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Make Linux look like Windows 95

lunduke.substack.com

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Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#32

I'll be the first to say the unpopular take on HN: I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today). I personally find more modern (like MacOS 10) styles to look the best, and flat designs to be just as usable as more skeumorphic ones. It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used. As someone (potentially a lot) younger than man…

I’m a greybeard, my first OS was either DOS or some OtherDOS, my first GUI environment was System 7 (Mac). The latter was mostly flat other than some dithered shading mostly on icons, significantly flatter than macOS is today. Even with MacOS 8 which gained more depth in its design I always found Windows’ hard bevels through 2k/ME overstated, and when I did use Windows I’d do my best to configure it to be as flat as possible. So yeah I think early GUI exposure might be a contributing factor, probably moreso than age.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#33

This with WINE is what I think is the perfect combination of GUI and CLI... but as a long-time Windows user, several things stood out and made it look slightly off: the menu bar and padding around the icon labels is too tall the window borders are slightly too wide (compared to the default) scrollbar buttons shouldn't disable at end of travel sort direction indicator in header control (which first appeared in Win2k)…

This comment makes me so happy. If I read it anywhere else I'd invoke Poe's Law and guess it was a joke. But it being HN I know it's for real, and I love it. Excellence in all we do

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#34

I'll be the first to say the unpopular take on HN: I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today). I personally find more modern (like MacOS 10) styles to look the best, and flat designs to be just as usable as more skeumorphic ones. It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used. As someone (potentially a lot) younger than man…

> I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today).

Me neither. I dislike anything that reminds me of old Windows. Some people are the opposite — when they move to other platforms, they seek out things that look like old Windows so that it becomes supposedly easier to use (?).

I like MacOS. I liked the old Unity. I like Gnome 3 except for the fact that it's consumes a lot of resources. I shy away from KDE even though I hear it's now more efficient because it reminds me of Vista from certain angles.

And even though XFCE can be a little bit like old Windows, I like it because it's very efficient, and therefore I give it a pass :) . The no-bullshit DE.

I've been on Gnome 3 for years now. However, I might switch to XFCE eventually because I tend to do memory intensive things.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#37

I've been using Chicago95 in a VM and on my laptop for a few years. I was so dedicated to the look that I picked through a Windows install DVD to grab its fonts and use those (Microsoft Sans Serif particularly). I throw in a high resolution Bliss wallpaper, too, even though it totally didn't come with 95, and I don't have much fondness for XP.

I thought I was reading my own comment at first. This is my main dev environment.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#38
post #2

Can anyone think of a reason why to do this? Apart from personal fun project, of course!

Because we hit peak desktop right around Windows 2000. Just about everything since then has been a step backwards in speed and usability. The Mac Finder is a hot mess and seems to get worse with every release. The 964 different desktops available for Linux are in general a hodgepodge of slow impossible-to-use disasters. A notable exception is XFCE but it's a bit of a second-class citizen and even things in XFCE don't…

> we hit peak desktop right around Windows 2000

I could not disagree more strongly. Win2000 buttons are tiny, drag areas are tiny, basically everything is tiny and unclickable. I strongly prefer the generously-proportioned, touch-inspired interfaces of the last 4-5 years.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#39
post #35

It won't convincingly look like Windows 95 to me without a ton of Invalid Page Faults in kernel32.dll. (Can somebody give me a basic explanation of what that was??)

The best guess I have is buggy programs passing invalid pointers to kernel32 functions (e.g. OpenFile/WriteFile).
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