Unity has no doubt added style to the Ubuntu desktop, however, it has also made it slower, particularly for legacy hardware users.
Mac OS X: The dock is a handy tool for quickly accessing apps, folders, and files, but it isn't terribly organized. Ubuntu: If you're using the newest versions of Ubuntu. Unity has no doubt added style to the Ubuntu desktop, however, it has also made it slower, particularly for legacy hardware users. A more lightweight alternative can be to use the Mac Style Cairo Dock (aka GLX Dock).It is fully compatible with the Ubuntu 11.04 and Ubuntu 10.10. On the left of the screen of Unity sits an item called The Launcher, which acts exactly the same as The Dock in OS X. There's an app called Files, which acts like Finder. Mac OS X vs Ubuntu 16.
A more lightweight alternative can be to use the Mac Style Cairo Dock (aka GLX Dock). It is fully compatible with the Ubuntu 11.04 and Ubuntu 10.10. I found it much quicker and lightweight than theUnity launcher. And most of all, it’s fun to use. Interestingly, you can also run Cairo Dock and Unity simultaneously. See the below procedure to grab this elegant dock for your Ubuntu and Debain desktop.
You can get Cairo Dock be either entering the below command line in the Terminal or from the download link at the end of this post.
Feature Overview:
- MintMenu applet
- Drop to Share applet
- Messaging Menu applet
- Keyboard indicator
- Ubuntu Me Menu
- Network Monitor
- Weblets
- Application Menu
- Notification area
- Power Manager
- Terminal, System Monitor, Shortcuts Administrator and much more.
Please bear in mind that it requires being launched from Applications –> System Tools (non Unity users) after installation.
In earlier versions of Ubuntu, actually up to 10.10, a Mac OS X transformation pack was available for Ubuntu users (based on GTK 2.*) but now the Ubuntu 11.10 (the latest stable version) or 12.04 LTS (only alpha versions are available right now) as well as other Ubuntu derivatives such as Linux Mint, are based on GTK 3 – so the transformation pack doesn’t work anymore. Both of the desktop – Unity (The default interface in 11.10) and Gnome 3 shell are quite popular. I’ve already covered a post about getting a Mac like look in Ubuntu 11.10 with Gnome shell desktop so this article is about Unity desktop.
If you want to make Ubuntu 11.10/12.04 look like Mac OS X Lion, then you need to install few basic things –
- GTK Theme
- Icon Theme
- Cursor Theme
- Gnome Tweak Tool (To manage themes)
- A dock application (Docky or Cairo Dock)
A cool snapshot – exploring Cairo Dock effects (using OpenGL, although you may choose to ‘no OpenGL’ version of Cairo Dock if the graphics performance of your computer is poor), of my desktop after install above stuffs :
![Ubuntu Ubuntu](/uploads/1/2/6/6/126654194/678222428.jpg)
Installing Mac Theme by ‘MBoss’ Packages
First of all – download the theme package (it contains theme, icons and cursors) and extract it to appropriate locations as specified –
1. Download Mac OS X GTK Theme package and extract it to ~/.themes
2. Download the Mac OS X Icon theme and extract it to ~/.icons (create that directory if it doesn’t exist)
3. Download Mac OS X Cursor Icon theme and extract it to /usr/share/icons
For extracting cursor icons to usr/share/icons location, you need root access while browsing with nautilus
and finally you may need to change the permission settings to make it accessible also by a non root user. (By default it may be assigned root permission only).
Install Docky or Cairo
If you like Docky then install it from Ubuntu Software Center or execute (as it’s there in repository by default) –
On the other hand – if you want to try Cairo Dock (as seen in screenshot) then execute these commands
Gnome Tweak Tool is very handy for changing themes or tweaking other settings of Desktop so If you haven’t already installed it Gnome Tweak Tool then install it by executing the command –
Ubuntu For Mac Os
Now, open Gnome Tweak Tool and select Mac_OS_X_Lion_Theme – as indicated in above snapshot. Then, start Cairo Dock or Docky whatever you have installed. That’s all I hope you are enjoying the cool look of Mac on your Ubuntu 11.10/12.04 computer. Have Fun ? – let me know if any problem occurs.
Besides Gnome Tweak Tool, you could also use ‘Ubuntu Tweak‘ – a small application to tweak/customize desktop in easy way.
![Ubuntu Ubuntu](/uploads/1/2/6/6/126654194/579319405.jpg)
Ubuntu Mac Os Theme
To install Ubuntu Tweak, execute the following commands –
Install Mac Os On Ubuntu
Thanks to MBOSSG for his art work – i.e Mac OS X Theme, icons and cursor themes.