Join the discussion

Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.

  • Hacker News
  • Is Windows 7 "retro" now? I personally still prefer the Windows Classic theme.

    The logo looks like Firefox, Thunderbird, and a Charmander mixed together.

  • What would get me to stay with Linux (I've been going back and forth for the last few years) would be a fully-featured File Explorer work-alike complete with previews of every file type and a full-on context menu copy. One other thing... the ability to right-click any program icon and pin it to the taskbar. They're little things, but whenever I find myself on Windows 11, those are the things I find I missed most... well, other than being able to run File Locator Pro, NotePad++, and Bulk Rename natively.

    Oh, and getting some part of the OS/window manager to remember window placement/size. Wayland/GTK don't and this is NOT an innovation, it's trying to turn the desktop into a phone.

  • You're better off with Linux Mint and downloading the B00merang-Project themes, which includes good Win7 skins. A full distro just for an aesthetic (not to mention a distro nobody's heard of) isn't a good idea to use outside of a curiosity in a VM.
  • It is Windows 7 reminiscent, but it lacks the glassy appearance of Aero which is the defining characteristic of the OS' visual identity.
  • Anyone remember Xandros? https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=xandros

    Iirc it was a bit wonky and it eventually convinced me that, if I wanted to ever use Linux, I didn't need a Windows UI — I needed to learn to use Linux.

  • I've always found Zorin to be windows-like enough to transition people to. It has it's own visual identity, and isn't trying to be a simulacrum of windows - making it much more enjoyable to use.
  • As Microsoft has expressed, Aero is "cheesy."

    Despite nostalgia, it was stripped in pursuit of a mobile-friendly UI (at the time).

    '...calling the UI that debuted in Vista and continued in Windows 7, “cheesy” and “dated.”'

    https://www.computerworld.com/article/1437474/microsoft-dump...

    All Windows UIs will die, on Microsoft's time, not the user community.

  • I'm surprised that this distro's headline is "The Windows 7 experience on Linux" even though it's using a vague Windows-style XFCE theme.

    If someone's interested in a real Windows 7 lookalike, take a look at https://gitgud.io/aeroshell/atp/aerothemeplasma, it's extremely close.

    See for yourself:

    - Kumander: https://www.kumander.org/img/images/kumander.png

    - AeroShell: https://gitgud.io/aeroshell/atp/aerothemeplasma/-/raw/Plasma...

Explore Birbla archives