In 2016, after being a Mac guy for 23 years, I took the plunge and made a full-time switch to Linux. I did my research, and over and over again encountered the idea that GNOME was good for MacOS refugees like myself. So I gave it a try!
But my experience didn’t support the meme. I think a lot of people make this assertion without really having a deep understanding of the MacOS user experience, or the actual positive qualities of the software, because I don’t think GNOME offers a particularly Mac-like experience at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I think GNOME shell is pretty good, and largely succeeds at doing what it sets out to do. But that thing does not appear to be “offer an experience that’s a lot like MacOS.”
I still see this mentioned on forums and YouTube videos today. I don’t think it’s helpful, and today I want to provide a bit of context from my perspective.
So let’s compare MacOS and GNOME! Right away we see some obvious differences:
Dock
One of the the two major anchoring user interface (UI) elements on MacOS is the dock. It’s an app launcher and switcher, an unread count notifier, a place for minimized windows to go, a quick shortcut to the trash, downloads folder, and any other files or folders you put on it.
GNOME doesn’t have this. Its anchoring UI element is the Activities Overview screen, which contains a small program launcher, but the whole thing is hidden by default, meaning it can’t be easily used for monitoring unread counts or switching between apps. It’s also not customizable at all, while the MacOS dock is extensively customizable. It’s just a very different experience.
Global menubar and app functionality
The other major anchoring UI element is the global menu. Every Mac app exports a global menu structure, including the desktop itself. This allows Mac apps to be visually simple, because all the powerful features are hidden away in the menu structure.
GNOME has a top bar, but there’s no global menu on it. And while GNOME apps do generally have a level of visual simplicity that’s similar to Mac apps, they’re usually more limited in functionality, and they don’t export menu structures full of extra features.
Desktop icons
On MacOS, you can put files and folders on the desktop, and use it for managing frequently or recently used files. Internal and removable drives appear there, too.
GNOME doesn’t have this. The desktop is just a picture; you can’t use it for anything functional.
Window minimize/maximize buttons
On MacOS, if you need to get a window out of your way, you minimize it, just like you do on Windows, Plasma, etc. It flies into the dock and it’s clear how you get it back. You can also maximize a window from another button on the titlebar, and it goes into another.
GNOME apps have neither of these buttons. As a result, it’s not clear how to get a window out of the way or make it bigger without a lot of manual work. You can add those buttons later using the separate Tweaks app, but it’s clear that the system was not designed for it.
At-a-glance app status monitoring
MacOS includes a classic “System Tray” style UI on the top bar holding the global menu. Here apps can put little icons that communicate their state while running but without any visible windows. The MacOS dock also displays unread counts and progress information for running apps.
GNOME doesn’t have these features, either at all, or in a way that’s always visible. Instead, it relies on apps sending notifications about changes to their status.
Configurability
Contrary to popular belief, MacOS is surprisingly rich in personalization options. You can customize the widgets on the desktop or notification center, the text size, highlight colors, sidebar icon sizes, places panel items, screensaver, scrollbar appearance and behavior, lock screen message, menubar positioning, UI alert sound, almost everything about the dock, and so on.
GNOME’s approach to configuration is much more minimal, and the officially-supported options are pretty sparse. Instead, mostly the way you personalize the system is by using Extensions, which can do much more than you can in MacOS, but also offer no long-term compatibility guarantee, so there’s a chance any of the extensions will break with every new release.
So where does the bridge from MacOS lead?
Again, I think GNOME is pretty good… it just doesn’t offer a MacOS-like experience. What it does offer is a near-zero distraction experience. That’s the design goal, and it succeeds. But it’s not MacOS’s design goal.
So if not GNOME, where’s the more MacOS-like experience for refugees? Honestly, KDE Plasma is what I would recommend. It’s where this MacOS refugee ended up, at least. Let’s compare again, but this time with KDE Plasma:
Like MacOS, Plasma has a dock-style panel. Despite a few visual differences, it handles the same things: launching apps, switching between apps, seeing apps’ unread counts, and holding minimized windows. This panel also contains the System Tray UI. It’s here rather than on a top panel, but it’s a small difference.
