alt Hacker NewsPerhaps the biggest reason is that the existing FOSS OS world has little to offer for people who like a Mac-style desktop. It's possible to customize DEs to have a very shallow visual resemblance but the details are all wrong, with Windows, legacy Linux desktops, and even mobile operating systems (in e.g. the case of GNOME) exerting the greater bulk of design influence.
The question might then, "why not make this a DE instead?" to which the answer is that Mac users also like how the underpinnings of the OS work (or have worked in older releases) and would like to continue to use their favorite Mac apps, which isn't going to happen as long as any traditional Linux distribution is involved. Mac apps also have a design ethos that's rare among current native Linux apps, which drives demand for alternatives.
To do this properly it really needs to be a whole-OS endeavor.
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Didn't the Best Koreans rip off the Mac GUI in their home-grown spyware-laden Linux distro? Red Star Linux or whatever it's called.
I wonder if they have a GitHub...
I’m super confused as to what is missing in the FOSS world, how does it “have little to offer?” It really sounds like you just like the macOS style and want a clone of it, and that’s certainly fine as a desire or a request, but if you like macOS, macOS is already available. For what logical reason should a project be copying macOS?
I would absolutely agree that a logical reason is to run macOS apps on other platforms, but other than that, the macOS operating system and its design is nothing incredibly exciting, unique, or unattainable elsewhere.
You’ve established that a Linux desktop environment in macOS style alone is not sufficient, and that makes me wonder what details of the underpinnings is Linux getting wrong compared to Mac? Is launchd superior to systemd? Is Metal superior to Vulkan? Is container superior to docker/podman in Linux? I think in a lot of cases the macOS underpinnings are quite inferior to those on offer by the FOSS world. Not in every case, of course, but a whole lot of Apple’s low level tools are half-baked and weird.
I think we need to articulate what is actually wrong with Linux or other FOSS alternatives as far as their underpinnings because I am really coming up short.
Heck, macOS and FOSS alternatives share a whole lot of identical low level tools underpinnings, like how you can run your favorite shell in either OS or even install Homebrew on Linux. (Another hot take: Linux package management is vastly superior to macOS or any other operating system on the market).
This idea of the design ethos being superior on Mac…was that true with Liquid Glass too? Are we going to exclude from our analysis every time Apple rushes out the next big Ui redesign to meet marketing deadlines and fixes it in subsequent updates like they’ve done multiple times in the past?
I look at befuddling aspects of the macOS design ethos like the fact that the menu bar will just silently truncate items when you run out of space or the fact that there’s a giant notch on the screen as evidence that maybe the macOS design ethos is nothing to envy.
Maybe macOS design is merely “pretty good” and not actually something that significantly far above and beyond its competitors.
Again, I applaud the idea of making software to run macOS apps outside of the propriety ecosystem just like the tools we use to run Windows apps in FOSS operating systems. However, I don’t think users looking for macOS design ethos or platform quality are starved of options.
EndeavorOS. I think it's actually the userspace though, which this aims to emulate. The problem is that if you're using a macbook for final cut pro, then endeavorOS doesn't solve your problem.