All 100 ideasDesktop and OS
#29 of 100 · Desktop and OS
Classic desktops reborn on Linux
A Linux desktop that faithfully recreates macOS, CDE, NeXTSTEP, BeOS or Windows 2000 in both look and behaviour.
Asks per year
What the askers want
- Would pay23%
- Want it local or private38%
- Object to subscriptions8%
- Want it open source or self-hosted0%
- Want AI to do it0%
Share of the 13 asks that say so, as judged by Jev.
What exists on Show HN
Tried, never finished2 Show HN launches do part of this. None does the whole job.
Instead of: KDE, GNOME, Haiku
The idea, as matched
A Linux desktop environment that faithfully recreates a classic or admired desktop (macOS, BeOS/Haiku, NeXTSTEP, CDE, Windows 2000) in both look and behaviour, not just a theme.
Jev first matched 16 requests to this idea; a second reader kept 13 of 16.
Every ask, newest first
Each line is an AI paraphrase of what the writer wanted. The link goes to their own words on Hacker News.
Reader’s note. MacOS and Windows 2000 most wanted.
- May 2025Would pay for a faithful classic Mac OS 8 or 9 theme usable on Linux Plasma or GTK. Read it: a comment in “Mac Themes Garden”
- Mar 2025Asks why Linux has no macOS clone, suggesting someone start one. Read it: a comment in “Apple's Software Quality Crisis”
- Nov 2024Wants a modernized CDE with better font rendering that keeps its serious, work-oriented feel. Read it: a comment in “MaXX Interactive Desktop -- the little brother of the great SGI Desktop on IRIX”
- Apr 2024Wants a Unix desktop equivalent of Windows Program Manager, with nestable titled groups of documents and shortcuts. Read it: a comment in “Open-Shell: A collection of utilities bringing back classic features to Windows”
- Dec 2023Wants someone to copy macOS's main features and app interfaces with more care for polish and regression testing. Read it: a comment in “RavynOS Finesse of macOS. Freedom of FreeBSD”
- Aug 2022Suggests a Linux distro preset to behave like a Mac, as Mint does for Windows. Read it: a comment in “The erosion of the Mac experience”
- Nov 2021Wants Linux distributions focused on the snappy, lightweight aesthetics of SerenityOS. Read it: a comment in “SerenityOS demo at Handmade Seattle 2021 [video]”
- Oct 2021Would pay well for a Windows 2000 style interface on a modern 64-bit kernel with a Linux shell. Read it: a comment in “Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker”
- Jun 2020Wants a faithful BeOS or Haiku style desktop running on Linux. Read it: a comment in “Haiku R1/beta2 has been released”
- Jan 2020Wants a modern NeXT-inspired Linux desktop, even monochrome, instead of Windows clones and re-skins. Read it: a comment in “NeXTSTEP on the HP 712 Part 1: Installation”
- Oct 2019Would pay for a macOS-like desktop on BSD, or a stripped-down Snow Leopard style Mac OS for $129. Read it: a comment in “Broken”
- Dec 2016Wants a modern NeXTSTEP-style desktop that is not macOS. Read it: a comment in “Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac”
- May 2014Wants a Linux desktop balancing features and stability like OS X, plus Apple selling the OS without hardware. Read it: a comment in “Poll: What OS do you use on your primary computer?”
Building this?
Read ten of the asks above first, because they say what the existing launches miss. If you ship it, post it as a Show HN so the next run of this list finds it.
Ship it like Vercel, on a server you own
This site runs on ShipTiffin. A push to GitHub deploys it, the way it would on Vercel, but the server is a Hetzner box in your own account. Postgres, sign-in, email, jobs and analytics are already on it, every project gets a hard limit, and nothing is billed by usage.
$19 a month per box, plus about $10 for the server at Hetzner. Open source, so you can also run it yourself for free.