Mac lookalikes multiply as Linux raids Apple's wardrobe

Linux can do many things, but good looks aren't always its strong point. Apple has rather more of a reputation in that department, and a crop of new projects is bringing Mac-style polish to the open source desktop.

Some are all-new, such as the Argentinian Lord OS, a whole new GUI desktop on top of Debian. Another, Cutefish, is a revival of a pre-ChatGPT project that never got as far as a complete release. Now it has version 1.0 for both x86-64 and Arm64, plus it's working on Mac binary compatibility via a work-in-progress layer called Reef. Ukrainian Desert OS is already at version 5.5 – practically a venerable elder in this company, despite appearing to be only about a year old.

Meanwhile, ClokeOS uses Xfce for its desktop, but underneath, the OS is based on Apple's FOSS XNU kernel. The project lead plans to offer compatibility with multiple types of binaries: Linux apps, plus Mac apps via Darling, and …