Are we sure he didn't tweak it to have prompts that only give now or later option without a way to say no? Maybe he also set it to restart to install updates but only when he's in a call or has more than 30 minutes of unsaved work.
I wish I could tweak Win 11 to look like Win 7. The only improvement since then was putting the Folder Up button back and adding tabs to Explorer, everything else is worse.
Exact same. That missing up button alone made me not like Windows 7, I didn't realize how much I relied on it in xp. I have one pc that I keep Windows 11 on for work because there's just too much niche software I need that only supports Windows, but everything else is Linux at this point.
Being comfortable with something is overrated, try new things and see what clicks for you. I never understood the "it's what I'm used to" thing, that just drives me crazy because you are so aware of the issues and there's never any excitement and interest of discovery. And I don't mean that you need to change everything all the time, I very much have specific things that I go to great lengths to have but I have those because I've found them and nothing else has come close to feeling as good.
Trying new stuff is great - when you choose it. Random surprise tweaks that you're forced to spend a while figuring out how to revert are pure fucking evil and everyone knows it.
What's especially terrible is when people change stuff for the worse, then remove the old better option.
I used to do this, and it meant I'd hold onto old habits and never used my current OS how it was intended.
This wasnt just for Linux either, I'd try using Win95 like 3.1, I'd try using XP like 98, I'd try using win 8 like 7, I'd try using OS X like Windows and I'd try using Linux like OS X or like Windows.
When I decided to learn the OS I was using (which didn't take much effort, but was a bit of a conscious decision) I had a much better time, less frustrated and more comfortable.
That would always be my recommendation to anyone switching OS (Or DE) learn it the way it was intended and you'll have a much better time
Lol, I grew up with the 98se theme and xp theme, and at this point i just think they're both incredibly ugly. Peak windows desktop prettiness and usability was windows 7 for me.
Honestly, I think Windows 8 Beta's theme was the best looking (if you ignore the issues with the start screen): pairing Aero with the squared windows actually looked really good.
That they not only removed Aero in the final version but also soccer their lawyers on anyone who tried to bring it back was just incredibly shitty on their part
I used Royale Blue for ages, it was super easy to find the installer for and was signed by M$ so needed no UXTheme patch.
There was also Royale Noir and Royale Zune. Noir is a dark theme (Not to be confused with dark mode) and Zune, which was a different shade of black and sported an orange start button. Lastly there was also Royale Embedded which was a darker shade of blue, and had a blue Start button.
You mean the Fisher Price theme? While it wasn't as bad as people seemed to think at the time, it really was kinda ugly and childish looking (but still an improvement over the corpo-boring '95 era theme)
Honestly, 8 and 8.1 weren't bad visually (technically a whole different matter). I wouldn't mind making my WM resemble good old Windows 8, but actually has a sane technical base of Linux underneath it.
Yeah, Microsoft removed the Start Menu and added full screen tiles, that were widgets that updated with stuff (like news). I don't remember when the two 2 control panels things happened, Windows had always been a mess to me up to that point. It could've been sooner or later, because Windows was built with legacy support in mind.
Reminds me of this youtuber that fell for a scammer's bait intentionally except he was in a VM of hannah montana linux. The scammer was so fucking confused haha
Well, first I tweak my windows to mimic the appearance of the windows that I liked, windows 7. Then I tweak my Linux to mimic that.
Just because hurr durr windows bad, doesn't mean their huge team of UI and UX designers didn't ever come up with a good design. And like most things Microsoft, I take pleasure in pirating it when I can.
I'm pretty much always picking XFCE or KDE over just a WM. In the case of KDE, I use it like Windows. I make XFCE as Unity-like as possible, which I believe is the best interface for limited screen real estate.
I'm using the term "WM" loosely, as a more of a general term here.
And no, i can't call a DE that adds a title bar to every window, has a huge-ass taskbar, and a limited amount of free space per workspace "best for limited screen real estate". Something like Niri, MangoWC or Hyprland (with scrolling layout enabled) works much better and cleaner precisely in that regard, since they offer
a) a hotkey-first UX, meaning that everything usually represented by a UI button is moved to the keyboard and no longer needs to clutter the screen
b) literally infinite horizontal space.
I literally can't go back ever since i gave tiling a try, any floating de/wm now feels clunky and awkward to me.
