984
Copycat (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] 167 points 1 month ago (8 children)

There's nothing wrong with tuning your UI to match one you're more comfortable with. Thats the beauty of Linux.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    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

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    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.

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    • [–] 55 points 1 month ago* (27 children)

    Windows 8.. or Windows 11 😬

    There is a scale of psychopathy...

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  • [–] 39 points 1 month ago (11 children)

    XP, though? Hell yeah. I still miss that theme.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    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

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    The Media Center theme was a nice twist on the default XP theme I'll admit.

    i8SpAVOHtDWV9n6.jpg

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    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.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    WindowsME

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    • [–] 52 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    I tweak my linux so it becomes a prison for anyone that boots that isn't me, we are not the same.

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  • [–] 33 points 1 month ago* (3 children)

    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

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    • [–] 45 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    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 πŸ˜…

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    • [–] 31 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I tweak my Linux to look like TempleOS.

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    • [–] 16 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    IMO, Windows's UI/UX might seem good only if you haven't tried anything actually different. Tiling/scrolling WMs is the way.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (1 child)

    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 πŸ˜…

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago*

    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.

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    • [–] 15 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    hey don't sleep on chicago95

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    • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    ... well you can't just say that and not provide screenshots, that sounds cool AF

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago

    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.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Can’t really take a screenshot of my login screen.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    ...that's just the default ubuntu greeter with a different background.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    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. :)

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    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.

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    • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    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.

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    • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I use Windows from Scratch. I built all the bloatware and telemtry myself, god damn it!

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    • [–] 11 points 1 month ago

    Anyone with handwriting that meticulous is the real psycho

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    [–] 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I tweaked my KDE desktop to look like XFCE.
    What does that make me?

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    • [–] 10 points 1 month ago

    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

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    [–] 10 points 1 month ago

    I frequently compare my XFCE setup to Windows 95. The job of an OS is to run programs.

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    [–] 9 points 1 month ago

    I always loved the MacOS UI, so I emulate it in Linux. The visuals without the OS itself is just πŸ‘Œ

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    [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    meanwhile I'm over here making NixOS look like NeXTStep

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    [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    Thats fine its your linux.

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    [–] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    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.

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    • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I made my KDE desktop look like Windows 7 and I like it

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    • [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    I tweaked to look like windows xp, loved the retro feeling

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    [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    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.

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    [–] 12 points 1 month ago

    I use KDE because it looks like Windows 10... also gnome feet.

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    [–] 6 points 1 month ago

    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.

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    [–] 6 points 1 month ago

    Now, now, are we talking windows 11 or XP?

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