Pear OS, a Linux distribution that was built to imitate the look, feel, and functionality of Mac OS X, is still one of the most downloaded distros around.

Pear OS has had a very troubled history and the developer had to change the name of the OS a couple of times, not to mention the logo. For some reason, the guys at Apple and their community didn't think that someone redoing the entire Mac OS X system based on Linux was actually a compliment.

Imitation is a form of flattery. In the case of Pear OS, the situation was even clearer. The developer tried and succeeded in replicating most of the features that you can find in a Mac OS X. Granted, most of the features were purely cosmetic, but the system worked and people really enjoyed it.

To top it all off, like any good Linux distribution, Pear OS was free and the developer made constant updates to the system, more frequent than the OS he was imitating.

Something happened a few months ago and, in January, the developer announced that Pear OS was no longer available for download and that an unnamed company had bought the distro and all the assets. He refused to name the company, although he did say on several occasions that it wasn't Apple.

The rumors about Apple buying Pear OS were fuelled by the statement of a Black Lab Linux developer who said that he was going to “help Apple in a Linux endeavor they recently acquired.” Nothing was confirmed and users are still trying to find out what happened. With so little information, we can assume that the company that bought the distro chose to bury it.

What's even more interesting is the fact that Pear OS continues to be downloaded quite a lot and surpasses some newly launched Linux distros that promise support for a long time. Since the developer announced the end of Pear OS in January, the distribution was downloaded from Softpedia over 35,000 times, with an average of 300 downloads every day.

To end this with a fun trivia fact, Pear OS was forked shortly after its closure by a developer. The new Clementine OS was announced, but its developer received a letter from an American company that forced him to abandon the project. The name of the company was not revealed, but the Clementine developers said that it wasn't Apple.

Softpedia is one of the few places where you can still find the ISO for Pear OS 8, the last version released by its developers. You can also check out our review of the operating system.