mintosh

Mint + Macintosh: an open-source macOS skin for Linux Mint Xfce, plus a kit for moving an old Mac to it without losing anything.

Old Macs that Apple no longer updates still make good computers. These scripts put Linux Mint Xfce on one and make it look and work like macOS, so whoever used the Mac doesn't have to relearn it:

• Apple menu, a global menu bar (the app's name and its File/Edit/View menus at the top), macOS-ordered status icons
• macOS 26/27 "Liquid Glass" look in light, dark or auto (switch with appearance dark): see-through menu bar, glass dock, glass Spotlight and notifications, real blur behind them
• Dock, Spotlight (⌘Space), Launchpad (F4) and Mission Control with Spaces (three-finger swipe up; left/right between desktops)
• ⌘C/⌘V/⌘Q/⌘W/⌘Tab and the other Mac shortcuts, Mac trackpad gestures
• Black boot screen with an Apple logo, a Sonoma-style login screen
• Battery warnings, sleep on lid close, and the fixes 2013-2015 MacBooks need to run Linux reliably

Light	Dark
Mission Control (three fingers up, F3, Ctrl+↑)
Spotlight (⌘Space)	Launchpad (F4, dock, pinch)
Apple menu	Login screen

_{Screenshots at 1366x768 (MacBook Air 11") from the OrbStack test machine, except the login screen, which is from the 2013 MacBook Air (set up with Spanish as a second language; by default everything is English) with a demo account.}

It all runs on a 4 GB, 2013 MacBook Air: the search and launcher windows only exist while open, so nothing extra sits in memory. The look comes from the excellent MacTahoe theme, the blur from picom and the shortcuts from Toshy; this repo wires them, and a lot of small fixes, together.

Just want the skin? On any Linux Mint 22 Xfce machine (Mac or not), run scripts 3, 4 and 5 from step 4 below. The hardware fixes only switch on when that hardware is present.

Status: tested end to end on one MacBookAir6,1 (2013) with Mint 22.3 Xfce, in English and Spanish. Other models and versions should mostly work but are untested - issues and pull requests welcome.

No personal data lives in this repo. Backups go in $BACKUP_DIR on the helper Mac (e.g. ~/backups/<machine>).

Steps

1. Back up the old Mac (from a helper Mac)

1. On the old Mac: System Preferences > Sharing > Remote Login on.
2. ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/.ssh/mintosh && ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/mintosh user@ip
3. BACKUP_DIR=~/backups/<machine> bash 1-backup/backup-over-ssh.sh user@ip [/Volumes/<extra partition> ...]
4. Verify: compare file counts on both sides, and spot-check checksums of random files. Expect a few hundred missing files from caches under Library/Containers - fine.
5. Note anything only the Mac has: Chrome signed in and Sync on? (else export passwords), Mail accounts, Photos libraries (also on extra partitions), printers (lpstat -p), personal files saved in odd places.

2. Convert and organise (on the helper Mac)

python3 -I 2-organize/convert.py   $BACKUP_DIR/home $BACKUP_DIR/converted   # Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Safari, Photos
python3 -I 2-organize/inventory.py $BACKUP_DIR $BACKUP_DIR/report               # sizes, kinds, duplicates, junk
# edit the SOURCE RULES in organize.py for this machine, then:
python3 -I 2-organize/organize.py  $BACKUP_DIR $BACKUP_DIR/organized --dry-run
python3 -I 2-organize/organize.py  $BACKUP_DIR $BACKUP_DIR/organized

The raw backup is never modified; organized/ is built with APFS clones (no extra space) and _log/ logs every file kept, every duplicate skipped (with the copy kept) and every junk file dropped.

3. Install Mint

• Download the Mint Xfce ISO and check its SHA-256. Write it with balenaEtcher (it verifies the write; dd from a script is blocked by macOS privacy controls). A bad stick shows up later as random "Input/output error"s in the live session - re-flash or use another stick.
• Boot holding Option, pick EFI Boot. Add model boot options if needed (see Hardware notes) by pressing e on the boot entry and appending them to the linux line.
• Partitioning (manual, "Something else"): EFI 512 MB, / ext4 ~60 GB, /home ext4 rest. A separate /home survives a reinstall. (Splitting an existing install: shrink / from the live USB with e2fsck -f, resize2fs, parted resizepart, then mkpart, mkfs.ext4, copy /home, add it to /etc/fstab by UUID.)
• Install in English with the right keyboard layout; tick third-party drivers.

