

Make Ubuntu look like OS X - tan1337
http://tanu.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/transform-ubuntu-into-os-x/

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windsurfer
I love that you can configure Ubuntu this much, but frankly, I would never
want it to look like OS X.

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st3fan
"Im a big fan of apple user interfaces though they lack a bit in functionality
and obviously they are very expensive unless you have lot of money"

This reminds of a great JWZ quote: Linux is only free if your time has no
value.

~~~
tan1337
LOL.. come on, you are still in BSD age.. take a look at ubuntu and then say!

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zimbabwe
I booted up Ubuntu just now. I support the JWZ quote. Ubuntu is the best Linux
has ever been, but there's no competition in any way with OS X, and I'd
probably choose Windows 7 over it if it didn't instantly support all my
drivers.

This is attracting a lot of downvotes, but I'll restate what I said in more
certain phrasing: If your operating system doesn't support my drivers without
my having to do work, then you have failed to make your operating system easy
to use. Say what you will about Windows, and I'll say a lot, it has never
failed to give me audio/video, which Ubuntu has failed to give me every time
I've used it.

~~~
jrockway
You must have really weird software. OS X, Linux (and BSD), and Windows all
suck in different ways. One way that they all don't suck is out-of-the-box
hardware support, all three OSes support most common hardware just fine. I run
Debian Unstable and I don't think I've ever explicitly installed a driver,
everything is in the default install. (I think Intel is mostly to thank for
this situation on Linux; Intel has written great wireless and video drivers,
so if you have Intel hardware, everything is likely to work really well.)

So if hardware is not a problem, it comes down to the software. Everyone uses
the same web browser on all three platforms, so it's not that. Linux has
better terminal editors and support for programming. (I ditched OS X after
never getting emacs to work right.) Nautilus and Finder are about the same,
although I do not like to use a GUI for managing files. Linux lets me choose,
OS X forces its opinion on me. (I also don't like manually arranging windows;
OS X forces me to do that anyway. It doesn't even have working "maximize".)

Anyway, I spend maybe an hour every two weeks caring for and feeding Debian,
and that means all my software is always up to date. On my OS X machine, I
spend less than that, but every piece of software I have is outdated since it
is too annoying to manually update everything.

YMMV, but Ubuntu is probably a fine OS for 90% of computer users (especially
with OO.org 3).

~~~
zimbabwe
Huh! Perhaps it's a fault of the virtualization software, then? I'm using a
Macbook Pro, the drivers of which I'd assume are in fairly common use, but I
can't get audio to work properly. Would virtualization have anything to do
with that?

~~~
st3fan
Software like VMWare or Parallels usually makes a fake audio device available.
One that has nothing to do with the actual audio hardware in your Mac. They
both probably emulate a Soundblaster 16 or so. Which should work fine on
anything from Windows to Ubuntu running virtualized.

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naz
I can tell how much attention went into the look & feel of OS X when the
spacing on the status bar icons in those screenshots really irks me.

~~~
jrockway
Do you ever actually use your computer, or do you just stare at the spacing
between icons?

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scott_s
If a novice took over the layout of your favorite publication, offline or off,
you'd probably notice.

Having a desktop environment where things "look right" is, to me, the same as
working in a room that is clean and tidy.

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crocowhile
What about the other way around? I have been using linux for years now but
recently I bought a new macbookpro. I am amazed by the way OSX handles battery
life and suspend/resume but everything else doesn't even compare to
gnome/compiz; gnome is so much more customizable! Was anyone in a similar
situation? What did you do? Shift to OSX?

~~~
garnet7
One bit of discomfort OS X causes me is that it uses the "Command" (or clover)
key instead of the usual Control (Ctrl) key. Switching between GNU/Linux and
OS X is a pain keyboard-wise.

Also, I prefer the way Gnome handles switching between windows _on a given
virtual desktop_ (via Alt-Tab) -- without changing virtual desktops on you. It
works right on Gnome. Why can't Apple at least provide an option to have their
Cmd-Tab work correctly?

