It seems unlikely that Apple will enter the netbook market, though Mac OS netbook rumors continue to circulate. Apple COO Tim Cook dissed the hot product category and suggested those wanting a Mac netbook should just buy an iPhone or iPod Touch instead.

But guess what? Some people aren't waiting for Apple to make a move. They're defying Apple and installing Mac OS X on netbooks from Dell and other manufacturers. (Though Apple computer owners can legitimately install Windows on their Macs, the Mac OS X is only licensed to run on Apple computers.)

Users who want the Mac OS X experience on a netbook budget have figured out how to hack the Mac OS X operating system to force it to work on netbooks based on the Intel Atom processor.

How I Got an Ultra-Portable 2.5lbs Mac OS X Netbook with a 10″ LCD for $204. Sep 8, 2009 - 11 Comments. So you want a small lightweight portable Mac OS X machine, the closest thing Apple has in this area is the MacBook Air which is $1600 or more. No doubt about it, the MacBook Air is a great machine but I don’t want to spend anywhere near. May 17, 2017 Hello, I have recently goring a few Levono S10-3 Netbooks they come with a Atom 450 CPU at 1.6Ghz (Single Core) and 2 GB of ram. They look almost new, but come with Windows XP licensees. So I have been looking into lightweight linux OS to run instead. I have tried Mint 18.1 Mate 32 Bit. Explore the world of Mac. Check out MacBook Pro, iMac Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, and more. Visit the Apple site to learn, buy, and get support.

Hackintosh Recipes on the Web

Over the past few months, the so-called hackintosh netbook has become a hot topic. Boing Boing published a chart last December, showing which netbooks were likely to be the most compatible with Mac OS X Leopard, including the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (the most compatible of the netbooks listed), the MSI Wind U100, the Lenovo IdeaPad S10, and the HP Mini 1000.

In February, Gizmodo published a step-by-step guide to installing Mac OS X Leopard on a Dell Mini 9. And PC World sibling publication InfoWorld recently added some spice to Gizmodo's recipe by explaining how to turn a Mini 9 into a Mac 'cloudbook,' which accesses files from the Internet, rather than from internal storage.

Admittedly, a Mac OS netbook that weighs 2.28 pounds (which is the Mini 9's weight) and that's ultra compact (the Mini 9 measures 1.07 by 9.13 by 6.77 inches) is hugely compelling. And both the Gizmodo and InfoWorld writers raved about how nicely Mac OS X plays with the Mini 9. Wrote William Hurley in InfoWorld, after converting a Mini 9 into a Mac netbook: 'I had a sweet little machine that I'm happier with than any computer I've ever owned.'

But before you go down that path, allow me to feed you a little food for thought.

No-Guarantees Hack Could Cost You Big

1. The hack is complicated and may not work. If you read through Gizmodo's steps, you'll see that despite the careful instructions, the process isn't going to be a picnic in Paris.

For instance, here's step four: 'At this point, the OS X installer will either load or it won't.' If it doesn't, Gizmodo offers a detailed backup plan--which adds seven additional steps to the process. Bottom line: If step number four is a no-go, you've got a total of 18 steps to slog through to make your Mac netbook. A few more steps and you'd be a contestant on Dancing With the Stars.

2. You're breaking all sorts of rules. As InfoWorld's Hurley put it: 'Everything I've done to create my cloudbook violates the Mac OS X EULA (end user license agreement), trashes your Dell warranty, and in general will probably lead to other trouble.' Enough said.

3. It ain't cheap. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that points one and two haven't scared you off. You want to do this thing, and conscientious person that you are, you're not going to do it with pirated software. Fine--so let's do the math, just for kicks.

A Dell Mini 9 with the required specs (including a 16GB solid-state drive) for converting into a hackintosh netbook will set you back at least US$279. That's if you purchase a refurbished Windows XP netbook from Dell's online outlet. (At the time I checked outlet prices, there were no Linux units with a 16GB or higher SSD available. Dell's inventory changes practically by the minute, so check it often if you're looking for a good deal.) By comparison, the price of a new Mini 9 with a 16GB SSD and Windows XP preinstalled was recently $349.

I found full retail versions of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard for sale on eBay and through Amazon.com sellers for about $80 and up. Purchased elsewhere, the Mac OS X goes for $100 or more.

You'll most likely need an external DVD drive, from which to install the Mac OS. (Like other netbooks, the Mini 9 lacks an optical drive.) I found external drives online for about $50 and up. If Gizmodo's step number four doesn't work for you, you'll also need an 8GB or larger USB thumb drive, to serve as your boot drive. That will set you back another $15 at least.