I use KDE on my desktop because I don't care about maximizing screen real estate in that context. I have a large monitor, so I can afford to lose some pixels to my taskbar or window borders. That being said, if I did care, I can make the taskbar autohide and pick a slim/minimal theme for the window borders. With regard to XFCE, I said I make it Unity-like. As such, there is no taskbar. I have a slim panel at the top that shows stuff I want to be able to see easily (i.e., pinned background applications, battery life, date, time, etc.) My dock-like panel autohides, so it takes up no real estate. Maximized windows merge into the top panel like in Unity, so the window borders take up no extra room.
Any DE can become "hotkey-first." For example, I launch terminal with CTRL+ALT+T. My application launcher is CTRL+SPACE, and it is text-based. Most DEs have default hotkeys for a lot of functions, and they are customizable.
Of course, all of this comes down to how one's workflow is. I don't ever see myself wanting to scroll my desktop or deal with windows auto-tiling. Multiple desktops is another example. It's something just about every DE offers, but I've never had a use for it. Different strokes for different folks.
I use KDE on my desktop because I don't care about maximizing screen real estate in that context.
my whole screen real estate banter was in response to
I make XFCE as Unity-like as possible, which I believe is the best interface for limited screen real estate.
Any DE can become "hotkey-first."
Yeah... no. Maybe i'm just too picky about my preferences, but ctrl+alt+t, alt+f4, and other "wonderful" hotkeys that require either a huge hand stretch, or two hands to press them, don't sound like "keyboard-first" to me. Neither does setting up said hotkeys either with a gui utility, not really meant to be used with both hands on the keyboard, or editing an ugly auto-generated json or xml config.
Of course, all of this comes down to how one's workflow is.
Of course, it's nothing more than a matter of personal preference. I'm not trying to sell you anything, or prove your stance wrong. I just like talking about this stuff. Tell me if i'm being annoying.
I don't ever see myself wanting to scroll my desktop or deal with windows auto-tiling.
The whole point of tiling/scrolling wms is that you have to deal with less things tho? The ideal goal, philosopher's stone of those wms, if you may, is to make so that user, after the initial configuration, doesn't need to concern themself with window positioning and resizing.
Multiple desktops is another example. It's something just about every DE offers, but I've never had a use for it.
That's because those DEs make it so that using them actually takes effort, because guess what, the default key bindings for them are horrible! On top of that, i'm not sure, but i don't remember neither XFCE nor Plasma offering any sort of automation around it, (might be wrong tho) whereas in tiling/scrolling world custom rules for automatically assigning certain windows to certain workspaces, or, for instance, opening an app if you switch to a certain empty workspace, is considered a bare minimum. It naturally makes the process of navigating the windows even less chaotic. Basically, it creates a mental model, where you don't have chaotically alt-tab around or seek anything with your eyes, since you just know where everything is. Your desktop becomes the perfect silent well-oiled machine that gets in your way as little as humanly (machinely?) possible, and it just feels soooo incredibly fucking nice.
I don't really like the feel of a full tiling windows manager, I've tried it and I just can't vibe with it. I use fancyzones on windows and fancytiles on mint, because I like to be able to define my zones of arbitrary size and position, like 3/8ths of a vertical screen, and snap a window to it, but then also sometimes adjust the window border a bit with the mouse. Or just stack window on top of each other. I use mouse a lot on both my work windows PC and my home Linux PC, so I customise both of them to be very similar and have the exact workflow I want, which is hyper specific. I even have the same 3-monitor layout, and keyboard and mouse on both my work PC and home pc so my muscle memory between work and home doesn't suffer 😅
Makes sense. Except I can't really say my muscle memory suffers either. The workflow on my home pc is just so different that it actually occupies a completely separate section of my memory, rather than overwriting it.
Btw, since you mentioned you're heavily relying on mouse in your workflow, i suggest you to take a look at Kando. It's cross-platform, and looks super cool.
The left dock is Plank Reloaded and it tucks out of sight when stuff gets maximized. Same for the top bar too. The turtle in both of them is the applications menu. System font across everything is Inter, and the terminal font is Special Elite.
Indeed! Mostly cause I don't really quite get how to replace the greeter. But I followed up with a separate comment written from my computer instead of my phone. :)
There is a heckuva lot to be said for the classic "start" category based app menu, tied to a task bar. XFCE, MATE, OpenBox, all draw from a paradigm established in the Windows 95 design.
