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Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

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Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#121

Post by ethbr0 »

tomxor wrote: post #78
ethbr0 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everything is folders and files idea of the start menu Your comment is Ribbon/magic-search-bar vs hierarchical-organization preference in a nutshell. I've decided there are two mutually-exclusive sorts of people: (a) those who want search to surface things for them, and hate having to remember where to find things & (b) those who want to remember where/how to find things, and hate relying on fuzzy search to surface…

> I've decided there are two mutually-exclusive sorts of people: (a) those who want search to surface things for them, and hate having to remember where to find things & (b) those who want to remember where/how to find things, and hate relying on fuzzy search to surface them. Funny because I belong in both camps, but for different things. I prefer fuzzy, flat search for launching applications (I mean we basically do…

> fuzzy, flat search for launching applications (I mean we basically do the same on the CLI right?

The first time we each had to debug a $PATH search order issue makes this a yes&no answer from me.

There's still a hierarchy and locations... but most of the time we can just ignore it and get on with things.

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#122

Post by overgard »

reacharavindh wrote: post #4

Not that I want the UX To _look_ like Windows 95, but I sure do feel nostalgic how fast and responsive the desktop “felt” back in those days. These days, it is a rarity to see a native app that is as responsive. It feels like all native apps burn through CPU cycles in cosmetic things and animations that it feels sluggish in comparison.

I think nostalgia might have rewritten your memory. Spinning rust disks meant apps would take 5-10 seconds to load, moving and resizing windows was laggy and left behind repaint artifacts, and anything network related took approximately forever

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#123

Post by overgard »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #43

Reflecting on the comments, I'm surprised - a little - that MS don't have backwards compatibility of GUI. Many older users like the interface not to change, or to change only superficially. It would, I think, be a usability improvement for many. As a "family admin" I'd want to update for security reasons, or if the new version is better optimised or lacks some bugs, but for many elders (IME) any significant changes t…

They did keep classic mode up till Windows 7. After that it must have just been too niche

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#124

Post by dehrmann »

soraminazuki wrote: post #26
reacharavindh wrote: post #4

Not that I want the UX To _look_ like Windows 95, but I sure do feel nostalgic how fast and responsive the desktop “felt” back in those days. These days, it is a rarity to see a native app that is as responsive. It feels like all native apps burn through CPU cycles in cosmetic things and animations that it feels sluggish in comparison.

That's not how I remember it. Windows 9x was slow and constantly crashing. Booting and launching programs took ages. To be fair, the performance problems had more to do with the available hardware back then, but still.

If you're bored, you should see how Windows 9x does on a Vortex86 CPU with an SD card.

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#125

Post by thrtythreeforty »

treve wrote: post #115
reacharavindh wrote: post #4

Not that I want the UX To _look_ like Windows 95, but I sure do feel nostalgic how fast and responsive the desktop “felt” back in those days. These days, it is a rarity to see a native app that is as responsive. It feels like all native apps burn through CPU cycles in cosmetic things and animations that it feels sluggish in comparison.

KDE Plasma in my opinion comes closest to this. It's stayed very snappy over the years and I'm mainly a laptop user. I'm on Gnome because I prefer the design, but if you want fast it might be worth a shot.

Initial releases of KDE 4 were absolute pigs. They spent several years trimming fat from those until it started to be useful for me around KDE 4.9 or so. Plasma 5 and onward have been excellent.

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#126

Post by andrepd »

mcny wrote: post #55
ilyt wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like how it looks (prefer a bit flatter buttons, but that are still buttons), but windows didn't really get any more usable after that...

> windows didn't really get any more usable after that... The old UI is good but I am not a fan of the everything is folders and files idea of the start menu. Maybe I'm misremembering but iirc as a child I used to forget which sub menu inside the thing I needed was except for the ones I used frequently. I like being able to just type obs and press enter in the new windows. I preferred the old theme better than window…

You can tack good modern search-launchers (a la spotlight or synapse) onto a Windows 95 interface without bringing over all the other modern UI cancer. It's an entirely orthogonal concern to things like flat icons, excessive whitespace, or bad discoverability.

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#127

Post by andrepd »

accrual wrote: post #77
raffraffraff wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a carefully crafted 98SE CD that was created using a tool called (I think) 98lite. It let you remove components and set defaults. That was rock solid for me , and used so few resources. Boot times were very quick considering the hardware at the time. The all-important post-install defrag made a difference. I didn't switch away from 98SE on my home computer until XP SP2 (which I immediately theme to look like 98…

Maybe you used nLite? I credit this tool for making me into a Windows power user. Taking the OS apart checkbox-by-checkbox gave me a good understanding of how the pieces fit together and what is required vs optional. https://www.nliteos.com/

Ohh man, nlite! The memory you just unlocked for me ahahaha

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#129

Post by cat_plus_plus »

If you like it, you should check out era X Windows managers with a multi button mouse. Same hierarchical start menu, but bring it up from any location on the desktop with right mouse click! Then most simple apps don't really need menu bars or windows controls, just maybe small resize handles at the corners, use right click to do the rest as well. Once you created a perfect arrangement for each virtual desktop, save it and have it perfectly recreated on startup. With not a pixel wasted and apps themselves not wasting much white space, it becomes possible to have all the tools you need for your workflow side by side rather than constantly hunting for the right overlapping window. Plus, workstations had keyboards with dedicated copy/cut/paste keys, rather than remembering to press Control-Shift-C in Terminal and Control-C elsewhere and half of the time killing your current command by mistake.

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#130

Post by justsomehnguy »

serf wrote: post #86
justsomehnguy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iirc I only had 128MB on my pentium 4 computer Which is quite strange, because even P2 level machines already had 64-128MBs of RAM, eg look at Quake 3 sysrq.

bottom-end (600-900) dollar range in 2001-2002ish got you between 128mb and 256mb of ram. my bottom end pentium 4 presario came with 128 mb and the slowest hard drive in the world. Office XP/2002 and Windows XP both called for 128mb minimum as far as I remember, so a lot of the machines were targetting that number.

Ah, the wonderful world of balanced and effective configurations from the bottom of the barrel PCs... So much time, money and CO2 could be saved by another/bigger atick of RAM.
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