4. Set up (on the new install)

sudo apt install openssh-server                                          # on the new install
BACKUP_DIR=~/backups/<machine> bash 3-linux/0-send-from-mac.sh user@ip   # from the helper Mac
cd ~/mac-setup/3-linux
sudo bash 1-system-setup.sh   # hardware fixes, Chrome, LibreOffice, fonts, printers... then reboot
bash 2-restore-files.sh       # organized/ -> Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos
bash 3-macos-look.sh          # macOS look (run inside the desktop session)
sudo bash 4-macos-system.sh   # boot + login screen, trackpad, battery saving (after script 3)
bash 5-mac-shortcuts.sh       # Mac keyboard shortcuts (Toshy); then restart

English only by default. For a second language add LANG2=es_CO to script 1 (sudo LANG2=es_CO bash 1-system-setup.sh) and KBD=es to script 3 for a second keyboard layout. Then: Timeshift (system only, daily), sign in to Chrome, import Safari bookmarks if needed, delete ~/mac-setup, remove the helper key from ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, and turn SSH off: sudo systemctl disable --now ssh.socket ssh (Mint 22 listens through ssh.socket as well).

To come back later (re-run scripts 3-5 after changes): bash tools/open-access.sh on the helper Mac prints a wget ... | bash line to run on the Mint machine (temporary key + password-free sudo + SSH on). Then bash 3-linux/0-send-from-mac.sh user@ip (no BACKUP_DIR: sends only the scripts), run them, and bash tools/close-access.sh user@ip to undo the access.

Can't reach the Mint machine from the helper Mac (it's online through phone USB tethering, a guest network, or its Wi-Fi is dead)? Turn on Remote Login on the helper Mac and run TUNNEL=1 bash tools/open-access.sh. The served script also installs a mintosh-tunnel systemd service that holds a reverse SSH tunnel to the helper Mac, survives reboots and reconnects by itself. Its key may only open localhost:2222 on the Mac: no shell, no other forwards. Add this to ~/.ssh/config and use user@mintosh wherever the steps above say user@ip:

Host mintosh
  HostName localhost
  Port 2222
  HostKeyAlias mintosh
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/mintosh
  IdentitiesOnly yes

bash tools/close-access.sh user@mintosh removes the tunnel and its key on both machines. Through an Android phone's tethering the copy ran at ~36 MB/s (the phone stays on home Wi-Fi, not mobile data).

Safety: open-access.sh serves its script over plain HTTP on your local network, and running it gives the helper Mac SSH access with password-free sudo. Use it only on a network you trust, keep the server running only until the command has been run, and always finish with close-access.sh. Read the served script before running it - the same goes for any wget | bash. Keep a second copy of organized/ + converted/ before deleting the raw backup.

