see, regardless of the desktop, all of them resemble macOS to a fairly high degree.Unity
The color and alignment of the dock gives away the fact it’s not really macOS, unfortunately. Using Plank wasn’t much of an option — it would make launching programs too difficult.
GNOME
Unlike Unity, it’s the menu bar that’s a little different.
Plasma
The icon theme in Plasma doesn’t fit quite as well, but it makes a good Mac impression nonetheless.
Cinnamon
Arguably, it’s the Cinnamon desktop that comes closest to the macOS feel.
Linux is extremely flexible — if you don’t like what you see, then you have the power to change it. Or even find something you like without having to do all that work. While the macOS desktop isn’t for everybody, the customizability it demonstrates means that the perfect desktop for you is just waiting to be found.
Source: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/make-linux-look-like-macos/
