Right after Apple released the fresh new look of macOS 11 Big Sur, people couldn’t help but draw comparisons between DeepinOS 20 and macOS 11. Well, I’m not gonna dive into the “who copied who?” debate and just gonna enjoy the best of both worlds.
DeepinOS V20 is still in beta and there’s no theme or desktop environment available to download on Ubuntu as of yet. Hence, we have to be content with the older themes but with a little workaround I found out ways to get the almost same macOS 11 Big Sur look on Ubuntu 20.04. Here’s how you do it.
How to Make Ubuntu 20.04 Look Like macOS 11 Big Sur
1. Install UbuntuDDE Desktop
In case you don’t know, UbuntuDDE is a Ubuntu-based distro using the Deepin desktop environment.
Now, before we get to the process, installing a desktop environment is much different than installing a third-party theme. The desktop environment provides you a different login screen, shell, settings, and default applications. Most importantly, you select the desktop environment on the login screen. We’ll get to that bit but now, let’s see how to install the UbuntuDDE desktop environment.
Open the terminal by hitting Ctrl+Alt+T and run the following commands.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntudde-dev/stable sudo apt update sudo apt install ubuntudde-dde
During the installation, you would be asked to select the display manager. In case you don’t know, a display manager is something that is displayed at the end of the boot process i.e. graphical login screen. By default, Ubuntu uses gdm3 as the graphical manager. Hence, select gdm3 instead of lightdm as this would avoid unnecessary dependencies and other configuration issues.
Once you are done with the installation, logout from your current session. To do that, click on the top-right corner of the shell and select “Log Out” from the dropdown menu.
Next, on the login screen, click on the gear icon at the bottom and select “Deepin” to switch to the Deepin desktop environment.
2. Rounded Corners
Once you log in, you will see the Deepin desktop environment.
The desktop has a macOS looking dock at the bottom but the windows are nowhere close to the macOS 11 ones. The Deepin file manager, System monitor will have rounded corners like macOS 11. But the rest of the applications won’t. In order to force all applications to rounded corners, we need to install the deepin-gtk-theme. To do that, run the following command.
sudo apt install deepin-gtk-theme
Now, you will see applications somewhat like the following.
3. macOS 11 Wallpapers
The final step is to get the macOS 11 wallpapers. Currently, the dynamic wallpapers unlike macOS Mojave aren’t on the Internet yet. But, the ones displayed at the WWDC launch event are up for grabs. You can download them from this 9To5Mac article. My favorite one is the default Big Sur wallpaper and here’s how the desktop now looks like.
The Deepin desktop environment has a great lock screen as compared to Ubuntu and presents some really handy controls. The blur is just about enough to give a seamless gradient effect to the wallpaper.
Closing Words
Compared to UbuntuDDE, Deepin V20 has a closer look to macOS 11. However, it’s still in beta and themes are not available to download. I’ll revisit it soon once it hits stable build. Until then, let me know your home screen setups in the comments below.
Also Read: 10+ Best Themes For Ubuntu 20.04 in 2020
