Build an Open Mac Alternative! - a Guide for Switching from macOS to elementary OS
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- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
- Timestamps and links below!
Considering the changes coming to the macOS platform announced at WWDC 2020, I figured it was time to explore what building an open macOS alternative would look like using elementary OS 5.1 as a base. This video explores the strengths of the Mac, how to replicate those strenghs in elementary OS through various tweaks and basic app suggestions to get the best alternative to macOS ready to roll on your system.
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
2:50 Strengths of the Mac Platform
5:10 Introducing elementary OS
5:58 Strengths of elementary OS
12:25 Tweaking elementary OS
- Play with appearance settings (dock, text size, etc).
- Map CMD+Q to close active window.- Adding Software sources
- Add Flathub to AppCentre (download Spotify from flathub.org)
- Add Snap Store (sudo apt install snapd && snap install snap-store)
- Logout/login
- Desktop folders from AppCenter
- Multitouch gestures through Fusuma: www.rubydoc.info/gems/fusuma/...
- Cloud storage: pCloud - run at startup
- Beautiful wallpapers: photos.google.com/share/AF1Qi...
24:51 App recommendations
- Browser: Epiphany (Safari); preferred is Firefox or Chrome.
- Email: Simple = Mail (supports Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud) Evolution if more complex (Exchange, Office 365, corporate).
Add iCloud to IMAP email client: support.apple.com/en-us/HT202304
- Calendar: Calendar - www.reallinuxuser.com/how-to-...
- Notes: Simplenote (if sync required), Notes Up (replacing Bear) or Joplin for Evernote/OneNote alternative.
- Reminders: Planner (Todoist)
- Maps: GNOME Maps
- AirDrop: Snapdrop.net
- Photos: Photos
- Music: Lollypop/Spotify
- iWork/Office: OnlyOffice
- iMessage: Signal/Telegram Desktop
- Podcasts: Vocal- iBooks: Foliate/Cozy
- Monitor
- Time Machine: Tardis
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Wow ... that is what I call a comprehensive walkthrough / tutorial. I tip my hat to you for putting in the time this must have taken to put together.
Always glad to see when you’ve released a new video. Great content man!
I have to say this was very well prepared video. I work a lot with Linux & Mac as a developer, but my personal system is Mac. Thank you very much for your effort that went into this. It is nice to see some mature Linux video without all the fanboy stuff...
Thank you for your very comprehensive thought process explained in this vid. I consider this to be a very friendly and informative site, it's like having you round for a coffee or a beer and you help me through my wishes to gain knowledge and expertise. Just great, so clicked on the bell now, can't wait for more. Cheers.
I loved this. In fact, I followed along and set up this system for my use. It is very functional and so beautiful.
Thank you, this video has helped me make my mind up, Elementary OS here I come.
That was a great guide. Quite comprehensive & informative. Thank you!!!
Great informative video and excellent delivery, well done. I will have to install elementary OS and try it out. Been a full fledge Apple user for 10 years now, went full out after retirement with an iMac, 2 MacBook Pro's, iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Had enough of MS after being a career system analyst and being well versed in the entire computer evolution from the early days of XRX Alto, XRX Star, Unix and Dos.
The very best introduction to Elementary on youtube. Thank you very much-and subscribed
Great vid IG
You've been back with a vengeance. Love the new content.
Very well done guide for anyone who wants to simply enjoy elementary OS to the fullest!
Brilliant! I'm gonna try all these tips!
great work... putting all those infos in one-place !!
Your taste is fantastic and there ain't many Linux fans knows the macOS details that well and treat it rationality, and shockingly I never heard the planner app in elementary OS, even I've been using elementary OS for some time, it seems so amazing!
Amazing video! thanks for sharing all of this, I applaud your effort!
IG back again with his classic™ cup
Running it as a VM in Parallels desktop on my Mid 2012 MacBook Pro. Works a treat! Great video. Thanks.
