Dock As Mac Os X For Ubuntu

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Unity has no doubt added style to the Ubuntu desktop, however, it has also made it slower, particularly for legacy hardware users.

For

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.

Use the Dock on Mac. The Dock on the Mac desktop is a convenient place to access apps and features (like Siri, Launchpad, and the Trash) that you’re likely to use every day. The Dock can show up to three recently used apps that aren’t already in the Dock and a folder for items you download from the internet. 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.

Feature Overview:

Many people looking for Macbuntu 13.04/Macbuntu 12.10/Macbuntu 12.04/Mac4lin, Mac Ubuntu theme and so on, So here we are ready with Mac OS X Lion Theme package for Ubuntu 13.04 Raring and Hopefully Mac Theme will work with new coming Linux Mint 15. 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. Ubuntu/Debian Linux: Cairo Dock is an app launcher for Ubuntu and Debian Linux that closely mimics the sleek look and feel of the Mac OS X dock.

  • 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 –

  1. GTK Theme
  2. Icon Theme
  3. Cursor Theme
  4. Gnome Tweak Tool (To manage themes)
  5. 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 :

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. Ableton live 10.0.6 suite for mac. (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 Mac Os Download

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. Unlock vmware workstation 15 for mac.

To install Ubuntu Tweak, execute the following commands –

Ubuntu Mac Os Theme

Thanks to MBOSSG for his art work – i.e Mac OS X Theme, icons and cursor themes.