For the past few days, for the first time, I’ve seriously tried MacOS and I became distinctly aware that anyone who calls Gnome similar to MacOS has never used MacOS.

If you’re just looking at screenshots, Gnome and MacOS do bear a resemblance. Gnome’s Dash looks similar to the Dock; Gnome’s app launcher looks similar to Launchpad; Gnome’s top panel looks similar to the menu bar.

But actually using each desktop, the UX, design philosophy, idealogy, and feel is miles apart. I think the four biggest differences are

  1. No menu bar
  2. Minimizing distractions, so no dock
  3. Interacting with windows is closer to Windows and KDE (fullscreening windows keeps them in same workspace, can interact with a window’s content without first clicking to focus it)
  4. Managing open apps is closer to Windows and KDE (apps actually close when you hit “x”, with few exceptions, only open apps and favorited apps are in the dash)
  • jonathan@lemmy.zipEnglish
    251·
    6 days ago

    No one is saying they’re identical.

    I mained MacOS for 10 years and Gnome for the past 5. Gnome is as similar to MacOS as KDE is to Windows.

    • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      6 days ago

      Yeah I guess it’s mostly in the aesthetics department.

      I haven’t used MacOs much, but the fit and finish is comparable I guess, but not the way you’re using it.

    • Leaflet@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      11·
      6 days ago

      I’m just saying that I think it would be more accurate to group Gnome closer to Windows and KDE than MacOS. Especially if Dash to Dock and Appindicators are enabled, like in Ubuntu.

      I could switch between Gnome, KDE, Windows, and most Linux DEs relatively easily, but MacOS’s feels quite different to me.

  • petsoi@discuss.tchncs.deM
    13·
    6 days ago

    My suggestion, ignore those desktop fights. Just use what fits best to you. Save your energy for something useful, eg contributing.

  • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
    131·
    6 days ago

    Traditionally Mac OS allowed for very little actual customization of The interface. Next To None really. This is also GNOMEs General stance on customization as well. You can get add-on that will allow you to customize a few things here or there. However they won’t be officially supported and will likely break with the next minor version update.

    Contrast that with something like KDE which can easily made out of the box to resemble any desktop interface of any operating system that has ever existed.

    • Dave@lemmy.nz
      4·
      6 days ago

      I tried KDE. Asked how I could get an application switcher desktop switcher thingy like GNOME. Got told that’s not really possible, so I’m back on GNOME.

      I liked the idea of KDE but I don’t think your claim that you can easily make it resemble any OS that ever existed is really true.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        6 days ago

        As a rule you can. You may have found an exception on one small point. Those are almost inescapable. That may have been more of a window manager issue than the desktop presentation. Which used to be more flexible. You could run different WM in the past with whatever presentation layer on top. Unfortunately today mutter is tightly tied to GNOME as kwin is to KDE.

        But it isn’t a fight or a war. Use what works for you. Whether it’s LXQT, XFCE, KDE, GNOME, Hyperland, i3, Deepin. They’re all great.

        Quick edit to mention that Simplicity can also be a feature. I fought with GNOME a lot to get it to work how I wanted. But it was always the extensions that broke. The underlying layers were always simple and solid. For me KDE overall works better. But I’m not going to deny it can be very trying sometimes loading a custom theme and something brakes. For my current pet peeve certain distributions enabling the global desktop menu by default. And Katie has no clear succinct way of finding and disabling that without editing a config file. It’s certainly not for everyone and something like hyperland even fewer people. Even if it looks sick as hell. The progress on Cosmic looks great so far too.

        • superkret@feddit.org
          6·
          6 days ago

          Yeah, my experience has been that default Gnome is rock solid, while default KDE can already show some visible bugs, and breaks in frustrating ways the more you customize it.

          • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            6 days ago

            Yep that pretty much goes for everything. And not everyone wants to have to deal with that. Me I’m okay. I’ve got KDE looking and functioning exactly how I want. But I think it’s safe to say that if you are recommending something for someone starting out or not sure what they’re doing there’s a reason mint and GNOME get mentioned a lot.

            Even if I’m personally frustrated with the gtk hassle and issues. Finally, after nearly 20 years. GIMP 3.0, the version that upgrades GIMP from GTK 2.0 to 3.0 will be out next year. And with gtk 4.0 being released in 2020. Soon to be 5 years ago. Things are looking good for GIMP 4.0 by 2050. Our grandchildren will probably love it. And gtk 6 or 7 should be out a few years before that. I kidd, I kidd. Maybe.

              • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                6 days ago

                I doubt it does yet. Xwayland smooths out things considerably for now. But definitely not perfect considering mouse spasming and the ms solitaire effect.

                Don’t think that will take quite as long considering QT can and does. Just lots of testing for regressions etc now that distro are defaulting more and more to Wayland.

                All this still seems to take forever though lol. I’ve used GIMP since before 1.0. KDE and GNOME since at least 1.X and blender since it was a fresh shareware port of the original Irix software.

  • tedzards509@discuss.tchncs.de
    2·
    4 days ago

    For me, the similarity is not primarily from the looks but from:

    1. The opinionated “GNOME”- or “Apple”-Way to do things
    2. The focus on using workspaces (Although Apple forces you more to use them than GNOME does)
    3. The focus on design before features (I feel like this is more of a GNOME thing but it aligns with the philosophy Apple tries to exhibit about itself)

    Then alongside that, I also get that MacOS vibes from more minor things, like GTK or Apple AppKit (?) providing one unified design language across almost all apps, as well as the touchpad gestures.

  • bad_news@lemmy.billiam.net
    4·
    6 days ago

    I am addicted to the mouse gestures from years using OS X for work, and use Gnome despite kiiiind of hating it on anything I plan to code on. Trust me, it’s similar. And getting that same experience elsewhere is difficult and janky.

    • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      Yeah. They have very similar goals aesthetically. And if that’s something you like, under Linux it’s the best place to find it. Also IIRC deepin was at one time trying to be Mac like. Been a few years since I tried it though. And last time they seemed to be moving away a bit.

  • Grass@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    6 days ago

    There are people that literally can’t tell the difference of any of these, and will struggle to use them confusedly while not realizing the os is entirely different, so it doesn’t seem that weird to me. Back when I worked the self checkouts in a store, I even saw five different people try to put their items in to the screen. At least a couple of levels below thinking the web browser is the operating system.

  • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    6 days ago

    Windows, macos and gnome all piss me off within 30 seconds of using them so I say they’re all exactly alike.