Finally, to get the full Mac experience, you'll want a copy of Apple's iLife 09 package, which includes iMovie, iPhoto, GarageBand, and other cool creativity apps. I've seen new, sealed copies on eBay for as little as $50. (Apple sells it for $79.)

Your total? At least $474.

The Wrap Up

The allure of converting a sweet little Dell Mini 9 into a micro MacBook is undeniably huge. But if you went with the least expensive options I've outlined, you'd have spent almost $500 on your Mac netbook, without any guarantees it will work properly. In this economy--in any economy--that doesn't seem like money well spent.

Besides, I wouldn't be shocked to see Apple launch some version of a netbook--one that's infinitely cooler than its competitors--sometime this year. In fact, I'll leave you with this tantalizing report about a possible tablet-style iPod for Verizon.

Mobile Computing News, Reviews, & Tips

Turn Your XP Netbook Into an E-Book Reader: If the Mac hack seems too scary and costly, you can turn your netbook into an e-book reader--for free. You can even get free reading materials: Go to Project Gutenberg to download classics as unprotected PDF, HTML, and plain text files, for reading on your netbook. Many netbooks allow you to switch the screen's orientation from horizontal to vertical, which provides an easier reading experience. Get the complete story in '57 Amazing Things You Didn't Know Your Tech Could Do!'

Samsung N110's Crazy-Long Battery Life: The new Samsung N110 netbook ran for 8 hours, 23 minutes in our tests, with its own lightweight battery. That's pretty cool, considering that you often need a heavy battery to squeeze that much juice out of a netbook. The N110 ($470) lands at number two on our Top 10 Netbooks chart, just below the Asus Eee PC 1000HE ($400), which lasted 7 hours, 9 minutes in our tests.

New Lost-Cost Business Notebooks from HP: Hewlett-Packard's new ProBook S-series combines business productivity with consumer features such as high-def graphics and Blu-ray Disc drives. HP is offering two OS flavors: Windows Vista with available XP downgrade or a version of Linux from Novell. The ProBooks start at $529.

Suggestion Box

Is there a particularly cool mobile computing product or service I've missed? Got a spare story idea in your back pocket? Tell me about it. However, I regret that I'm unable to respond to tech-support questions, due to the volume of e-mail I receive.

Contributing Editor James A. Martin offers tools, tips, and product recommendations to help you make the most of computing on the go. You can follow him on Twitter. Sign up to have Mobile Computing e-mailed to you each week.

Mac Os For Netbooks Windows 10

Do you want to make Ubuntu look like Mac OS X? If so, we’re going to show you how to do it, step-by-step.

The whole point of using Linux is that you can do things like this

It doesn’t matter whether you have a bad case of Apple envy, or you simply appreciate the design aesthetic of Apple’s OS; there’s nothing wrong with aping the appearance of a rival operating system.

After all, the whole point of using Linux is that you are free to do things like this — and hey: you certainly can’t make macOS look like Ubuntu!

How To Make Ubuntu Look like a Mac

A stack of mac GTK themes, icon sets, fonts and cursors are available for Linux, just a quick Google away.

The ones included below are the ones we use/think give you the best Mac-like look on your Linux box, But don’t be afraid to explore DeviantArt, GitHub and other avenues if our choices don’t quite match with your tastes.

1. Pick the Right Desktop Environment

GNOME Shell

To achieve the most Mac-like look on Linux you need to use the most appropriate desktop environment and that is GNOME Shell.

This is not a slight against other desktop environments (DEs) as Unity, Budgie, MATE and Cinnamon can all be moulded to resemble Cupertino’s computing OS too.

But GNOME Shell is the most customisable desktop environment. This is a key ask in a task like this. GNOME Shell lets you theme and re-arrange everything you need to with the least amount hackery or fuss.

If you’re using Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or later you already have everything you need to get started, so skip ahead.

But if you don’t have GNOME Shell installed on Ubuntu you will need to install it first.

This is easy. Just click the button below and follow in the on-screen prompts (select ‘lightdm’ as the display manager when asked):

You’re also going to need to the GNOME Tweaks tool in a few steps time, so install that now too:

Once both installations are complete you need to logout and select the ‘GNOME Shell’ session from the Unity Greeter:

A word on using Unity

One thing GNOME Shell can’t offer, that the Unity desktop can, is global menu support.

Now, I don’t consider this to be a negative as more and more applications use use Client Side Decorations, making the need for a global menu redundant.