Though neither screenshot shows files on the desktop, both support it. Similarly, both support desktop widgets for building highly personalized workflows.
You can also minimize and maximize windows in Plasma just like you can on MacOS.
And finally, you can personalize a Plasma system in a wide variety of ways — as much or more than you can can on MacOS, in most cases — and all in a 1st-party supported way. There are also GNOME-style extensions available for people who want even more, but these make use of a stable API that only changes about once every 10 years, so compatibility issues are much rarer.
There are still differences, of course: major ones are Plasma’s Windows-start-menu-style Kickoff Application Launcher and the lack of a global menu. But Kickoff can be swapped out for something else or removed, and the Global Menu is actually a fully-supported 1st-party feature, simply being off by default. If this is a part of MacOS that you really like, turning it on is very easy:
Other smaller differences include disks not appearing on the desktop, and maximized windows not going into new virtual desktops.
But in my opinion and experience, these differences are relatively minor, and I don’t think it’s worth chasing the dream of a 100% pixel-for-pixel clone of MacOS on Linux. Rather, I think it’s best to take the most successful parts and ditch the sources of awkwardness. And in my opinion, KDE Plasma fits the bill.
So if you’re leaving MacOS because you found it too distracting, then I think GNOME may be a good option. But if you’re leaving for other reasons, give Plasma a try!
Adventures in Linux and KDE 
I never really used a Mac, but my Plasma desktop is much more Mac-like than GNOME ever was.
Here’s a screenshot of the activity I use for presentations, for those who were left unconvinced by Nate’s article.
There are a few quality of life stuff I’d like to see (Shouldn’t a folder view desktop have a global menu similar to Dolphin instead of, well, nothing at all?), and I wish the global menu API were more standardized (If you listen to eg Reddit, only Qt apps support it on Wayland, but LibreOffice, several Chromium-based apps, programs based on Firefox>139 — provided you activate the correct about:config entries— and GTK3 apps such as Inkscape and Gimp—provided you use XWayland for those— also do), but overall it’s a great experience.
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Goyave,
Would you be willing to share the details of how you configured your presentation desktop to look so beautiful?
I have a quasi mac-like configuration but your work blows mine out of the water!
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It’s just a matter of moving around widgets (some from the KDE store).
Top panel: Full width, not floating
Bottom panel: Centered, adjusted width, floating
I use slightly modified Breeze/Breeze Dark color schemes to have a stronger accent color. Specifically, I checked “make titlebars accent colored” and “tint all colors with accent color.”
I also chose an accent color from the wallpaper and use different colors as wallpapers for each activities (I’ve long been a wallpaper-hopper, and when I realized that I didn’t look at the wallpaper that much and that the only thing I really noticed about them was the color, I switched to a uniform color as wp on all my activities). This in conjunction with the modified color themes allow me to see at a glance which window is active and which activity I am using.
Each activity has a differently configured desktop depending on what I use the activity for.
It’s a fairly long comment but I thing it’s exhaustive.
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Well, I don’t trytm mimic Mac! I trytm maximize space while retaining all the functionality!
For that, here’s what I do:
1. I put the panel on top
2. Add global menu button to it (on the right side of kickoff menu) in it’s single button form
3. Add the Application Title Bar widget ( https://store.kde.org/p/2135509 ) to the far right side of the panel!
I set it to: hide the window title bar for maximized windows; hide the buttons while keeping the space for unmaximized windows; and to show buttons for the last maximized window (still running)
And that’s mostly it!
You can set panel to auto-hide, but I don’t like it!
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I never used MacOS for a long time, but for sure the GNOME Shell “approach” you described (lack of customization, tray icons, desktop icons,…) is exactly what pushed me to switch from GNOME (2) to Plasma.
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In Linux spaces there are a constant stream of people who spend a lot of time converting their KDE environment to match MacOS.
Have you thought about a adding a MacOS Global Theme, something that configure the existing widgets into the same layout, sets various widgets to be translucent, the colour style to match, etc.. It seems like something people want.
