Turn Your Ubuntu Hardy to Mac OSX Leopard
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.
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:
Tags: Leopard, Linux, Mac, transformation, Ubuntu
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122 pingbacks/trackbacks (Click to open)
[Click to close]335 Responses
got stuck here aswell :
GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net hardy Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 7D2C7A23BF810CD5
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
if anyone could help this would be highly appreciated
thx
Reply
panangkattufox Reply:
February 13th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Yes, I got the same error too. I dont get the dock follow by that.
Reply
Jango Reply:
March 24th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
typing this in your terminal will download this public key for your ppa:
sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 7D2C7A23BF810CD5
And your error will be gone!
jango
Reply
Hey, at the step where you said run avant windows navigator in accessories, i get a message saying screen isnt composited, Run compiz of another compositng manager. What should I do? Is there anyway I can restore things to the original way? Please help, thanks.
Reply
JCM Reply:
March 28th, 2009 at 1:32 am
I am too, NEED HELP!
Reply
Patu Reply:
June 15th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
press alt+f2 and write metacity -c then run
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I gotta know? Why would anyone want to do this???? If you are a Linux user be proud, use the compiz manager to give it some eye candy, but really – why would you want your open source ‘do anything’ box look like a piece of expensive propitiatory ware?
Reply
I don’t know why, but my Gnome Global Menu is still at a different shade of grey even if i changed the settings as you saied. Please help. Thanks!
Reply
drmkeon Reply:
April 25th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
HOW DID YOU GET THE GNOME GLOBAL MENU TO WORK?!?! I keep getting errors. I also can’t get the fonts to work. =P
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Thanks for the great work!! Well done! I got one problem using global menu: im able to install globalmenu on my amd64 system, but if im trying to enable the global menu, an empty ’setting’ window is showing up.. can anyone help me?
THX
Reply
tim Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=6724591&postcount=2712
See the link above.
How did you install globalmenu on amd64?
Thanks.
PS reply to email squelchy451@gmail.com
Reply
I get stuck at the part where you say to run sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator-trunk awn-manager-trunk awn-extras-applets-trunk…it will not run, and says that there has been an error…I also get the message about NO Pub Key…
Reply
Mitch Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 6:04 am
me, too.
Reply
Jango Reply:
March 24th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
typing this in your terminal will download this public key for your ppa:
sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 7D2C7A23BF810CD5
And your error will be gone!
jango
Reply
Cremat Reply:
May 26th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Hi, I’m type that but the error continue… =/
Whenever I try to run Avant Window Navigator, I get an error saying “Screen isn’t composited.Please run compiz (-fusion) or another compositing manager.” I’m a total newb and I don’t know what to do! Help me, please!
Reply
Blur Reply:
April 25th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
i think you must install the Compiz First
Reply
I dont know what could be wrong, each time I try to apply [install] this theme [~/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_v0.4/GTK Metacity Theme/Mac4Lin_GTK_v0.4.tar.gz]
I run into problems. The window just closes. It’s a bug I know… but, it’s being occuring for a while now, first on a 64bit and now on 32bit. what exactly could be wrong
Reply
cris Reply:
March 10th, 2009 at 4:56 am
Im having the same problems too. Were you able to find the solution to this?
Reply
So most of it I got to work fine. The awn manager was installed using
“sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator”
reference to website : “http://wiki.awn-project.org/DistributionGuides#Hardy_Heron_.288.0x.29_and_later”
This was done “after” the commands in the section “install the Dock” didn’t work.
The Gobal Home Applte still isn’t workin’ giving the “The panel encountered a problem while loading “OAFIID:GNOME_GlobalMenuApplet”.message after which deleting and not deleting don’t seem to make much difference. No solution found for that yet. (If somebody can get it to work, let me know. I’m working on a latitude D600 Dell.) In the “configure the fonts” section “cd/” should be “cd /”
Other then that I enjoyed it a lot, Thanks.
Reply
The step where you install the dock is very confusing. You say “Open a terminal”, then you say save, then you say open your terminal?
You can’t save a terminal! Gah!
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This owesome, great article dude… never been so easier to hack linux display after I’ve tried this… thank you so much ^_^
Reply
NICE WORK!!! WAHT ABUOT THE MAC LEOPARD EFFECT???
Thankes
Reply
Well, cool stuff, but if you have an encrypted boot you yill have to start in recovery mode if you change the usplash screen…
Reply
error running at ubuntu 8.10: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 7D2C7A23BF810CD5
u have answer for this problem?
Reply
I tried this on a Dell Mini 9n running Ubuntu 8.04.01 Netbook Remix. I can’t get the globalmenu to install. I tried all 3 methods in these instructions and it doesn’t work. These instructions are for Ubuntu 8.04.02. Is there a different version of
wget http://gnome2-globalmenu.googlecode.com/files/gnome-globalmenu-0.4-svn964.tar.gz
That I should be using?
Reply
Sazhns2 Reply:
March 18th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
If you want the Mac look on your mini 9 then just make it into a hackintosh. Its the perfect machine, everything runs perfectly!
Reply
I have done everything up to the top bar thing and all of my icons look nothing like the ones in the screenshots any help?
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After doing the “Next, we are going to install globalmenu so as to display the menubar for each application. In your terminal,” step my terminal wont open and anything that i minimize gets lost and i cont actually open up anything HELP ME!!!!!!!
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Thanks a ton and I really love it and it was very helpful and time saving and I wonder you taken more time in putting this forth to the people.May be you should license your work under creative commons license
Reply
Torrent is causing problem while installing.
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Thnx man!!!
it looks great
Reply
Amazing!!! U rule!
Reply
Cheeser Freakin’ Muffin! Nice Job…
Reply
hi.. is the best woowwww .. best best and the best
Reply
May want to add GNUstep and GNUStep apps to the system to give it that NEXTStep/Cocoa feel.
