emulate osx interface as closely as possible?

joebells · n00b Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 16

Hi I searched for osx themes and just mac and such and I just came up with look alike themes and stuff on the dock. I was wondering if someone has made a shell or something that will pretty much completely replicate osx's interface. Like the weird information bar at the very top that changes depending on what program you have open. The reason I ask is because my girlfriend is in a graphics design major and they use macs at school. She sort of wants to get a mac, mainly just to have the continuity between school and home but there's no way she can afford a mac at least not for the next year or so(supplies like paint, paper, film and such are freaking expensive for a freshman, I couldn't believe it)

So I was thinking that it should be possible to pretty much completely emulate the whole osx interface. Like that weird bar at the top and the way all the menus are and such, especially since osx is based off of unix. I know it wouldn't have quartz or whatever they call it driving the graphics but thats not a big deal she just mainly wants a similar experience at home and school. And I know that it wouldn't run osx programs.

I imagine that someone has done this already and so I figured I'd ask as I continue to search. I appreciate any help.

edit: and as I think about it I guess the main programs she would be using at school, the cs suite would have to be run in an emulator or something similar and so it wouldn't use that wierd bar at the top anyway?

joebells · n00b Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 16

well I found this post it seems to say that there's not really anything that will do quite what I want. I guess she'll just have to learn to deal with the differences.

Promit · Guru Joined: 15 Nov 2003 Posts: 344

KDE gets reasonably close. Things I've noticed:

1) None of the Dock clones are that good. They are ok, but just not the same.
2) For some reason, nobody can actually get the minimize/maximiz/close buttons on the left side, like in OSX.
_________________
Windows, Linux, whatever.

AnXa · Apprentice Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 250

Use XFCE4 with some GTK Docker. That's closest you can get.

KDE can be themed to look like OSX, but it won't be very useable. Gnome is best if you want to have that same "feeling" of OSX, but it won't work like it and themeing it won't make it looking like OSX very much.
_________________
The idea isn't about how do you see or hear it, it's about how do you experience it...

joebells · n00b Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 16

thanks for the replies I'll have to look into XFCE4. I was hoping to get a replica all the way down to the system menus and monitoring tools and such. Like everything. I guess that would be a ton of work and apple probably wouldn't allow it anyway.

I wonder why pearpc would run faster on windows than on linux(at least thats the idea I get from reading) You would think that if you setup a very minimal text mode gentoo system heavily optimised that it would have the lowest overhead to run pearpc. As it stands now she couldn't try to do her projects in pearpc especially later on as her photoshop stuff gets more indepth.

Filan · n00b Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 48

apple has made darwin for x86 but i dont know if they have released the GUI part(aqua)

codergeek42 · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 9:14 pm Post subject:

skyPhyr · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 2:43 pm Post subject:

If her machine is gutsy enough why not try running PearPC (Mac hardware emulator) http://www.pearpc.net

It's in the portage too.

I've been using Baghira, but just to make the interface sleeker. Wasn't worried about the task bar up the top or shifting the close buttons (though I think it can do that)

Cheers,

Alan.

theturner · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 3:07 pm Post subject:

I managed to bring the window buttons to the left side in metacity. The GConf key which is responsible for this is /apps/metacity/general/button_layout.

But if your machine is not powerful enough to run PearPC, i would really recommend to give your girlfriend the plain joy of GNOME 2.8, with hardly any modifications (GlossyP theme, window buttons?). It will be quite a change, but it's manageable for anyone who's not an absolute idiot.
Trying to emulate Mac OS X through looks, hacks and dock fakes will make the user interface inconsistent and hard to use. This is something for self-awarded übergeeks who drool for eye-candy.

edit: And the "weird information bar" at the top is called menu bar, and that's just what it does. I think there's nothing weird about having menus in applications. However the position of it may appear weird to you.