Similarly there are so many people who will post on every Gnome Rant/KDE Post “I would use KDE but Gnomes workflow, works better for me”. A global theme that implements that Gnome view would kill off so many annoying comments…
Lastly Imgur block the UK, we have laws on the different types of data you can hold on adults and children and Imgur were about to be fined for holding child information they should not have kept. Rather than pay the fine and adjust their system, they blocked the UK and hoped we would blame the Online Safety Act.
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A number of years ago, I actually submitted a patch to create a MacOS-like global theme to adopt the Mac layout (not the visual style) that would be installed by default. But people convinced me it was a bad idea.
The issue is that if you offer a feature like this, people come in with the expectation that it’s 100% identical — a standard we obviously can’t meet. So they’ll be disappointed and frustrated when it fails to meet the impossible standard.
On the other hand, if people build it themselves, they encounter the limitations themselves and come to accept them.
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I am a long time mac user and I think you slightly miss the point. The number one reason many of the people I know use mac is because of the design and sane defaults. I use plasma on my gaming computer but I cannot say it fits either. The design is either too crowded or too similar to the google material 2 design that feels old in my personal opinion. The whole window title bars also feels like something from windows xp, especially when even on Windows 10 programs tend to utilize them. On mac obviously all apps are designed around them and use them for buttons and options. Sure kde desktop can be made to look like plasma but the general vibe is not there with the programs plus I don’t want to spend hours in that jungle of settings to get it close to mac. I recently tried Zorin which I think uses gnome and it asked me on first boot if I wanted a windows, mac or ubuntu layout and honestly it fit the bill without having to touch any settings.
So in my personal opinion, kde is too much, gnome is too minimal and mac is more in the middle towards minimal. (Also at first I thought this was a random DE wars blog, a bit out of place for the lead of a desktop environment to write)
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I would like a setting where I could easily choose how I would like it to behave like (MacOS, Windows, GNOME, Plasma)
I think many would like this as well
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I’m surprised you didn’t mention the file manager experience. IMO the Finder is probably the worst file manager among the DEs, and it does the job even more poorly than Windows’s Explorer.
Granted, I’m biased because I had to use MacOS for a few years after being exposed to Dolphin…
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I switched to Linux (from Windows) 3+ years ago, and my DE of choice has always been KDE. At the same time for work I’ve been given MacBooks at both my past and current jobs, and while I appreciate Apple hardware and efficiency, the user facing part of the OS feels like a joke to me. The amount of frustration it induces is hard to explain. Stuff that’s supposed to be simple (something it always gets praised for) is sometimes incredibly convoluted (e.g. changing default apps for a file extension, what a joke). Don’t get me started on window management. I have to right click an icon in the dock to list the windows for that app and choose the one I want. Surely I could achieve that with some “proprietary” shortcut that’s only available on Mac keyboards that gives some smart expose, but here’s the thing: I use my laptops docked and I use generic keyboards and mice with them, I don’t wanna lock myself into a hardware ecosystem. So as long as shortcuts are Alt or Meta + Fsomething we’re good, but if I need a dedicated keyboard, that’s a problem. Same for the mouse. Plenty of basic features also need 3rd party apps, yet this is praised as the “secure” OS. How’s adding 3rd party software for managing the system clipboard more secure? My list goes on and on, I discover annoyances and bugs every day (try to position a Finder window half on the external monitor and half on the built-in screen, and one half magically disappears from sight. MacOS 26…) I’m just so much more efficient on KDE, it’s got everything you need OOTB and it just works. I’m trying to get my employer’s IT department to allow Linux workstations in the fleet, I’m ready to return the MBP they gave me to use my own Framework 13 with some recent distro and KDE – that’s how much I despise MacOS. TL;DR: keep KDE on its current track, it’s doing beautifully and people will notice, eventually. If the year of desktop Linux finally comes, it’s gonna be KDE ftw.
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” Surely I could achieve that with some “proprietary” shortcut that’s only available on Mac keyboards that gives some smart expose, but here’s the thing: I use my laptops docked and I use generic keyboards and mice with them, I don’t wanna lock myself into a hardware ecosystem. ”
That’s nonsense. I switch between application windows using keyboard shortcuts and I don’t have an Apple keyboard. I use a Mac mini with a Logitech keyboard.
