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Version 1.0 · Aqua · amd64

Sarbs The Mac desktop you know, on a Debian core you own. Live it from a USB stick, or install it for good.

Download 1.0 Read the source 2.06 GB · ISO · BIOS + UEFI
Sarbs 1.0 — live session
The Sarbs desktop: a blue and violet Aqua wallpaper, a translucent menu bar across the top with a clock at the right, and a dock of application icons along the bottom.
The live session, running from the image with nothing written to disk.
Boot menu
The Sarbs boot menu, with the Sarbs mark and wordmark above a list of entries: live system, fail-safe mode, start installer, and advanced options.
Try it, or install it, from the first screen.
About Sarbs
The About Sarbs dialog, reporting Sarbs 1.0 Aqua, the kernel version, processor, memory, startup disk and desktop.
Close, minimise and zoom sit on the left, where they belong.

What it is

Sarbs is not macOS and contains no Apple code. It reproduces the layout, the interaction model and the visual language of a Mac desktop on top of a fully free Debian system.

BaseDebian 12 “bookworm”, amd64, kernel 6.1
DesktopXfce 4.18, rebuilt as the Sarbs shell
Menu barDocked to the top and translucent — Sarbs menu at the left, status icons and the clock at the right
DockPlank, bottom centre, with zoom on hover
WindowsTraffic lights on the left, centred titles, rounded corners and soft shadows
ThemeWhiteSur GTK, icon and cursor themes
ApplicationsFirefox, VLC, Thunar, a terminal, an image viewer, a document reader, GParted — 1,366 packages in all
InstallerDebian Installer, graphical and text, launched from the live desktop
FirmwareNon-free firmware included, so Wi-Fi and graphics work out of the box
Requirements64-bit x86, 2 GB RAM to run live, 25 GB disk to install

Software arrives as .fan

Sarbs has its own application package. Download one, double-click it, and the Sarbs Installer tells you what it is and asks before touching anything. No repository to add, no command to learn.

The fileA zstd-compressed tar archive with a fan.json manifest — you can look inside one with tools you already have
BundleA self-contained application tree, installed under one directory. Removing it removes that directory
DebianWraps .deb files and hands them to apt, dependencies and all — so everything Debian ships works from day one
Recognised byThe *.fan name and the archive's own magic number, so it keeps working if it is renamed
 
# what is this file?
$ fan info Photos.fan

# install, list, remove
$ sudo fan install Photos.fan
$ fan list
$ sudo fan remove com.example.photos

# turn any Debian package into one
$ fan wrap google-chrome.deb -o Chrome.fan

The format is documented in full — the manifest fields, both payload kinds, and how the desktop hands a downloaded file to the installer — in docs/fan-format.md, and on a running system at /usr/share/doc/sarbs/fan-format.md.

Download

The image is 2.06 GB — just past GitHub's 2 GiB ceiling for a single file — so it ships as two parts you join back together. The joined file is the ISO, byte for byte.

Part 1 of 2 1.10 GB Part 2 of 2 0.96 GB All release files 
# join the parts, in PowerShell
> cmd /c copy /b Sarbs-1.0-amd64.iso.part0 + Sarbs-1.0-amd64.iso.part1 Sarbs.iso

# check you got the right bytes
> Get-FileHash Sarbs.iso -Algorithm SHA256

SHA-256  1b4885e3b33052f898468ec56682d8816c5f2a42383ee2ce12c3b6e8516ef420

Rather build it yourself? The whole configuration is public. Clone the repository, run .\build.ps1, and live-build assembles the same image from a Debian mirror in about an hour.

Install

Four steps from a downloaded file to a running desktop. Try it live first — nothing touches your disk until you choose the installer.

  1. Join and verify

    Run the commands above and confirm the hash matches. A mismatch means a truncated download, not a bad image.

  2. Write it to a USB stick

    Use Rufus or Balena Etcher in DD mode. The image is isohybrid, so a raw write is all it needs. Trying it in a virtual machine instead? Give it 4 GB of memory and a 25 GB disk.

  3. Boot and look around

    Pick Live system from the boot menu. The whole desktop runs from memory, so you can open things, browse and change settings without committing to anything.

  4. Install, if you want to keep it

    Choose Start installer from the boot menu, or launch it from the live desktop. Anything you install in the live session disappears at reboot; installing to disk is what makes it stick.

Installing overwrites the target disk. Back up anything you care about before you start, and read the partitioning step rather than clicking through it.

Known issues in 1.0

Found by booting this exact image, not by reading the configuration. All three are already fixed in the source and will be gone in the next build.

The menu bar shows Debian's swirl, not the Sarbs mark Cosmetic. The menu plugin reads its icon from its own settings file rather than the panel's, so the setting never reached it.
The boot splash is Debian's Cosmetic. The initramfs is generated while packages install, before the branding step runs, so it kept the stock theme.
The Install Sarbs desktop icon is intermittent It appears on some boots and not others. The installer is always available from the boot menu and the applications menu.