Another nice thing about Ubuntu is updating your software. OS X can update
_itself_ , but Ubuntu's `aptitude` lets you update _everything you have
installed_.

As for me, I'm stuck on OS X at work for the time being and would prefer to be
using an Ubuntu (with Gnome) setup.

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yummyfajitas
I'd much rather make OS X more like Ubuntu.

I like my macbook, but a lot of software just doesn't run on it. I'd also like
it if xmonad worked for all windows, not just X windows.

~~~
zimbabwe
Can't you run Gnome/KDE on OS X?

~~~
yummyfajitas
Probably, but how does that help? Those are desktop environments, what I want
is a tiling window manager.

~~~
zimbabwe
I'd have thought you could install the window manager along with everything
else.

~~~
jrockway
He wants OS X native apps to be managed with a tiling window manager. Not
possible, although this would be a large usability improvement for many users.
(It's ugly though, so my bet is that this will never happen. Get a Linux box
and start thinking for yourself.)

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toki
There is a tool in the repos that reproduces the macos global menu on the top
of the screen. I never tested it, it seems to work only with gtk-apps i think.

<http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/>

~~~
mishmash
Cool, I could never love an OS that didn't have a standard menu bar.

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Flow
It looks kinda ok, but all the keyboard shortcuts and cmd instead of ctrl
would expose the fake immediately.

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gaius
Funny how there are no articles about making OSX look like Ubuntu...

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halo
That's a moot point, because it's not possible to theme Mac OS X.

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nudded
that is incorrect: <http://magnifiqueapp.com/> is an app that allows Mac OS X
to be themed

~~~
windsurfer
Well of course it's possible to hack any piece of software to do anything that
another piece of software can do, but what the poster meant was that the
particular function of theming the graphical engine of OS X is completely
unsupported.

~~~
zimbabwe
Except for the fact that all the theme files of OS X are modifiable and
hackable to your heart's desire. The fact that no large theming community
exists for OS X is that Aqua is a very, very satisfying theme.

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bradgessler
The nth "Make _______ (fill in the blank with any OS) look like OS X" web
post. Its like putting a Mercedes Benz car body on a BMW chassis.

~~~
tvon
You should maybe pick different manufacturers to clarify your point.

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trezor
Repeat after me: A theme is not a OS.

If you want OS X, get OS X86 or just get a Mac. And I say that as a Windows-
user.

~~~
eugenejen
At the same time, we judge things that we don't know by its look.

For people who don't know what difference between OS X and Unbuntu, the theme
is the OS.

This happens everywhere. Racism is one of this bias. We tends to judge non-
white as criminals in certain situations.

~~~
access_denied
I don't tend to judge non-white as criminals. I tend to judge white man in
black suits wearing sunglasses and big moustaches as criminals.

~~~
eugenejen
But you judge a person by look, right? That's the bias I was talking about. As
a non white person, I can feel when people look at me walking on the street
and their uneaseness in 4am in Harlem, NYC.

As long as human judge things by looks (I did not say this is good thing. I've
been trying to remove biases in my perception in search for enlightenment
since my teenager time from readings in Taoism/Buddhism), we will all suffer
from a lot of misconnections to great things.

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CrLf
A polished turd doesn't look like OSX.

~~~
tan1337
I can't stop laughing about people telling it doesn't look like osx. alright
its not osx. it works for me, and im happy for it!

~~~
zimbabwe
What makes this different from any other theme? Why submit this one to Hacker
News? Because attempts to dupe OS X have been around for a decade now; the
existence of this one isn't newsworthy unless it's a nonshitty theme, but
that's not the case.

~~~
tan1337
Well can't you see the theme ? differentiate it. Just because you don like,
doesn't mean no one likes it. Its for the one who like it, if you don't like
it just ignore why discourage me or others ?

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pwmanagerdied
Because sharing nice-looking things isn't the point of Hacker News.

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tan1337
come on don tell me what to share on hacker news! i know the rules..

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pwmanagerdied
It may not be against the written rules but it's certainly against the spirit
of the site, which evidently you do not understand.

~~~
tan1337
alright you win, i can't convince the novice! i got better things to hack..