I get the impression that you’re not very familiar with macOS and use it like Windows. Then it’s no fun. Of course, there are things to criticize or dislike about macOS, but you should inform yourself first.
I admit that there are some good features in macOS that Apple hides and you have to know that they exist at all. These include features that are sometimes expected.
There are also features in the macOS user interface, such as the proxy icon, which, to my knowledge, do not exist in other operating systems, and certainly not with the same functionality. Many people are not familiar with the proxy icon, for example. You can even use drag and drop with it. For example, drag an open document onto the Mail.App via proxy icon. I love it. But I don’t understand why Apple has “hidden” the proxy icon instead of placing it prominently in recent versions.
macOS works on a document-oriented basis and not on a program-oriented basis, like KDE Plasma, Gnome, and all the other DEs.
For me, KDE can easily be a standalone desktop. That’s probably how it should be. Good features from other DEs, such as macOS, should be adopted—provided they fit.
Out of the box, KDE looks a lot like Windows or is reminiscent of it. You may like that or not.
I just hope that KDE doesn’t make the mistake of repeating the nonsense from the Gnome world with the unspeakable hamburger menus. More tidiness and clarity is good, but doing this with hamburger menus is wrong and results in poor usability.
I like the global menu. However, I have rarely used it in KDE because there are always programs that do not support it. And I want it to be as consistent as possible. Otherwise, it would be my favorite. Although I think that the global menu bar feels strange compared to macOS in terms of behavior. But it could also be that I’m just imagining it.
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I switched from Linux work-related to Mac OS X. I was missing a good file manager a lot, just I would love to have Dolphin for Mac OS X. And also some other of the KDE Plasma applications, if they were only stable. On the contrary the gpg tools for Mac OS X were far easier than the Linux offerings. I think the KDE Apps for Mac could score very big on that platform. I wish I had Okular for Mac OS X. I would also pay for them.
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Can you describe which KDE apps you miss? What is better about Okular than macOS Preview? I may not know Okular well enough, as my main system is macOS and I only use KDE a little on the side. But I really miss Preview in KDE. For example, I like to use macOS Preview to edit PDFs and write something in them or insert something like arrows. How do you do that in Okular? As far as I know, you can’t.
There are arguments in favor of Dolphin. But there are also alternative file managers for macOS (e.g. the new Bloom).
I also find file tagging in macOS outstanding. It might be good in KDE Plasma too, but it seems to be broken. At least when I last tried it. For example, it was not possible to tag files or read the tags stored on my ZFS server, which I access via Samba. I’ve never had any problems with tagging in macOS. It just works anytime, anywhere (provided the underlying file system supports it).
KDE Contact doesn’t seem to be running smoothly. The KDE desktop is missing a really good email program that runs smoothly.
Take a look at MailMate on macOS and see what it can do… you won’t find anything like it for Linux. https://freron.com
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oh, i like some long comments where gives experience back 🙂 *heart*
>In 2016, after being a Mac guy for 23 years, I took the plunge and made a full-time switch to Linux.
therefor it is more important to be Plasma more stabil4e and stay also stable at the next versionsjump, if i look on the 4,5 up to 5 and now with 6… horrorable.. no working possible, manny errors and Program dropouts .. uhh.. Fortunately, it is much better again now, only Firefox is changing after 3-5 open windows with the next windows that are not displayed correctly, so some things still have to be done. But this is not the theme there (Nate, i know *s*)
because Drives on Desktop, we have Driveicons in my Iconthemes and Standart-Drive-icon in different others Themes where had hold at the “Standard” or maybe freedesktoplike ..
