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Comment by jp0d | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone think of a reason why to do this? Apart from personal fun project, of course!

Because we hit peak desktop right around Windows 2000. Just about everything since then has been a step backwards in speed and usability.

The Mac Finder is a hot mess and seems to get worse with every release.

The 964 different desktops available for Linux are in general a hodgepodge of slow impossible-to-use disasters. A notable exception is XFCE but it's a bit of a second-class citizen and even things in XFCE don't work well. (Example: network configuration, you need to be logged in as root to use this applet.)

Edit: I would like to point out that the Win2k desktop was blazing fast on a machine with 256MB of RAM. I can't get Debian to install on a machine with less than 512MB without complaining.

IMO the last decently desktop version of Windows was 7. After that, it was utterly ruined by the existence of touchscreens and Microsoft's insistence that they're the next big thing in computers.

My main issue with current macOS is the combined toolbars and titles, including in finder. There's too much padding but then everything feels unnecessarily cramped. My second issue with modern macOS is their new icon system where literally nothing is aligned to the pixel grid. But there's still a surprising amount of dense UIs — I guess it helps that Apple has a clear separation between touch (iPad) and non-touch (Mac) product lines.

It's possible to disable toolbars and use a menu-bar/shortcut oriented workflow like in the Classic Mac OS.

Speak for yourself, my riced out linux desktop is fast and usable AF

> we hit peak desktop right around Windows 2000

I could not disagree more strongly. Win2000 buttons are tiny, drag areas are tiny, basically everything is tiny and unclickable. I strongly prefer the generously-proportioned, touch-inspired interfaces of the last 4-5 years.

People who have to actually get work done on a computer are almost always good with using a mouse and keyboard, so we understand how to move with precision and speed.

I am just describing a preference.

They are not tiny if you run it on a 800x600 screen

Please, go install Windows 2000 under Qemu at 1024x768 resolution, then press ctrl-alt-f to set the Window to a scaled fullscreen desktop. Do you feel it as tiny? That's how we saw Windows 2000 back in the day on a CRT monitor.

I get that it's easier to run on low RAM systems. I just don't think Windows95 was the pinnacle of UI design and was minimalistic only because resources were scarce. These days it's actually a lot harder to get low RAM machines. Unless you're working in the embedded space, and a UI like this is pointless there too.

I haven't been using Linux (or Windows) much since several years now. But a stripped down version of Gnome or KDE or MATE are prefect as they were. The Windows UI in its current form or old (95, 98 or 2000) is hardly the best UI choice. The reason I can think of is nostalgic fun experiment. And there is nothing wrong with that. Not everything has to have a practical function. :)

What’s even worse is Debian running on 256 MB environment, you’ll need swap or pip will be killed by the OOM reaper.

Linux used to be embedded first but nowadays most Linux distros are strangely oriented toward desktop and don’t work correctly on low memory environments without heavy customization.

Linux was NEVER embedded first. Linux was unix for 386s PCs a very expensive machine.

Not sure how desktop orientation is at all strange as any linux distro you are likely to install on your PC has been specifically prepared to install on a PC. If its anticipated to also be used as as server it also provides a minimal install which will almost certainly be less useful.

No. I love my 2022 Gnome look and looking at old Windows UI makes me nauseous. I'm over 40 so yes, I did use Windows extensively and hate everything about its UI maybe with the exception of Windows XP.

I never had any issues recognising what is a button and what isn't with Gnome. Never understood HN's fetish for these old UIs.

>I never had any issues recognising what is a button and what isn't with Gnome

That's easy to say when there's only a single hamburger button...

All kidding aside, this scourge has made its way to Windows. One of the new anti-features in Windows 11 is the truncated (right click) context menus. Where most options are now hidden under a 'show more options' entry, requiring a separate mouse click.

> The 964 different desktops available for Linux

83% of people are using just 4. Hell 65% are using just 2 and its the same 2 as in 2003.

https://linux-hardware.org/?view=os_de&colors=30

> slow impossible-to-use disasters

We are actually spoiled for choice if you just omit gnome 3. Mostly entirely usable

> even things in XFCE don't work well. (Example: network configuration, you need to be logged in as root to use this applet.)

This is like someone exclaiming loudly manual transmission cars are OK but how is everyone driving while sitting on that hard space between seats and reaching between their legs to shift. Well we aren't doing that. You don't need to log in as root to use the applet to configure your network options your system was just misconfigured probably because of something interesting you did manually.

Out of the box on basically every distro that isn't entirely do it yourself you see a little networking icon you click it and you connect to a network just like on windows.

> : I would like to point out that the Win2k desktop was blazing fast on a machine with 256MB of RAM. I can't get Debian to install on a machine with less than 512MB without complaining.

