A little offtopic, but I'd like the _reverse_ -- a Linux-like experience on the Mac. Mac hardware and underlying macOS so I can run my favorite native apps and tap into the cleanly-syncing ecosystem, but with a non-hacky tiling window manager, relatively stable text-based locations for configuration, permissions/access patterns that don't change under my feet on every system update, and sane, smooth networking.
Seems like the worst of both worlds. I wouldn't swap my mac hardware for anything so have to do my best to live with macOS but I would take any other OS over it. I just try my best to say inside a terminal if I can.
This. I don’t care much for MacOS. It pretty much gives me a terminal and browser and gets out of the way. But, the hardware, and drivers…. I can reliably shut the lid and open up at a different place and continue working. The battery last atleast a full working day. Displays text sharply. Touchpad works like no other.
I can’t imagine dealing with Linux without these conveniences.
For well over a decade, Linux has been more comfortable than macOS. The only drawback is that there are plenty of high-quality apps for macOS that are not available on Linux. If there were a straightforward way for developers to write once and deploy anywhere, Linux would have been the number one desktop OS.
The one interesting thing (as a heavy user of both OSes) is that since the past decade there now are plenty of high-quality games (if those count for apps) on the Linux, that still don't work as well or as plentifully on Mac.
Linux is bound to be the number one gaming machine in time; general apps aside.
I remain fascinated that we can have whole communities of people like r/unixporn building many user experiences that look great, but the two biggest linux desktop environments (KDE and GNOME) look like fingerpainting compared to macOS.
Clearly there are people who know how to write the software that makes the user interfaces, and clearly there are people good at designing beautiful interfaces, and all of it is FOSS for anyone to copy or build on, but for whatever reason no one can manage to put these two together, such that the big DE's look as good as macOS by default.
In my view, the primary issue is that the FOSS world has a distinct lack of design-minded engineers, which has been the group that's been responsible for the high quality, well designed botique apps that macOS has become known for. That world is much more skewed towards folks that are near-exclusively "nuts and bolts".
There's nothing wrong or bad about that but it manifests quite clearly in the software that gets produced.
Design-minded engineers are great for UI-focused projects because they're the most capable of striking that balance of form and function, or better yet coming up with designs that serve both. By comparison, non-technical designers and fully technical engineers are both at a disadvantage; the designers can make things nice looking but don't have a grasp on what's practical to implement while the technical engineers struggle to design UIs that are appealing to anybody but other technical people.
It's a bit of a self-reinforcing problem. The FOSS world can't attract design-minded engineers because they have such little presence in that culture.
There's a reason why unixporn only ever shows a terminal and a handful of applications in very specific states.
MacOS was (because it sure as hell isn't anymore) so great because it had multiple talented third-party designers all building on the same consistent design system.
There's a great deal of bikeshedding in the world of design.
Sure everyone can design, but there is value in having a team of people who specialise in design, and then having that enforced across the OS.
Design also means giving up on my wonderful ideas for how I think an app should work and subscribe to mimicking how the OS functions: not because this is the optimal design, but because it's going to be the most intuitive for the -user-.
The strength of OSS is the huge amount of experimentation that can go on by having everyone execute their own ideas, this however is not conducive to a unified harmonious design.
I hadn't heard of unixporn before, thanks. I've modified some rainmeter scripts over the years for a cozy and dense performance readout that I bring with me. I've recently ditched windows everywhere I possibly can and have been missing these overlays a little bit. I did find btop and it is about 95% of the way there, but I would like better hooks into UPS power usage and a dense per-core frequency, usage, and temperature display.
> I remain fascinated that we can have whole communities of people like r/unixporn building many user experiences that look great, but the two biggest linux desktop environments (KDE and GNOME) look like fingerpainting compared to macOS.
Opposite view, macOS for me looks like a toy UI I can do no real work with.
A few years ago I would have agreed with you 100%, but OS X design really went downhill a while back. I think it looks more like some bad knockoff from unixporn than its former glory now. And Tahoe/Liquid Glass? Even some Gnome 2 Nautilus screenshot from decades ago looks more consistent than whatever this is:
Those riced setups look great on screenshots but they usually have terrible visual distinction, the colors work badly with Night Light (orange filter), and they carefully select applications that can be themed or fit the theme.
Once you step outside the facade it'll look disjointed. Applications won't have blur. They'll have square blur corners with rounded window corners. Icons will look glitchy with blur. Etc.
