Make Linux look like Windows 95 • Hacker News Board

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#71

Post by jp0d » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 6:38 AM UTC

assttoasstmgr wrote: post #11

jp0d wrote: 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…

I get that it's easier to run on low RAM systems. I just don't think Windows95 was the pinnacle of UI design and was minimalistic only because resources were scarce. These days it's actually a lot harder to get low RAM machines. Unless you're working in the embedded space, and a UI like this is pointless there too.

I haven't been using Linux (or Windows) much since several years now. But a stripped down version of Gnome or KDE or MATE are prefect as they were. The Windows UI in its current form or old (95, 98 or 2000) is hardly the best UI choice. The reason I can think of is nostalgic fun experiment. And there is nothing wrong with that. Not everything has to have a practical function. :)

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#72

Post by toast0 » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 6:41 AM UTC

jp0d wrote: post #2

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

AFAIK, Windows 95 was the last UI design with a published design methodology that includes numerous laboratory test sessions. I'm not sure the original URL, but it was republished [1]. It's listed at ACM [2] as published April 1996, so they were sharing how they did it pretty soon after it was done.

I just don't think Microsoft continued to do lab testing of their design, at least they haven't told us that they did, but it feels like a lot of things have gotten harder to do rather than easier to do, which doesn't match their earlier design goals. Windows 95 wasn't the peak, but it was a huge step vs Windows 3.1. IMHO, Apple clearly doesn't care about desktop experience (and anyway, their keyboard shortcuts are wrong, so I'm not using their design), and I don't think any OSS desktop environment is funding user studies (but I'd be happy to see evidence otherwise). Given that situation, I'd rather use the UI that had design goals I like and a design process that allowed developing towards those goals.

[1] https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-9...

[2] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/238386.238611

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#73

Post by prvc » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 6:44 AM UTC

The Office theme is off, somehow. Also, Word 97 has a much nicer, cleaner layout than 95 (assuming Clippy has been totally disabled, of course). Not sure if the icons are any different, though. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Office_97_on_...

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#74

Post by Shared404 » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 6:45 AM UTC

mynameismon wrote: post #24

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #18

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…

Yup, I think we fall in a similar age group, and lack the nostalgia that most HN readers have. At the same time, flat design is objectively worse. Barely any indication as to whether something is a button or a text box or a label. Personally, I really like the path taken by WinUI3, since it addresses the UX concerns with a fresh paint of UI

> Yup, I think we fall in a similar age group, and lack the nostalgia that most HN readers have.

> At the same time, flat design is objectively worse.

Gonna jump in this boat as well, though I do actively search out older UI's and OS's to use.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#75

Post by flomo » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 6:47 AM UTC

mbg721 wrote: 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??)

One thing is PC hardware back then was often complete crap. You could run diagnostics and get a lot of memory and disk errors, but Windows 95 still ran "okay". It was definitely a lot more stable if you spent the money on good stuff.

Part of it was low expectations too. The half-life for Windows 3.1 crashes was about 4 hours. If your computer stayed up all day, that was considered a massive improvement. It took people a long time to discover the "49 day bug" that was in both Windows and OS/2.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#76

Post by SLWW » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 6:48 AM UTC

This is really pretty i won't lie. I might just install this on my devbox at home <3

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#77

Post by oefrha » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 6:51 AM UTC

Now someone should make a browser theme to give me back the three rows of Ask Toolbar and other goodies. (I know, that’s the XP era, not 95.)

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#78

Post by jp0d » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 6:55 AM UTC

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #18

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 completely agree with you. I don't miss Windows and quite despise the UI. Even the modern one. I've been using Macs since several years and the only thing that comes close to a distant second is Gnome. I'm actually quite surprised to see how many actually like Windows 95!

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#79

Post by sunflowerdeath » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 7:00 AM UTC

Now I regret a little bit that I have switched from linux to a macbook

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#80

Post by mise_en_place » Sat, Feb 26, 2022, 7:01 AM UTC

assttoasstmgr wrote: post #11

jp0d wrote: 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…

What’s even worse is Debian running on 256 MB environment, you’ll need swap or pip will be killed by the OOM reaper.

Linux used to be embedded first but nowadays most Linux distros are strangely oriented toward desktop and don’t work correctly on low memory environments without heavy customization.