Note: If you’d like to just get to the good stuff then skip down to here.

Ubuntu Linux with Mac4Lin

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is scheduled to be released in about 24 hours. One of Leopard’s key features is a much improved gui and design that has been hailed by many as revolutionary.

Mac users and Apple shareholders are obviously thrilled. Apple’s stock has reached a high of $185 after the last quarter’s earnings were announced on Tuesday.

In addition to owning an iMac and being a shareholder, I’m also a passionate Linux user. I began dual booting Tiger and Ubuntu a few months ago. Recently, I’ve began to use Ubuntu as my main os, and I now only reboot into Tiger on limited occasions. My next computer will still be a Mac but the first thing I’ll do when I get it will be to install Linux.

There are advantages to both operating systems, and I’ll admit that Linux isn’t for everyone. OS X has a wonderful gui and works right out of the box, whereas Linux is more powerful but it doesn’t “just work” out of the box- er off the live cd.

For a while, I’ve been looking for a sleek theme for Ubuntu. The default “Human” look is nice, but it gets dull after a while. I used Ubuntu SE (I’m the maintainer for ppc) for a time but it was a bit too fiery for me. When I got tired of Ubuntu SE, I began to switch between a few other themes. I used Aurora Looks for a brief period of time but, as much as I liked it, it was simply too slow for me. Recently, still not satisfied, I just switched back to the default “Human” theme.

Now that Leopard is coming out, a few Linux users (myself included) have been eyeing OS X a bit jealously. However, there’s no longer any reason to feel left out. The open source project “Mac4Lin” brings Leopard’s killer looks to Linux. Mac4Lin includes a gtk theme, an icon set, desktop backgrounds, gdm login themes, and other eyecandy goodness. Mac4Lin 0.3 was released yesterday and can be downloaded here. The installation is relatively straightforward, but it could be simpler. I’m going to package Mac4Lin into a deb package for easy installation later on this week. Here’s a screenshot:

In summary: Linux users can now enjoy the best of both worlds thanks to the Mac4Lin project. Enjoy!