And automatically generate icon.desktop-links, so sda1.desktop generation it is over XDG_CONFIG or better to say XDG_CONFIG_HOME possible, it must only programmed in, the check about the fs, over mtab, also setting up the /media/, /mnt/ with an .directory file with the “icon=” entry is possible or like in /tmp an extra icon in /places … the possibility’s be there, it must only programmed in …
With XDG_CONFIG_HOME it is also possible for setting up “Desktop.desktop” or “Computer.desktop” and a “Personal Folder.desktop” on Desktop, what i am personally miss out from Win95,XP and Mandrake, also a Trash-link and a Network-link, so Network.desktop.. if it say open 😉
with mtab is manny possible, also with fstab, is the drive known(in fstab, like nfs,smb,harddrives,cddrives and so on) , it is hanging in, mtab, it is fount the hardware in mtab, if yes, so, then it is mounted and the icon should be at the /mnt/ or /media/ mounted and and the Icon.desktop on Users Desktop. (maybe configurable at systemsettings/Drive-Mounting and automount ([X] set up at desktop a link for Drives if mounted and connectable for the actual User )
just as suggestion, the Icons have i make on my iconthemes…
A good choice? .. It should find that people themselves, plasma is as configurable that it looks like macOS, also many surfaces and iconthemes themes, that you can set up your plasma interface as you want, from Mac to W2K and even plasma surface from WinXP, there are also 2 different icon bars that you can then replace with the standard desktop bar to have “more correct” Mac feeling 🙂
like Goyave and J.Ray Lamp confirm it 🙂
but my is MacOS not so, it’s not my World, i’ve be grow up with terminal and Dos , 3.1, later xp and so further, but any have a different good to take feeling 🙂 comes also out of the “worldview” 😉
hologramfortunately, MacOS is a Linuxderivat by the way … it has change before ~5 or 10 Years when direct do i know not more because like i told… Mac is not my world.. but i have noticed it at the change . a time has MacOS works on x86 Computers at this time 🙂
best
Blacky
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Don’t confuse look with feel. Just because something looks similar or perhaps even exactly the same, it doesn’t necessarily feel the same. macOS behaves completely differently in some respects, without wanting to judge that. Even within Linux itself, there are huge differences, so that GTK3 programs, KDE programs, and GTK4/Adwaita programs feel completely different and buttons are located in different places, for example.
Personally, I don’t expect KDE Plasma to have the same look and feel as macOS across the board. But it’s nice to be able to customize it as much as possible to achieve that.
KDE Plasma can certainly be something unique. But I’m happy when the features I like to use in macOS are also available in KDE Plasma.
“MacOS is a Linuxderivat by the way …”
No. There is a bit of BSD in macOS. Actually, macOS is the further development of NeXTSTEP. However, some things were better in NeXTSTEP and were not ported over to macOS. The kernel is XNU.
I think Apple could perhaps review some aspects of macOS to see if they could be improved. But only change things if it makes sense, not just for the sake of change. Unfortunately, given the way Apple sometimes operates today and without people like Steve Jobs, something like this could go completely wrong. For example, there is a lot of justified criticism of the new look of the macOS interface. It feels like Apple used to be much better at creating a GUI that not only looks good, but is also really good—i.e., everything is easy to read and recognize, with contrasts and useful animations that contribute to usability.
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Hi edk,
look and feel, right and not a fully, but it’s give the feeling and the look..
BSD ? oh, i had think was a linksderivat… how ever, it has give a big change to a other basementbuild unixlike.. and this is also with bashtools or so.. right ? how ever.. 🙂
>Ich denke, Apple könnte vielleicht einige Aspekte von MacOS überprüfen…
could be, not my land 🙂
best and a nice day
Blacky
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It is always about the usability of a system. If you began on a Mac, you probably stick with it. For me, in the past it was DOS and later Windows 3.1, 95, 98, and so on until Windows 2000. Windows was always the simplest system. There were no virtual desktops or other features. For these things someone had to install a bunch of tools.
I was always a keyboard aficionado, but Windows didn’t deliver. 3rd party tools did, but they where always “hackish”. Even virtual desktops where “hackish”. But a Mac was never an option for me to switch to.
First small “visit” to Linux was Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 with KDE 3.x. I was impressed, but my computer was not due to incompatibilites.
Later I switched from one day to another to Kubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) via a LiveCD. KDE – here in version 4.x – caught me again and I never went back to Windows. In this time period I tried a lot because I always felt that KDE could act like any other GUI you want. Place your panels where you want, place your widgets where you want. Or leave them out and use global hotkeys.
The biggest issue I would name today is the theming of the GUI. Someone remember QtCurve? I loved this thing. I loved Kvantum to some degree too, but there are many features (dynamic accent colors, dark/light mode switching) which Kvantum doesn’t do right until today. And I don’t mention Gtk Apps here.
