Every change, explained

This is the full log of what was changed to make Lubuntu 26.04 (LXQt 2.3) look and behave like macOS: what each change does, where it lives, and why it was done that way. Everything here is reproduced by lubuntu/install.sh; the files it copies are under lubuntu/files/.

Paths use ~ for your home folder. In the repository, personal values are placeholders that the installer fills in: @HOME@ (your home folder) and @REALNAME@ (your name, used in “Log Out …”).

Items marked (personal preference) are the author’s own choices rather than part of the macOS look. They are included so the result matches the screenshots; change them freely.

How it was done

The whole setup was built over a few days by describing each change to an AI coding agent (Claude Code), checking the result on screen, and iterating. Nothing was edited by hand. Two rules were followed throughout:

Third-party themes come from vinceliuice’s WhiteSur and McMojave projects and are downloaded by the installer at pinned versions (not copied into this repository).

1. Themes, icons, cursors and fonts

What Setting Where
GTK apps use WhiteSur-Light (light mode, like macOS “Light” appearance). WhiteSur-Dark is also built so you can switch. gtk-theme-name = WhiteSur-Light ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini, ~/.config/gtk-4.0/settings.ini, ~/.gtkrc-2.0, gsettings org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme, color-scheme 'prefer-light'
Qt/LXQt apps use the WhiteSur Kvantum theme through LXQt’s own settings (not qt5ct, which would break LXQt 2’s Qt6 apps). style=kvantum ~/.config/lxqt/lxqt.conf, ~/.config/Kvantum/kvantum.kvconfig (theme=WhiteSur)
Kvantum fixes: opaque windows (WhiteSur makes them see-through expecting a blur the compositor doesn’t do), bigger tabs, text-only dialog buttons, blue default button. translucent_windows=false, reduce_*_opacity=0, [Tab] text.margin.*, iconless_pushbutton=true ~/.config/Kvantum/WhiteSur/WhiteSur.kvconfig and WhiteSurDark.kvconfig, WhiteSur.svg
Kvantum: Finder-style column headers: thin grey divider between column titles and titles centred vertically. SVG element header-separator; [HeaderSection] frame.top=0 frame.bottom=4 same files
Icons: WhiteSur. A small companion theme WhiteSur-macOS uses WhiteSur’s colour folder icons at 24 px (Finder’s list view) while keeping the monochrome ones at 16/22 px (Finder sidebar), like macOS. icon_theme=WhiteSur-macOS ~/.local/share/icons/WhiteSur-macOS/ (symlinks into WhiteSur), ~/.config/lxqt/lxqt.conf
Cursors: McMojave, plus McMojave-macOS, which maps every resize cursor to macOS-style double arrows. cursor_theme=McMojave-macOS ~/.local/share/icons/McMojave-macOS/, ~/.icons/default/index.theme, ~/.config/lxqt/session.conf, GTK settings, ~/.Xresources
Font: Inter (a free font close to Apple’s San Francisco, which can’t be redistributed) at 12 pt everywhere, which on a 14” 1080p screen is the same physical size as macOS’s 13 pt system font. Qt font="Inter,12,…", GTK Inter 12 lxqt.conf, GTK settings, gsettings font-name, Openbox, desktop, Launchpad

2. Windows and title bars

What Where
Openbox themes WhiteSur-Light-Openbox / WhiteSur-Dark-Openbox: made for this project. Red/yellow/green traffic-light buttons drawn as 16 px circle bitmaps with per-button colours (the ×, −, + glyph appears on hover), grey buttons on inactive windows, WhiteSur colours. ~/.themes/WhiteSur-*-Openbox/openbox-3/ (themerc + *.xbm)
Buttons on the left in macOS order, Inter 12 bold titles (title bars are 32 px). Openbox sizes buttons from the title font, so the font must be at least 12 pt for 16 px buttons. ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml: <titleLayout>CIML</titleLayout>, <font place="ActiveWindow">
Dragging the top edge of a title bar moves the window (Openbox made the top 6 px a resize strip); dragging a maximised window’s title bar un-maximises it. rc.xml <context name="Top"> / "Titlebar" mouse bindings
Pull a maximised window out by its header bar, for apps that draw their own title bar (GNOME Terminal). Openbox refuses to move maximised client-side-decorated windows. program ~/.local/share/macos-theme/drag-unmaximize (autostart)
Invisible resize zones a few pixels outside the front window’s edges, like macOS (Openbox only resizes from its 1 px border). program resize-zones (autostart)
Inactive windows look inactive in GTK header-bar apps (lighter title bar, grey traffic lights). GTK needs _NET_WM_STATE_FOCUSED, which Openbox doesn’t provide. program focus-hint (autostart)
GTK header bars: soft grey, hairline outline, no white shadow band, GNOME Terminal’s header bar pulled in to 32 px so it matches the other title bars. ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css, ~/.config/gtk-4.0/gtk.css (terminal-window headerbar { margin: -11px … })
Rounded corners (10 px windows, 6 px menus) and subtle open/close animations. ~/.config/picom.conf (a copy is kept as ~/.local/share/macos-theme/picom-animations.conf; undo: undo-animations)

3. The menu bar (top bar)

The top bar is two panels side by side: a global menu on the left and LXQt’s panel on the right.

What Where
Global menu (app name + File / Edit / View…, like macOS) with the Apple menu (About This Computer, System Settings…, App Store…, Force Quit…, Sleep, Restart…, Shut Down…, Lock Screen, Log Out name…). Built with vala-panel + vala-panel-appmenu; apps that export menus (Chrome, GTK apps) show them. profile ~/.config/vala-panel/macos-menu, Apple menu ~/.local/share/macos-theme/apple-menu.ui, private style ~/.local/share/macos-theme/vala-panel-config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css, autostart macos-global-menu.desktop
Menu titles at 16 px = 12 pt (vala-panel’s font size is in pixels), ~24 px apart like macOS’s 20 pt gaps, app name in bold. font='Inter 16' in the profile; menubar > menuitem { padding: 0 11px }
Right side: 30 px light bar (#f2f2f2), 18 px icons, dark monochrome tray icons (Papirus-Light, only for the panel), regular-weight clock. ~/.config/lxqt/panel.conf (panelSize=30, iconSize=18, background-color, [General] iconTheme=Papirus-Light)
No hover tooltips on menu-bar icons (macOS doesn’t show them). ~/.local/share/lxqt/themes/kvantum-macos/lxqt-panel.qss (QToolTip { opacity: 0 })
Apps that only draw colour icons (Lubuntu Update, clipboard manager) sit behind the ”+” button; apps replaced by our own menus are hidden. panel.conf [statusnotifier] autoHideList=…, hideList=nm-tray, blueman, lxqt-powermanagement, lxqt-notificationd
The LXQt panel theme kvantum-macos is a copy of LXQt’s kvantum theme with a light, readable style. ~/.local/share/lxqt/themes/kvantum-macos/
Spotlight magnifier and clock (see sections 5 and 7). panel.conf [spotlight], [nclock]

4. Drop-down menus: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Sound, Battery, Notifications

On macOS, clicking a menu-bar icon opens a small rounded panel instead of an app. One small GTK program draws all five: status-menu.py. Each icon in the top bar is an LXQt “custom command” widget whose icon comes from status-icon <kind> (refreshed every few seconds) and whose click runs status-menu <kind>.

Menu What it shows Uses
Wi-Fi On/off switch, current network (blue), known and other networks with signal and lock icons, “Wi-Fi Settings…”. Rescans when opened. nmcli. A new secured network is joined through NetworkManager, which asks for the password through the existing password agent (nm-tray), so no password passes through this program.
Bluetooth On/off switch, paired devices (click to connect/disconnect), “Bluetooth Settings…”. bluetoothctl, Blueman
Sound Horizontal volume slider, output devices, “Sound Settings…”. Scrolling on the icon changes the volume. wpctl (PipeWire), pavucontrol-qt
Battery Percentage, power source, “Fully Charged” / time remaining, apps using lots of CPU, “Battery Settings…”. upower, ps, LXQt power settings
Notifications (bell) Notification cards (app, time, title, text, ×), “Clear All”, unread dot on the bell. history recorded by notification-log.py (see below)

Widgets in panel.conf: [bellstatus] [batstatus] [btstatus] [wifistatus] [soundstatus] (type=customcommand, outputFormat=1 = icon from theme name). Undo: ~/.local/share/macos-theme/undo-status-menus.

Notification history. LXQt keeps no history other programs can read, so notification-log.py (autostart) watches notifications on the session D-Bus read-only and keeps the last 50 in ~/.local/share/macos-theme/notifications.json (readable only by you). It never sends or changes anything.

5. Notification Center (click the clock)

Clicking the date/time opens a Notification Center that slides in from the right with a Calendar widget (weekday in red, big date, month grid with today circled) and a World Clock widget (four analog clocks, dark faces at night, “Today/Tomorrow” and hour offsets including half-hour zones). Clicking the clock again, clicking elsewhere or pressing Esc closes it.