Thanks a lot for this excellent video! I must say clarity of the table of content as well as content is very good. Keep it up the good work. As already shared in comments, easy pdf files management is one weakness of elementaryOS (and other Linux distros) compared to macOS
This is a very good point. Preview on the Mac is fantastic, and cannot be replicated on any flavor of Linux. I have resorted to running Adobe Acrobat running in Wine, which works for me.
Thanks for the recommendation of Snapdrop and OnlyOffice!
Fusuma and Planer are such great softwares! Great content by the way 😉
Yeah planner look the best, The thing is, todoist have 5 tracker, 4 of them are facebook and google
WoW1 That's a lot of very useful information in half an hour. I'm late to the Linux party having meandered through Windows and MacOS so an overview like this is helpful. I will investigate further. Thanks.
Excellent , I will definitely give Elementary OS a shot.
Great recommendation of apps!
Great work on the video, I appreciate you taking the time to do this complete guide, useful even for other distros... I am PopOser :)
Excellent guide, thank you. :)
Thanks for this video. I really thought it was useful
Thanks for the Snapdrop alternative. Now I can easily transfer PinePhone footage I recorded on my Android Phone to my PC.
Running "elementary OS" for the last 2 years without any issues. Its pure bliss ^_^
how about permission issue? that's really hard for me as beginner in linux 😭
There are a number of beautiful Linux setups even more so in some cases than macOS, but I've yet to find something that meets my needs better. A lot of these types of videos focus on looks and not functionality, so it's nice to see this video explore that a little bit. Linux is incredibly flexible and can be set up to be mostly just as functional as macOS in my use cases, but it also takes a lot more setup. While I love to tinker, when work is concerned I do not want to tinker at all and that is why I use macOS first and Linux for hobby.
Thank you so much for the video, sure will try elementary os in one day. :-)
Excellent overview and recommendations.
A few things:
1. A replacement for *Pages*
2. How to set Elementary OS Dates to ISO Standard YYYY MM DD HH SS
3. Services
4. Labels/Tags to files
5. Smart folders/AppleScript/Automator
6. Universal Dictionary/Thesaurus/Wikipedia access
fantastic and informative video. found this at just the right time as my old imac i use for work is no longer being supported by apple. i think i can squeeze a few more years out of it now...
Awesome, thnx for review !
i would suggest a update when elementary os 6 comes out.
It did already at this time
@Ruben Asher nobody falls for this shit, exspecially tech viewer
@Ruben Asher It's incredible how you chose the worst place to fool people
My download of elementary OS 6 beta passes the checksum but fails the USB installer step. Changed USB sticks but no luck.
@@joaogomes850 what does he say?
It is such a great video. Thanks.
This is one of th best Linux related videos I have ever seen!! Thanks a million!
Once I have set elementary os to my liking, how can I create an iso image I can use on a USB stick to deploy to other computers. I understand that systemback is no longer in development and mx19s excellent took only works with antix and mx19. Maybe in your followup video you can discuss this.
Thanks again!!!
Easiest is to create a .sh script that does the installs and gsettings tweaks.
Man you're awesome!! 🙌
Excellent and very helpful video. I was using Elem but switched over to Manjaro Gnome. Main advantage is it has Snap and Flatpak support already built in and all you have to do is turn it on. I'm using the latest motherboard(B550) and so far Manjaro is the only distro to have everything work right out of the box without issue including the new 2.5 GB ethernet. Almost all the other distros I've looked at only had the wireless detected, not the ethernet. I'm guessing this is due to Manjaro having the latest drivers. Still, I do have a soft spot for Elem as it is a wonderful distro.
This, is pretty wild. If you want an in-depth alternative, this works for sure. I definitely have found myself re-watching this video off and on bc a lot of good software, for a Mac-alt or otherwise, is showcased here.
I tip my non-metaphorical hat to you.
Thanks for this!
I have yet to find a pdf reader/ basic annotator that works as well as MacOS Preview. I have switched over to linux and FOSS on my desktop and laptop, but haven't come across anything that works as well as Preview does. Do you know of any projects for pdf readers that you recommend? Highlighting, adding text, shapes, drawing, signature on pdf documents makes up the bulk of my workflow, and I am curious to know what else might be out there. Great video by the way! I really like your recommendations.