Therefore I actually stick to color schemes, icon packs and plasma themes, nothing more. Due to stability.
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w2k, yes, was nice, but it had gives cool Addons, with this System was many possible and have give many possibles , rocksolid W2K OS behind SP2/up4 … and many many tools up to virtual desktops, all via portable and installable addons upradeable. XP was a “+” in grafical 🙂
3rd party tools, you clearly had the wrong sources 😉 on this times was still running mailboxes where have to exchanging or exchanging via ratio the best tools in private hand.. (0X)
and later in the net have build it self Freewarepages for the best freeware and really good tools 🙂
first Linux, Suse 4.3 , Redhat, later Mandrake, now Fedora because OMDV have kill the urpmi and draktools without these was this ….hmm… Distribution like B.s.t and be go at last to Fedora …
>but my computer was not due to incompatibilites.
*lol* !
>Someone remember QtCurve?
jepp, it has at last run in QT5, i have by self 2Themes for QTCurve builded.. seach me at pling.com the gasblowed icon 😉
QTCurve QT6 is still pending, i wait for it too for able using again… , i love QTCurve ..
I don’t need the dynamic accent colors, dark/light mode switching, i shuting down these funtions mostly if i become it in the hand..
And yes, GTK 2and3-Surface over the QT6 should be supported again ! because it exist so manny nice GTK2 themes, this should be able to use again..
>Therefore I actually stick to color schemes, icon packs and plasma themes, nothing more. Due to stability.
right, me too ..
best regards
Blacky
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I am also a long time Mac and Linux user and I thank you for that insightful article. I do share your observations.
>The other major anchoring UI element is the global menu. Every Mac app exports a global menu structure, including the desktop itself. This allows Mac apps to be visually simple, because all the powerful features are hidden away in the menu structure.
This is why I love the global menubar and why obviously it was designed into the Mac from the beginning. (Personally I think it should be standard on plasma, but Windows has obviously muddled that…) See further on folklore.org
Also the Mac menu is highly structured (more so than the global menu on Linux) and has a lot of entries which are common to all programs. E.g. on Linux I do miss the Mac’s `window` menu which among other things lists all of the windows the current applications has.
>GNOME has a top bar, but there’s no global menu on it. And while GNOME apps do generally have a level of visual simplicity that’s similar to Mac apps, they’re usually more limited in functionality, and they don’t export menu structures full of extra features.
Most unfortunately a strange goal nowadays are visually simple windows – like the Mac has. But since Windows has moved the menubar inside the window when they copied the Mac interface the (in window) menubar is seen as clutter an so it is omitted – with all the extra features.
Many developers nowadays want to imitate the Mac’s visually simple windows but are not ready to imitate the global menubar which enables visually simple windows with powerful features (see above).
I suspect this is why people often say GNOME is like MacOS – which it obviously is not. And GNOME is by far not the only offender here. (I’m looking at you, Maui!)
P.S. A Mac feature I’d love to be in plasma and which I am missing dearly (and which is not obvious and hidden quite more in later MacOS versions) is right clicking on the Filename in the Titlebar which exposes the path of the file currently open in the respective window. Also the fileicon can be dragged out and used for normal drag and drop. (This neatly answers the question: Where in $filesystem is the $file currently open in $window)
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Great post that sums up a lot of things.
And yes, the menu bar in macOS is great. The hamburger menu in Gnome/Adwaita is terrible. That’s a huge contrast. I don’t understand what the people at Gnome were thinking when they implemented this usability disaster with the hamburger menus. They would have the space to implement a menu bar like in macOS in Gnome and push a menu like in macOS in the Linux world. The Gnome people aren’t gaining anything. They’re making usability worse. The Linux desktop is becoming even more inconsistent because complex applications can’t be mapped meaningfully with the Gnome approach. It’s all bad. At least on the desktop. It may be different on a smartphone. But even there, hamburger menus are rarely the first choice.
“P.S. A Mac feature I’d love to be in plasma and which I am missing dearly (and which is not obvious and hidden quite more in later MacOS versions) is right clicking on the Filename in the Titlebar which exposes the path of the file currently open in the respective window. Also the fileicon can be dragged out and used for normal drag and drop. (This neatly answers the question: Where in $filesystem is the $file currently open in $window)”
= Proxy Icon!!! It is great.