What the scripts set up

• System: English only by default. Optional second language: LANG2=es_CO for script 1 (language packs, LibreOffice, spell check; switch in Settings > Languages) and KBD=es for script 3 (a second keyboard layout, Alt+Shift, shown in the top bar). Chrome as default browser, LibreOffice saving .docx/.xlsx/.pptx by default, MS core fonts + Carlito/Caladea, Inter (SF Pro stand-in), Epson/Canon drivers, automatic updates, password login (autologin off so the keyring unlocks itself).
• macOS look: MacTahoe theme, icons and cursor in light and dark, Inter font (SF Pro stand-in), window buttons on the left, centred titles, rounded corners and soft shadows, double-click to zoom, Plank dock on glass (Finder, Launchpad, apps | Downloads, Trash), rotating macOS-style wallpapers (a light set and a dark set), glass notifications top right, only files on the desktop, Thunar renamed Finder with Finder-like settings.
• Appearance: Apple menu > Appearance… (or appearance light|dark|auto, or "Appearance: Dark" in Spotlight) switches everything that has two looks: theme, icons, window borders, menu bar text and Apple logo, dock, Spotlight, Launchpad, Mission Control, notifications, wallpapers, and apps that follow the system colour scheme (Chrome, LibreOffice, GTK 4). Auto is light 7:00-19:00. APPEARANCE=dark bash 3-macos-look.sh picks it at install.
• Glass: picom replaces xfwm's compositor and blurs what is behind translucent windows (dual-Kawase on a real GPU, a lighter blur without one), with rounded window corners and macOS-like shadows.
• Menu bar: no bar of its own, as in macOS Tahoe: text and icons on the wallpaper with a faint shade. Apple menu (Xfce's Applications Menu on a custom .menu file: About This Computer, System Settings, Appearance, App Store, Force Quit, Sleep, Restart, Shut Down, Lock Screen, Log Out, with separators), then the global menu (xfce4-appmenu-plugin: active app's name in bold + its File/Edit/View menus, out of the window; works for Chrome, LibreOffice and GTK apps). Right side as on macOS: keyboard layout, tray icons, Wi-Fi, volume, battery %, "Sun 25 Oct 3:42 PM", Search, Gemini, Grok. Regular-weight text. Mint's Firefox/Terminal/Files launchers, show-desktop, window buttons and Languages button are removed.
• Spotlight (⌘Space) and Launchpad (F4, dock): rofi, not Ulauncher: it starts on demand and exits, so it uses no memory while closed (Ulauncher stays resident, ~100 MB+, too much for 4 GB). Spotlight: Sonoma-style bar, results appear once you type, apps then the user's files. Launchpad: full-screen grid on the blurred wallpaper with the same apps as Mint's menu; one click opens, a click outside closes. Both only start installed apps: Return with no match does nothing (bin/open-app) instead of running the typed text.
• Keys: Toshy gives ⌘C/⌘V/⌘Q/⌘W/⌘Tab; ⌘⇧3 / ⌘⇧4 save "Screenshot at .png" to the Desktop, no dialog. Tapping ⌘ alone does nothing.
• Boot and login: black screen with a white Apple logo and progress bar (Plymouth script theme), GRUB menu hidden (Shift/Esc shows it); a Sonoma-style login screen (lightdm-gtk-greeter): big date and time at the top, a round account picture, the name and a translucent password field at the bottom of the blurred wallpaper. The picture is one of macOS's own (AVATAR=, from /Library/User Pictures on the helper Mac), never committed.
• Mission Control and Spaces: three fingers up (or F3, Ctrl+↑) shows the Spaces bar across the top and live previews of the windows. Click a desktop to go there, + to add one, ✕ to remove the last; drag a window onto a desktop to move it; click empty space, Esc or swipe again to close. A short-lived Python/GTK program (bin/mission-control), so it uses no memory while closed. Three fingers left/right (or Ctrl+←/→) moves between desktops; one desktop to start with, as on a Mac.
• Trackpad: natural scrolling, tap to click, two-finger click = right click; thumb + three fingers pinch = Launchpad, spread = show desktop (Touchegg).
• Battery: dims on battery, lid = sleep, sleeps at 5 %, "Low Battery" warnings at 20 % and 10 % (UPower's figure, as in the menu bar; the kernel's capacity reads lower on this Mac), TLP.
• Chrome language: at each login Chrome's website languages are set from the system language (e.g. es-CO first when the system is switched to Spanish) and the Translate pop-up is off for those languages. Chrome must be closed for this.
• Gemini: Google's assistant as its own app window (Chrome --app), with a button at the far right of the menu bar where Siri was on macOS 10.12 (the real sparkle; menu bar icons are 22 px so it isn't tiny). There's no Gemini desktop app for Linux. Chrome's built-in "Gemini in Chrome" and its dictation into web text boxes ("Talk to type", Chrome 156) are rolling out by country; Linux availability is unclear, so check Chrome itself.
• Grok: xAI's assistant the same way (Chrome --app=https://grok.com/), its button right next to Gemini's (its real black rounded-square icon), so either is one click away. The Apple logo and the Gemini and Grok icons are downloaded at run time (MacTahoe source, gstatic, grok.com), not stored here.