Because those setups are too opinionated and mix too much stuff which makes them unstable. If you want a cohesive desktop experience, Mint Cinnamon is what you're looking for
Yes Mac might always reign supreme (given the latest design changes though I’m not quite sure…) but both DEs will still probably be head and shoulders above Windows forever.
Funny you say that, when MacOS is atrocious. I have to put up with it for work, but I wouldn't touch that crap for personal usage. If Linux was not an option, I would rather handle fucking Windows 11 than MacOS
Was a big fan of the dock about 25 years ago when I used Window Maker. Over that time spotlight and its ilk innovated the launching apps bit, and so, at least for me there is no reason to have it anymore, yet on a mac I cannot make it go away permanently (yes auto hide works - and its become a bit of a pain to set the auto hide delay because the underlying option has changed over the years, but I really just don't want it running at all).
I’ve been using Linux on and off for the past two weeks for software dev. Tried Omarchy, but tiling managers aren’t my cup of tea. I tried gnome, but it felt like I was using an iPad at first. Put on some extensions, but it still didn’t feel right to me. Ive been using KDE Plasma and it seems like a good working environment.
This is fascinating. I haven't used a dock in macOS in many years. Nor desktop icons (they're there, but I never really see the desktop). I don't really even use the global menubar much either. I guess I use macOS like gnome these days, probably because gnome is more like an evolution of pre-OS X operating systems (more like, not exactly like) than an iteration of OS X/macOS. That's an amusing result because I don't even use gnome on linux (I'm all niri now).
As for KDE, it's an extraordinary project. It is a genuine accomplishment. It's just not for me, because, for me, it's far too distracting, with options and configuration and more options on that invading the unsettled war zone that is my brain.
What's the most stable distro for trying out plasma, any recommendations would be good. Ideally I'd like to run Steam games. Another question, does plasma use Wayland?
The only thing I slightly like from MacOS is the behavior when you maximize a window and it's automatically a new space. The rest of the DE is inferior to both windows and Linux. Windows sucks but in execution not concepts. The Dock might have been invented by MacOS and it's the dumbest idea to have now infected most Linux DEs.
At my jobs I'm consistently offered to choose between a Windows ThinkPad or a Mac (the devil and the deep blue sea, so to speak). I'd really appreciate a Gnome/Cinnamon/xfce4/KDE/...-like experience on Mac. Even a Windows XP-like experience would be a very welcome improvement.
I think Pop OS! + Toshi for keybindings is the best Mac-like experience. Toshi gives me all the main Mac keyboard shortcuts and in recent years Pop OS has built in something close enough to Spotlight and the dock, that covers the things I find most important about the Mac experience.
Thanks for sharing Toshi. I've been very interested in Cosmic DE recently and have been playing with it with a Virtual machine. Will definitely try Toshi tonight!
I used to use Windows and using control key for everything was leading me to have severe wrist pain. That ended ~14 years ago when I was forced to use Macbooks for work. The position of the command key and using my stronger thumb for all shortcuts is so vastly superior to stretching my pinky to reach control. It's bizarre the rest of the industry is still stuck with this design. I wish system76 and pop os would be strongly opinionated about this and design their laptops and keyboards to be more mac-like and use something like Toshi as the default. I had a mini rant about this on reddit recently. I still find it bizarre that System76 made the launch keyboard with a different layout for the super key than their laptops.
Now‘s not the best time to try Pop OS!, unfortunately, as they’ve been focused on Cosmic. They’re making progress, though, so I hope the benefits of Cosmic will pan out, and we’ll soon be in the best time to try Pop OS!.
Mac-Like is quite the stretch. I’ve always found KDE to be the least attractive desktop environment. It’s like the devs spent a decade copying windows and then finally realized that was a mistake and now it’s in sort of a limbo where it looks disjointed. Every kde guide I run across is a tutorial on how to make kde look like something else. Still an excellent group of devs working on it of course. My first task if I still used Linux would be how to make kde look like Enlightenment.
I agree that "mac-like" is a stretch. It's not about being pixel-perfect (as mentioned in the blog post) but rather about very different behaviors and philosophies, and of course even if you enable the optional global menu half the programs don't populate it.
[+] [-] Arubis|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] hmokiguess|5 months ago|reply
I would also gladly move permanently to Linux if it had full iCloud support, with stuff like native iMessage at least
[+] [-] Bigsy|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] reacharavindh|5 months ago|reply
I can’t imagine dealing with Linux without these conveniences.
[+] [-] rufus_foreman|5 months ago|reply
Before the Silicon Mac chips, installing Linux on Mac hardware was the best of both worlds. Asahi doesn't work for me so far, sadly.
