Updated: The updated version of this tutorial for Ubuntu Intrepid can be found at Turn Ubuntu Intrepid into Mac Leopard.

You can’t really turn a Linux system to a Mac, but you definitely can make your Ubuntu Hardy looks like a Mac OSX Leopard.

If you want to change this

into

, follow the steps below.

Before we start…

First, create a folder in your Home and name it Mac_files. Download the following files to the Mac_files folder.

• Modified Mac4Lin theme
• Mac4Lin icon set
• Mac4Lin wallpaper
• Avant Windows Manager elegant glass theme

Using Archive manager, extract the three Mac4Lin zip files Modified Mac4Lin theme and Mac4Lin wallpaper to the Mac_files folder.

Apply Mac OSX Leopard Theme

Go to System->Preferences->Appearance.

Select Install and select the Mac4Lin GTK theme (/home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_v0.4/GTK Metacity Theme/Mac4Lin_GTK_v0.4.tar.gz).

Next, click Install again and select the Mac4Lin icon theme. (/home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_Icons_Part2_v0.4.tar.gz /home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_Icons_modified.tar.gz). When prompted, select “Apply new themes“.

Click Install again and select the Mac4Lin mouse cursor theme. (/home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_v0.4/GTK Cursor Theme/Mac4Lin_Cursors_v0.4.tar.gz). Select “Apply new themes” when prompted.

Click ‘customize’ and choose Mac4Lin_GTK_v0.4. Go to the “Window border” tab, choose Mac4Lin_GTK_v0.4. Click Close.

On the top, go to the Background tab. Click Add and select the Leopard wallpaper. (/home/username/Mac_files/Wallpapers/Leopard.jpg). Click Close to terminate the Appearance window

Install the Dock (Avant Window Navigator)

Open a terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal) and type

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and add the following lines to the end of the file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu hardy main

Save and close the file. In your terminal, type

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator-trunk awn-manager-trunk awn-extras-applets-trunk

Go to System->Preferences->AWN manager. On the left, click on the Theme. On the right, click Add and navigate to the Mac_files folder. Select the Elegant_glass.tgz file. Check the bullet beside the Elegant glass theme and click Apply.

Next on the left, click on the Applet icon. On the right, scroll down to the stack Applet. Highlight it, then click Activate. This will add the Mac Leopard stack to your dock.

Before you launch the AWN, remove the bottom panel from the desktop first. Right click on the bottom panel and select “delete this panel”. Open AWN via Applications->Accessories->Avant Window Navigator. Once it is activated, you can simply drag and drop the applications into the dock.

Install OSX Fonts

Open a terminal and type the following:

sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

This will Install the Microsoft core fonts.

Next, copy the OSX fonts to the fonts folder

cd /usr/share/fonts
sudo tar xvzf /home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_v0.4/Fonts/OSX_Fonts.tar.gz

Configure the fonts:

cd/
sudo tar xvjpf /home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_v0.4/Fonts/fontconfig.tbz -C /etc/fonts

Open the Appearance window (System->Preferences->Appearance) and select Fonts tab. Select the following fonts according to the image below. Click Close.

Change the traffic light window control to the left

In the terminal, type

gconf-editor

This will bring up the gconf-editor window. Scroll down to App->Metacity->general. On the right, double click on the button_layout and change the content to ‘close,minimize,maximize:menu’ (without the quote). Click Ok and close the gconf-editor.

Change the menubar

Remove all the icon and applications on the left side of the top panel. Right-click on the icon and select ‘Remove from panel‘. You will left with something like this:

On the right of the top panel, remove the logout icon. Still on the right hand side of the top panel, right click and select ‘Add to panel‘. Scroll down the list and add ‘Search for files‘. This will add the spotlight icon to the panel.

On the extreme left, right-click and select ‘Add to panel‘. Scroll down the list and add ‘Main Menu‘. This will add the apple icon on the left. You can now log out and shut down from the Apple dropdown menu (same as Mac OSX).

Next, we are going to install globalmenu so as to display the menubar for each application. In your terminal,

cd Mac_files
wget http://gnome2-globalmenu.googlecode.com/files/gnome-globalmenu-0.4-svn964.tar.gz
tar zxvf gnome-globalmenu-0.4-svn964.tar.gz
cd globalmenu
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

If you have any errors when installing the package, try

sudo dpkg -i –force-overwrite *.deb

If you are having some installation problems with the gnome-globalmenu-applet, try

sudo apt-get install -f

Once finished, right click on the top panel and select ‘Add to panel‘. Scroll down the list and add ‘Global Menu Applet‘.

You might not see anything initially. Log out and log in again, you should now see the menubar for each application showing on the panel.

If your globalmenu is of a different shade of grey from the rest of the panel (as shown in the image below), right click on any empty space on the panel and select ‘Properties‘. Go to Background tab and select ‘Background image’. Under the selection, go to /home/username/.themes/Mac4Lin_GTK_v0.4/gtk-2.0/Panel and select panel-bg.png. Click OK. (Updated: If you can’t find the .themes folder, right-click and select ‘show hidden files‘.)

Drag the globalmenu to the left just beside the Apple icon. Right click on the globalmenu and select ‘Preferences’. Tick the box beside ‘Display the title of the current application‘ and put maximum width 100. Select the font to be Lucida Grande Bold. Click Apply and OK. You should now have a desktop that resemble Mac Leopard.

Configuring the Login screen

Click on the Apple icon, go to System->Administration->Login Window. On the Local tab, click Add. Navigate to the path /filesystem/home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_v0.4/GDM Theme and select the file Mac4Lin_GDM_v0.4.tar.gz. Check the box beside the newly installed theme to activate it.

Underneath, there is a color selection field, select it and key in the number E5E5E5 into the color code field.

Click Ok. Log out. You should see the login screen as the diagram below.

Configure usplash screen

usplash is the screen that you see when your computer is booting up. We are going to change it to show the white apple screen. In your terminal,

sudo apt-get install startupmanager

Go to System->Administration->Start-Up Manager Go to Appearance tab. Click on the ‘Manage bootloader theme‘. Click Add and navigate to the file /filesystem/home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_v0.4/GRUB Splash/appleblack.xpm.gz. Check the box “Use background image for bootloader menu” and select ‘appleblack”.

Next, click “Manage usplash theme”. Click Add and add the file /filesystem/home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_v0.4/USplash Theme/osx-splash.so. Click OK. Select OSX-splash from the dropdown box.

Now reboot. You should see the following images:

Creating Dashboard effect

We will use a combination of screenlets and Compiz widget plugin to achieve the dashboard effect.

Install Screenlets

sudo apt-get install screenlets compizconfig-settings-manager

Go to System->Preferences->Advanced Desktop Effect Setting. On the Left, click on Desktop. On the right, put a check beside ‘Widget layer’

Go to Accessories->Screenlets. Activate the widgets that you want to display. Right click on the widget and select ‘Properties’. Go to Options tab and select ‘Treat as widget’. Do this for all the widgets that you have activated.

You can now see your dashboard in action by pressing F9.

Done. You have completed the transformation of your Ubuntu desktop to Mac OSX Leopard.

Some screenshots: