No other operating system has been able to natively reach the level of aesthetic that Windows 95-98 reached
>>108943359What about LXDE?
god you faggots are contrarian
>>108943365worse, this is one time where the "baby duck" retarded meme actually applies fuck there's so many desktops that are equal or better and even earlier
>>108943365>>108943374Based. Agreed.
>>108943376but... but... popular = good!!!!111one
>>108943359what prevents you from replicating Windows 95-98 look in $your_os_here?
>>108943365>>108943374>>108943376>>108943378>>108943385NATIVELY you fucking retarded ass jeets.
>>108943395Next you're gonna say Microdick invented the taskbar?
>>108943359What is so "aesthetic" about Windows 95?
>>108943395what prevents you from replicating Windows 95-98 look NATIVELY in $your_os_here?
>>108943401>What is so "aesthetic" about Windows 95?It's just the first desktop environment OP used
>>108943359WRONG!
>>108943471>Crashta
>>108943359
>>108943401He probably meant the level of overall UI consistency, unlike the clusterfuck we have today.
>>108943359Windows 2k was peak
>>108943471I love how that bulging start button covers lower left part of any maximized window.
>>108943359wrongin fact there have been 3-4 of them
>>108943359how about os/2
>>108943932Too bad it lost because of IBM's typical retardation
Windows 3.1?
>>108943445Since when did nu-/g/ care about HCI psychology kek
>>108943752Unironically beautiful trio
>>108943932pretty neat, panel kinda reminds me of some fvwm setups
>>108943359Just out of curiosity... is this still a daily driver in 2026?
Windows 11 looks great.
>>108944191said no one ever
>>108944129You can browse 4chan on something as old as Windows NT 3.51, but you won't be able to post due to captcha, and a lot of websites just won't workIf you actually want to use the modern web you'll need at least Windows XP so you can use Supermium (they were planning to add Windows 2000 support at some point but they dropped that)
>>108944255>but you won't be able to post due to captchajust buy a pass
>>108943359That default background color is bad. The windows 2000 blue is better.
>>108943403>what prevents you from replicating Windows 95-98 look NATIVELY in $your_os_here?
>>108944264>giving money to incompetent retards who hate you
>>108944279only your imagination!
>>108943359I don't care how it looks. I care that it ran well. I want a Windows that doesn't fucking spin up the fans just opening up fucking Notepad and File Explorer.
>>108943359>95-98zoomer shit
>>108943359It's pretty good. Clean, consistent and minimalist in a way where it can show off a lot of information without it being confusing. Which even modern UI struggles with where everything is hidden 5 pages deep or in a massive list.That said it looks a lot better and cleaner with a larger resolution.
>>108944264So with a pass you can use this shit with fucking windows 95? Thats fucking amazing
>>108943359We have to go back.
>>108943359plasma is better
>>108943359Windows 9x design language is pure utilitarianism. It attempts to squeeze as much information as possible out of the limited screen real estate. This design philosophy has its merits but it looks like dogshit, be honest.
>>108943359RouterOS is technically an OS and has the same aesthetic.They changed it to some Qt fueled garbage last year unfortunately, Winbox went from 2MB exe using ~30MB RAM to a 48MB exe using 260MB RAM.
>>108943359>baby d-ACK
>>108943359is the classic theme still in windows 11? or even win10?
>>108944295god it's been ages since I've seen these mockups. I hope someone looks into making something like this again once Union https://github.com/KDE/union is finished, because every classic theme recreation on Linux sucks in some way:>Chicago95 looks horrid and all of its forks like Redmond97 have the same fake broken systray>XFCE is shockingly bad for this in general outside of rozniak's winxp-tc, but he's mostly focused on Luna>LXQt seems like it'd be better but it's even jankier>Trinity/TDE looks great and is period accurate, but it's buggy and I have no idea what'll happen to it after Wayland takes over>IceWM with Ice2K also looks impressively accurate, but again, Wayland (also IceWM is annoying to configure)>Reactionary and most of phob1an's #SoRetro themes look like hacky unfinished bootlegsthere was a KWin theme for Plasma 5 that looked nice https://winclassic.net/thread/1487/redmond-theme-kde but IDK if it still works. Plasma in general has nothing that looks passable outside of Breeze and Oxygen and it's frustrating just how hard it is to customize in reality. aerothemeplasma is literally the only Windows theme recreation I've seen that looks good, but it relies on a lot of hacky custom stuff and plasmashell modifications just to function, and even then, KDE puts out multiple updates a year so it has to be constantly maintainedI don't even think you'd be able to easily implement something like that white sunken-in Places view in Dolphin without forking it and/or the built-in Qt Windows 9x theme, you'd be stuck with it using the same color as the rest of the window chrome and that ugly gray drive usage bar at the bottom otherwise. God why the fuck is Linux like this
XP did, because the shade of gray in the menus was nicer. It was a kind of taupe color, unlike Windows 9x.
>>108943752>peak>peak>peakAnd then they jumped straight into trash with 8 and we've been there sinceWhat the FUCK were they thinking
>>108943359Windows peaked with XP/Server 2003.
>>108943445The first OS I used was Windows 3.1, but going back my favorite is Windows 95's interface, which is essentially the same all the way to Windows 7 after which they got rid of classic theme.Except each OS added bloat and didn't improve on Windows 95, so I prefer Windows 95 specifically for that reason.So this isn't baby duck syndrome.
>>108943445Nice so I now understand my love of MS-DOS
>>108943365you are retardeddo you even know what contrarian means?liking something you don't like or your particular social group likes is not contrarianit just means they fucking like something you don't like or don't care about>>108943374another retardthere is no objective way to assess an interface is superior other than HIG studies, experiments, but that is accessibility and thag is only one factorthe other factor is the look and feel which is completely subjectivein matter of taste there is no objective assessmentas for the accessibilty actually older UIs were superior, all of desktops until flatshit aere objectively superior in terms of accessibility
>>108943359NT 4.0 looked so much better.
>>108944295Me likey
>>108944103since mac users showed up
>>108946437>God why the fuck is Linux like thisPeak native Linux GUI aesthetic has been and always will be GNOME, no matter how much /g/ denies it. KDE was a very good desktop up to and including version 3.5, but it committed suicide with KDE 4 and has never recovered.>>108946520Nope, 10 was the beginning of the rot. 8.1 was kino and highly usable with VLC and SumatraPDF replacing metro defaults.
>>108943359OS X 9 mogs though
>>108947363>X 9lol
>>108947363unlike windows, mac actually improved over time. you can't be serious
>>108945581> it looks like dogshitI looks far better than current UI design. Which makes me want to gouge out my own eyes because its so hideous.
>>108943365you keep using that word...
>>108947339>Peak native Linux GUI aesthetic has been and always will be GNOME, no matter how much /g/ denies it. KDE was a very good desktop up to and including version 3.5, but it committed suicide with KDE 4 and has never recovered.i'd agree, but gnome committed suicide a couple years later with gnome 3
>>108947518i like gnome 3it was gtk4 breaking theming and subpix AA that pissed me off
>>108943359Those icons are pure soul
>>108947339>and has never recoveredRetard
>>108947824
>>108947824in terms of icons I like office 2010 the most
>>108943359lol says no one everwinblows is not known to be aesthetic, it is only known for having user-friendly UI
>>108943445AKA salty-ahh lisp-tard/unix hater cope
>>108943445Note that it relates to computers. There is no baby duck syndrome for different car brands reversing the steering input, swapping the whiskers around, swapping the pedals around, door handles that you twist or move in the opposite direction.
>>108943471Looks like shit. The icons are unreadable.
>>108943445i think win9x is peak and it wasn't the first one i used
>>108947481You are actually such a drama queen.
>>108947339>Peak native Linux GUI aesthetic has been and always will be GNOMEebussy shitposting aside, I get why people retroactively worship Gnome 2, but I've never vibed with it myself and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I got accustomed to XFCE first, or maybe it's because MATE and its default two panel layout with three separate application launchers feels completely alien to my corn-fed, fluoride-poisoned Windows brainhowever, I do find it interesting that Gnome 2 is seemingly the only Unix desktop that was the product of actual usability testing, a proper HIG and professional GUI designers thanks to corporate backing from Sun, just like Microsoft's work on the Windows 95 shell:https://web.archive.org/web/20030202035026/http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/https://lwn.net/2001/0614/a/usability-calum.php3
>>108943359>8pm>Office is completely vacant>Walk down aisles of cubicles>Harmonic humming of disks, fans, and crt displays>Screens display emails, spreadsheets, and other documents>File folders and other documents left on desks>Trinkets, family photos, and calendars litter desktops>Perfect time capsule of the last moments of work before the weekendBack when computers were tools, offices were productive, jobs were jobs that supported employees instead of daycares to waste the collective time of society
>>108943359cant look at this image without hearing an old HDD grinding away.
>>108943359actually the 3d button hype was started by NeXTSTep.
>>108949130and the most aesthetic implementation of it was either BeOS or Apple Platinum.
>>108949058It would have been screensavers if these were windows 95 or 98
>>108946969How so? That's barely any different.
>>108947991>swapping the pedals arounddo they actually do that? THAT'd get some used to
>>108943359i always found that shit ugly. I prefer 7 and 11 aesthetics.
>>108949239Not anymore, but they used to before a standard layout emergedYou probably wouldn't be able to figure out how to drive a model T Ford, for example
>>108949130bummer they abandoned it after rhapsody
>>108943359It's been pretty sad watching digital design get worse and worse for 30 years.
>>108946437I gave up trying to get KDE to look like anything other than default Breeze.Trinity is the best option imo if you don't need Wayland. It's the only option that feels consistent.
>>108949301The engine choke alone would filter.
>>108947363Mac OS 9 was based. I still remember the huge clamshell diablo 2 lan parties!
