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Make Linux look like Windows 95

lunduke.substack.com

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Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#91

Post by IYasha »

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 find it astonishing how Win/Mac UI divides people with different, opposite I'd say, mindsets. Really, way too often I see completely different people arguing over some subject who turn out to be Apple vs. Android users. Or mac/win users. Sometimes it's as vivid as than cultural or religious division. I could draw a psychological portrait of a typical representatives of these groups but it'll be a bit biased :) But the sad part is - they both fall into hands of evil corporations, who only pretend to give users a choice...

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#92

Post by ComradePhil »

cookiengineer wrote: post #16
jonpalmisc wrote: post #4

I’ve used this before and it’s quite good; it not only captures the “old Windows” look well, but I find it to be quite functional too. I was frustrated trying to get my Linux box to look “pretty”, since I find that most GTK and DE themes lack attention to detail that is glaringly obvious to a trained eye. My solution was to take the “scorched Earth” approach: make my UI look as primitive as possible rather than aimin…

Did you try the arc-dark theme? It's quite popular among archlinux users, and I think it looks pretty polished. [1] I'm no design expert, so I got nothing to say in terms of UI/UX. But it's the theme I've grown most comfortable with to use over the years. I agree with your sentiment that most themes lack attention to detail, where everything looks just more cluttered than anything else (especially when taking a look…

It seems to have the same icky "material" design look forward which makes me puke in my mouth.

I have been wanting to rant on this, so I will do it here.

To anyone working in design, the "material" design is not it.

Look at this: https://twitter.com/vectaio/status/1018697206776225794?s=21

And compare it to this: http://www.visguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/aws-shapes-...

What is the purpose of an icon and which of the above serves the purpose better?

The purpose of icons is not to look all same, like the material design aims to do. It is to quickly visually distinguish between different things. Material design is terrible for it. I hope more sensible designers fix this and get us out of the "material" nonsense Google has pushed into the world.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#93

Post by pseudosavant »

heleninboodler wrote: post #68
freedomben wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I like the meta-joke of complaining about the kerning and calling it "keming"

Thank you for pointing out the joke! My eyes went right past the first time. That is the best keming joke ever!

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#96

Post by cbozeman »

aluminum96 wrote: post #38
assttoasstmgr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People who have to actually get work done on a computer are almost always good with using a mouse and keyboard, so we understand how to move with precision and speed.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#97

Post by pjmlp »

JimDabell wrote: post #88

It was actually fairly popular at the end of the 90s to run FVWM95, which was basically FVWM 2 skinned to look like Windows 95. It looked pretty similar to this project, for obvious reasons. http://fvwm95.sourceforge.net

It makes me feel rather old when only your comment and another one are the only references to fvwm95 among 92 comments.

It really shows how much current generations have lost from Linux early days, or how old some of us are.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#98

Post by __del__ »

ComradePhil wrote: post #92
cookiengineer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you try the arc-dark theme? It's quite popular among archlinux users, and I think it looks pretty polished. [1] I'm no design expert, so I got nothing to say in terms of UI/UX. But it's the theme I've grown most comfortable with to use over the years. I agree with your sentiment that most themes lack attention to detail, where everything looks just more cluttered than anything else (especially when taking a look…

It seems to have the same icky "material" design look forward which makes me puke in my mouth. I have been wanting to rant on this, so I will do it here. To anyone working in design, the "material" design is not it. Look at this: https://twitter.com/vectaio/status/1018697206776225794?s=21 And compare it to this: http://www.visguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/aws-shapes-... What is the purpose of an icon and which o…

i don't care for the aesthetic of the aws icons you posted, but i agree they serve their purpose much better than the gcloud icons you posted.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#99

Post by tannhaeuser »

2143 wrote: post #34
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 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…

> 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.

Same. Definitely don't like gnome/gnome-shell 3+ dropping the global menu, featuring a useless file picker, and overall just wasting a lot of space on my favourite notebook sizes of 13.3" and 14", though preferring dark themes I could see that gnome maybe wanted to get rid of those cheesy non-scaling, always-black-on-white icon menus as leftovers from the 90s. Regarding KDE (Plasma) though, I've learned you can customize the hell out of it to get back most of gnome 2 + Unity [1], so that's something I'm going to try next when I get around to it.

[1]: https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/plasma-look-like-unity.h...

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#100

Post by ido »

windows2020 wrote: post #57

I can't express how excited I am for consistent and metaphorical UI to be rediscovered by the 'designers' of today.

It’s not about “today”, it’s about Linux vs Win/Mac. The former is a lot less consistent than the latter and this was just as true in 1995 as it is today.
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