In 2016, after being a Mac guy for 23 years, I took the plunge and made a full-time switch to Linux. I did my research, and over and over again encountered the idea that GNOME was good for MacOS refugees like myself. So I gave it a try!But my experience didn’t support the meme. I think a lot of people make this assertion without really having a deep understanding of the MacOS user experience, or the actual positive qualities of the software, because I don’t think GNOME offers a particularly Mac-like experience at all.Don’t get me wrong, I think GNOME shell is pretty good, and largely succeeds at doing what it sets out to do. But that thing does not appear to be “offer an experience that’s a lot like MacOS.”I still see this mentioned on forums and YouTube videos today. I don’t think it’s helpful, and today I want to provide a bit of context from my perspective.So let’s compare MacOS and GNOME! Right away we see some obvious differences:MacOS image from https://betawiki.net/wiki/File:25A354-Desktop.png; GNOME 49 image screenshotted by meDockOne of the the two major anchoring user interface (UI) elements on MacOS is the dock. It’s an app launcher and switcher, an unread count notifier, a place for minimized windows to go, a quick shortcut to the trash, downloads folder, and any other files or folders you put on it.GNOME doesn’t have this. Its anchoring UI element is the Activities Overview screen, which contains a small program launcher, but the whole thing is hidden by default, meaning it can’t be easily used for monitoring unread counts or switching between apps. It’s also not customizable at all, while the MacOS dock is extensively customizable. It’s just a very different experience.Global menubar and app functionalityThe other major anchoring UI element is the global menu. Every Mac app exports a global menu structure, including the desktop itself. This allows Mac apps to be visually simple, because all the powerful features are hidden away in the menu structure.GNOME has a top bar, but there’s no global menu on it. And while GNOME apps do generally have a level of visual simplicity that’s similar to Mac apps, they’re usually more limited in functionality, and they don’t export menu structures full of extra features.Desktop iconsOn MacOS, you can put files and folders on the desktop, and use it for managing frequently or recently used files. Internal and removable drives appear there, too.GNOME doesn’t have this. The desktop is just a picture; you can’t use it for anything functional.Window minimize/maximize buttonsOn MacOS, if you need to get a window out of your way, you minimize it, just like you do on Windows, Plasma, etc. It flies into the dock and it’s clear how you get it back. You can also maximize a window from another button on the titlebar, and it goes into another.GNOME apps have neither of these buttons. As a result, it’s not clear how to get a window out of the way or make it bigger without a lot of manual work. You can add those buttons later using the separate Tweaks app, but it’s clear that the system was not designed for it.At-a-glance app status monitoringMacOS includes a classic “System Tray” style UI on the top bar holding the global menu. Here apps can put little icons that communicate their state while running but without any visible windows. The MacOS dock also displays unread counts and progress information for running apps.GNOME doesn’t have these features, either at all, or in a way that’s always visible. Instead, it relies on apps sending notifications about changes to their status.ConfigurabilityContrary to popular belief, MacOS is surprisingly rich in personalization options. You can customize the widgets on the desktop or notification center, the text size, highlight colors, sidebar icon sizes, places panel items, screensaver, scrollbar appearance and behavior, lock screen message, menubar positioning, UI alert sound, almost everything about the dock, and so on.GNOME’s approach to configuration is much more minimal, and the officially-supported options are pretty sparse. Instead, mostly the way you personalize the system is by using Extensions, which can do much more than you can in MacOS, but also offer no long-term compatibility guarantee, so there’s a chance any of the extensions will break with every new release.So where does the bridge from MacOS lead?Again, I think GNOME is pretty good… it just doesn’t offer a MacOS-like experience. What it does offer is a near-zero distraction experience. That’s the design goal, and it succeeds. But it’s not MacOS’s design goal.So if not GNOME, where’s the more MacOS-like experience for refugees? Honestly, KDE Plasma is what I would recommend. It’s where this MacOS refugee ended up, at least. Let’s compare again, but this time with KDE Plasma:MacOS image from https://betawiki.net/wiki/File:25A354-Desktop.png; Plasma 6.4 image screenshotted by meLike MacOS, Plasma has a dock-style panel. Despite a few visual differences, it handles the same things: launching apps, switching between apps, seeing apps’ unread counts, and holding minimized windows. This panel also contains the System Tray UI. It’s here rather than on a top panel, but it’s a small difference.Though neither screenshot shows files on the desktop, both support it. Similarly, both support desktop widgets for building highly personalized workflows.You can also minimize and maximize windows in Plasma just like you can on MacOS.And finally, you can personalize a Plasma system in a wide variety of ways — as much or more than you can can on MacOS, in most cases — and all in a 1st-party supported way. There are also GNOME-style extensions available for people who want even more, but these make use of a stable API that only changes about once every 10 years, so compatibility issues are much rarer.There are still differences, of course: major ones are Plasma’s Windows-start-menu-style Kickoff Application Launcher and the lack of a global menu. But Kickoff can be swapped out for something else or removed, and the Global Menu is actually a fully-supported 1st-party feature, simply being off by default. If this is a part of MacOS that you really like, turning it on is very easy:https://i.imgur.com/86B93SB.mp4Other smaller differences include disks not appearing on the desktop, and maximized windows not going into new virtual desktops on Plasma (they actually do on GNOME; that’s one point of similarity between GNOME and MacOS).But in my opinion and experience, these differences are relatively minor, and I don’t think it’s worth chasing the dream of a 100% pixel-for-pixel clone of MacOS on Linux. Rather, I think it’s best to take the most successful parts and ditch the sources of awkwardness. And in my opinion, KDE Plasma fits the bill.So if you’re leaving MacOS because you found it too distracting, then I think GNOME may be a good option. But if you’re leaving for other reasons, give Plasma a try!