# Make Ubuntu look like OSX: COMPLETE TUTORIAL!



## shankar_ganesh (Feb 17, 2007)

[SOURCE]

I have noticed that many people try to imitate Mac OSX Tiger's look with     their current operating system. No matter is it Windows or Linux. I'm     one of those people and this is my atteption to make Ubuntu Linux look     like OSX Tiger. I use Ubuntu simply because it is the best distribution     of the best operating system. Ubuntu uses Gnome as it's desktop environment.     For this reason the guide is for only for Gnome users. It you are using some     other distribution, this guide is still valid in most cases. *This guide      tries to be as spesific as possible, so that even newbies can follow it easily!*               Rabiller Yann translated this guide to France.     
*Why should I modify my desktop to look like OSX?*

          Well, it's all up to your taste actually. If you don't like OSX's look then     you shouldn't, but there are many people who think that OSX is simply beautiful.     Personally I don't like Ubuntu's default brown theme or it's icons _(Update: dapper has beautiful icons)_. They      are just not for me. The good thing with Ubuntu _(and linux in general)_     is that it's possible to modify everything you want. This allows us to     have good operating system with nice personalized look.     
*Screenshots - What will you get*

          I'm sure you're already thinking _"Okay, but show me some screenshots!"_.     So here are some _Before_ and _After_ shots. Before shots are taken     from Official Ubuntu website.     

* Ubuntu desktop before any modifications*

                   *www.taimila.com/images/osx/before_thumb_1.jpg                   *www.taimila.com/images/osx/before_thumb_2.jpg                   *www.taimila.com/images/osx/before_thumb_3.jpg               * Ubuntu desktop after applying this guide*

                   *www.taimila.com/images/osx/after_thumb_1.jpg                   *www.taimila.com/images/osx/after_thumb_2.jpg                   *www.taimila.com/images/osx/after_thumb_3.jpg                      *Table of contents*


*Let's begin to customize our desktop!*
Changing themes and icons
Wallpaper
Desktop icons
Fonts
Gnome panel customizing
Window shadows and transparency

*Customize your applications*
Firefox web-browser
Gaim - Instant messenger
Gnome Configuration Editor

*Where to go next?*
Links

*Let's begin to customize our desktop!*

           Let's start with some basic concepts. Gnome desktop has three different     themes, which you can change. These are *Icons*, *Controls* and     *Window decoration*. Even only by changing them, you can get a very nice     desktop. There are many themes available and you can find most of them at     Gnome-look. You can of course use     any theme you like, but in this guide we are making OSX look-a-like and we     must select the best ones for our purpose.     
*Changing themes and icons*

          Download the following themes from Gnome-look.      The first one includes the theme for window decorator and for controls. And      the second one has a lot of OSX style icons.     

                              T-ish for Clearlooks                           by Tmilovan.
                              OSX iconset                           by Kiddo.
         After you have downloaded these packages go to _"System -> Preferences ->     Theme"_. System menu can be found at the left upper corner of your screen.     Select _"Install Theme..."_ and browse to the folder where you just downloaded     packages above. Select T-ish for Clearlooks package and continue. Now the     theme manager installs the theme files so that they can be used. Repeat the     same actions to the OSX iconset package. Finally select T-ish from theme list     and click _"Close"_. Now you should have a new theme with new icons. It's a good     start, but why stop here!     
*Wallpaper*

               *www.taimila.com/images/osx/background_selector_thumb.png          Wallpaper is a basic element of the desktop environment. In Ubuntu you can      change your background by clicking right mouse button on your desktop and      selecting _"Change Desktop Background"_ from the pop-up menu. Now you     should see the background selector _(See the image on right)_. You can add     new wallpapers to the list simply by clicking "Add wallpaper" button and     browsing to the folder where you keep your wallpaper images. Ok this all is     very intuitive and simple, but where to get OSX looking wallpapers? Right      here or just click my thumbnails     below and download images to your computer. After that you can use them as      described above. I use the the center one on my desktop, but the choice is     yours! For more wallpapers, look at my link list at the end of the guide.     
                   *www.taimila.com/images/osx/wall_thumb1.jpg                   *www.taimila.com/images/osx/wall_thumb2.jpg                   *www.taimila.com/images/osx/wall_thumb3.jpg                     *Desktop icons*

