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Make WinXP look like KDE http://www.tech-atom.com/windows/ultimate-linux-transformation-pack-for-windows-xp.html

Make GNOME look like WinXP http://ubuntu.online02.com/xpgnome

Make WinXP look likeUbuntu http://pc-hacks.blogspot.com/2007/10/make-up-over-your-windows-look-like.html

Make WinXP look like Enlightenment http://www.litestep.net/

Make Linux look like Win95 http://fvwm.org/

It all makes my head hurt.

That one billion users world-wide have settled on the Windows GUI with minimal customization ought to tell him something.

And I run blackbox on my windows machine. Though, I can do have other options, too, such as Xoblite (a blackbox fork), LiteStep, or Aston, which I find consumes even less memory (abouy 3-4 mb worth), while giving me fancy plugins, transparency, and all that fun stuff. Hell, even GNUstep/Etoile does windows. And I'm pretty sure I've seen WindowMaker ports, as well.

Oh, yes, and you can also strip down windows by either hacking up the registry, or using fancy third-party Frontends. I recall sliming 9x to a 45mb install, and XP to about 1-200mb, by stripping out unecessary components and services (e.g. Outlook, Mediaplayer, explorer, etc). I haven't tried Vista as of yet, nor do I intend to in the near future, but I know that many of the alternate WMs havebeen ported.

Really, I'm trying hard, but I can't quite seem to get your point. Windows has had the option to swap outthe default explorer shell in favour of another, since NT4, and the process is painless. So, with that in mind, if your criticism is a fair one, would it not be just as fair to argue that Ubuntu is bloated because it installs Gnome by default?

Of course it isn't, you can't, however, have it both ways.

FWI: I'm not fanboying, but I do use a Windows desktop alongside my Unix boxen boxen, and I realise that each has their strengths and weaknesses, each their uses, and not one is unilaterally "better" than the other in all respects.

I wish Windows had a feature like Fedora's multiple desktop stuff with the 4 thumbnails, as this would help me split stuff up better since half my taskbar is taken up with quick launch shortcuts or status bar icons I need on display.

You can if you use litestep. Which is a nifty explorer shell replacement with a fully customizable GUI.

http://www.litestep.net/

http://www.litestep.net/ should have all the stuff necessary for litestep's needs.

The Linux kernel interrupts the computer 100 times per second (100 Hz) to monitor and possibly switch running processes. Recent 2.6 kernels added a compile time option to make that 100, 250, or 1000 Hz, and there's talk of figuring some way to make that more flexible. Looking at the performance of GIMPS, I have not seen any difference between 250 Hz and 100 Hz, but then the Linux kernel I understand is pretty efficient with the housekeeping. Windows 9x had this 18 (18.2?) interrupts per second in which an internal clock was updated, and think Windows NT went with some other higher frequency interval, but not too high because then their kernel processes would take too much time. If the OS is doing a lot of housekeeping and doing it inefficiently, and I think all the Windows up to and including XP must be, then an improvement there could indeed make everything run 10% faster.

I remembered another thought for a faster Windows experience. Change the Explorer shell, which I've read is rather slow and bloated, to something like what Litestep used to be. Here are some links to shells.

I'm pretty sure they could do it, but why not make as much as possible in house if you can? They aren't a bunch of idealistic programmers communing to build a better tomorrow. They are a company that, successfully, makes a lot of money. When I am making money by the truckload, I am pretty certain I will ignore the complaints of small foundations telling me I need to adhere to their standards when they only have a small market share.

Well, I guess that rant was mostly about browsers, because thats where I usually see complaints. Active Directory and WMP though? This is getting down right stupid. Next people will sue them because they bundle Explorer with windows.

"We should be able to choose Litestep or BlackBox instead of Explorer when we install Windows! Boo! Why doesn't M$ make everything open and standard? That has to make it better right?"

I had forgotten too, but it's just come to me - LiteStep! (http://dev.litestep.net/)
I don't use it myself, but I know people who do.
I thought it totally replaced explorer... no?

True, but I've never trusted the upgrades for OS'es for several reasons. Plus, with a shell, you can port it over to the next computer you buy and basically take your prefs folder with you to keep things consistent. Besides, there are OSS windows shells out there. Aston is just a suggestion (no I'm not some salesman for them, I just like how it looks)

In related news, I'm glad to see that LiteStep.net is finally up and running again.

Actualy, you can do multipul desktops on windows.
the first time I saw it was in a program called litestep (if that isn't up there's an older version here).
Not only did it do multipule desktops it also skins them too. There's tons of other shell replacements like it at shell city. Some are better than others thou.....

Turns out ripping out the shell in windows isn't that hard.

These days I just use the normal shell and some random tool that came with my nvidia card that let's you have multipule desktops. Handy when some game blows up your refresh rate (civ 3).

But litestep works in XP. If you don't want to dink around with setting it up, I have a simple one I port from PC to PC here. Just unzip it to c:\litestep, and run the executable.

Think 'afterstep in XP':

http://www.litestep.net/

Back when I ran windows (1999, maybe?), this worked reasonably well under Win 98. I haven't tried it since, but I saw something on Google that suggested that it works under XP...

Personally, I'm perfectly happy with gnome (or maybe evilwm) these days, but that's me.

Don't worry about this
or this
or even this
or this
hmm, or this

There's nothing "Mac OS exclusive" about widgets. Apple didn't do them first, just like they didn't do alpha blended shadows, app skinning, a dock, etc... first. But, for some reason, Apple users like to attribute all sorts of misplaced creative distinction to the folks in Cupertino.

I would really like to see the shell opened up.
Microsoft over the years has really focused on providing a better and better user experience. Based on the current demos, Avalon will only move this goal further.

However, I am unconvinced that a single user experience is right for me. Explorer.exe may be a wonderful environment for 95% of users, but true customization (not just theming and custom animations) can only be acheived by having third parties contribute their own innovations.

Some environments already exist that replace explorer.exe: Litestep and BB4Win. These programs are only marginally useful as they were not programmed against the specs, and will likely no longer work under Longhorn.

I believe that a fair amount of teenagers+ who migrate to Linux do it not for the OpenSourceness, but for the possibility to tweak their environment. Wouldn't it be great if one day we had a variety on Windows such as this ?

Would somebody mod the parent up?
I honestly say that I have missed Mozilla Mail :))

So the news I have read this is from
http://linux-bg.org/cgi-bin/y/index.pl?page=news&k ey=359814480

Sorry I don't think that english translation is available:(
So I will summarize:

First the author points to one of the "Inventors" - Bret Paul Anderson that used to be an http://dev.litestep.net/ developer. LiteStep is nice enlightment like window manager (shell) for Windows. It is distributed under GPL.
Then the author says that the oldest usage of pager he knows is from GEOS on Apple //e (that's 8 bit computer). After that he gives few other bogus patent examples like "themes that change look & feel" granted to Apple and popup zoom scroll window from GIMP granted to Corel.

http://dev.litestep.net/news.php

there is no way any windows desktop can beat that speed.

Don't be too sure.

Lately I've been using LiteStep, a Windows version of the Unix window manager AfterStep, and I have to say I have been very impressed with the overall improvement in performance. I've got an old Celeron 800Mhz notebook with 256MB of RAM that was struggling under standard WinXP Pro, even with all window-dressing (so to speak) turned off (like zooming windows, big desktop background graphics, etc.). This was especially obvious when I would use a removable wireless adapter card -- Firefox was sluggish and even unresponsive at times. (And seriously, this was a completely stripped-down environment -- no extraneous services running or background programs sucking up available resources.)

But since switching from Explorer to LiteStep as my default shell, just about everything about how Windows works has improved in terms of responsiveness and speed in general. My frustration level has been seriously cut down. And on top of that, my wife now refuses to use the laptop because of the new shell -- what a shame.

I'd bet a WindowsXP machine using LiteStep as the shell could keep up with just about any stripped down window manager for Linux like Fluxbox.

Explorer.exe simply crashes, repeatedly and often, for no good reason.

My sentiment excactly

As Henry Spencer put it "Those who do not understand Unix are condemed to reinvent it, poorly".

Then we have just to be greatfull that microsoft never invents anything. They just "got their inspiration" (and dev. team) from VMS.

Also if microsoft wants original unix donor code to replace the open-source parts of SFU I hope for their sake they dont choose xenix. They sold it to the old SCO, it became openserver. I still wake up in tears after nightmares about this blob of ancient wortless crap... I once had to try and use it... People who buy openserver must have never seen the monty python petstore sketch. That has to be the most dead operating system ever.

If microsoft were to clean the NT kernel up again, put a nice lightweigth shell on it. Give it a real browser/mail client and get the .NET runtime more restrictive/sandboxed(capabilities?) then the java runtime then they would have a modern, secure, stable OS... Then alpha would live on as AMD`s hammers, VMS as NT and unix/next as OS-X... Maybe its not to late to go back to the time when software was designed rather then inherited,repainted,repackaged and shipped.

Not that I know the exact diff between 'window manager' and 'windows shell' as it applies to Microsoft, but there are quite a few other... shells (I guess) to replace Explorer with:

litestep from ls.net
sharp e from the low dimension guys

among others...

I wonder if there are any explorer.exe replacements? I remember back in the day of finding something for Windows 3.1 (or 3.0)

litestep.net

I just slap Litestep on my Windows machine and it fixes everything I hate about the Windows interface.

Add a few bits of software here and there to replace Explorer and Outlook Express and it's like having a whole new OS that can run all my current software.

The number one thing they should do IMHO is reduce overhead. Using Microsoft Windows as an example, windows 98 has much less overhead than 2k, which in turn has much less than XP. A lot of it is eye-candy, which is all well and good, but those should be options that are OFF by default. XP differs from previous versions because it uses a 'shell' based gui (similar to KDE / GNOME, etc), which, while nice, is going to cause some system slowdown. Using the 'explorer' shell, which is heavily intergrated into the Windows OS, is the fastest, and should be the default. Then if people want to change it to look pretty they can, by sacrificing speed (in slower machines).

Stop adding services / features that are on by default, and you'll see a huge improvement in speed.

One possibility would be an annual award program which could include - for example - a "best documentation" category. The combination of a cash prize (it needn't be large) plus the bragging rights for having won could provide the necessary nudge to improving open-source code.

I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

But seriously, that's not a bad idea. Maybe we could get the FSF or somebody to do something like that.

I agree with you that the author has some good points, but she generalizes a bit. For example, the lack of documentation issue also applies to proprietary software in some (many ?) cases. Back in the day, I finally decided to bite the bullet, stop using Win 3.x, and learn Win 95. Where was the fucking documentation for that!? I had to go buy Windows 95 for Dummies (don't knock it....it's a damned good series; anybody who disagrees has hubris issues), not because the new UI was a complete non-intuitive mystery, but because I wanted a good summary of all the little things. Like, what were all those icons in the Documents folder under the Start menu? And why were some of the documents still listed there even after I deleted them? etc....

I'm not saying I altogether disagree with the author on the documentation point (or the "it's my project and I'll code what I want to problem"). There are some cases where these two issues combined piss me off more that either of the problems alone (AA: 1 + 1 = 3):

For example, I recently decided to give Litestep a try on my Win2K laptop. I was generally impressed with it. It installed fine and worked (more or less) as advertised. I started experimenting with different skins/themes, and finally settled on what I liked. There were a few annoying glitches. The GUI search for files function is now broken, but I can deal with that (use DOS or Cygwin). Maximized windows still show the window border (no biggie), and there was no clear way to change the desktop wallpaper (quick hack: I put the image I wanted to use in the appropriate directory and renamed it to what the shell expected to be there).

Overall, these glitches were only slightly annoying (after all, it's free). I eventually ran accross an issue I couldn't work around, so I checked out their support on line. On the home page, they list recent questions submitted by users and provide a link to an answer. One of the questions was "How do I change my desktop wallpaper?" I figured I'd click on the link to see what the "official" answer was. After all, there doesn't seem to be an intuitive/simple way to do this in the GUI. You know what the official answer was? (paraphrased) "If you can't figure this out, then stop using Litestep. It's already in the FAQ."

What the fuck!?? I started to look at some of this assholes other "answers" to his users' questions and many of them conveyed a similar attitude. I mean, they might as well drop the veneer and let out their full hostility with shit like, "yOuR sUcH a FsCkInG n00B...kw1t n0w B4 wE 0wN0rz j00r B0xEn!!!11!!"

So now I say, "Fuck Litestep." They're just a bunch of fucking juveniles that are hostile to their users. I'd rather deal with Microsoft where at least they don't shit talk their users on their web site.

Yes... or at least "kinda", not sure. I only used it once, and only to try out Freeciv, so I have no idea how well it works. But they do have screenshots of Windowmaker and and a few other window managers.

And then there're native shell replacements like Litestep, among others.

Or Litestep - Replace explorer.exe with litestep on Windows 95, and get a completely stable system.

Oh, and virtual desktops with shadows representing your windows - which you can move between virtual desktops from the pager itself. (I still would like to do that in KDE)

I have my own personalized copy (just run litestep.exe) on my website. Just unzip to c:\litestep, and run litestep.exe. It's an older version, but works like a charm.

there are free desktops for windows available.

And with litestep no Linux WM can compare, cause it's real customizable.
And maybe kahakai can compare, when it has more snipplets to make things easier.
Geoshell is from the Programmer of the Explorer, because he need something to debug the Explorer during development. And the concept of bars is just like the concept behind gnome.
There is also a blackbox port for windows.
And there is much more.

just my 0.02

LiteStep, perhaps?

I have no idea why it asks you for a login on that site; I haven't used LS myself for many a year. But I recall it had the exact functionality you described, so you might find it worth a look.

Install litestep and download or code your own desktop the way you want it to be.

http://www.litestep.net

Litestep can be used as a replacement for Windows Explorer or in addition to it if you want. It is completely (and I mean completely) customizable and has alot of modules out there to control winamp, virtual desktops, and other things. Litestep

Since LiteStep came out.

Stupid AC.

While I'm a M$ whore, I do what I can and run Litestep at home. A great shell replacement and includes VWM, custom shell scripts, yadda yadda yadda. But it doesn't always play nice with Winamp, despite several modules that interface the two. Its great the guys at Nullsoft have taken into consideration those running Litestep!

Then change your window manager. As a benefit, you can get an awesome looking desktop without all of apple's dick yanking.

I have windows installed on both of my PC's. Why? Because there isn't enough application and driver support on Linux, and because the Linux desktop hackers STILL haven't figured out what Apple has known for eons: A consistent user interface is the number one demand for usability.

On the other hand, I've also installed litestep and cygwin to give me some real customizability and a decent command shell.

I've got desktop consistency, a real CLI, application and driver support... All I need now is a real OS kernel that all this stuff will work with. OSS preferred. Any suggestions?

There are a few:

• Litestep
• Geoshell
• Shell City has a few links

There's also progman.exe*, shipped with windows. I've heard tell of a "winfile" also supposedly built in, but I don't know anything about that.

I've tried a few of these, but some of them (Blackbox) seemed to take more resources than Explorer! Another caveat, the ports of *nix windows managers retain the *nix settings system, so setting them up can be a pain if you don't have experience with them.

*Yes, that is progman of Win16 fame.

Linux is fundumentally designed as a replacement for UNIX, not a replacement for Windows.

I've been Linux-only for two years, and I've been running a Linux server for 4 years. As a result, I have a much different view on things.

While you ask for Visual Studio, I ask for a decent replacement for my developer tools. I don't even see "grep" for winshit, much less the pipes required to make it useful. I don't see a decent commandline, or any semblence thereof. COMMAND.COM is crap, and so is CMD.EXE(essentially COMMAND.COM+DOSKEY).

GUI utilities are $599.40+tax a dozen in Windows, and a dime of bandwidth a dozen in Linux. A good command line base is essential for me. I can search through all of HTTP access logs and only display the results of my dad checking his email to find his current IP address with a single, simple, line of shell code. Then I can securely connect to his computer and change whatever needs to be changed without wasting bandwidth with (Tight)VNC.

