As a user, you never feel overwhelmed with options because everything just works. All parts of the Elementary OS-from the familiar bottom dock to individual applications-are designed with ease of use in mind. It takes just a few minutes to realize that its developers understand what macOS users like about Apple’s operating system. Elementary OSĮlementary OS presents itself as a privacy-respecting replacement for macOS.

We ranked the distributions according to their similarity with macOS, general usability, and popularity. Our selection of Linux distributions that look like macOS includes only active projects with a decent number of users. Most Linux distributions that look like macOS come with their own “app stores” packed with free, open-source applications that can be installed with a simple click and without registration. On the other hand, Apple is actively preventing users from installing macOS on non-Apple hardware, forcing them to purchase expensive Macs.Īpple wants macOS users to install applications only from the App Store, which is inaccessible without a user account. The Linux community has been working tirelessly to support all kinds of hardware, including devices that have been labeled as obsolete by their manufacturers. This open and flexible approach is one of the biggest strengths of Linux, and it’s also the reason why it can meet the needs of everyone from data centers to home users. To create complete operating systems (Linux distributions), developers bundle the Linux kernel with third-party open-source applications. XNU is developed under the Apple Public Source License 2.0, which allows only limited modification of the code by a licensee. XNU was originally developed by the American computer and software company NeXT, which was purchased by Apple in 1997. The Linux kernel was developed by Linus Torvalds, and it’s distributed under GPLv2.

The kernel at the heart of macOS is called XNU, an acronym for X is Not Unix.

To start with, Linux is just an operating system kernel, while macOS is a complete operating system that comes bundled with a large number of applications. What Are the Differences Between macOS and Linux? To help you decide if macOS is really the best choice for you, we picked the top 5 best Linux distributions for Mac users in 2020. What these people often don’t know is that many Linux distributions look and feel just like macOS but run on any computer. There are many people out there who purchase Apple’s expensive hardware just to get their hands on macOS.

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