          I have only few icons on my desktop and they are pretty big as you can see     from the screenshots. I use      Innex icons theme on desktop icons. I also recommend you to download     OS-L iconset     even though it's for KDE. It still contains many nice icons which you can use     in menus or in your application launchers.     
*Fonts*

          Fonts are rarely thought as an eye-candy, but well selected fonts can make      the difference on how your deskop looks. With fonts it is also important     that they are readable! Do not use too complicated or artistic fonts. Keep     it simple!     
          I use the font called HandelGotD, which is a very nice looking font, but     yet simple. Unfortunately it's not a free font and you have to pay for it.     That's why I can't put it here. Another good option is to use the same     fonts that real OSX uses. These fonts are available at      osx-.com      and they are free to download. Of course, Ubuntu's default font is beautiful      as well, so the choice is yours once again.     
          Next we will install downloaded fonts, so that they can be used in gnome. Open      Gnome-terminal from the _"Applications ->Accessories -> Terminal"_      and move to the folder that contains your fonts _(if you downloaded Mac     fonts from osx-e.com, you have to unzip the package first)_. Then give the      following commands. These commands just copies the new fonts into the fonts      folder of the system.


     sudo mkdir /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf     
     sudo cp *.ttf /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf     
     sudo cp *.TTF /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf


          After applying these commands I recommend you to log out and log in again to     make sure that fonts are in use. Now we have fonts installed, but we still     need to make gnome use them. Go to _"System -> Preferences -> Font"_.     Click the buttons to change font and select your new font from the list and     give it the size you like. I'm using font size 9, but it might be a little     small for most of the users. Mac's default font is Lucida Grande and     Lucida MAC (size 10).     Change _Application font_, _Desktop font_ and      _Window title font_, but do not change _Terminal font_. That's it!     Now you can close the font-configuration window. You may need to restart your     session once again to make changes effect every application. By restarting     session, I mean login out and in again.     
*Gnome panel customizing*

          Gnome panels are those grey things on the top and the bottom of your screen.     Panels can contain menus, taskbars, clock, application launchers etc. Next     we will study how to get the top panel look more like OSX panel and also how     we can make OSX Docker look-a-like from the bottom panel. There are also other     ways to imitate OSX docker, but they are not discussed under this topic.     
*Bottom panel*

     *www.taimila.com/images/osx/bottom_panels.jpg          Let's begin with the *bottom panel*. Our aim is to have a panel which contains only     application launchers. The first step is to remove all the other elements from     the panel. In default ubuntu installation there are _Recycle bin_,      _Taskbar_, _desktop switcher_ and _show desktop_ -button. These     are added later to the top panel so don't worry. You won't lose them forever!     You can remove these elements by clicking right mouse-button on them and      selecting _"Remove from panel"_ from pop-up menu. Now you have empty     gray panel. Next click right mouse-button on the empty panel and select     _"Properties"_. Change the Size of the panel to *50* and remove     all the ticks form the selectionboxes (See screenshot).      Then change to Background tab and     select _"Solid color"_. Change the Color to white, if it's not already,     and move _"Style"_ slider like in this screenshot.     Now the panel is ready. Next we     just add icons (application launchers) to it. You can simply drag and drop     the icons from the desktop. Another way is to click right mouse-button on     the panel and select _"Add to panel..."_. Select _"Custom application     launcher"_ from the window and fill _Name_, _Command_ and select     some beatiful icon. You can also write a short comment about the program,     if you will. (See screenshot)


