CutefishOS is a Chinese Linux distribution that is visually very similar to macOS with its own Cutefish desktop, the Cutefish Desktop Environment (“CutefishDE”). The free operating system is currently based on Debian 11, although the development team previously released Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS as a base.

The focus is on the new desktop.

The simple desktop clearly borrows from the deepin desktop environment (DDE), MATE and JingOS known from the Chinese deepin distribution, and was developed in C++ and the free GUI toolkit. Qt declarative programming language belonging QML written.

Wayland window manager and composer is the one known from the KDE Plasma modular desktop win.

*) not yet officially confirmed.

The web specialized in Linux michelfranken has already analyzed in detail the latest version 0.8.0 of CutefishOS with CutefishDE and provides first impressions of Apple’s macOS-style Linux desktop.

As well as CutefishOS, which is 2.1 GB in size CutefishOS v0.8 Developer Edition (ISO) is available for download and arrives on the system with the help of the Calamares installation routine, an experimental branch of the popular Arch derivative already exists Manjaro Linux as CutefishOS edition with Cutefish DE.

The final version of the free operating system will probably not be based on Canonical’s Debian GNU/Linux or Ubuntu, but will be a stand-alone distribution “From the Scratch”, like AryaLinux (test).

The GitHub Developer Platform provides more information. CutefishOS website and the Cutefish desktop environment.

The launch should take place no later than 2023

The final version of CutefishOS and CutefishDE is expected in late 2022 and early 2023, respectively.