Hardware notes (MacBookAir6,1 and 6,2, 2013-14) - most apply to 2013-2015 MacBooks

Problem	Fix (in 1-system-setup.sh, gated on the hardware)
SSD invisible to the installer; ata1: failed to IDENTIFY (Marvell 88SS9183, 1b4b:9183)	boot with intel_iommu=off; after install, sudo IOMMU_OFF=1 bash 1-system-setup.sh makes it permanent
Desktop freezes after ~1 h, hundreds of ata1: hard resetting link, I/O errors (Toshiba APPLE SSD TS0256F)	SATA link power saving off: ahci.mobile_lpm_policy=1 (automatic for APPLE SSD TS*; LPM_OFF=1 forces it)
ata1: exception ... PHYRdyChg, link slows to 3 then 1.5 Gb/s within a minute of boot (SanDisk APPLE SSD SD0256F)	the opposite: this SSD needs link power saving on - leave out ahci.mobile_lpm_policy=1 (LPM_OFF=0 removes it)
No Wi-Fi in the installer (Broadcom BCM4360)	bcmwl-kernel-source (on the Mint ISO); Driver Manager in the live session
No Wi-Fi at all: no 14e4:43a0 in lspci, 00:1c.2: retraining failed at boot, Bluetooth still works	the Wi-Fi chip on the card has died - see below
No camera (FaceTime HD, 14e4:1570)	facetimehd driver + firmware via DKMS
Runs hot	mbpfan
Top-row keys	work by default (hid_apple fnmode=3); pop-ups need enabling (script 3)

TLP undoes the SATA fix unless told not to: its defaults turn SATA link power management back on on battery. Script 4 writes /etc/tlp.d/90-apple.conf on Apple hardware: AHCI runtime PM off, Wi-Fi power saving off, and SATA_LINKPWR_ON_*=max_performance only when GRUB has ahci.mobile_lpm_policy=1, so TLP and GRUB always agree.

libata.force=noncq,1.5Gbps is not needed - with the right options for the SSD it runs at 6 Gb/s with NCQ.

A dead Wi-Fi card (Silvana's Air): under macOS it first crashed under sustained transfers (wl0: fatal error, reinitializing, then dead chip, off[0] bar0[0xffffffff]), then vanished from the PCI bus. On Linux the slot (root port 00:1c.2, ACPI \_SB.PCI0.RP03.ARPT) sees a card present (PresDet+) but the link never trains (Width x0, DLActive-). The card is the 2013-17 Air combo card (Wi-Fi on PCIe, Bluetooth on USB), so working Bluetooth means the card is seated and powered and only the Wi-Fi chip is gone. Nothing in software brings it back: link retrain, secondary bus reset, rescan, and a full firmware power cycle (acpi_call: ARPT.PDEN 1, RP03._PS3, RP03._PS0, which switches the card's supply EC.APWC off and on with five link attempts) all fail. An SMC reset doesn't help either.

Fix: replace the card - BCM94360CS2, Apple part 653-0023 (same card in every 11"/13" Air 2013-2017; not the 2012 BCM943224PCIEBT2). About A$17-25 used on eBay AU; listings "to NGFF/M.2" or "1PCS Card for BCM94360CS2" at $9-13 are adapters, not the card. Tools: P5 pentalobe (bottom case, 10 screws, two longer at the hinge) and T5 Torx (one screw on the card). Unplug the battery first; the two antenna leads pop straight up. Script 1 only installs the driver when it sees the card, so on a machine with a dead card install it before the swap: sudo apt install bcmwl-kernel-source.

Known issues (fixed)

• The global menu crashed when a Chrome window moved to another desktop ("plugin unexpectedly left the panel"). xfce4-appmenu-plugin 0.7.6, the version Ubuntu 24.04 / Mint 22 ship, reads a menu after freeing it when a menu request is cancelled (get_layout_cb in dbusmenu-importer/model.c). Script 4 rebuilds just that plugin from Ubuntu's own source with a one-function patch, 3-linux/patches/appmenu-get-layout-use-after-free.patch, and removes the build tools again. An update of the package replaces the rebuilt file.
• The glass blur disappeared after the panel restarted. picom 10.2 (the same releases' version) can abort on an internal check (!w->mask_image in win_bind_mask) when a window is recreated. It now runs under bin/glass, which starts it again within a second after a crash.

