Same. We had this 2010s bubble of design space exploration and constant 'disruption' but in the end .. the good old paradigm is still way more than enough.
Re:Xfce 4.16
by spaniard89277 on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @08:07AM
(#25517200)
I agree, XFCE is there when you need it. No weird experiments, always consistent.
Feels like Win98SE to me (that's a compliment). Love it for that, though back to KDE for my daily driver.
Re:Xfce 4.16
by refracture on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @09:35AM
(#25517960)
Chicago95 can take that a step further if you like. I'm running KDE lately too (Slackware-current finally got KDE5 recently so I'm trying it out), but XFCE is the old trusty default for me.
Re:Xfce 4.16
by awiesenhofer on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @09:59AM
(#25518214)
Wow, what a blast from the past. I always wonder though is anyone actually using themes like these as their actual daily driver?
Link to the project with Screenshots: https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95
My grandmother's computer is an old Debian box with nothing more than `ly` (as a DM), xfce, Chicago95, and Firefox. She loves it, though I made a ton of tweaks here and there to make it easier for her to use (specifically a ton of website launchers on her desktop). She got lost in regards to how to use her computer back in the XP>8 transition so it was great to be able to bring her back to that style of desktop and have the system be easier to fix than Windows 8 or 10.
nice story :)
Re:Xfce 4.16
by refracture on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @10:23AM
(#25518474)
I ran it for most of 2020 before moving to KDE. I hadn't looked at the project recently until today and saw that it now has 'Chicago95 Plus! A tool to preview and install Windows 95/98/ME/XP themes'.. I'm going to have to try it that out. Of course, I'm probably an outlier in that I love the visual design of user interfaces from that bygone era.
Re:Xfce 4.16
by Snortibartfast on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @12:04PM
(#25519626)
I've used Memphis98 (similar to Chicago95) since it came out. Although just as a GTK-theme, not the entire desktop. Window manager is FVWM and taskbar/panel/session-manager is LXQt, so it's a bit of a Franken-desktop :)
For Qt-apps I use the "Windows" style so they fit together nicely.
Comparing Memphis and Chicago, there are some layout-bugs in Memphis, but I feel like it's overall a bit better balanced than Chicago.
I think all new themes are too bright and flat, Windows 9X was perfect (at least in that regard).
For a FVWM/Motif based theme, you may like the OL/Motif themes from B00merang.
OpenLook https://b00merang.weebly.com/solaris-8.html
Motif https://b00merang.weebly.com/solaris-9.html
The Solaris 9 theme works great with FVWM.
I’ve used chicago95 as a daily driver for a few years now. It’s simple, high contrast, gets out of my way and lets me work.
I used XFCE with this exact theme for a few months and I loved it. The only thing I didn't like was that the light gray top "outline part" of the window decoration doesn't disappear when you maximize a window. I never figured out how to fix that.
it seriously takes me like 15 minutes to find a bug in KDE, although i haven't tried it for 3 years or so. is that improved?
rock solid lately. also on par with XFCE in terms of resource usage, yet lot and lots more features.
Re:Xfce 4.16
by kieckerjan on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @09:02AM
(#25517688)
Wow, I just learned from your casual remark that you can actually search in the xfce console. Awesome!
Re:Xfce 4.16
by stjohnswarts on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @03:41PM
(#25521962)
You can search in gnome-terminal and konsole as well. It's a fairly common feature.
Re:Xfce 4.16
by kieckerjan on Thursday December 24, 2020 @04:23AM
(#25526137)
I believe you. But those I don't use. :-)
- Coherency: the way it works and is presented does not change much over the years. It's important for me. I don't want to adapt everytime a designer thinks he has a good idea.
- Simplicity: it just works and is well configured out of the box
- Efficiency: not the lightest Desktop Manager in the market but it is light enough so it won't eat resources for nothing
- Right level of complexity: there is enough to configure it to adapt it to your needs but not too much to make it a mess. Take the xfce console for example: you can rename tabs, move them and search text in them. Last time I check these features were not available in Gnome Terminal. But at the same time I don't want much more than that.
Coherency is really important for me: Xfce has been there when Gnome / Unity / Gnome 3 / Mate / Cinnamon were confusing me by offering all the same but not really the same.
Edit: I wrote "consistency" instead of "coherency" but I guess the right term is coherency in this context.