          There is also a very nice new dock-application called      cairo-dock. It's in     very early stage of developement, but it looks really promising project.     It doesn't support PNG icons yet and there not really a lot of OSX looking     SVG icons, so it's probably not the best option yet, but I suggest you to     stay tuned. It will be great!     
*Top panel*

     *www.taimila.com/images/osx/top_panels.jpg          The *Top panel* is little more trickier than bottom panel. I think     that at the moment it's not possible to get it as beautiful as I would like     to. Nevertheless, there are still some improvments that we can make. There     are three things to do. Let's first change the distributor logo. That's the     ubuntu logo of the application menu. Download this icon to your home folder     and give this command _(in your home folder)_ to install it.     

_I'm not sure is this the right directory for Dapper!_ 

sudo cp apple.png /usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/distributor-logo.png 
          Now, the next thing is to set a background image to your top-panel. Because     I'm lazy there's no download for that, but you have to do it yourself with     GIMP for example. It's not that hard. Just create a new image and set width     to your resolution width _(for example 1024 pixels)_ and height to 24     pixels _(this is the height of the panel)_. Then use gradien tool to     create a gradient from light grey to dark grey. Now after that, you can     just paint few pixels from upper corners to black so that it looks rounded.     
          Now, open panel properties by clicking right mouse button on panel and     selecting _Properties_. Check that Size is 24 and then go to Background     tab. Select Backgroung image and browse to image you just created with GIMP.     After that you can close the properties window.     
          The third thing is those notification area icons. There is no one folder     which would contain those icons. Notification area icons are application     spesific and that's why there's no easy and short way to change them. I     list here few folders you might want take a look at. If you want to change     icon you can just overwrite those PNG files. Here are the folders:     

/usr/share/pixmaps/gaim/icons     
          /usr/share/rhythmbox/art     
          /usr/share/gnome-bluetooth/pixmaps     
          /usr/share/icons/Human/22x22/status     
*Window shadows and transparency*

          Window shadows and transparency brings the real eye-candy to your desktop!     These effects can be achieved by using *Composite Manager*. There is a     very nice guide about Composite Manager available at      the official Ubuntu forums.     This guide is written by _Poofyhairguy_ and all credits go to him!     

*Customize your applications*

*Firefox web-browser*

          *www.taimila.com/images/osx/firefox_title.jpg               I have updated my Firefox to 1.5 as instructed in this      guide.     If you don't update your firefox before applying my guide, there is a change,     that something doesn't work as intented. And it's a lot faster than 1.0.7 anyway!     


     Let's begin with the theme. Install *iFox Smooth theme* from     here     and activate it at Firefox theme manager. You have to restart Firefox after     that!     


     Next we will remove menubar from the browser. This can be done with the help of     *CompactMenu extension*. Install it from here     and restart your firefox once again. Now, click your right mouse button on Toolbar     and select _Customize..._ from the pop-up menu. Remove the whitespace from     the menubar (the most top one) and after that drag all the sfuff from navigation     toolbar to the menubar (see screenshot). Add CompactMenu      button also to the menubar (see screenshot). 



After that you can close customizing by clicking     _Done_. Now your Firefox should look something like this. Click right mouse     button on toolbar again and remove tick from _Navigation toolbar_. You can     also remove bookmarks toolbar the same way if you want to. Use CompactMenu      button whenever you need to access Firefox menus. I also removed status bar      from the bottom of the browser. You can do this from Firefox's _View_ menu.     
*Gaim - Instant messenger*

