Linux Mint For Mac Os X

Posted on by admin

Hi, I'm using a MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with 4GB of Ram, running OSX 10.6.8. I'm looking to try and experiment with Linux Mint for the first time. Several popular Linux operating systems for desktop are Ubuntu, LinuxMint and Elementary OS. This post will show you how to install LinuxMint 17.3 on MacBook Pro dual-boot with OS X El Capitan. This method should also be applicable for Ubuntu 15.10 and Elementary OS 0.3.2 Freya. Prepare the partition. We can use Disk Utility to partition our disk. Create around 50GB of disk space for Linux. Do you want to make Ubuntu look like Mac OS X? If you do we’re going to show you how to do it, step-by-step. The whole point of using Linux is that you can do things like this. It doesn’t matter whether you have a bad case of Apple envy, or simply appreciate the design aesthetic of Apple’s.

When comparing macOS vs Linux Mint, the Slant community recommends Linux Mint for most people.In the question“What is the best desktop OS?”Linux Mint is ranked 2nd while macOS is ranked 10th. The Mac will boot the Linux system from the connected USB drive. If your Mac just boots to the login screen and you don’t see the boot options menu, reboot your Mac again and hold down the Option key earlier in the boot process. This solution will allow you to boot common Linux USB drives on your Mac.

Both macOS—the operating system used on Apple's desktop and notebook computers—and Linux are based on the Unix operating system, which was developed at Bell Labs in 1969 by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson. The operating system used on Apple's iPhones, now called iOS, is derived from macOS and therefore also a Unix variant.

Like all major Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, Red Hat, and SuSE Linux, macOS offers a desktop environment that provides a graphical user interface to application programs and system settings. This desktop environment is built on top of a Unix-type OS just as the desktop environments of Linux distros are built on top of the core Linux OS. However, Linux distros usually offer alternative desktop environments besides the one installed by default. Microsoft Windows and macOS don't give users the option to switch desktop environments, other than minor look-and-feel adjustments such as color schemes and font size.

The Mac-ifying of the Linux Desktop. Matthew Garret, in his essay The Desktop and the Developer proposes that “A combination of improved desktop polish and spending effort on optimising developer workflows would stand a real chance of luring these developers away from OS X with the promise that they'd spend less time fighting web browsers. There are many distros available in the market like Ubuntu, ZorinOS, Linux Mint, Elementary OS, PepperMint which has made their footprints in the OS world as a simple and straightforward system like Windows or Mac OS. Linux distros provide easy steps to install the system itself, and it has a well-integrated repository system for updating installed applications.

Linux Mint On Macbook Pro

The Common Roots of Linux and macOS

The practical aspect of the common roots of Linux and macOS is that both follow the POSIX standard. POSIX stands for Portable Operating System Interface for Unix-like Operating Systems. This compatibility makes it possible to compile applications developed on Linux on macOS systems. Linux even provides options to compile applications on Linux for macOS.

Like Linux distros, macOS includes a Terminal application, which provides a text window in which you can run Linux commands. This terminal is also often referred to as command line or shell or shell window. It's the text-based environment that people used to operate computers before graphical user interface became available. It is still widely used for system administration and scripting automated processes.

The popular Bash shell is available in macOS as it is in pretty much all Linux distributions. The Bash shell helps you to quickly traverse the file system and start text-based or graphical applications.

In a shell you can use all your basic Linux and shell commands such as ls, cd, cat, and more. The file system is structured as in Linux, with partitions such as usr, var, etc, dev, and home at the top, although there are some additional folders in macOS.

The basic programming languages of Unix-type operating systems such as Linux and macOS are C and C++. Much of the operating system is implemented in these languages, and many basic applications are implemented in C and C++ as well. Higher level programming languages such as Perl and Java are also implemented in C/C++.

Apple provides the Objective C programming language including an Integrated Development Environment called Xcode to support the development of applications for macOS and iOS.

Like Linux, macOS includes strong Java support and actually provides a custom Java installation to ensure seamless integration of Java applications. It also includes terminal-based versions of the text editors Emacs and vi, which are popular on Linux systems. Versions with more GUI support can be downloaded from Apple's AppStore.

Major Differences

One of the differences between Linux and Mac OS X is the kernel. The kernel is the core of a Unix-type OS and implements functions such as process and memory management as well as file, device, and network management. When Linus Torvalds designed the Linux kernel he opted for what is referred to as a monolithic kernel for performance reasons, as opposed the microkernel, which is designed for more flexibility. MacOS uses a kernel design that compromises between these two architectures.

The sheer variety available to the Linux desktop brings with it a level of discussion and debate most other platforms do not know. Which desktop is the best? Should Linux hold onto what has always worked? Should the Linux desktop mimic what others already know? Dare Linux look and feel like OS X?

That last idea is a bit of a conundrum – one with multiple arguments. First and foremost, there is no debating that OS X is a fast-growing platform. It not only has deep roots in Linux architecture, it has been accepted by numerous types of users. There have been many attempts at “cloning” the OS X desktop on Linux. Some of those clones have succeeded, to varying levels. One in particular (PearOS) succeeded so well it was bought by an unknown American company and removed from existence. That company is rumored to be Apple (a Black Lab Linux developer announced (in a goodbye letter) he was leaving the team to join Apple “…in a Linux endeavor they recently acquired.” It’s fairly easy to put that two and two together.) But still, until there are facts, it is conspiracy, at best.