Use GSConnect for Gnome or KDE Connect for KDE as an airdrop replacement.
KDE Connect is easy to use as well as being powerful and feature-rich.
Great video!
Thanks for the helpful video. I've got Elementary running well on a cheap ARKA Book laptop that I purchased from eBay for £100 including delivery. Couple of questions, can I change 'Close' on Window settings to your suggested shortcut but still keep Alt+F4? I am probably going to install Snaps but why do quite a lot of people hate on it?
I have only given it 1 gb of ram and its working just as fast. This is amazing
The ram would get filled up with, use a simple distro, why elementary os on 1 gb of ram
Thanks for all the study. Is there an elementary phone coming?
beautiful ,i m subscribed nly for this video
Wow! Absolutely brilliant video, mate. Thanks for making it. Does the podcast app you showed allow you to filter for just Australian podcasts? Cheers. Steve.
thanks,great video
Any word on support for the macbook pro? I have a super nice Apple
monitor that won't work with Elementary OS... I've searched online and
can't find any good information on any fixes or updates. Seems like
Linux does not support Thunderbolt at this time from some blogs I've
read? Nice videos by the way..!
Nice presentation matey, personally I have gone to Strawberry for music (as I'm old..!!)
if you want to use emojis, Ideogram is a good app from the app center in Elementary os
Can I ask how you handle the windows app for example adobe or affinity? Those are the reason why I can't migrate on linux
Outstanding.
Hey I am just curious. Why do you recommend installing from flat hub over apt when it’s available there?
Many great recommendations here, i leaned A LOT! thanks.
For reference: Fusuma (foo-soo-ma) Libre Office (lee-bruh)
Question,
Pop!_OS seems to use the same store from Elementary OS (not if it's a fork though). So, isn't Pop!_OS more suitable for the Mac users? You can add extensions that mimics macOS more easily and also the workflow, the UI and UX coherence on Gnome is majestic.
And you don't need to install ppa support to then add a ppa, to finally get able to install elementary-tweaks for customizing basic the features that are availalble on other desktop environments like LXDE, Xfce, Budgie, KDE, Deepin....
Yes Pop is the more beginner friendly OS, it just works out of the box.
There is a Mac compatibility layer for linux project called Darling! It's like wine but for Mac software! It's still currently in development but when it gets finalized, we'll be able to run Mac software on linux!
That will be truly brilliant!
Darling has been in development for many, MANY years. I don't know if it will ever be released as stable, though.
I like how Elementary OS looks and feel, I had a few problem. The google sysc app that is free to use on Elementary OS I had that mess up my google cloud files good thing I have more then 1 back up.
I'm currently trying to do this exact thing right now
Pantheon mail works with any kind of mails without messing with the specific details like imap and smtp
Use AO for todo list, the perfect one
Your views on stability for Surface Laptops?
Is there a way to change the icons in elementary os? Also, I would like macOS like touchpad gestures.
The one thing this is missing that’s arguably fundamental to the Mac is the separation of window and application. Closing all the windows of an application but it still being open in the background is so handy for modern computers that have lots of RAM. Not having to constantly close and open entire applications depending on existence of windows within them makes the whole system feel so much faster. Applications are just swapped in and out of memory instead of having to restart. It’s something people find annoying about Mac OS that’s actually a huge benefit, you have the option whether to keep the application available or not. Not sure if this can be forced in Linux or not, I believe it’s developer dependent however in my experience it mainly uses the Windows model of applications being tied to their windows.
This is awesome. Could you do one with Zorin for people migrating from windows please?
I have been tested Zorin but this one is new to me, and what don’t allow me to convert 100% into the Linux Desktop is don’t have a way to use Adobe platform and one or two others softwares
can i do all of this also in ubuntu mate? i like the "cupertino" layout it have.
For easily handling/installing deb packages, Eddy is great. Elementary is based on Ubuntu and Ubuntu on Debian, so the need to install a .deb package at some point is bound to happen
Thank you. Any chance of an update?
