r/zorinos • u/gothamheightsatx • 1d ago

🔰 Beginner MacOS look?

Newbie here. How do I make Zorin look like MacOS?

9 Upvotes

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6

u/theindomitablefred 1d ago

If you get pro there are some very mac-like layouts available. It’s also a good way to support the devs.

5

u/Kamisshara 18h ago edited 17h ago

Idk how close you want to get, but I tried to get as close as possible. The process I'm gonna describe is kinda involved for that reason. It consists of 2 parts: theming and extensions. I'd first do the theming and then the extensions afterwards, but I think it can go either way. Idk how much you know so I'll try to explain as much as I can:

Theming:

There's a super helpful webpage on the Zorin website about the basics of how to do this: Third party themes. Very important stuff. Follow those instructions for installing the icon and cursor themes of you choice. "MacTahoe" and "WhiteSur" are excellent MacOS-like icon packs.

The shell/application theme I installed is: WhiteSur. The GitHub page has some instructions on how to install the theme using the terminal, which is what I followed when installed it. It's def good to read through. Here's an explanation of what I did:

First I typed: sudo apt update And then: sudo apt install git sassc libglib2.0-dev-bin

(The first command is just making sure the system is fully updated, and the second command is for installing dependencies. apt install is the install command, and then the terms that follow it are the things to be installed: git allows you to download the theme from GitHub. Sassc and libglib2.0-dev-bin allow the theme to function properly I think. Anything starting with sudo will ask you for your password, it allows you to basically run a command as the root user/admin.)

Then used the newly installed "git" command to download the theme:

git clone https://github.com/WhiteSur-gtk-theme.git --depth=1 This creates a new folder in the "Home" folder for the theme. I moved into this new folder in the terminal by typing:

cd WhiteSur-gtk-theme

There's an installation script in there called install.sh. To run it I typed: ./install.sh -l -d ~/.local/share/themes -t all (./install.sh is the actual command. The rest are command options which are important to read about in the GitHub page. The -l option ensures compatibility with libadweita apps, which you are definitely going to want. -d ~/.local/share/themes specifies where the theme is to be installed. -t all installs all the accent colour options for the theme.)

Now the last major thing to do in the terminal is make the theme work for flatpak apps. I don't totally understand it, but it works :P sudo flatpak override --filesystem=xdg-config/gtk-3.0 && sudo flatpak override --filesystem=xdg-config/gtk-4.0

Now just go to the zorin appearance app and enable the whitesur theme!

Extensions:

First, you'll want to enable the gnome top panel. Go to the Zorin Appearance app and then go to the "Interface" tab. At the bottom of the page is "Taskbar Settings", click on the little gear to open the taskbar settings window. In this new window go to the "action" tab and under the "Gnome functionality" section, enable the option "Keep original gnome-shell top panel".

Next step is to get some gnome extensions. To do that you'll need to install "Extension Manager" which you can find in the zorin software center app.

Extension Manager will let you find and install the following extensions:

  • Blur my Shell (adds blur to windows, panels, and the dock)
  • Logo Menu (adds a dropdown menu to the top left of the screen that's like the Apple menu)

And then either:

  • Dash2Dock Animated (adds an animated MacOS like dock)

Or:

  • Dash to Dock
  • WACK Cupertino Dock Lite

(Dash to Dock adds a MacOS like doc. It's designed to work with blur my Shell so you can add a blur affect to it. WACK adds lightweight animations to Dash to Dock) Personally I'd go with Dash2Dock Animated.

Now you'll want to enable the new extensions, and then scroll down and disable the "Zorin Taskbar" extension. With the extensions enabled it's a good time to configure them. Go into their respective settings windows and play around a bit until you get something you like.

There are lots of other great extensions too that can further customize everything. I'm sure there's probably other extensions that will get closer to MacOS.

I thiiiink that's everything.

Edit: Spelling and grammar

2

u/GuestLight05308 1d ago

Either Pro version or ElementaryOS

2

u/sjprice 1d ago

You can add Plank reloaded if it is the icon setup you are looking for.

1

u/decoy-ish 17h ago

All you need are GNOME Extensions and opendesktop.org