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If have trouble with Global Menu see below links:
http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/wiki/InstallingonUbuntu
http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/
Reply
why???? seriously! you want the OS X interface? GET EFFING OS X! I just don’t get it… all the time, linuxlovers tells me about their “oh so wonderfull GUI”, … and then this…
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i cant get the screenlets to appear in the accessories this is what it says when it install…..tanner@tanner-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install screenlets compizconfig-settings-manager
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
screenlets is already the newest version.
compizconfig-settings-manager is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
tanner@tanner-desktop:~$
thats all i need to be done please help my email me at tannert994@hotmail.com or t12181@yahoo.com any one that knows
this is cool thanks
`Tanner
Reply
tanner@tanner-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install screenlets compizconfig-settings-manager
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
screenlets is already the newest version.
compizconfig-settings-manager is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
tanner@tanner-desktop:~$
what am i doing wrong?
~tanner
Reply
Damien Reply:
April 7th, 2009 at 3:36 am
Nothing wrong. It just means that screenlets and Compiz config setting manager is already installed in your system.
Reply
i think cairo dock in os x theme would work better than awn
Reply
I am really annoyed by the workspace setup. Whenever i am scrolling with my mouse wheel it inadvertantly switches workspaces. How do I reduce the number of workspaces???
Reply
I am tring to add Avant Window Navigator
I am getting no Public key error
When I type this in terminal: sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 7D2C7A23BF810CD5
I get this error: Executing: gpg –ignore-time-conflict –no-options –no-default-keyring –secret-keyring /etc/apt/secring.gpg –trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg –keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com add 7D2C7A23BF810CD5
usage: gpg [options] [filename]
any clue on how to get public key or do I have a setting incorrect?
Reply
burhanuddin Reply:
May 27th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
gpg –no-default-keyring –keyring /tmp/awn.keyring –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv B0BE17C2A0C914F086B7B8327D2C7A23BF810CD5 && gpg –no-default-keyring –keyring /tmp/awn.keyring –export –armor B0BE17C2A0C914F086B7B8327D2C7A23BF810CD5 | sudo apt-key add – && rm /tmp/awn.keyring
i hope its work
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I’m using Ubuntu 9.04 beta, and i get this error: Executing: gpg –ignore-time-conflict –no-options –no-default-keyring –secret-keyring /etc/apt/secring.gpg –trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg –keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com add 7D2C7A23BF810CD5
usage: gpg [options] [filename]
Me too. please help
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I run into problems at the font section. When I input into the terminal I get this:
paul@ziggy:~$ cd /usr/share/fonts
paul@ziggy:/usr/share/fonts$ sudo tar xvzf /home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_v0.4/Fonts/OSX_Fonts.tar.gz
tar: /home/username/Mac_files/Mac4Lin_v0.4/Fonts/OSX_Fonts.tar.gz: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
tar: Child returned status 2
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
As well, when trying to copy and paste the files manual it simply gives me permission denied… Please help!
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When im trying to install the Dock it appear this error:
ricardo@DontTouchMe:~$ sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator-trunk awn-manager-trunk awn-extras-applets-trunk
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
E: Couldn’t find package avant-window-navigator-trunk
And before all things are ok. Can i have some help here?
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Thanks, works fine! My eeePC 701 4G looks like a Mac Book :-))
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How do I remove the icons beside the button titles?
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kcs Reply:
May 28th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
I have the same problem, anyone can tell how to remove the icons?
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kcs Reply:
May 28th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
I found it in gconf-editor under /desktop/gnome/interface/buttons_have_icons
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Why the hell would you use Avant? It is crap! If you ran Cairo Dock it would be faster and also looks more like an OSX desktop!
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Updated to the latest 9.04. It hosed my AWN. Basically after you restart got accessories and start it, your platform at the bottom will fire up.
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the two first link’s are a inative.
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I Said screw it and installed OSX86, Much better than faking it
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ok i got the looks right but somewhere along the process i stayed without internet…, and i checked logged in to windows and i have internet there….can someone help me please.
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now my internet doesn’t work :S, but logged in to windows it does…what do i do to get it to work again ?
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What type of computer? laptop? did you lose wireless? If its wireless, try booting by adding noapic as a kernel option ( just type it in when you see your boot screen it will append ) then see if your wireless comes back… my hp laptop has to be booted with noapic before working with wireless
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Thanks for fixing the broken links. thanks!!!!
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I have a problem, when it will show me this error “Warning: The screen is composed. Please run compiz (-fusion) or another composer window.”
What can I do? We Thank
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If you have a problem with keyring copy paste in terminal :
gpg –no-default-keyring –keyring /tmp/awn.keyring –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv B0BE17C2A0C914F086B7B8327D2C7A23BF810CD5 && gpg –no-default-keyring –keyring /tmp/awn.keyring –export –armor B0BE17C2A0C914F086B7B8327D2C7A23BF810CD5 | sudo apt-key add – && rm /tmp/awn.keyring
if you got an error (again) try to Installing Dependencies, AWN Compilation, AWN Applets Compilation! Manually
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gpg –keyserver subkeys.pgp.net –recv 7D2C7A23BF810CD5
gpg –export –armor 7D2C7A23BF810CD5 | sudo apt-key add -
Solution for:
GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net hardy Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not
available: NO_PUBKEY 7D2C7A23BF810CD5
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
note: Be Sure VGA support for compiz
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Your site is a much needed addition to my life. THANK YOU!
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This is the second Ubuntu Hardy box I’ve transformed. Thank you!
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I’vegot a problem with AWN : Warning: Screen isn’t composited. Please run compiz (-fusion) or another compositing manager.
Can anyone help me?
Reply