I remember that installing RH 5.2 (Hedwig? Apollo?) in 1999 and getting FVWM95 installed using rpm. It closely resembled Windows 95. From memory, icewm also had a similar theme.
I miss the simplicity of the gui from this era, not Windows 95, but Windows NT 4.0. The dark blue boot screen was quite nice and the system was fast and quite stable around SP6a.
Make Linux look like Windows 95
51–60 of 207 posts
Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95
#52icewm is a bit different, but it has a "windows95" type theme that, while it doesn't look nearly as good, is insanely functional.
I've found it to be a window manager that is easy to script, easy to use, and gets out of the way for the most part. I spent a lot of time looking for a good window manager, trying all the usual ones (gnome, kde, xmonad (stayed there for a while!), dwm, etc.), but I've found this one to be the best and least obtrusive of any of them.
Definitely worth a look if you're still in the hunt and not necessarily keen on making something look pretty.
Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95
#53I've always liked those briefcase icons but could never figure out what they did.
They were early two-way synced folders. [0] Like the idea of Dropbox et all, but for anything Windows supported. FTP, Samba, another physical drive, or just another local location.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briefcase_(Microsoft_Windows)
Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95
#54I've always liked those briefcase icons but could never figure out what they did.
My first computer had Windows 95 and I had no idea what it did either until now.
https://www.howtogeek.com/396628/what-was-the-windows-briefc...
Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95
#55I'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…
The default Windows 95 didn't look that great, but almost everyone agrees that 98 or 2000 are much better (at least they have gradients). But I'm not 100% old school, and I think that Windows 7 Aero looked good, too. I'm sad that someone decided that glassy transparent windows were an abomination and broke them all :(
To me the biggest improvement that 2000 makes to the 9x look are the move to a lighter base gray, as well as changing the default desktop color from that funky teal to a much nicer blue. As minor as those two things may seem they made the OS feel more pleasant.
But that may just be the classic Mac OS fanboy in me speaking. Mac OS never used particularly dark grays, so the almost-perfectly-middle-gray seen in 95/98 felt almost depressing in comparison.
Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95
#56I really like the Chicago95 theme here, it's great with XFCE/xubuntu on low spec devices.
I also like installing the Window Maker and OpenBox WMs with a bunch of retro unix backgrounds--they kind of have the feel of CDE and old Solaris systems. I haven't used it but apparently someone is working on a more modern retro feel CDE-inspired thing here: https://github.com/NsCDE/NsCDE
Depending on my mood I can log in to a retro Windows or Unix experience. I haven't looked deeply into it but I think saw a Mac System 7 inspired WM theme out there too. IMHO retro modern computing environments are quirky fun that should be a bigger thing. :)
It's not canon to Windows 95, but XScreenSaver pairs nicely to go with the overall late 90s retro feel too: https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/ These screensavers are exactly the kind of thing workstations of the era would have been blasting in computer labs nearly 24/7.
Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95
#57I can't express how excited I am for consistent and metaphorical UI to be rediscovered by the 'designers' of today.
Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95
#58I can't express how excited I am for consistent and metaphorical UI to be rediscovered by the 'designers' of today.
Wait, you simply let users know what's a button by the visual decorations and differentiated edges?
And you let them know the status of toggle buttons without forcing them to toggle multiple times and guess based on which colors what might mean what?
Blasphemy!
Next you'll be letting web pages readers know what is and is not a link by using a consistent underline scheme. Which would be a completely unacceptable level of interpretability.
Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95
#59This looks so nice. Nostalgia indeed, but I miss consistent UIs across apps. SerenityOS must be mentioned in this context too: Win95-like UI on a Unix-like OS. Check it out if you haven’t yet! Edited to add the link I missed: https://serenityos.org/
I really want to rebuild this in a for an existing OS. It’s not the same but it has the perfect feel.
Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95
#60The vertical text alignment is all wrong. :(