If you just want virtual desktops (which can be of any amount) check out LiteStep.

Pointing and clicking is like a baby pointing and screaming. Stuff gets done, but it's a lot faster to ask in an intelligible language. I'll never give up a great shell(zsh being my favorite) for a prettier interface.

For a lot of people. Thats why there is a little bit of a push to emulate it. I'm not saying its the best, but it's fairly easy to understand and a lot of people have been trained to use it.

Different strokes. The Linux community really seems to get that.

A large part of the reason I switched from using Windows was so I could customize my operating system to better suit me (the explorer shell felt "clunky" to me). Although I did try things like Geoshell and Litestep it still felt "heavy" to me.

I preffer Blackbox (the older sibling of your own Fluxbox).

Anyhow, I seem to have drifted off. My point is a Windows style desktop manager would be great on Linux and let them complain. You and I know all we really need is a fast menu and a good background (and stuff). ;-)

Once you are used to multiple desktops (no, that measly 4 add-on powertoys desktops don't count.),

When I'm in Windows [.NET server rc2] I use Litestep, which has four nice proper virtual desktops. It also has a much smaller footprint than the usual Explorer.exe GUI. As you could probably guess I use Window Maker everywhere else (including XFree for Windows ;-)

but you can't even change your window manager! (that would be explorer.exe

LiteSTEP

not exchangeable? you mean like LiteStep?

It's not just cuz everyone's an MS hater. Personally, I don't really mind MS, with the exception that it's a pain in the ass to get infected with Code Red, Nimda, etc etc.

I run Linux on my laptop and Windows at home. Why? Because it's different, it's interesting, mainly. And because I have a higher control over my system and as a Computer Scientist, I can actually see some of the things we talk about in those stupid classes in action. As I watch the kernel compile, I see mutex functions and remember the operating system course I took 2 years ago. I see gcc compile and I remember that class I took on assembler.

It's also kind of neat to have a fully customizable desktop, with weather conditions and wireless network link quality displayed in the 'panel'. Litestep with Windows used to be neat for this kind of thing, but for me, it never quite seemed as stable as explorer was.

Also, what happens when you've used Windows for 10 years straight and you get a job at some company that uses some form of Linux? I'd think it'd be nice to be able to sit down and get to work without having to complain to IT you don't know how to use this non-Windows crap.

So geez, get a grip. We're not all MS-avoiders. :)

A start menu divided by Program Type (graphics, sounds, internet, etc) and then containing just individual programs makes much more sense.

• Windows is not very changeable partly because the standard windows user will learn to use the interface given to him/her.

Modular is a good idea, but you run the risk of overwhelming the user with too many possibilities, or having to include the modules in an awkward way - which has been a problem with the repacement windows shell LiteStep, and it's text based configuation.

These sorts of things are fine for advanced users, but your average Joe will balk when attempting to edit even the most simple of text configuration files.

Much experimentation will be needed for this.

Windows still doesn't have support for multiple desktops

Actually it does. Its included with the XP powertoys (I know, not the same as being built-in). Having said that exists, it is also the *worst* multiple desktop implementation I've seen. Alternative shells like LiteStep do it much better.

Well, it's been done with Aston and LiteStep, so it shouldn't be too hard for someone to port GNOME or KDE, especially if they get the native Win32 widget bindings for GTK2 working like they planned to.

X11 is the equivalent of GDI or Quartz; it doesn't have to enforce GUI semantics. If you want to enforce a "coherent" desktop on top of it, you can impose whatever draconian measures you like. KDE looks quite coherent and standardized to me, for example.

It's a myth, in any case, that Windows or MacOS are any more coherent than, say, KDE. Take a look here for an extensive critique. And you think that the appearance or window management behavior can't be changed on Windows? Think again: Stardock, Litestep, Microsoft PowerToys.

but isn't the fact that video drivers are implemented in userland an architectural problem to begin with?

The video drivers are in the kernel. The drawing and acceleration is in the display server. The toolkit is in the application. It's fast and it's robust. It's what NeXTStep and MacOSX do as well. Where is the "architectural" problem?

