I’m definitely a bit biased against gnome so keep that in mind, but that’s because I have really really not enjoyed using it when I do. I even keep trying to use it on occasion as I keep it installed on my computer and give it another try on occasion to see how it evolves. But in short, I really really dislike gnome, all the way up to version 3 is what I’ve tried, we’ll see how 4 goes but based on this article I’m not going to be a fan of it either.

KDE on the other hand, I’m an absolute fan of. Not only is it incredibly lightweight (even lighter than most “lightweight” DE’s), but it’s “Activities” (not to be confused with gnome activities, which is basically just the running/runnable programs) are basically the multi-desktop view well known on X but to a significantly enhanced degree, and it’s amazing to add to your workflow. In addition, the sheer customizability of KDE and it’s ability to change to adapt to anything from huge Desktop views to phone interfaces is unmatched in my opinion thus far.

A fun thing to note, KDE by default is…fairly windows styled, but you can make it look like a mac, like gnome3, like gnome2, like gnome4, like unity, like basically anything else you could near imagine (short of VR interfaces, though that’s being worked on as well by others). It’s configurability is unparalleled by any other DE.

I have used dozens of Linux distributions and there are no Mac-like defaults at least in the most popular ones. That’s said most up-to-date distributions either share their own dark theme as default or provide Breeze theme. As it was said already KDE/Plasma is highly configurable and you can change everything you want. There are full themes ready to install for Windows and Mac look, so it’s not really that hard to setup it. I guess the biggest thing here may be only keyboard shortcuts which of course you can customize as well.

I wonder which Linux distro/set-up is most Mac-like? If you have any links or vids I’d definitely be interested in taking a look