I cannot think of a worse metric of utility than ability to run well on amounts of memory that are found only in machines older than some people reading this forum. 4GB modules now cost as little as $17. Windows 2000 crashed, it leaked memory, it developed weird problems for no reason that could only be fixed by reinstalling. I don't miss any version of windows from this era.

My linux and freeBSD desktops at the time were faster/more responsive than my win2k one and I have plenty of choice for apps that would use less memory.

It is silly to compare to todays requirement. Nowadays system use more memory because we have more available.

I'd argue that we hit peak desktop with OSX Snow Leopard.

AFAIK, Windows 95 was the last UI design with a published design methodology that includes numerous laboratory test sessions. I'm not sure the original URL, but it was republished [1]. It's listed at ACM [2] as published April 1996, so they were sharing how they did it pretty soon after it was done.

I just don't think Microsoft continued to do lab testing of their design, at least they haven't told us that they did, but it feels like a lot of things have gotten harder to do rather than easier to do, which doesn't match their earlier design goals. Windows 95 wasn't the peak, but it was a huge step vs Windows 3.1. IMHO, Apple clearly doesn't care about desktop experience (and anyway, their keyboard shortcuts are wrong, so I'm not using their design), and I don't think any OSS desktop environment is funding user studies (but I'd be happy to see evidence otherwise). Given that situation, I'd rather use the UI that had design goals I like and a design process that allowed developing towards those goals.

[1] https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-9...

[2] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/238386.238611

Both a more efficient use of screen space (at least, compared to the default themes of XFCE, crucially, but also KDE, GNOME, and others), and an aesthetically better visual design. I am surprised to have just written this latter observation, considering this came from Microsoft, but I suppose the era when it was designed demanded it, both as a result of the lower screen resolutions used, and the the contemporary marketing needs for the release of Windows 95.

I wouldn't say marketing so much as Microsoft did a lot of usability testing back then where psychologists threw people in a room and took notes while they interact with the UI. I don't think any OSS projects have this luxury (or money needed to throw around for that sort of thing).

Raymond Chen vaguely references it here https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120126-00/?p=84...

Also, back then, you had to make the best with the resources you had. Computers were slow so UIs had to be lightweight out of necessity. Yet here we are in 2022 and GUI applications have become so bloated they take longer to open up then they did in the 90s. And yes I'm looking at you, GTK and Windows 'Modern' apps.

and GUI applications have become so bloated they take longer to open up then they did in the 90s.

...while somehow being even less graphically complex.

The Gnome project performs usability tests pretty often. That's what led to decisions like deprecating the secondary app menu (app menu in the title bar) and the newer horizontal workspace layout, iirc.

And the Gnome project consistently gets it wrong because they keep forgetting their primary target users are not rando's that have never used a computer but mostly season Linux vets.

Because that desktop is honestly clearer and faster to understand that today's chromeless trends. Buttons look like buttons, and text boxes are obvious.

And there is just enough whitespace. Not waaayyyyy toooooo muuuuccchhh.

And there’s consistency. Not eight generations of UI redesigns for each control.

And you can actually tell which window has the focus.

Every time our screens get bigger, designers eat the space!

I use it as my daily driver, and all the answers are here, plus familiarity.

AWS's recent redesign makes every single UI element have 16px of whitespace. What exactly was the point?

I haven't tried this one, but I will. My reason is that I quit Linux because they took away the two pane, file tree in the left, file explorer from me.

I was using lxde and suddenly they decided to "redesign" the explorer (more like redoing it from scratch) and the new one had not the file tree pane. I was using lxde because I didn't like Plasma, another imposed "redesign". Now that was the last straw.

15 or 20 years ago... I can't understand why people think it's OK to shit on my muscle memory and habits.

Some people don't understand the time value of habits. Makes me angry.

I am currently using KDE with the Reactionary theme [1], which gives my desktop a nice Windows95 look. I love it because the meaning of the buttons on the title bars of windows is very clear, and I know exactly which visual elements can be pressed and which one not.

(Disclaimer: I started using computers in late '80s and used Windows95/98/2000 a lot before moving to full Linux when Windows XP came out, so I was already pretty used to the interface.)

[1] https://store.kde.org/p/1253201/

Nostalgia mostly. However, Win95 had very clear UI elements that made it nice to use.

Some people like very simple interfaces, icons and schemes. It's a very utilitarian interface and works fine. I often use lxqt which is pretty barebones on VMs to cut down a bit on the memory footprint.

Talking point if out in public (assuming you have this on a laptop or similar) or at a meetup?

The 90s were a decade of unbridled American power and optimism. The Soviet union had crumbled and the world was America's oyster.

This week's events will cause a resurgence in 90s nostalgia in the West.

If the best we could do was Win95 then that explains the decline in American imperialism.

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