Plus, the resources mechanism is absolutely byzantine and needs to be be razed,

Neither Gnome nor KDE use the X11 resource mechanism. They use something much more like Windows. That's actually a shame because the X11 resource mechanism is better.

as well the complex distinctions between server and client (wait, who's the server, who's the client, who has the toolkit?, who's running the window manager? what the fsck is going on?).

Windows, MacOS, and NeXTStep make the same distinction as X11: they have a low-level graphics and windowing component that runs in a display server, and they have a high level toolkit part that runs in a display client.

Altogether, it looks to me like you have a rather outdated notion of what Windows, MacOS, and X11 are. Windows and MacOS have pretty much become like X11 architecturally; they simply lack the well-defined and efficient X11 protocol to support that architecture. On the other hand, X11 toolkits (for better or worse) have become much more like Windows and MacOS toolkits. All three of them have gotten direct rendering and 3D acceleration.

I love LiteStep and use it all the time. Recently development has been slowed by hack attempts against the largest LS sites, but no worries: LS is already far more stable that the standard Windows GUI. I LOVE IT in short :)

now the obligatory LS links:
Desktopian
FPN
LiteStep.net
ShellFront

Regarding the question about how MS deals with these shells: Well, the simple answer is that they don't. It keeps us off their back :). In fact, many of the well known win32 shell developers work or have worked at Microsoft. Alternative shells work just fine under Windows.

Now, there are actually a ton of shells (see the list) out there for Windows, and most are open source in some way or other. The most popular (and one of the oldest) win32 shells is Litestep, which is GPL'd.

For a somewhat decent overview of shells from a windows user's point of view, check out forum topic on deviantART. Alternative Windows Shells basically just replace the Explorer.exe file as the Windows shell... usually also resulting in the replacement of the well known taskbar, start menu, and desktop. Instead, you can use the tools provided by the shell to build your own interface. Shells are very similar to X desktop environments. They do not replace the Windows like a WM does. For general news and info regarding Windows shells, check out the following sites:

• ShellFront
• shellscape

Desktopian.org also covers Windows and shells news in-depth, along with some *nix related news.

Litestep is the oldest shell still in active development. It is by far the most popular shell (with an estimated 10,000+ users) and the most customizable shell (outside of Graphite). You can create almost whatever interface you want, thanks to the 300+ 3rd party modules for the shell. Litestep also has great support through the LS Mailing List and the IRC channels (#fpn, #ls2k, and #ls_help on irc.openprojects.net). Make sure to check out the following sites for Litestep:

• Graphic Language
• JoeBlade
• Litestep.net
• ShellFront
• LS Documentation
• LS FAQ
• The Module List - Module List with descriptions (a little out of date and incomplete, but better for most people)
• the Litestep Installer - a must to get Litestep installed and configured. Make sure to download 'OTS compatible' themes.

The second most popular replacement shell is geOShell, which is largely a minimalist's shell. It has a GUI configuration for most things. geOShell's main site is geoshellx.com. All information can be found there. They are also supported through the geoshellx.com forums and their IRC channel (#geoshell on irc.openprojects.net).

Most win32 shells out there today are either derived from Litestep or geOShell in some way or other. However, there have been two blackbox 'ports' recently to Windows:

• bluebox
• bb4win

It's impossible for me to explain everything here. However, for any *nix users who need to run Windows as well, these shells offer a great alternative to that drab and boring Explorer desktop. Win32 alternative shells even let you have your X desktop on Windows.

Now, the advantage to Object Desktop (namely DesktopX and objectbar is that it doesn't require that you replace your shell (which is a registry key change in NT and a system.ini file edit in 9x). Configuration is accomplished by a GUI. DesktopX is extremely configurable. Keep in mind that running Object Desktop will use up excessive cpu and/or memory. They can do almost anything, but will also use up resources... unlike most shells.

Hope this helps. Many *nix users are completely unaware of the Windows open-source community and of shells in general. We hope this will eventually change.

www.litestep.net

Booyah!!!