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Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

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Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#201

Post by KronisLV »

stavros wrote: post #198
KronisLV wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xubuntu was mentioned, which is nice. Some folks might also enjoy the Linux Mint XFCE version, which I personally run: https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=307 (more or less Ubuntu sans snaps, though their Cinnamon desktop is also reasonably okay, even if not quite as snappy as XFCE)

I can never grok the differences between Mint, Pop!_OS, and elementary OS. What do you like about Mint?

> What do you like about Mint?

The big one is desktops that I like, working out of the box: Cinnamon, XFCE or even MATE (can install more, of course, but these ones are supported and tested). XFCE is really snappy and lightweight, whereas Cinnamon is pretty polished and will also be familiar to folks coming from Windows (nice distro to recommend for that, for people with limited Linux experience).

Another big thing is not having snaps forced down my throat like Ubuntu increasingly seems to do. In that regard, Mint is closer to Debian, although if you want to, there is nothing holding you back from using AppImage, Flatpak or anything else (even snaps).

Compatibility that is otherwise pretty close to Ubuntu, as well as a long EOL period: after the demise of CentOS, Ubuntu remains one of those distros that you can just "install and forget about" (hopefully with regular updates), both locally on your workstation and in any of your servers. I can even base my containers on Ubuntu/run it on servers (pretty much every provider has support for it) but use Linux Mint locally and have pretty much everything work.

Now, frankly I could also opt for Debian without too many issues (they also have an LTS variety, albeit less advertised), but Mint is basically Ubuntu without some of the things that annoy me - boring and dependable, mostly just works.

Only annoying thing: if you ever need to setup an apt repo that points to packages that are compatible with Ubuntu and the script for doing that gets the release codename, it might get one that doesn't correspond to the correct Ubuntu release, but instead will grab the Mint name. Sometime need to fix that manually in the apt repository list with a text editor.

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#202

Post by JohnBooty »

ptx wrote: post #98
mcny wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I used to forget which sub menu inside the thing I needed was except for the ones I used frequently The trick was to create your own folders to flatten the hierarchy, so you never have to look inside the "Programs" sub menu. You could even move your most frequently used items to the top level, with no folders at all, so they're available with a single click. This got a lot easier with Windows 98 (or with the IE ver…

Yeah. The default experience was not great, but with a little curation it was super streamlined.

When I saw developers using the default setup it was usually a pretty reliable clue as to their skill level.

Of course... Linux users would have said the fact that I was using Windows was an even bigger clue about my skill level.

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#203

Post by JohnBooty »

serf wrote: post #148
mcny wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So much time, money and CO2 could be saved by another/bigger atick of RAM. I did eventually get a 256 MB stick of RAM. iirc I was already out of high school at that point. One point I don't hear being talked about too much is how hopeful and stupid we were in the late nineties and early two thousands. We were supposed to have 10GHz processors by 2005, or I mean mass market for consumers by the end of the decade, at…

>One point I don't hear being talked about too much is how hopeful and stupid we were in the late nineties and early two thousands. We were supposed to have 10GHz processors by 2005, or I mean mass market for consumers by the end of the decade, at the latest? I think a lot of those predictions came from a world unconcerned with cores and threading. The jump from sub ghz to 1 ghz (p2 to p3) came about suddenly, the ju…

I don't understand this sentiment from an HN user. It sounds like you wanted a 5-10x performance boost vs. what we had in 2000.

Today's CPUs are literally like 10-50x faster than CPUs of that era depending on how many cores you're using at once. Storage is an order of magnitude faster as well. Mission accomplished! Software is in general more bloated, so things don't always "feel" faster, but for raw computational tasks like e.g. video encoding they truly are orders of magnitude faster.

I've got plenty of complaints about how the industry has changed since then, but raw hardware performance certainly isn't one.

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#204

Post by JohnBooty »

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.

   That's not how I remember it. Windows 9x was slow and 
   constantly crashing.
It was like... both.

If you had a did your own clean Windows installs, had an extra $100 of RAM, defragged the HDD regularly, and disabled crapware and unnecessary services etc. the UI felt real sharp and instant.

However this was not the typical experience. Typical experience for most people was that you clicked the Start menu and then listened to the HDD grind away.

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#205

Post by bacchusracine »

tommica wrote: post #179
troad wrote: post #25

I'm a big fan of this aesthetic. If you appreciate the usability of W95 without needing a pixel perfect copy, it's very easy to theme KDE to strike a really good balance. As your global theme, use 'Reactionary'. Set your application style to 'MS Windows 9x'. For your icons, use 'Memphis98'. For cursors, 'Hackneyed (scaleable)'. Your Plasma style, colours, and window decorations should all follow your global theme (Re…

This is a hail mary, but would there be something similar for getting the Win XP look? I'd love that

> getting the Win XP look?

I used to follow the XPDE project avidly back in the day but it seems to have just withered on the vine and never went anywhere.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200502011912/http://xpde.holob...

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#206

Post by JohnBooty »

Roark66 wrote: post #111
wanderingstan wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to believe that a few system crashes per day was the norm. You just hoped you hadn’t lost too much, would re-boot and go get a drink while you waited. Due to that “training” I still hit CTRL-S obsessively even when it hasn’t been needed for years.

>Hard to believe that a few system crashes per day was the norm. It certainly wasn't for me! At the time I had my first it job in a local pc repair shop and we had a series of 24h burn in tests. If the newly installed pc crashed during it, there was something wrong with the hw. My personal windows 95 definitely didn't crash more than once every few weeks of heavy use. Programs did crash, explorer did crash, but the a…

I didn't get a lot of blue screens either.

I did a lot of optimization on my systems. Not drastically hacking crap, just obsessively pruning unnecessary services and software etc. Registry cleanup tools. Etc. Also always had as much RAM as I could afford.

I'm not sure if there was a correlation there but it sure felt like it. Seemed like folks with constant blue screens had PCs filled with crapware. Maybe the difference was purely hardware or, purely luck, I dunno.

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#207

Post by qwerty456127 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #199
qwerty456127 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you appreciate the usability of W95 without needing a pixel perfect copy My experience suggests "not pixel perfect" usually means severely imperfect to the point of very ugly when Linux WMs try to imitate Windows 95. "Redmond" themes have been around for decades, always ugly as hell, only reminding of Windows 95 very loosely.

I don't think experience is relevant here, unless it's the same person doing that who made the previous ones. Maybe asking for a screenshot would help you discover if this one is good or not?

I've already wrote about this - this specific one (Chicago65) is actually amazing although still far from perfect. You can spot foreign quirks (including a really ugly one) even on the main screenshot if you look carefully and you will feel disilusioned once you actually try to use this at home. Nevertheless it is actually good, usable and by far better than any other attempt. I use it on everyday basis but I gave up hoping it to resemble Windows 95 and customized it instead. I am very grateful to the author who crafted this.

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#208

Post by dherikb »

troupo wrote: post #174
soraminazuki wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Windows 2000 though... I think it was the pinnacle of Windows.

Oh yeah... I always prefer to use it instead of Windows XP

Re: Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

#210

Post by reacharavindh »

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.

True that crashes were more frequent and annoying. However, that’s not what I was talking about. While it worked, the UX felt responsive. Moving the mouse around clicking things, opening files and folders, dragging stuff, scrolling, window switching, even the clicks felt responsive. These days the whole thing feels like “smooth” in a bad slow way. As if every action spends a good 20% of time first doing some animation and then doing what you really intended.
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