Linux comes in many flavors but regardless of which distribution or desktop environment you use, there are always new themes you can search for and install. To me, XFCE is by fast the best desktop environment and I have plans on switching any time soon.
There are 100’s of themes out there but I am not interested in quantity. Instead, I look for quality. It is unbelievable how much work goes into a well-made theme. There are countless tasks that have to be perfect in order to make a great theme. Therefore, when I come across such a theme, I grab it and live happily ever after.
OS Catalina Gtk night
I think that this stunningly beautiful theme was made by Adolfo Silerio who goes by the nick zayronXIO on www.gnome-look.org
Correct me if I’m wrong so that I can fix the credit.
Here is the link to the theme: https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1319454/
To download it, open the above link and wait a bit. The gnome-look.org website is slow. Once the page has loaded, read some information they provide and if you like what you see, then click the download button which is located at the right upper corner of the browser window.
From the drop-down, select the first option which is a 0.88 Meg download.
Once downloaded, go to your home > Downloads directory, and right-click on the zip file. From the pop-up, select “extract here”. A new folder will be created with the name “Os-Catalina-Gtk-night“. Right-click that folder and select “Copy”.
Follow the next steps very closely
You just opened your Downloads directory inside Thunar the XFCE file browser. Go to the file menu, click it and select the New Window option which will open up a second Thunar window. Now you have two file browser windows open. If you can’t see the second window, then move the one you can see. They might be right on top of each other.
In one of the browser windows, navigate to this location:
DEVICES: File System > usr > share > themes
Hint! There are many directories inside the themes directory. To find the themes one faster, move your mouse over the window (inside Thunar) and type “th”. The themes directory should now automatically be selected. If not, you need to scroll down and locate it that way.
Once you see “themes” double click it to open that directory up.
Find a blank space along the right side of the file browser window and right-click. From the pop-up window select “Open Folder as root”. Enter your password and a new smaller file browser will pop up. Place your mouse cursor on an empty spot, right click and select “Paste”
This should paste the directory which you copied earlier into the /usr/share/themes directory.
If all went well, you can go to your Settings Manager and click the Appearance icon (second on the top row). In the Style (default) tab, scroll down until you see Os-Catalina-Gtk-night and select that option. If you can’t see it, then you need to repeat the above steps. Copy the extracted directory and with the themes directory still open, right-click to paste it in there along the other themes.
Once you selected the Os-Catalina-Gtk-night theme, your desktop will take on a completely new look. Press the < All Settings button at the top of the Appearance window to return to Settings.
Window Manager
Back inside Settings, find the Window Manager icon and click it. Under Thtme (left half) find Os-Catalina-Gtk-night and select it by clicking on it once. Then focus on the right half of the window.
Here is what we want to achieve. The OS X operating system has the close, minimize and maximize buttons on the left side of the window decoration. Right now, that is not the case so let’s fix this. Find the Button layout section and drag the icons until they look exactly like this:
Be patient when dragging the icons from the right side to the left. They will disappear once your drop them but keep on dragging until you have moved the two left icons to the right and the three right icons to the left. If things go wrong, then go back to the Settings windows and open the Window Manager once again.
You will see the changes you made and get a second chance to fix the locations. Don’t give up. Repeat this process until you have them at the right place. Once you do, you will have a nice OS X look. If it doesn’t work then post below and I will try to point you to a YouTube video since there are a few that show how to make XFCE look like a Mac.
If all goes well then you are ready move on to install the icons which is much less work then the theme.