Can you still not use the desktop as a workspace on elementary OS? That was always a dealbreaker for me
elementary OS made me in love with the dock now on Pop!_OS i use dash to dock
same case, I use plank though, on pop_os. Waiting for elementaryOS 6.
The great thing? You can use it in multiple monitors. Thats the thing.
@Justin Smith I've used tiling window managers but I.. I still love docks, like when I was a mac user I loved it and essently on all of my systems I use a dock, I went off them when I was using my i3 setup on Manjaro and later on arch and I just never got as comfy as I did with a dock.
i use latte dock btw
Kaiser Agreed, but on Windows I still stick to the taskbar for nostalgia purposes.
Do you think WSL is a threat to desktop Linux? Would be an interesting video idea.
Its very hard to replace MacOS but Elementary is defiantly the way to go. For a Windows replacement I'd highly recommend Linux Mint cinnamon.
Not really, I would rather say kde is a better replacement for windows. My reasons:
1. The application menu: you don't have the ability to search for files and folder (yes you can look at recent files, but that's useless ar the amount of things you store in your laptop increases). The windows search feature is decent . And IMO it is very important for people who use their computer for a work to be able to do that. So in kde you can either have a search widget, or use krunner or search directly from application menu. This might seem like a very insignificant issue. But trust me this is what makes me want to go back to gnome otr kde everyday I use cinnamon
2. Nemo: underpowered. No ability to add tags. The preview extension is useless in my opinion. (The preview pane is something I miss in it).
3.The design though nice and cosy is outdated.
Cinnamon is decent for those coming from xp or even windows 7(though I would argue other wise) but definitely not for windows 10. It is lacking in a lot of features. It is fine for old people who just want to browse the web and watch movies. But for others not that good. And if you ignore the fact that kde has too many choices, its a better alternative for cinnamon. And so I would rathe use kubuntu/neon or manjaro + kde if I were just migrating from windows.
And there is no mac alternative in linux. And honestly it's not possible as the whole idea of mac is consistency and connectivity of the environment. And that's not implementable in linux untill we someone like apple who make the hardware and the software. System 76 is starting to try and I really hope they succeed. But yeah the whole ideology of freedom in linux world is not really compatible with the mac approach.
Another thing that I don't particularly like in the linux community, we assume windows and Mac users are stupid and so we have make everything ultra simple for them. We tend to forget that almost all of us linux users too were at some point windows/Mac users and then switched to linux. I believe we are confusing windows folks' issue that " things in general don't work out of the box in Linux and I dont want to spend timing getting it to work" with " I am stupid. I can't learn new things. So spoon feed me"
PS: I am currently running cinnamon on arch. And this answer is based on my experience. If I am missing anything or if anyone know a way to solve my problems ( I am not interested in installing any qt application) . They are welcome to correct me as that would be very helpful for my usage .
@@shrivigneshsenthilkumar9349 i used linux mint cinnamon for some time and changed to to manjaro kde. KDE feel more complete but i can't be sure, i'm not a power user. The only thing i've noticed is there's more stuff in your face but i don't know if that's is a problem, at least it's there; and because of that i changed to manjaro gnome because manjaro cinnamon is weird somehow, it does not have official support so things that the manjaro team/dev hide, in this community version it's there and pollutes your search through the application menu.
my main reason now to always install manjaro is because i don't wanna install amd gpu graphics and vulkan, it's not a great reason. Like i said before: i'm not a power user; i moved to linux because of some "gaming on linux" videos and now i really like the desktop environment since i can't afford any mac and i want to have my privacy
@c6amp true it's highly customisable.
@@MpSniperM1911 ubuntu 20 try its nice stable and i use for gaming
@@shrivigneshsenthilkumar9349 exactly 👍👍
I don't think you explained the difference between the flathub source and the Elementary OS source well. I think a new user would be quite confused. Why should I install from a different source apart from the default if my application is already available there? Why is the flathub version more up-to-date? What's the point of the default source of applications is this flathub source seems to be the better option?
I run Mac and LM Maced out on two 500 Gb ssd on MBP 2012 with rEFInd custard bootloader. Like the suggested custom custard? So do I.
