breednet

Our household has recently (within the last 2 years) replaced a Windows Desktop and Laptop with a 20″ iMac and 15″ MacBook Pro. My oldest daughter has gotten very familiar with the Mac User Experience, and I had a spare Dell D610 laptop that I gave her. I went round and round with OSX86, but I really wanted to get something stable that she could rely on that was actually supported, so I settled on Ubuntu.

There are two very good guides available here and here for turning Ubuntu Hardy and Intrepid into Mac OS X (thanks to maketecheasier.com). This transformation is largely done through the use of the Mac4Lin GNOME theme. I mostly followed the Intrepid guide for Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), but I made one key exception. I had some difficulty in getting the splashy Debian package to install, so when you get to that point, run the following command:

sudo dpkg –force-overwrite –install splashy_0.3.13-3ubuntu1_i386.deb

I also found some very cool Microsoft Office for Mac icons that I put in the Home directory under .icons/scalable directory, and used them on my dock. I also updated the Update Manager with the Apple Software Update icon as well, which is part of the Mac4Lin Icons theme.

The end result will hopefully look something like this: