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Look at Etoile. http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/mediawiki/index.php?title=Main_Page That's the gui. Now you just need to extras that make Mac OS X good (prior to leopard). If you really want free OS X, work on these projects. I actually started MidnightBSD to do this, but we've had some concerns about Etoile and GNUstep progress as well as our own issues. Right now I'm planning on shipping GNUstep + whatever I can get working with the OS in the next release.

There are several efforts to make GNUstep look nicer (the current one is called Chameleon), but they're all hacked together. The devs are hoping to have the core GUI library cleanly support themeing within the next few months.

You might also want to check out Etoile (or their incomplete new site), a rather nice desktop environment being built around GNUstep.

Mac OS X. If you want more free than that, GNUstep/Etoile

Just focus on the GUI.

I love that linux can be tweaked by users, but many beginners don't know where to start. Please focus on creating a new, cleaner and simpler desktop environment. Also, please encourage the use of more user friendly download packages and installers. I guess what I really want is an OS that looks and behaves in a similar way to Mac OS X, but still has the open source advantages of linux. All linux distros I have used in the past use mainly KDE or Gnome desktop environments, while some of the features of these environments are pretty good, they generally feel and look a bit like a tweaked version of Windows 95. It would be really nice to see a linux rival of OS X, with a much more simple interface and lots of eye candy. I think there is one in the works but it doesn't look to be shaping up too well. http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/mediawiki/ind ex.php?title=Main_Page

Here's Mac OS X 10.4

And here's a screenshot from Étoilé

The volume icon on the titlebar is the same, the rounded corners are the same and even the shading from white to gray of the titlebar is the same.

I'm not saying using a titlebar like that is bad thing, I'm just saying if you're going to use the idea at least come up with one that is unique looking.

Argh, formatted the link wrong, so here it goes:
http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/mediawiki/ind ex.php?title=EtoileWiki:About

Etoile may be in its relative infancy, but I believe it has great strategic potential for the FOSS movement. Etoile / GNUStep is building some great infrastructure, uniting the Mac and FOSS communities, and is building on some very interesting ideas.

If you haven't already done so, I urge you to check out David's Core Object posting. There is some exciting stuff there. Smalltalkers will find it particularly interesting.

Props to the Etoile team! This is even more reason for me to grow my Objective C / Cocoa / GNUStep skills.

-Peter

Interestingly, the Etoile developers seem to want to avoid the GPL and prefer the BSD License (as seen on their about page here: http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/mediawiki/ind ex.php?title=EtoileWiki:About/), which I find a bit odd...

You know, NeXTStep isn't exactly dead. OS X is basically OPENSTEP with a new graphics subsystem, IOKit instead of the old Objective-C driver framework, and some MacOS 9 legacy compatibility stuff, plus a bunch of new frameworks. If you want something a bit closer to the old NeXT vision, come and join us over at Étoilé

There are a few of us in the Étoilé project. We plan on adding Improv-style tools to the environment in the next year or so. If you really can't wait, there's always Quantrix...

• Closing their UK mail-in repair centre. Now, if I want my machine repaired, instead of just having it collected and returned a few days later, I have to get a train to Cardiff, to the one Apple authorised third party repair centre in Wales, and leave the machine with them for a week (incidentally, Apple are violating their own AppleCare agreement by doing this, since it claims they offer Apple-paid mail-in repair). Their repair service isn't much better in the USA. I have a co-located Mac Mini running OpenBSD (much cheaper than a full 1U). When the hard drive died, just under a year after I bought it, Apple claimed that since they didn't have the serial number on file, the machine didn't exist (WTF?) and they wouldn't repair it. The co-lo company replaced the drive out of their own pockets, and earned my continued custom for at least another year.
• The Intel switch introduced a few spectacularly irritating bugs into Cocoa that I've had to work around. At least with GNUstep, I can fix the bugs I find...
• They keep taking backwards steps in usability. iTunes 7, for example, now does not simply use album names to identify tracks in the same album, so getting shuffle-by-album to work requires jumping through hoops to replace the (iTunes-provided) metadata. This worked correctly in iTunes 6 and under, but when I filed a bug it was marked 'works as expected.'
• Their hardware quality has not been great for a while. My PowerBook got through six main logic boards in the three years it was my primary machine. My MacBook Pro hasn't died catastrophically yet, but the power button wasn't properly seated, and it seems to have issues resuming from suspend (incorrect display detection breaks Exposé until I change the screen resolution, for example). The heat is an issue; the RAM is right on the bottom, so unless the bottom of the case is well ventilated you start getting RAM errors which can cause kernel panics.

• app icon (perhaps could be integrated with/translated to the f.d.o. systray standard)
  
• the work it takes to set up GNUstep just to launch an app (e.g., setting up paths -- thankfully handled transparently in my Gentoo setup)
  
• incompatibility between GNUstep services and dbus, etc. etc.
  
• non-standard build system (still easy enough to making into ebuilds/RPMs/etc.) and monolithic libraries

• app icon (perhaps could be integrated with/translated to the f.d.o. systray standard)
  
• the work it takes to set up GNUstep just to launch an app (e.g., setting up paths -- thankfully handled transparently in my Gentoo setup)
  
• incompatibility between GNUstep services and dbus, etc. etc.
  
• non-standard build system (still easy enough to making into ebuilds/RPMs/etc.) and monolithic libraries

The problem is that GNUStep isn't really a desktop environment per se, but rather a development environment that some enterprising people could turn into a desktop environment.

Check out Etoile's news page for a little bit of eye candy and an idea of how they are using GNUStep to begin building a real desktop environment in the same vein as OS X.

-Peter

The problem is that GNUStep isn't really a desktop environment per se, but rather a development environment that some enterprising people could turn into a desktop environment.

Check out Etoile's news page for a little bit of eye candy and an idea of how they are using GNUStep to begin building a real desktop environment in the same vein as OS X.

-Peter