*Nice* - thank you :)
As regards note-taking apps, I am a teacher as you, and I'd like to have an app for writing down the activities seen in class every Tuesday for example of every week. I've tried the apps mentioned here, but I can't find one that really suits that purpose. Any suggestions?
I was a former Mac OS X user (iMac for 10 years) and did the Mac Skin using Manjaro KDE. However what you're doing can be done on any desktop linux distro.
@Average Joe I'm not a developer, I just got sick of the forced upgrades that Apple does to their users. I mean I had to hackintosh a legit 10 year old iMac to make it run Mojave. The main reason I switched was that I was due for a computer upgrade and I didn't want to be locked in to certain hardware by the operating system vendor. I wanted one that was being updated and worked with minimal maintenance. I also felt that OS X was getting bloated. I must say that I am quite happy running Linux. I was using free/opensource software for years (chrome, thunderbird, OpenOffice, etc), the the underlying operating system didn't matter.
how did you get the right-click function??? Hera has it disabled
Was there any multi touch gestures?
Any way to get better battery backup In elementary os installed on macbook?
hey! what's your base os for production.
Are there any themes based on lion os or maybe on the aqua design? I just love them and most things i find are really old and may not work with the latest updates
Very nice video btw
I absolutely need OneNote. Can anything be done?
Here are some features I'd like to combine from different OSes:
- The web browser going all the way to the top of the screen, so that its tabs are easy to click
- Global search, including inside files such as office suite documents and inside pdfs, bookmarks, web browser history
- A task bar with the different virtual desktops laid out on the task bar, with icons of programs that are inside that virtual desktop
- Keeping old versions of files and deleted files, with the ability to view those versions
- Fractional DPI scaling
- Tiling window management with drag and drop
- Desktop with a view inside commonly used folders in boxes (downloads, documents, etc)
- Convenient keyboard shortcuts for controlling OS functionality (search, show desktop, switch virtual desktop, open terminal, etc)
- Automatic back up to external storage or cloud
PopOS comes closest, but doesn't have everything yet :) Do you have any recommendations?
for pop!_os:
- The web browser going all the way to the top of the screen, so that its tabs are easy to click
extensions.gnome.org/extension/545/hide-top-bar/ + some firefox settings
- Global search [yes]
- including inside files such as office suite documents and inside pdfs [did not find any gnome extensions]
- bookmarks, web browser history [only horribly outdated extensions, but should be possible in theory]
- A task bar with the different virtual desktops laid out on the task bar, with icons of programs that are inside that virtual desktop [somewhat, you have to press super]
- Keeping old versions of files [you're looking for version control?] and deleted files [trashbin.], with the ability to view those versions
- Fractional DPI scaling
(its broken for some but they're working on it) github.com/pop-os/gnome-control-center/issues/89
- Tiling window management with drag and drop [yes]
- Desktop with a view inside commonly used folders in boxes (downloads, documents, etc) [broken]
extensions.gnome.org/extension/1393/convenient-access-to-files/
- Convenient keyboard shortcuts for controlling OS functionality (
- search[super]
- show desktop[extensions.gnome.org/extension/1194/show-desktop-button/ no key board, extensions.gnome.org/extension/64/show-desktop-button/ broken]
- switch virtual desktop [ctrl+super+up/down]
- open terminal[super+t], etc)
- Automatic back up to external storage or cloud [plenty of options]
In Firefox drop-down menu go to customization and there will be a check box at the bottom left corner for "title bar"
*Os'
Hi I tred to install Elementary OS on my macbook pro 16 but my touchpad did not work my bluetooth mouse either work. so I could not install it ! how to fix that ? I really hope you can get any advice or video ! Because I really want to switch over to linux
the issues for me is that No Adobe software and No Affinity software. I do have Ubuntu 20.04 with Photoshop CC and Ullustrator CS6 but that's old.......
Is that RHEL8 hello world sticker in the top left corner?
You missed out one thing you did mention though: the MacOS Spotlight search engine. Windows did lacks one too, but nowadays you can hit WIN key, type whatever you want and if your folder is indexed, it will find it. Not to mention the recent come back of PowerToys and PowerToys Run, which is a direct copy of MacOS Spotlight.