But if having an omnipresent set of app menus stripped across the top of the screen is part of the Mac experience you don’t wish to lose, stick with Unity.

2. Install a Mac GTK Theme

The single easiest way to make Ubuntu look like a Mac is to install a Mac GTK theme.

Mac Os For Netbook

Our top recommendation is the ‘macOS Mojave’ theme by Vinceluice. This is a near-enough pixel-perfect clone of Apple’s OS skin, and is available in light and dark versions. It’s one of the best designed Mac GTK themes out there (it also has a matching GNOME Shell theme).

The ‘macOS Mojave’ theme requires GNOME 3.20 or later, so you’ll need to be running Ubuntu 16.10 or later to use it.

If you’re running the older Ubuntu 16.04 LTS release you can use the competent ‘macOS Sierra’ clone created by the B00merang project:

Tip: How To Install GTK Themes

Once you download your chosen macOS theme from the link(s) above, you will need to install it.

To install themes in Ubuntu first extract the contents of the archive you downloaded, then move the folder inside to the ~/.themes folder in your Home directory.

If you do not see this folder press Ctrl + H to reveal hidden folders. Next, find the .themes folder or create it if it doesn’t exist. Move the extract folder mentioned above to this folder.

Finally, to change theme, open GNOME Tweak Tool > Appearance and select your chosen theme (and the GNOME Shell theme, if you also downloaded one).

3. Install a Mac Icon Set

Next grab some a Mac Icon set for Linux. A quick Google will throw up a bunch of results. Most, sadly, aren’t complete enough to function as a full icon set, so you’ll also want to use (and in some cases manually specify) a fall back icon theme like Faba, or Papirus.

To avoid all of that hassle you may wish to use the fabulous ‘La Capitaine‘ icon pack.

Mac Os For Netbooks Laptop

What’s great about La Capitaine is that it’s a proper Linux icon set, with custom macOS inspired icons for many Linux apps and not just a direct port of mac icons to Linux. It’s also totally open-source, and is available to download from Github.

How to Install Icon Themes

Once you’ve downloaded your chosen theme from the link(s) above you need to install it. To do this first extract the contents of the archive you download, then move the folder inside to the ~/.icons folder in your Home directory.

If you don’t see this folder press Ctrl + H to view hidden folders. Next, find the .icons folder or create it if it doesn’t exist. Move the extract folder mentioned above to this folder.

Finally, to apply, open GNOME Tweak Tool > Appearance and select your chosen theme.

4. Change the System Font

If you’ve used Mac OS X / macOS at some point in the past few years you’ll know it has clean, crisp system typography.

‘Lucida Grande’ is the familiar Mac system font, though Apple uses a system font called ‘San Franciso’ in recent releases of macOS.

A quick Google should turn up plenty more information (and links to download San Francisco font) but be aware that neither font is not licensed for distribution — so we can’t link you to it, sorry!

Thankfully there’s an open-source alternative to ‘Lucida Grande’ called Garuda. It’s even pre-installed out of the box on Ubuntu, so you don’t need to go on a font safari to find it.

Head to GNOME Tweak Tool > Fonts and set the ‘Windows Titles’ and ‘Interface’ fonts to Garuda Regular (or any other font you wish).

If you use Unity you can use Unity Tweak Tool to change the font on Ubuntu.

5. Add a Desktop Dock

Ask people what a Mac desktop looks like and chances are they will mention its ubiqutious desktop dock. This is a combined application launcher and window switcher.

If you opted to use GNOME Shell back in Step 1 install the excellent Dash to Dock extension from the GNOME extensions site. This dock can be adjusted, tweaked and tune to look exactly like its macOS counterpart.

Dash to Dock doesn’t look very mac-ish by default so you will want to dive in to the GNOME Tweak Tool > Extensions > Dash to Dock > Appearance to change the colour to white, and lower the opacity.

Plank Dock

Mac Os For Netbooks Windows 7

If you chose to stick with the Unity desktop you can set the Unity Launcher to hide (System Settings > Desktop > Behaviour) and install Plank, a desktop dock, to handle app launching and window switching:

Plank can be configured with all sorts of themes too, making it easy to replicate the Mac OS X experience. Gnosemite is a faithful mac Plank theme worth a look.

Mac Os For Pc

That’s it; we’ve achieved our aim to make Ubuntu look like a Mac — now it’s your turn.

Mac Os For Netbooks Desktop

We’d love to see a screenshot of your mac-inspired creation so do feel free to share one in the comments.