>>108949927>Rhapsodyto be fair that was itself also a jaw-dropping kind of platinum with some bigger icons, slightly darker window borders and the detachable menus from NeXT. Aqua was sexy too but i'd still like a platinum theme on modern macOS the way Windows has classic.
>>1089433592000
I just want an OS that has strictly enforced UI design guidelines so I don't have to always guess what is and isn't a button.
>>108943445Grew up with a C64, or something similar, 95, 98 and fucking ME of all thingsXP came way later yet I think it's the coolest, somehow most refined in a way.95 and such are nice but ehhh
>>108946520>ME? BASED>VISTA? BASEDyeah good work ignoring all the fuck ups that created the whole "every 2nd windows is trash" meme10 became useful after years of fixing and user changes11 will forever be dog shit as it was made in a completely different era of development and company culture
>>108949152now THAT is a quality screenshot
>>108951201In regard to the visuals you dumbassI recall ME actually improving a bit on 95/98 by having softer gradients, but Vista was just a glassified XP and 7 improved on it a fuckton.And then we started getting flatshit with low details everywhere.Fuck.
>>108949130Motif went that way at about the same time. It's hard to be sure what influenced what; the timelines overlap.I suspect a partial driver is that it was becoming practical for a GUI to be commonly running on hardware that could render that. Up to then, monochrome was more common for high-res displays, and nobody did decent 3D on that.
It was simple UI, intuitive, no BS, not getting in the way, it was the vibe in general, not just OS, but computers, colours, fonts, CRTs, plastic smell in the room, noise.
>>108943359use case for aesthetic desktop environment? I use GNOME btw
>>108945581>>108948079woman
>>108943594this. win2k did it all; you could install directx and play games, or set up a domain controller. back when the ui didn't totally blow
>>108943359It was always fucking ugly. It was preferable to nuwindows since it was more functional, but I always hated it.
for me its windows xp media center edition
>>108951201The third image was 7, not Vista
>>108943359WRONG
>>108943359Tru, but running it on VMware are stupid take. Use 86Box instead
98 allowed re-arrangeable icons on the bar and that was a deal breaker for me, because 95 didn't. I also remember there were some other minor things that were quite useful, which made 98 distinctively better and like a real new version of the OS.Today we have Ubuntus and Fedoras releases like every month and I don't understand why should I care.
>>108943359IMO it's the sharp edges. rounded corners were fun at first but they're overstayed their welcome. People want sharp, prim, and proper. It was never because computers couldn't do rounded corners, it's because everything being square is visually pleasing and lets everyone feel the air of professionalism in the OS. Part of the reason CS sucks so much now is sloppy, unkept faggots are running it. Most of which are either a cargo cult of how good companies used to look in the 60s and 70s or an actual slap-dash operation held up by toolchains and AI. That is the design language of all rounded corners and minimalist lingo.
>>108944129With kernel extensions probably.
>>108943363>LXDENot an operating system.
>>108943574>He probably meant the level of overall UI consistency, unlike the clusterfuck we have today.This is how I interpreted it, not that the Windows 9x ui looks particularly good (subjective, retarded argument) but that every piece of software, including third party adhered to the same design sensibilities.
I grew up with 3.1, 95, and xp.I got 7 in college and it was my favorite.I remember a friend getting beta access to it and I thought it was slick.Holy hell, they fucked up with 8 and beyond.
>>108955910>IMO it's the sharp edges. rounded corners were fun at first but they're overstayed their welcome.Windows 10 was all sharp edges like that. Not sure about 11 as I haven't used it
>>108956015Yeah, 7 was cherry. I really don't get it who thought flat shit would look better after the gorgeous glass look.
>>108947874It's the fact they're high quality that really sets them apart People think 90s and they think chunky SNES graphics, but here are high quality graphics and icons made in 1994 with only 256 colors
>>108952794>the bloomers thread from a week or so agobased
>>108949927There's still GNUstep: https://www.gnustep.org/
>>108956034Everyone did that had reached adulthood by then. There was a lot of skeuomorphism fatigue and flatshit was initially pretty refreshing and simple.
>>108956556>flatshit was initially pretty refreshing and simple.I have gone into discussion with a variety of people on this topic and no one has said this. I know a lot of people who think pre winxp all looks shitty. But never having any sort of aero fatigue or thinking that flatshit was refreshing. Simple was sometimes used, alongside negatice connotations of cheapness.
>>108956556I think skeuomorphism was pushed out because it was too artistically demanding. indistinct flat interface is so much faster to make.
>>108956556>flatshit was initially pretty refreshing and simple.Android was my first introduction into flat stuff and I hated it, I could never figure out where buttons were.
>>108943359because it was designed by competent people who got paid very well. its no wonder the OS has changed very little from its beginnings in 95. just a fresh coat of paint every time.
>>108943471Peak
>>108947363The design language is all over the place, horrible horrible choice even ives vomited something of higher "quality" while he had the chair
