Making GNOME Look Like OS X
By: Jem Matzan
Thursday, April 6, 2006 02:35:37 PM EST
URL: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6223/1/
Panther by the Tail
The GNOME desktop environment offers a wide variety of choices when it comes to cosmetics; you can make it look like practically anything. In its default condition, GNOME is highly usable, but perhaps a little bland. If you've always admired the Apple OS X desktop theme and layout but aren't ready to drop a load of cash on an Apple machine (or if you want to stick with free software), this article will show you how to make GNOME look and feel more like OS X, with some limitations.
The first step toward OS X-ness is to change the icon, window border, and application control themes. There are several individual theme packages that meet these needs, and a few that try to do it all in one. I spent a few hours looking through the collections on art.gnome.org, gnome-look.org, and freshmeat.net's theme section and came up with what I thought was the best combination. You may feel differently; at any point during this guide, you can decide to deviate from the recommended packages and install different ones to suit your tastes- nothing bad will happen to your computer if you don't follow the directions exactly.
First, download the Mac OS X Aqua GTK+ engine files -- you'll need the GTK+ theme and icon theme. The desktop wallpaper is optional. The download links are below the installation instructions.
Once the icon and GTK+ themes are downloaded, open up your GNOME Theme Preferences window, which you can find in the Preferences section of the Desktop menu. Click on the Install Theme button, then in the dialogue that follows, navigate to the location of the GTK+ theme file you just saved to your hard drive. Repeat the process for the icon theme. Once both files are installed, a "Mac OS-X" entry will appear in your theme list. Select it and then click the Close button.
This is a somewhat older OS X theme (see Figure 1). If you would prefer a more Panther-like look, download this theme in addition to the files mentioned above, and install it as you installed them. You'll get two error message windows that warn about missing icons. Close both warning windows, then click on Theme Details. Select the Icons tab, then click on Mac OS-X, then click Close.
Lastly, let's move those application control buttons over to the left, like on the Mac. Start the Gconf Editor, either by running gconf-editor from a terminal window or by selecting Configuration Editor from the System Tools section of the Applications menu. Click the triangle next to apps to expand its tree, then do the same for the metacity entry below it (you'll have to scroll down a ways), then click on general. In the right-hand pane you'll see a list of settings; click on the button_layout entry, then on the value field next to it. The default setting is:
menu:minimize,maximize,close
To switch the window controls to the left, move the menu to the end, like this:
minimize,maximize,close:menu
Menu Bar Layouts
This section involves a great deal of personal preference due to the fact that the dock cannot yet be completely reproduced on GNOME. Use the information below to customize GNOME to your own tastes.
Now you have to decide what you want to do with the window list at the bottom of the screen. It's a handy feature, but OS X doesn't have it -- it uses the dock instead. You can effectively replace the dock as a program launcher by using gDesklets, but this program does not yet support switching between windows or tasks. If you want to delete the bottom panel entirely and replace it with gDesklets, click on an empty space in the bottom panel and select Delete This Panel in the popup dialogue that follows. Be warned: once you delete the panel, it will take some work to get it back to the way it was (use the top panel to create a new panel, move it to the bottom of the screen, then add the applets and buttons that were there before). You need a window list or selector so that you can get to minimized windows and quickly switch between running programs. Add one of them to the top panel by right-clicking on an empty space on it, then clicking on Add to Panel, then choose either the Window List or Window Selector.
As with all software, you should install gDesklets not by downloading it directly, but by using your distro's package manager. Once it's installed, you will have to set it to start when GNOME starts. To do this, go to the Preferences section of the Desktop menu, then select Sessions. Click on the Startup Programs tab, then type this in for the command:
gdesklets start
The next time GNOME starts, gDesklets will load. You will have to add icons for the programs that you want to start from it. There are also many applets available for gDesklets; you can find out more from the gDesklets Web site. With time and effort, you can get gDesklets to look and act more like the OS X dock.
There are many more things you can do to GNOME to make it more OS X-like--change the foot icon to the Apple logo, customize the menu structure to more closely resemble OS X's, and even change the names of your programs. No matter what, though, you can't get rid of the application shells that dominate the non-Apple computing portion of the software world.
Jem Matzan is an experienced electronics technician, freelance technology journalist, and the editor-in-chief of The Jem Report, Entertainment in Review, Hardware in Review and Software in Review.