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.
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.
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).
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.
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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 :)
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.
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.