[+] [-] nikolay|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] knighthack|5 months ago|reply
Linux is bound to be the number one gaming machine in time; general apps aside.
[+] [-] alphazard|5 months ago|reply
Clearly there are people who know how to write the software that makes the user interfaces, and clearly there are people good at designing beautiful interfaces, and all of it is FOSS for anyone to copy or build on, but for whatever reason no one can manage to put these two together, such that the big DE's look as good as macOS by default.
[+] [-] cosmic_cheese|5 months ago|reply
There's nothing wrong or bad about that but it manifests quite clearly in the software that gets produced.
Design-minded engineers are great for UI-focused projects because they're the most capable of striking that balance of form and function, or better yet coming up with designs that serve both. By comparison, non-technical designers and fully technical engineers are both at a disadvantage; the designers can make things nice looking but don't have a grasp on what's practical to implement while the technical engineers struggle to design UIs that are appealing to anybody but other technical people.
It's a bit of a self-reinforcing problem. The FOSS world can't attract design-minded engineers because they have such little presence in that culture.
[+] [-] SebastianKra|5 months ago|reply
MacOS was (because it sure as hell isn't anymore) so great because it had multiple talented third-party designers all building on the same consistent design system.
[+] [-] quitit|5 months ago|reply
Sure everyone can design, but there is value in having a team of people who specialise in design, and then having that enforced across the OS.
Design also means giving up on my wonderful ideas for how I think an app should work and subscribe to mimicking how the OS functions: not because this is the optimal design, but because it's going to be the most intuitive for the -user-.
The strength of OSS is the huge amount of experimentation that can go on by having everyone execute their own ideas, this however is not conducive to a unified harmonious design.
[+] [-] willis936|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] thefz|5 months ago|reply
Opposite view, macOS for me looks like a toy UI I can do no real work with.
[+] [-] veeti|5 months ago|reply
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/liqui...
[+] [-] jorvi|5 months ago|reply
Once you step outside the facade it'll look disjointed. Applications won't have blur. They'll have square blur corners with rounded window corners. Icons will look glitchy with blur. Etc.
[+] [-] Danjoe4|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] wredcoll|5 months ago|reply
Linus is basically famous for saying "no", there's a reason for that.
[+] [-] hokumguru|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] TiredOfLife|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] surgical_fire|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] commandersaki|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] samgranieri|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] flkiwi|5 months ago|reply
As for KDE, it's an extraordinary project. It is a genuine accomplishment. It's just not for me, because, for me, it's far too distracting, with options and configuration and more options on that invading the unsettled war zone that is my brain.
[+] [-] politelemon|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] LorenDB|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] kombine|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] albingroen|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] temp0826|5 months ago|reply
https://neon.kde.org/
[+] [-] jaykru|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] samgranieri|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] fsmv|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] rcarmo|5 months ago|reply
https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2022/12/22/1300 is a good summary of where things were after a year or so.
[+] [-] armadyl|5 months ago|reply
https://github.com/vinceliuice/MacTahoe-gtk-theme
https://github.com/vinceliuice/WhiteSur-gtk-theme
[+] [-] rcarmo|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] nsonha|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] raffael_de|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] benoau|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] nogridbag|5 months ago|reply
I used to use Windows and using control key for everything was leading me to have severe wrist pain. That ended ~14 years ago when I was forced to use Macbooks for work. The position of the command key and using my stronger thumb for all shortcuts is so vastly superior to stretching my pinky to reach control. It's bizarre the rest of the industry is still stuck with this design. I wish system76 and pop os would be strongly opinionated about this and design their laptops and keyboards to be more mac-like and use something like Toshi as the default. I had a mini rant about this on reddit recently. I still find it bizarre that System76 made the launch keyboard with a different layout for the super key than their laptops.
[+] [-] actuallyalys|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] andrekandre|5 months ago|reply
1. proxy icons on document windows
2. column view for drill-down ui's especially in file managers
[+] [-] WillAdams|5 months ago|reply
Windowmaker hasn't been updated since 2023, Nextspace in almost a year, Etoile even longer....
At least the GnuStep folks are still at it. Anyone know of a good distro for the Raspberry Pi for this?
[+] [-] pjmlp|5 months ago|reply
Microsoft could take some lessons for COM tooling out of how KDE does plugins and inter application IPC.
[+] [-] unknown|5 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mtillman|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] cosmic_cheese|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] esseph|5 months ago|reply
I've managed to find a setup with Gnome that largely gets out of my way and operates quickly enough.
[+] [-] munchlax|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] iJohnDoe|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] joemcnuggets|5 months ago|reply