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Make Linux look like Windows 95

lunduke.substack.com

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Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#101

Post by oefnak »

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…

The AWS icons are better, but still pretty bad, using only 1 colour.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#102

Post by beebeepka »

Remember, win95 GUI allow us to place the taskbar wherever we want without causing issues.

Gnome 2 did, too, except it was almost unusable in that mode because they used to have a repeated "1px by I don't remember how much" for a taskbar background. Even Windows 11 only lets people have the thing on the bottom

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#103

Post by ogogmad »

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…

What do you think of the shiny, glassy look of Vista and/or early MacOS 10? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista and https://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/iphon...

Looked "space age", and less like the drab office building which Win 9x/MacOS 9 looked like. Is there any nostalgia for that?

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#104

Post by ComradePhil »

__del__ wrote: post #98
ComradePhil wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh I'm not very pleased with the AWS icons much either but they have one property of the real materials: depth.

The most frustrating thing about "material" icons is its name; real materials have depth and colors... and so should functional icons; material icons are monocolor and flat.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#106

Post by bitcharmer »

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…

No. I love my 2022 Gnome look and looking at old Windows UI makes me nauseous. I'm over 40 so yes, I did use Windows extensively and hate everything about its UI maybe with the exception of Windows XP.

I never had any issues recognising what is a button and what isn't with Gnome. Never understood HN's fetish for these old UIs.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#107

Post by lewispollard »

IYasha wrote: post #86

I thought my dream came true, but... There's one thing he isn't showing - the infamous GTK's "Cancel-OK" message box combination. As much as I respect Lunduke's work, it's GTK-based. And my Linux environment is completely 95% Qt5 (it'll be 100% if I figure out how to migrate to Qt-based browser). The main advantage of OS/2 or Win9x-like UI is its speed and consistency. And it soesn't allocate/read/render 9 PNG files…

I know it doesn't do it efficiently, but there are a whole bunch of plasma themes, window decorations, cursor sets and so on that emulate win 95/98/xp (and even vista) in KDE Plasma, and you can install them right from the system settings.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#108

Post by badsectoracula »

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…

> It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used.

My first GUI "OS" was Win3.1 and while i do have some bits of nostalgia for it, i do not think it is a particularly good UI. It is a bit better than Win95 in one element where they tried to introduce a consistency where every element that represented a command was supposed to have a 3D/bevel look while every element that was an input entry was supposed to have a 2D/flat look, but ultimately they didn't succeed completely (e.g. menus are flat even though they invoke commands) - and was ultimately abandoned once the "3d controls" were introduced (and later became the default style in Win95).

However i do think that Win95 is among the best styles not because it has the most pleasing looks, but because it is the most visually neutral while at the same time being among the most functional. During the 90s there were even games that used regular desktop controls and it felt fine because Win95's style didn't really clash with them (well, unless the user customized it, but that was up to the user's choice).

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#110

Post by seanw444 »

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…

My favorite GTK theme so far is Orchis.
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