Pear Linux is an operating system designed to bring a bit of the look and feel of Apple OS X to GNU Linux. The French developers behind the operating system released Pear Linux Comice OS 4 recently, and it comes in 4 versions: 32-bit, 64-bit desktop editions, and 32-bit KDE and Netbook versions.

I took the netbook edition for a quick spin, and it’s an interesting little operating system.

Pear Linux 4 netbook edition

Pear Linux is based on Ubuntu Linux, so it should be able to run most apps that are available for Ubuntu.

But the key difference is a user interface that’s been given a number of Apple-like tweaks. The desktop and netbook editions of the OS are based on the GNOME desktop environment, but the menus, graphics, and system panels all have OS X-inspired graphics.

The developers call the modified user interface the Comice Shell.

The netbook edition also features a simplified Launchpad which you can open by clicking a button in the toolbar at the top of the screen. It brings up a menu that provides large icons to take you to your apps and settings.

In addition to featuring an app launcher that’s better suited to notebooks with low resolution displays, the disc image for the operating system is a few hundred megabytes smaller than the full version of Pear Linux, coming in at 868MB.

Pear users can install software using the Synaptic Package Manager, but there’s also a Pear Appstore which has a simpler, more attractive user interface.

The version of Pear based on the KDE desktop environment is a new addition to the Pear family and it’s based on KDE 4.8.1 software.

via LinuxBSDOS

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,546 other subscribers

5 replies on “Pear Linux gives Ubuntu a Mac-like makeover, offers netbook, KDE editions”

  1. HI jm2c.I know that it is bit late but u should start using mint if u already don’t have it

    1. I’m using Lubuntu at the moment, but I’ve tried Mint as well. It was a while back so maybe I’ll try it again.

  2. The logo for this “Mac-like” OS is a pear with a bite out of it? Are we sure this isn’t an April Fools?

  3. How are the requirements?  I don’t like Ubuntu anymore, but I do like it’s ease of use so it’s always nice to see OSes based on Ubuntu.  

Comments are closed.