Its not a bad design. Personally, I couldn't get used to anything else (and I've tried). My first PC had Win 95 and I'm now on a Plasma desktop.
Microsoft is doing a great job at completely crippling the fuck out of their start menu though, proving once again they have no idea what direction they're going in.
Having grown up with a Mac before OS X came out, I liked that I could make XFCE look a bit more like OS 9, but I haven't been able to find a suitable equivalent for kde yet.
I might give a Windows 7 theme a try. As much as I hate Microsoft, I've been feeling unusually nostalgic for 7. That one was kind of peak for gaming.
Personally I care less about effects. I just wish we had more skeuomorphic themes to choose from. Like why can't I make my whole desktop look like a crazy Winamp theme?
It was funny the first 5000 times I saw someone do it, but now it feels like I'm on a 5th date with someone who is still going on a monologue about epicly owning their bitch ex.
Win 7's interface was good for a number of reasons and that's why my UI looks even more like it than the stock Cinnamon themes, which are already a deliberate rip-off.
Linux Mint was designed to deliver a smooth landing from Windows, and if you're the type of guy to have a problem with it, then the entire FOSS communtiy is gonna have a problem with you, because you're making it harder for people to escape from corporate solutions.
But many Linux DEs are made to be similar to Windows anyway. They are serving generally the same purpose of supporting the file/app world. It's about time we moved on to a more streamlined user friendly world. But people's lack of imagination holds us back.
When all I had was a netbook with 1gb of ram and really weak intel atom cpu, I've done the same, not for estetic reasons (there was a qtcurve theme that looked like gray windows theme of win 2000 - but worse, but it was extremely configurable and with it netbook turned into something marginally usable with kde 4.x).
So it like you used this service for long, then the one who responsible for the service sucks suddenly, the alternative of that service is somewhat close but not carbon copy of your service, apparently you can involve yourself in adjusting the alternative to your liking , it is optional but alass it is inevitable.
Windows is a fine operating system. The NT kernel is pretty good, all things considered, and the design and UX of XP, Vista, and 7 were overall pretty peak. The main problem with Windows is and always has been Microsoft. Expose theme 4 lyfe.
Ah when I got my android phone as a kid copied the newest iPhone with it to show you didn't need to pay all that for the same experience. Transitionary times are fun
I can't do GNOME. I've tried multiple times over the last25 years. I am well past the point where I do heavy wild customizations to KDE etc. Some colored window decorations to make it easier to find the buttons. Change icons and pointers. Monolith MHL in the background. And a little jiggle physics. Some of that GNOME can do, but it will often fight you over it. For myself plasma just has less friction, literally and figuratively. Though to be honest I'm not familiar with the friction coefficient of a gnome.
I've heard some say the restrictiveness of GNOME makes them more productive. Poor bastards.
Well yes, but i always tweeked my windows to the point of breaking. Now i use mint and have reached the point where i love how it looks, everything works and i will likley sit with its current form for some years, maybe untill my kids are older and i have more time to waste again.
151 replies
There's nothing wrong with tuning your UI to match one you're more comfortable with. Thats the beauty of Linux.
Are we sure he didn't tweak it to have prompts that only give now or later option without a way to say no? Maybe he also set it to restart to install updates but only when he's in a call or has more than 30 minutes of unsaved work.
I wish I could tweak Win 11 to look like Win 7. The only improvement since then was putting the Folder Up button back and adding tabs to Explorer, everything else is worse.
There's this project you could try in a vm https://classic7.lol/
Exact same. That missing up button alone made me not like Windows 7, I didn't realize how much I relied on it in xp. I have one pc that I keep Windows 11 on for work because there's just too much niche software I need that only supports Windows, but everything else is Linux at this point.
Being comfortable with something is overrated, try new things and see what clicks for you. I never understood the "it's what I'm used to" thing, that just drives me crazy because you are so aware of the issues and there's never any excitement and interest of discovery. And I don't mean that you need to change everything all the time, I very much have specific things that I go to great lengths to have but I have those because I've found them and nothing else has come close to feeling as good.
Trying new stuff is great - when you choose it. Random surprise tweaks that you're forced to spend a while figuring out how to revert are pure fucking evil and everyone knows it.
What's especially terrible is when people change stuff for the worse, then remove the old better option.