Need to check powertoys run
IG do you have any experience with using a stylus with Linux?
I would switch to Linux if devs supported it. Would like Adobe suite of products on Linux then I'd switch in a heartbeat.
Ekyllier i don’t remember dont that works fine with wine or does it have a anti cheat now?
same here, that is the only reason I don't run linux full time cause I use adobe all the time.
there are open source alternatives for all adobe products
@@TheBuilder norhing is comparable for the productivity unfortunately
@@TheBuilder I suppose it depends on how you look at it. Is a soapbox car an alternative to an F1 car if you want to be competitive in the monaco grand prix? If you feel the answer is yes, then you are right. There are plenty of alternatives. Personally, as much as it pains me, I think the soapbox would have a hard time competing. I think we need to embrace commercial software, instead of trying to convince our self the OS alternatives are viable alternatives for professionals and prosumers if we want Linux to succeed on the desktop
Witch you prefer Elementary or Zorin ?
Is that a Surface Pro keeping your notes???
Nice video. thanks for sharing... I would like to mention that running a Linux Distro in a virtualization environment is not the same as running it directly in the host..... hardware compatibility.
I use XFCE + AppMenu with Docky. Set aside the theme (though I have that too), I do this because global menu and a dock are absolutely essential to a working life spent on macOS. I tend to specifically choose as many applications as I can find that work with these desktop environment. Elementary, unless I have missed something, does not have a global menu.
You can also do gnome and the unity extension or plasma with the global menu
I have like 90% similar build thar you recommended but I just use more windows akin shortcuts like I have win+Q set to synapse that helps me find my documents easily because I have a terrible memory of them. I just have keep a web app and notes up for my normal writing needs. I tried quilter but I wasn’t able to handle everything and chugging for some reason so I tried focus writer which helped but I just use it sometimes now when I just feel like using it’s black matrix like background with zero distractions. Then obviously you didn’t mention it but I use gimp along with Kdenlive. Also chrome because it just has all my passwords for obscure sites I need to use rarely but are necessary. Also for trackpad shortcuts I use libinput gestures and have put it in startup. That mostly does the job, don’t need mail clients or anything.
Nice video.
Can it play m4a ?
My question is that by adding all these software stores, doesn't it get redundant, and the risk of running in to issues further down the line by corrupting package config files and so on because of the basically same packages and same dependency, and not to mentioned confusing for a new user, who don't know the underlying differences, and all they see when there about to install a new software, is the same app but through different stores and sources ! I mean I love having options and that's one of the strength's of Linux, however the downside to it is that it can get overwhelming and confusing, especially for a newbie !
The problem with the pay-what-you-want software in the eOS App Center is that every time there is an update available for any of those apps you will be forced to re-enter the zero amount (or pay for the app, obviously) in order to get that app to update. Otherwise it will just sit there in the update list and never update. When I realized what a huge pain this could end up being with dozens of these not-really-free apps installed I immediately uninstalled the two pay-what-you-want apps that I had tried out, and have no interest in trying any others ever again. It’s fine to have commercial software that asks for money, but they need to come up with a different way to remind the user that those app developers want some money for their work, in a way that doesn’t interfere with the package update system. Like a reminder once a year or every few months saying, “Hey, you’re using all of these pay-what-you-want apps, would you like to pay for some of them this year to reward the developers?” I think a lot of people might eventually pay for some of those apps, at least the ones they really end up using.
Hi mate great video. Just a question though, is there any trick in installing elementary on a 2014 iMac with a fusion drive, reason for asking is I'm trying to breath new life into it and thought this would be a great alternative. I tried google and UA-cam but nothing comes up with specifics on what/how to do. If you or your followers have any ideas that are sensible id love to try them.
Its been a great machine but I'm keen on switching to linux as I have an old MBP with linux on it and I love it.
Keep up the good work mate you have a sub from me.
Cheers H from FarNthQld
How about driver management. Those are pretty good in mint and popos .