Lessons

• Run scripts that change the desktop (panel, dock) inside the session, not over SSH: an SSH-started panel or dock loses the session environment (no transparency, plank refuses to start). Logging out and in fixes it.
• pkill -f "<pattern>" inside ssh host '...<pattern>...' kills its own shell. Kill by PID or exact name.
• The WhiteSur/MacTahoe installers need TERM set (they call setterm).
• Don't restart the panel (xfce4-panel -r) more than needed: it can take nm-applet, blueman and the update icon down with it. Relaunch them from their /etc/xdg/autostart entries, or log out and in.
• Files the panel watches (custom menus) must be replaced atomically, or it shows "Could not load the applications menu" while the file is half written.
• Test changes on the real machine with screenshots: import -window root + convert -crop, crop on the target so only the part being checked leaves the machine.
• Preview the login screen without logging out: lightdm --test-mode from the desktop opens it in a Xephyr window. Put a wrapper named Xephyr that adds -screen 1366x768 first in PATH to see it at the real size.
• lightdm-gtk-greeter: style the password field as #login_window entry (its builder ids aren't all widget names), and build its theme on GTK's own Adwaita, not the macOS theme, whose entry rules win and leave the dots unreadable.
• lightdm-gtk-greeter left-aligns the user name inside its (fixed-width) box. On a one-person machine script 4 draws the name centred on the background and hides the box's text; LOGIN_NAME= overrides the drawn name.
• Two copies of appmenu-gtk-module (xsettings /Gtk/Modules plus GTK_MODULES) make Chrome segfault on start.

Testing on a Mac (OrbStack)

test/ builds a Linux Mint 22.3 Xfce machine in OrbStack (amd64 under Rosetta) and runs the skin on a virtual 1366x768 screen, with virtual Apple keyboard and trackpad devices for the shortcuts and gestures:

bash test/orb-machine.sh                                              # once: the machine + Mint's Xfce desktop
orb -m mintosh-test -u root bash test/desktop.sh                      # desktop on :0, VNC on mintosh-test.orb.local:5900
orb -m mintosh-test -u root bash -c 'cd 3-linux && bash 1-system-setup.sh'
orb -m mintosh-test -u root bash test/as-user.sh 'bash 3-linux/3-macos-look.sh'
orb -m mintosh-test -u root bash -c 'cd 3-linux && SUDO_USER=alex bash 4-macos-system.sh'
orb -m mintosh-test -u root bash test/as-user.sh 'bash 3-linux/5-mac-shortcuts.sh'
orb -m mintosh-test -u root python3 -I test/mintosh-test.py           # shortcuts, Launchpad, Mission Control, gestures

(Run these from the repo folder; OrbStack machines see the Mac's files at the same path.)

Undoing things

• Login screen: sudo rm /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/95-macos-greeter.conf (back to Mint's slick-greeter).
• Boot screen: sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth (pick mint-logo), then sudo update-initramfs -u; GRUB menu: sudo rm /etc/default/grub.d/99-macos-boot.cfg && sudo update-grub.
• Trackpad: sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-mac-touchpad.conf. Gestures: sudo apt remove touchegg.
• Mac shortcuts: python3 ~/.cache/toshy-src/setup_toshy.py uninstall.
• Top bar back to Mint's: xfce4-panel --quit; xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -p / -R -r; xfce4-panel & (log out and in).
• Battery saver: sudo apt remove tlp.

Credits

Downloaded or installed at run time, not redistributed here: MacTahoe theme, icons and cursors, and WhiteSur wallpapers (vinceliuice), picom, Toshy, rofi, Touchégg, vala-panel-appmenu, Plank, lightdm-gtk-greeter, TLP, facetimehd, mbpfan, and Linux Mint and Xfce themselves. Each keeps its own licence.

License and trademarks

The scripts and docs in this repo are MIT-licensed (see LICENSE). Apple, the Apple logo, macOS, Mac, MacBook, Finder, Spotlight, Launchpad and Mission Control are trademarks of Apple Inc.; Google, Chrome and Gemini are trademarks of Google LLC. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple or Google. The Apple logo is taken from the MacTahoe sources at run time and the macOS account picture from the helper Mac's own files; neither is stored in this repo. Use it on hardware you own.