I used to do this, and it meant I'd hold onto old habits and never used my current OS how it was intended.
This wasnt just for Linux either, I'd try using Win95 like 3.1, I'd try using XP like 98, I'd try using win 8 like 7, I'd try using OS X like Windows and I'd try using Linux like OS X or like Windows.
When I decided to learn the OS I was using (which didn't take much effort, but was a bit of a conscious decision) I had a much better time, less frustrated and more comfortable.
That would always be my recommendation to anyone switching OS (Or DE) learn it the way it was intended and you'll have a much better time
The way my OS was intended was to be windowslike.
It uses kwin
Windows 8.. or Windows 11 😬
There is a scale of psychopathy...
XP, though? Hell yeah. I still miss that theme.
Lol, I grew up with the 98se theme and xp theme, and at this point i just think they're both incredibly ugly. Peak windows desktop prettiness and usability was windows 7 for me.
I disabled the UI stuff where it would look like Windows 2000 from XP until it stopped letting me. Different strokes, I guess.
https://gitgud.io/aeroshell/atp/aerothemeplasma
Put this thing in a VM and then let a scammer remote into it, see what he does.
Honestly, I think Windows 8 Beta's theme was the best looking (if you ignore the issues with the start screen): pairing Aero with the squared windows actually looked really good.
That they not only removed Aero in the final version but also soccer their lawyers on anyone who tried to bring it back was just incredibly shitty on their part
The Media Center theme was a nice twist on the default XP theme I'll admit.
I used Royale Blue for ages, it was super easy to find the installer for and was signed by M$ so needed no UXTheme patch.
There was also Royale Noir and Royale Zune. Noir is a dark theme (Not to be confused with dark mode) and Zune, which was a different shade of black and sported an orange start button. Lastly there was also Royale Embedded which was a darker shade of blue, and had a blue Start button.
98 SE.
XP or NT, I’d go back
Windows 95 blew my mind.
Then windows 98 preview also was amazeballs
You mean the Fisher Price theme? While it wasn't as bad as people seemed to think at the time, it really was kinda ugly and childish looking (but still an improvement over the corpo-boring '95 era theme)
Vista
vista and 7 both look really good, so thats fair
WindowsME
Psychopath
The Mountain Dew Baja blast of windows releases
Inexplicably beloved by furries?
... no hang on, that actually tracks.
XP
Honestly, 8 and 8.1 weren't bad visually (technically a whole different matter). I wouldn't mind making my WM resemble good old Windows 8, but actually has a sane technical base of Linux underneath it.
It was the one with the weird start menu wasn't it? Also wasn't it the one that they started adding the second duplicate ui in a half assed way?
Like where they ended up with 2 control panels
Yeah, Microsoft removed the Start Menu and added full screen tiles, that were widgets that updated with stuff (like news). I don't remember when the two 2 control panels things happened, Windows had always been a mess to me up to that point. It could've been sooner or later, because Windows was built with legacy support in mind.
DOS
Powershell
That's one of the bad ones
Windows Me!
@auzy1 @MattW03 windows 2000
I tweak my linux so it becomes a prison for anyone that boots that isn't me, we are not the same.
Reminds me of this youtuber that fell for a scammer's bait intentionally except he was in a VM of hannah montana linux. The scammer was so fucking confused haha
Got a link?
I don't have a link either, but i'd check Kitboga's channel, he is usually screwing around with scammers in insane ways
No sry, was a long time ago
"what in the fuck is a luks?"
That's why I log in through tty. What comes next is anyone's guess. Nerd wizardry.
If someone that isn't me can competently use my computer I consider it a personal failing. Always open to tips
What's wrong with wanting a UI you're used to?
Everyone wants other people to switch to Linux until they do literally anything a purist wouldn't do with their own personal setup 😅
You're using a UI?!?? 😡
My grandmother never realized she was using Linux because it just looked like all the other computers. (Linux was not the cause of her death)
great comment!
(Linux was not the cause of explodicle's grandmother's death)
I tweak my Linux to look like TempleOS.
Do you have the routine that shuffles bible verses?
Of course, 3d sprites included.
Well, first I tweak my windows to mimic the appearance of the windows that I liked, windows 7. Then I tweak my Linux to mimic that.
Just because hurr durr windows bad, doesn't mean their huge team of UI and UX designers didn't ever come up with a good design. And like most things Microsoft, I take pleasure in pirating it when I can.