But what is it about OS X that not only draws the users, but has Linux developers scrambling to clone? One fact that cannot be denied about OS X is the consistency found throughout. No design element has been overlooked and every window opened retains the overall look and feel better than any other desktop. Beyond that, you have to start looking at apps…even more specifically, the likes of iTunes. Since the smartphone has become such an incredibly integral component of day-to-day life, users rely upon the tools to keep those devices in sync with their data. Whether you like the app or not, few apps do a better job of syncing multi-media and other data as does iTunes. Without something similar – Linux loses out.

Matthew Garret, in his essay The Desktop and the Developer proposes that “A combination of improved desktop polish and spending effort on optimising developer workflows would stand a real chance of luring these developers away from OS X with the promise that they’d spend less time fighting web browsers, leaving them more time to get on with development.”

Linux Mint For Mac Download

Improved desktop polish. That statement alone should ring very true with Linux desktop designers across the globe. I would add modern to that – Improved modern desktop polish – because users are no longer happy with the likes of flat desktops, such as Gnome 2, Fluxbox, or KDE. Users, especially the average user, wants polish, they want something that looks as modern as the mobile tools they use.

Distributions, such as Ubuntu, have gone to great lengths to take that idea of consistency and elegantly apply it throughout. Unity does an incredible job of working the look and feel of the design to every aspect of the desktop. Linux Mint also has grown, leaps and bounds, with unifying the look and feel of the desktop.

Having recently appeared in the third feature film from Bad Boys 3 directors Adil El Arbi & Bilall Falah titled ‘Patser’ (meaning Gangsta), as well as joining Jean-Claude van Damme in ‘Bouncer’, Dimitri has also been confirmed to appear in the upcoming George C. Momentum dimitri vegas original mix mp3 download.

Have Ubuntu and Mint caught up to OS X? With respect to unification of look and feel, it’s becoming a very close race. As for application familiarity, that’s another debate all together.

OS X-Like Linux Distros

As for distributions cloning OS X, PearOS has been forked, but even the fork is running into some levels of resistance. At first it was named Clementine and showed promise. The distribution then ran into legal issues with the name (the original name belongs to my media player of choice, Clementine). Now, Klementine OS is nowhere to be found.

Beyond the conspiracy theories, beyond the purchasing and obfuscation, why would a Linux distribution want to mimic the look and feel of OS X? When you do a search for “OS X Linux clone”, you generally come up with the following distributions:

  • PearOS

  • Elementary OS Luna

  • Clementine (now Klementine)

  • Red Star OS.

After much digging, I discovered yet another Linux distribution with a desktop aimed at resembling OS X. This distribution is called Pirum OS. This distribution was started by high school developer Tyler Wolf and, almost as quickly as it started, was re-branded into The Pear Project. No development, no signs of life.

This disappointment sent me reeling back to Google to discover LuninuxOS. Outside of having a double-take of a name (it’s pronounced loon-e-nux o-s), the platform has a single idea: that an alternative computing operating system should be beautiful, simply, fast, reliable and fun. After a bit of digging, it turns out this distribution is also no longer in development.

Why try to clone OS X?

All of this leads me to a single question: With so many challenges (some legal), why do developers insist on attempting to create an OS X clone of Linux? I’ve scoured through the various pages of the different distributions to seek out that answer. There are numerous conclusions to draw:

  • The developers want to mimic the OS X look because of its popularity

  • The developers feel the familiarity of the OS X interface will draw users

  • There is some truth to the ease-of-use claims that surround OS X.

Once you give some of these distributions a try, you quickly come to realize that some are simply a standard GNOME (in most cases) desktop with a Dock and a Panel. Once you get beyond the theme of the desktop, there is little OS X to be found. You won’t find iTunes or any of the other software stacks that draw people to Mac. What you will find is the standard Linux software. And that is nothing to hide. In fact (outside of the desire to look like OS X), when you examine the single most common goal of all of the OS X clones to have come and gone, you have one common goal:

Beauty.

All of these clones want to emulate what is often considered the de facto standard when it comes to elegance on the computer desktop: OS X. But by whose standard? Compare OS X to some of the modern Linux desktops, such as:

  • Unity

  • GNOME 3

  • Deepin Linux.

Linux Mint For Mac Os X Mac

All of a sudden, OS X doesn’t look so modern. In fact, OS X is still hanging on to the same metaphor it’s used for thirteen years. The true beauty to OS X stems from the hardware, not the software. Install an OS such as Ubuntu 14.10 or the latest Deepin Linux on a Macbook Pro Retina and see what real, modern elegance looks like.

Focus on innovation

Linux Mint For Mac Os X X

With every OS X project that comes and goes, hardship seems to follow. Either it’s crossing the boundaries of copyright (and having the project closed), failing to drum up enough developer interest to get the project truly off the ground, or having the project purchased (insert your own conspiracy theory here). So the big question still remains. Why? Why not focus on doing what Linux has always done better than any other platform – innovate. If you want to create a platform similar to OS X, take what Apple has done well and blend it with what Linux has done well and create something completely unique.

Remember, trademark and patent law is very confusing and challenging. The owners of those patents will go out of their way to prevent you from infringing on what they’ve created. Don’t think, for a second, that the likes of Apple will allow someone to perfectly mimic their desktop without putting up a fight. Some outstanding distributions have come and gone because they desperately wanted to cling to what Apple was doing. PearOS was a darling among a large crowd and could have gained a strong foothold for the Linux desktop. It disappeared in a shroud of mystery.

Is it an impossible battle to fight? All in the name of cloning something that people either love or hate? No matter how you slice it, Apple is mighty. We may never know if they flexed that might to prevent a clone desktop from gaining any momentum. What we do know is that Linux is the king of innovation and will continue to enjoy a number of brilliant and modern desktops.