6. The Dock

7. Launchpad and Spotlight

Both are rofi with custom themes.

  Opens with Look Files
Launchpad F4, rocket in the Dock Full-screen grid of large app icons over a blurred, darkened wallpaper, search field at the top, one click opens ~/.local/share/macos-theme/launchpad + launchpad.rasi + launchpad-bg.jpg
Spotlight Super+Space, magnifier in the menu bar Rounded light search bar in the upper middle, results with icons and blue highlight spotlight + spotlight.rasi (dark variant spotlight-dark.rasi)

Shortcuts are in ~/.config/lxqt/globalkeyshortcuts.conf. The key name must be space (X keysym), not Space.

8. Finder

PCManFM-Qt, renamed Finder (launcher ~/.local/share/applications/pcmanfm-qt.desktop, WhiteSur’s Finder icon).

What Setting (~/.config/pcmanfm-qt/lxqt/settings.conf)
Sidebar: Places list instead of a folder tree; Computer and Trash hidden (Trash lives in the Dock); Favorites-style bookmarks for Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music, Videos SidePaneMode=places, HiddenPlaces=computer:///, trash:///, bookmarks in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/bookmarks
No in-window menu bar (a ☰ button instead) ShowMenuBar=false
List view by default, columns Name, Type, Size, Modified (Created/Owner/Group hidden), resizable columns Mode=detailed, HiddenColumns=4, 6, 7, CustomColumnWidths=… (setting widths turns off auto-resize, so the dividers can be dragged)
Sort by Modified, window maximised, column widths SortColumn=mtime, LastWindowMaximized=true, CustomColumnWidths=353, 130, 119, 180, … (personal preference)
Column titles indented from the divider like Finder two leading spaces in the translation file (below)
macOS wording in dialogs (“Are you sure you want to move the selected items to the Trash?”, “Making aliases for:”, …) and the column titles custom translation /usr/share/libfm-qt6/translations/libfm-qt_en_US.qm, source libfm-qt_en_US.ts (compiled with lrelease)

Not possible (tested): hiding the sidebar’s “Lists” drop-down or colouring the sidebar. Any Qt stylesheet makes the desktop process (which also runs Finder) crash, even an empty one.

9. Terminal

GNOME Terminal (chosen over QTerminal because it has a visible “+” new-tab button in the title bar).

10. Apps renamed like macOS

User copies in ~/.local/share/applications/ (the system files are untouched), each with StartupWMClass= so the Dock groups windows correctly:

Linux app Shown as
PCManFM-Qt Finder
GNOME Terminal / QTerminal Terminal
LXImage-Qt Preview
FeatherPad TextEdit
Cheese (snap) Photo Booth (optional, the installer adds it if Cheese is installed)

11. Notifications, dialogs and the password prompt

12. Wallpapers and screensaver

13. Login screen and lock screen

14. Personal preferences

Included on purpose so the result matches the author’s machine. Change them if you like:

Programs written for this project

All in ~/.local/share/macos-theme/. Small, commented, no extra dependencies beyond Python 3 and GTK 3.

Program What it does
notification-center.py (+ notification-center, notification-center-clock) Notification Center with Calendar and World Clock widgets, opened from the clock
status-menu.py (+ status-menu, status-icon) The Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Sound, Battery and Notifications drop-down menus and their menu-bar icons
notification-log.py Records notifications for the bell’s list (read-only D-Bus monitor)
macos-lock Lock screen via the macOS login screen, with safe fallback
launchpad, spotlight Open/close the rofi Launchpad and Spotlight
drag-unmaximize Drag a maximised header-bar window out
resize-zones Invisible resize margins around the front window
focus-hint Makes GTK header bars show inactive windows
undo-status-menus, undo-macos-lock, undo-animations Remove individual features and put the originals back

System files (outside your home folder)

The installer changes only these (with sudo), and restore.sh removes them again:

File Why
/usr/share/sddm/themes/macos/ the login screen theme
/etc/sddm.conf.d/zz-macos-theme.conf makes SDDM use it
/usr/share/sddm/themes/lubuntu/theme.conf.user same wallpaper on the stock Lubuntu login theme (fallback)
/usr/share/backgrounds/macos-look-wallpaper.jpg login wallpaper (SDDM can’t read your home folder)
/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup (3 lines) blocks Ctrl+Alt+F-keys on the login screen so it can be the lock screen
/usr/share/libfm-qt6/translations/libfm-qt_en_US.qm Finder’s macOS wording and column titles

Quirks worth knowing

Things that took a while to find out, in case you build on this:

Undo