Goddamn it I still miss 7
IMO, Windows's UI/UX might seem good only if you haven't tried anything actually different. Tiling/scrolling WMs is the way.
I'm pretty much always picking XFCE or KDE over just a WM. In the case of KDE, I use it like Windows. I make XFCE as Unity-like as possible, which I believe is the best interface for limited screen real estate.
I'm using the term "WM" loosely, as a more of a general term here.
And no, i can't call a DE that adds a title bar to every window, has a huge-ass taskbar, and a limited amount of free space per workspace "best for limited screen real estate". Something like Niri, MangoWC or Hyprland (with scrolling layout enabled) works much better and cleaner precisely in that regard, since they offer
a) a hotkey-first UX, meaning that everything usually represented by a UI button is moved to the keyboard and no longer needs to clutter the screen
b) literally infinite horizontal space.
I literally can't go back ever since i gave tiling a try, any floating de/wm now feels clunky and awkward to me.
I use KDE on my desktop because I don't care about maximizing screen real estate in that context. I have a large monitor, so I can afford to lose some pixels to my taskbar or window borders. That being said, if I did care, I can make the taskbar autohide and pick a slim/minimal theme for the window borders. With regard to XFCE, I said I make it Unity-like. As such, there is no taskbar. I have a slim panel at the top that shows stuff I want to be able to see easily (i.e., pinned background applications, battery life, date, time, etc.) My dock-like panel autohides, so it takes up no real estate. Maximized windows merge into the top panel like in Unity, so the window borders take up no extra room.
Any DE can become "hotkey-first." For example, I launch terminal with CTRL+ALT+T. My application launcher is CTRL+SPACE, and it is text-based. Most DEs have default hotkeys for a lot of functions, and they are customizable.
Of course, all of this comes down to how one's workflow is. I don't ever see myself wanting to scroll my desktop or deal with windows auto-tiling. Multiple desktops is another example. It's something just about every DE offers, but I've never had a use for it. Different strokes for different folks.
my whole screen real estate banter was in response to
Yeah... no. Maybe i'm just too picky about my preferences, but
ctrl+alt+t,alt+f4, and other "wonderful" hotkeys that require either a huge hand stretch, or two hands to press them, don't sound like "keyboard-first" to me. Neither does setting up said hotkeys either with a gui utility, not really meant to be used with both hands on the keyboard, or editing an ugly auto-generated json or xml config.Of course, it's nothing more than a matter of personal preference. I'm not trying to sell you anything, or prove your stance wrong. I just like talking about this stuff. Tell me if i'm being annoying.
The whole point of tiling/scrolling wms is that you have to deal with less things tho? The ideal goal, philosopher's stone of those wms, if you may, is to make so that user, after the initial configuration, doesn't need to concern themself with window positioning and resizing.
That's because those DEs make it so that using them actually takes effort, because guess what, the default key bindings for them are horrible! On top of that, i'm not sure, but i don't remember neither XFCE nor Plasma offering any sort of automation around it, (might be wrong tho) whereas in tiling/scrolling world custom rules for automatically assigning certain windows to certain workspaces, or, for instance, opening an app if you switch to a certain empty workspace, is considered a bare minimum. It naturally makes the process of navigating the windows even less chaotic. Basically, it creates a mental model, where you don't have chaotically
alt-tabaround or seek anything with your eyes, since you just know where everything is. Your desktop becomes the perfect silent well-oiled machine that gets in your way as little as humanly (machinely?) possible, and it just feels soooo incredibly fucking nice.I don't really like the feel of a full tiling windows manager, I've tried it and I just can't vibe with it. I use fancyzones on windows and fancytiles on mint, because I like to be able to define my zones of arbitrary size and position, like 3/8ths of a vertical screen, and snap a window to it, but then also sometimes adjust the window border a bit with the mouse. Or just stack window on top of each other. I use mouse a lot on both my work windows PC and my home Linux PC, so I customise both of them to be very similar and have the exact workflow I want, which is hyper specific. I even have the same 3-monitor layout, and keyboard and mouse on both my work PC and home pc so my muscle memory between work and home doesn't suffer 😅
Makes sense. Except I can't really say my muscle memory suffers either. The workflow on my home pc is just so different that it actually occupies a completely separate section of my memory, rather than overwriting it.
