Slashdot Mirror
XPde 0.5 - A Linux Desktop for Windows Users
Nissan Dookeran writes "From the website: 'The XPde Team today announced the immediate availability of XPde 0.5.0, a complete rewrite of the XPde desktop environment...XPde aims to recreate the Windows XP desktop environment on Linux in order to allow Windows users to "feel at home" in front of a Linux computer' Full announcement of release here with screenshots here. Might be a good transitional tool for Windows users looking not wanting to give up their eye-candy interface initially. The main page also has a good PDF document regarding legal issues when developing software that emulates Windows functions. A StarOffice version of the document also available."
If you really want to you can run KDE on Cygwin.
The purpose of actually swapping out the UI in Windows and running GNU/X/etc. over the kernel frankly escapes me. The Win32 kernel isn't particularly sturdy and doesn't itself really offer any benefits over, say, the Linux or BSD kernel.
If they saw this, with a properly wordes sales pitch "free, no viruses, cool geek factor" etc, I think a "sale" would be easier.
I think you'll probably find that most people really don't want to be thought of as geeks. Sure, we've taken on the label with a kind of pride, but we're not most people.
That said, I agree with you about the GUI. One of the reasons I stopped using Linux (after having used it in some capacity for about 4 years) is that, to my eyes, XP is just prettier. Also, I was doing stuff (.net development, games playing) that I simply can't do under Linux, but at work, the eye candy was the deciding factor (OS X is not an option, before anyone mentions that).
I spend all day most days staring at my monitor; what's on it has to be aesthetically pleasing. Obviously, that's a highly subjective matter, but for me, right now, for me it's XP, not Linux.
It's official. Most of you are morons.