          Gaim is the default instant messenger of the Ubuntu. It allows you to change     smiley themes from the properties, but you can also change it's icons and     other graphics by overwriting the existing files. Let's beginning with smiley     themes.     
          You can get more smiley themes for Gaim easily from the repositories. Just     give the following command and after that restart your Gaim.     
          sudo apt-get install gaim-themes     
          Now open the _preferences_ window of the Gaim messenger. It can by found     under _Tools_ menu. Navigate to _Smiley Themes_ and select your     favourite. After that you can close the window. I actually didn't like      any of the existing themes, so I ported my favourite theme from Kopete to Gaim. I suggest      you to      check it out. If you like it, download the package and navigate to your     download folder with nautilus. Next open the preferences window of the Gaim again (if it's     not already open) and navigate to _smiley themes_. Now you can simply     drag and drop the packet that you downloded to the list. See the picture.     
          Next we will change the icons of the program itself. Before that we should     take a backup copy of the current icons. So run this command in your terminal.     

sudo mv /usr/share/pixmaps/gaim /usr/share/pixmaps/gaim_backup

 
          Next _download_(Under construction) my theme and extract it temporarly to     your home folder. Now give the following commands in gnome-terminal.     

cd ~     
     sudo mv gaim /usr/share/pixmaps/ 


     Finally you need to restart your Gaim messenger.     
*How to uninstall OSX-Gaim theme*

          Just in case if you don't like it. Give the following commands in      gnome-terminal and after that, restart your Gaim messenger.     
          sudo rm -rf /usr/share/pixmaps/gaim     
          sudo mv /usr/share/pixmaps/gaim_backup /usr/share/pixmaps/gaim     
*Gnome Configuration Editor*

     *www.taimila.com/images/osx/gconf-editor.jpg          This is just a minor improvment, but it's all about details.  This     improvment changes the icons of the application to have a mac-look. This     can be done (Again!) simply by overwriting the existing icons with the new ones.     You can download my Configuration Editor icons here (sorry, not available anymore). After     that open the terminal and move to the directory where you just downloaded the     icons. Then give the following commands.     
          tar zxfv gconf-editor-icons.tar.gz     
          sudo mv /usr/share/pixmaps/gconf-editor /usr/share/pixmaps/gconf-editor_backup     
          sudo mv gconf-editor /usr/share/pixmaps/     
          Now the icons should be changed when you start the application next time. If     you don't like the new look, you can always roll-back to default icons. Just     give the following commands in terminal.     

sudo rm -rf /usr/share/pixmaps/gconf-editor     
     sudo mv /usr/share/pixmaps/gconf-editor_backup /usr/share/pixmaps/gconf-editor 

*Where to go next?*

           Hopefully you found this guide useful. Next you might want to download more     icons, wallpapers, themes and other eye-candy from the internet. Below is a     nice list of the websites, which I have used to get most of my resources.      These sites have absolutely stunning icons and wallpapers, so you really     should take a look!


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## Tech Geek (Feb 17, 2007)

Nice tut

once I had found one pdf telling how to convert WindowsXP into Mac type
I will try to upload it soon


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## Pathik (Feb 17, 2007)

nnnnnice tut man..


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## subratabera (Feb 17, 2007)

Excellent tutorial. Reps for u...


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## aku (Feb 18, 2007)

very ol' stuff


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## Tech Geek (Feb 18, 2007)

Here is the pdf file on how to make windows look like mac OSX
*depositfiles.com/files/566793


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## caleb (Feb 18, 2007)

Nice detailed tutorial


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## dissel (Feb 18, 2007)

*img142.echo.cx/img142/7089/niceone3pd.gif


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## mehulved (Feb 18, 2007)

Another one here *www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30489


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## devilzdad (Feb 18, 2007)

Really its a awesome tutorial....... not just coz my desktop looks like mac OSX but also helps to learn many things for beginners(like me).... i played  with ubuntu to get used with  OS....... if u have any other tutorials like dis then plz post it here.....


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## shankar_ganesh (Feb 19, 2007)

did the mods remove the pics in the post?

btw, thanks for the reps, friends


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## rajasekharan (Feb 21, 2007)

@Tech Geek...can u please re upload the file 

*depositfiles.com/files/566793

file not there...


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