Btw, since you mentioned you're heavily relying on mouse in your workflow, i suggest you to take a look at Kando. It's cross-platform, and looks super cool.
hey don't sleep on chicago95
nor aerothemeplasma
nor xfce-winxp-tc
The fuck? When opening the screenshots and scroll half way through the XFCE4 Screensaver lock screen my monitor starts blinking like crazy.
🎼when a grid's misaligned with another behind
that's a moiré
This, but I use the XP desktop image. I call it Winux. Let the hate flow through you.
I went in the far opposite direction, I tried to make Mint look like an entirely fictional OS, of the sort that might be seen in a video game.
... well you can't just say that and not provide screenshots, that sounds cool AF
The left dock is Plank Reloaded and it tucks out of sight when stuff gets maximized. Same for the top bar too. The turtle in both of them is the applications menu. System font across everything is Inter, and the terminal font is Special Elite.
Can’t really take a screenshot of my login screen.
...that's just the default ubuntu greeter with a different background.
Indeed! Mostly cause I don't really quite get how to replace the greeter. But I followed up with a separate comment written from my computer instead of my phone. :)
oh hey there we go! i recognise all the components and themes so it's still familiar, but it's unique which is nice.
if you really want it to feel like an alien os, give eagle mode a look. that one really wrinkles your brain.
🐢
might not be too good for turtles, no
There is a heckuva lot to be said for the classic "start" category based app menu, tied to a task bar. XFCE, MATE, OpenBox, all draw from a paradigm established in the Windows 95 design.
Its not a bad design. Personally, I couldn't get used to anything else (and I've tried). My first PC had Win 95 and I'm now on a Plasma desktop.
Microsoft is doing a great job at completely crippling the fuck out of their start menu though, proving once again they have no idea what direction they're going in.
I use Windows from Scratch. I built all the bloatware and telemtry myself, god damn it!
Always nice to come across fellow React developers!
I use KDE because it looks like Windows 10... also gnome feet.
I love feet, but hate gnome 😞
I don't like feet but yolerate gnome 😞
I tweaked my KDE desktop to look like XFCE.
What does that make me?
KDFCE boy :)
That's my favorite comic strip
I always loved the MacOS UI, so I emulate it in Linux. The visuals without the OS itself is just 👌
I frequently compare my XFCE setup to Windows 95. The job of an OS is to run programs.
Yeah gatekeeping is exactly how we get people to try Linux...
Ooh wait, that's the opposite.
Let people use Linux however they want. That's the whole point of the OS family, it's incredibly customisable
Anyone with handwriting that meticulous is the real psycho
I made my KDE desktop look like Windows 7 and I like it
Peak
Screenshot? Legit curious cuz it looks so Mac out-of-the-box
I don't have it anymore because it broke with Plasma updates. Now i have it looking like Windows 10
Thats fine its your linux.
meanwhile I'm over here making NixOS look like NeXTStep
Having grown up with a Mac before OS X came out, I liked that I could make XFCE look a bit more like OS 9, but I haven't been able to find a suitable equivalent for kde yet.
I might give a Windows 7 theme a try. As much as I hate Microsoft, I've been feeling unusually nostalgic for 7. That one was kind of peak for gaming.
I like kde a lot, but their theming is kinda shit. The win7 themes dont really achieve aero effects that well.
Personally I care less about effects. I just wish we had more skeuomorphic themes to choose from. Like why can't I make my whole desktop look like a crazy Winamp theme?
It was funny the first 5000 times I saw someone do it, but now it feels like I'm on a 5th date with someone who is still going on a monologue about epicly owning their bitch ex.
Win 7's interface was good for a number of reasons and that's why my UI looks even more like it than the stock Cinnamon themes, which are already a deliberate rip-off.
If that makes people think me a psycho, so be it.
Linux Mint was designed to deliver a smooth landing from Windows, and if you're the type of guy to have a problem with it, then the entire FOSS communtiy is gonna have a problem with you, because you're making it harder for people to escape from corporate solutions.
I tweaked to look like windows xp, loved the retro feeling
I tweak my Plasma to look like Gnome.
Sky is the limit
Okay that seems just straight up illegal.
Looks at the GNOME users, "sad GNOME noises". It's okay buddy, whatever works for you.
Now, now, are we talking windows 11 or XP?
I like making mine look like "XP if I got to make it do what I want and have things like dark mode."
