is there any way to change the look and feel of linux to get it to look like osx? such as the buttons and the dock?

linux has no look and feel... you mean your window manager... kde and gnome have themes to much the aqua UI to different levels of sucess. try a site like kdelook.org

if you're using KDE you can stick the menubar to the top of the screen, like MacOS
(Control Center -> Appearance & Themes -> Style -> Misc)

there are themes for kde called baghira and aqua
at http://www.kde-look.org/

You can also try using Karamba if you use KDE or gDesklets if you use GNOME so simulate something similar to the Mac OS X Dock.

how do u install, tar.gz files?

($ denotes you do the commands in the terminal)

$ tar xzvf name_of.tar.gz
[this extracts the compressed file]
$ cd name_of
[now this is different for each thing you build, but, for the most part, this will get you what you want]
$ ./configure
$ make
$ su
[password, you need to be root to install]
$ make install

Now, you should read the documentation for programs you want to install (its usually just simple text file called INSTALL). I'd go into more depth, but a quick forum search would turn up results probably in greater depth. Heck, I think there's a sticky or a post in the Answers forum about this.

thanx alot, it was a big help

Not a problem.