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pearOS Is Back, Now Based on Arch Linux and Featuring the KDE Plasma Desktop (9to5linux.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/linux@programming.dev
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pearOS, a Linux distro that aims to look and behave like Apple’s macOS, is once again in active development with a new base, design, installer, and more.

French developer David Tavares initially created Pear OS back in 2011, based on Ubuntu and featuring the GNOME 3 desktop environment. The initial release, Pear OS 3, was based on Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) operating system and shipped with Linux kernel 3.0.

While Ubuntu was using the Unity interface back then, Pear OS offered a Mac OS X look-alike with a dock. In 2012, David Tavares released a Debian Edition of Pear OS, and a month after that, the developer renamed Pear OS to Comice OS, and the next version was renamed once again to Pear OS Linux a few months later that year.

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[–] 30 points 11 months ago (4 children)

The idea is cool (not for me personally, but I see the merit).

But this project has flip-flopped its name, its flip-flopped its distro, its flip-flopped its Desktop Environment. Development has stopped and started multiple times.

I don't think this distro or this project is something that can be relied upon.

Surely it'd make more sense to develop this as a theme that can be installed by Plasma users, rather than as an entire distro?

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  • [–] 9 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    hopefully no one shows the developer NixOS...

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    I often look at these small purpose built niche distros and think to myself "this could just be a flake".

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  • [–] 9 points 11 months ago

    you're not wrong. A lot of them could simply be flakes or just cloned dotfiles. Just look at Omarchy, that's basically Arch with in installer and dotfiles.

    If I'm looking to use a distro I want something that improves whatever it's based on, like CachyOS for example that has it's own repos and kernel. Distros that essentially just tweak GNOME or KDE I'm going to pass on. Like this PearOS. you can just download virtually any distro and install Plasma and make it look the same.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    I'd try this it as a specialisation for a day.

    I rather hyprland over macos but could be fun to try or for my parents / siblings to test drive / use my computer for a day if needed. God knows how they'd survive currently.

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    • [–] 19 points 11 months ago (13 children)

    This doesn't seem like the most reliable developer or distro.

    Genuine question, why would I trust my machines to something as inconsistent as this?

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    If it interests you, try it. If it doesn't interest you, don't install it.

    Not all software projects need to be developed by teams of people with published release cycles. There are lots of passion projects out there.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I know and I've got nothing against passion projects at all. It's just that this one seems way too volatile after the bumpy road and multiple changes it's had over the years with multiple stops and starts as well.

    This is a case where I feel like I agree with the other comments here. Just make it a theme or some dotfiles for others to install instead.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Fair comment.

    That said, it just installs in vanilla Arch at this point, which means it would work on EndeavourOS and probably CachyOS as well.

    You can of course switch to another DE at any time.

    So, you are really not exposing yourself to any risk. If it gets broken or abandoned, just stop using it.

    Not that this means you should bother with it. But it is clearly a low risk option to try.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (6 children)

    the more people use it the more reliable it will become

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    glances at Windows

    You sure about that buddy?

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (4 children)

    windows ain’t open source so that doesn’t apply

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Being open source and having a lot of users does not guarantee you have more devs contributing to the project or that those devs are working towards efficiency.

    Microsoft has way more devs working on it as a full time job than any open source project does.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    a: yes it does.
    b: garbage in, garbage out

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    B is the reason that A is wrong.

    In fact, a project is more likely to get less efficient with a larger user base because that typically means more features which increases complexity.

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    • [–] 5 points 11 months ago

    If you can use Mac, you can use Gnome.

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    [–] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Pourquoi 🤔

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    • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    I haven't read about this before.

    It's interesting that (judging from the screenshot), they even tried to recreate the Apple menu, which on macOS isn't a start menu after all; but I do wonder what is the way to start apps in this interface? Did they try to clone macOS in that regard to and do that through the "Finder" (probably Dolphin)?

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