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One humble request- would it be possible to modernize the kcalc GUI a bit? The tiny readout font at high resolutions cause a bit of eye strain. I know it’s not a glamorous app, but I use it very often.
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right, would be nice if there a possible in an app for setting up the Font, Size, Bold/latin for fixing also the % of the Screen sitze, Nate, check it in your TV at the Lifing room and call there Kcalc. Then do you see what he meant .. If i call Kcalc, is the size of the font really small and not bold, what’s looks really a bit ugly Huge Guy, small font …
best
Blacky
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I am a Windows and Mac refugee, which is often forced to slave labor in business applications of these two. My top killer feature which I am considering to replace my home KDEPlasma setup with Gnome, is Overview. Plasma’s implementation doesn’t show the panel being in overview.
All others have a dock visible along with an overview equivalent – only Plasma hasn’t. But easy, maybe I will get back to KDE someday. Cheers.
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The MATE desktop environment is capable of doing a pretty good MacOS impersonation.
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have today read about Cairo-Dock, they support now wayland and it’s able to let run over systemd..
so, in W7 do i use also a Icon-dock, Rocketdock, because i have ever an open ear for something , but in Plasma use i mostly krunner
https://github.com/Cairo-Dock/cairo-dock-core/tree/3.6.0
https://github.com/Cairo-Dock/glxdock-repository/raw/72c06bfa5b92b5bc6553d1e4b5f8590c690d713e/communication/images/3.4/cd-3.4.0-4-600.jpg
best regards
Blacky
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Personally, I can’t use KDE without a global menu, I got too used to the old Unity layout I still recreate it to this day, with some minor differences:
Here’s my current layout: https://imgur.com/a/rIjS0xd
I also set up so the titlebar hides when the window is maximized, so I get to maximize my screen real state
In my opinion KDE apps are great because (almost) all of them integrate well with the global menu, and I know I’m the minority in this, KDE could lean into that with it’s default layout
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Yes, I also think that Unity ws the best design so far of a user interface on Desktop. I addition to your setup, one can recreate global menu with KDE’s own applet and this third-party one: https://github.com/antroids/application-title-bar
(I just wish they integrated so global menu would show just for maximized windows, like this one neds to have the applet twice, once for buttons and once for title, then the menu is in between). I ported Plasma HUD to Plasma 6 just now: https://github.com/felagund/plasma-hud
And with LIM coming hopefully soon: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/breeze/-/merge_requests/529
it will be just perfect.
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Gnome is closer to Mac in terms of coherence and polish, but of course if you go outside gnome all that goes out the window, so this coherence comes with a huge grain of salt. The lack of server-side decorations alone means it can’t ever be Mac OS.
KDE is closer to mac feature-wise, if you tweak it enough, but design-wise it’s really not there. Just too many things that feel off or lacking in purpose.
I don’t particularly like Mac OS and think gnome’s design is better, but Mac does offer a sort of nice middle ground between flexibility/features and coherent design. I’d like to see KDE move in that direction.
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I asked for an evolution of the plasma panels indicators to set dots like macOS does, maybe using the accent colors and any color chosen by the user. You answered that it was not planned (customizable level not desirable) because it’s a complex widget to manage and it may lead to bugs or instability. (see bug 495097 at bugs.kde.org)
And now I read your article that compares macOS-like experience with GNOME and Plasma.
Well, GNOME has a dock with dots indicators and the dash to panel shell extension exists.
Some other desktops environnements, like CuteFish, has animated indicators like Windows 11 experience (dash more/less wider depending on the app’s window focus).
Some KDE Plasma themes puts triangles or squares, …
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I think one of the pitfalls of kde panel is the non-existent option to be de-floated when the window is maximized. The floating panel looks much nicer and attractive. I know about “windows go below” option but that’s not a good one, unfortunately
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Hi!
I am in similar situation and what I’m looking for is replicating just one macOS dock behaviour – having the list of opened windows in a group on right-click. Did anyone manage to replicate this behaviour in any linux desktop?
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