I just miss the era :)
How does it look?
only for gaming compatibility
Yes... but it's really... WINDOWS 98.
I tried doing this at first, but i just kept being frustrated every time something wasn't like on windows...
Then i gave tiling managers (i3 specifically) a try...
Here I am now daily-driving Hyprland and writing custom ui with quickshell...
I miss some of the explorer features. Specially right click dragging.
I also have some trouble balancing all the smaller storage devices that get used by programs.
Hey I argue that styling after Windows 7 isn't bad.
I use Nightglow Blue that looks kinda like a dark mode Windows 7:
https://store.kde.org/p/2187004
But at least it's windows XP, right?
But many Linux DEs are made to be similar to Windows anyway. They are serving generally the same purpose of supporting the file/app world. It's about time we moved on to a more streamlined user friendly world. But people's lack of imagination holds us back.
I do bind Ctrl-E for a new file browser and Ctrl-D to show desktop which I picked up from Windows.
Well I use,
Yeah I don't use Linux for the sake of it being different. Keyboard shortcuts are not what I dislike about Windows so why change muscle memory?
Why not just use meta+esc for system monitor? Less keys
3,4 are the default in KDE/Wayland I think
When all I had was a netbook with 1gb of ram and really weak intel atom cpu, I've done the same, not for estetic reasons (there was a qtcurve theme that looked like gray windows theme of win 2000 - but worse, but it was extremely configurable and with it netbook turned into something marginally usable with kde 4.x).
Well, does choosing Mint+Cinnamon for familiarity count?
I mean... I used to have a macbook with Linux inside customized to look like Windows 🥸😈
I also tweak my Windows to mimic Linux
I call it OuroborOS
which linux? android? a smart fridge? a cars infotainment system? hannah montana linux? biebian? amogos?
Yes
They paid millions in user trails and data to get there and then did windows 8
So it like you used this service for long, then the one who responsible for the service sucks suddenly, the alternative of that service is somewhat close but not carbon copy of your service, apparently you can involve yourself in adjusting the alternative to your liking , it is optional but alass it is inevitable.
Welcome to the world of customization, customer.
That's no problem actually, given that Windows frequently copied KDE you'd just go full circle
W8 I get it.
Where do I get my certificate?
Windows is a fine operating system. The NT kernel is pretty good, all things considered, and the design and UX of XP, Vista, and 7 were overall pretty peak. The main problem with Windows is and always has been Microsoft. Expose theme 4 lyfe.
Windows NT kernel is a disaster itself. Inferior on all parts when comparing to FreeBSD or Linux kernels.
Disaster is a bit unfair. It's a bloated dinosaur for sure, but it is an important piece of computing history and it's got some neat tricks.
AeroThemePlasma iykyk
Ah when I got my android phone as a kid copied the newest iPhone with it to show you didn't need to pay all that for the same experience. Transitionary times are fun
I tweak mine to mimic OS/2. It's why I have a panel at the top of my screen to mimic the one in OS/2 Warp 4.
I tweaked my NIRI WM to look like KDE
This is one of the reasons i hate kde and love gnome
I can't do GNOME. I've tried multiple times over the last25 years. I am well past the point where I do heavy wild customizations to KDE etc. Some colored window decorations to make it easier to find the buttons. Change icons and pointers. Monolith MHL in the background. And a little jiggle physics. Some of that GNOME can do, but it will often fight you over it. For myself plasma just has less friction, literally and figuratively. Though to be honest I'm not familiar with the friction coefficient of a gnome.
I've heard some say the restrictiveness of GNOME makes them more productive. Poor bastards.
I made WinTile for gnome. Gave me back quarter tiling.
I just want an icon only taskbar at the bottom and a Windows 7-like application launcher. Besides that it doesn't have to look like Windows at all.
Well yes, but i always tweeked my windows to the point of breaking. Now i use mint and have reached the point where i love how it looks, everything works and i will likley sit with its current form for some years, maybe untill my kids are older and i have more time to waste again.
I do this, but largely around customizable tiling, keyboard shortcuts, low to no animations, and RDP.
As far as actual -theme- that seems insane.
"We tweaked your windows to mimic linux"
-Microslop, after windows 10
Aha ! I choose a distro that looked like Windows out of the box, so did not tweak anything, joke's on you i'm no psycho
random comment to see if i can comment... (im not a bot)