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Chinese Pirates Launch Ubuntu That Looks Like XP

Posted by timothy on from the day-late-6.83-yuan-short dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ylmf, famous for pirating Windows XP, have just released a version of Ubuntu that looks just like Windows XP. Really, really similar. Apparently because Microsoft were cracking down on the actual Windows XP pirating — though I think they will still suffer for ripping off the GUI exactly." Of course, if that's the sort of look you like for your desktop, you need not risk any download cooties or language barriers; a reader in the Ubuntu Forums suggests this instructional video for giving Gnome the XP treatment.

24 of 580 comments (clear)

  1. why? by JWSmythe · · Score: 4, Funny

        Why would I want a perfectly good Linux machine to look like a Windows machine?

    --
    Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    1. Re:why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      To get chicks?

    2. Re:why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      the GUI behaves like windows too

      Just add a cron script that has a 5% chance to reboot the system every half hour, and you're there! :P

    3. Re:why? by ozmanjusri · · Score: 5, Funny
      and you're there!

      Not quite.

      You'd need to find some way of slowing down file transfers too, add an a few dozen random "utilities" to the systray, set it to check in with Ylmf every few weeks and nag you about it, run another dozen or so malware and anti-malware apps in the background to eat some extra RAM and cpu cycles, send all your financial details off to the Russian mafia, deduct $90+ from your bank account for every app you've installed and lock itself so only 3 themes work.

      That'd be a bit closer to the Windows Genuine Advantage experience...

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    4. Re:why? by shentino · · Score: 4, Funny

      To overcome pro-windows bias.

      Think of it as the linux version of the Mojave experiment.

    5. Re:why? by node+3 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Just add a cron script that has a 5% chance to reboot the system every half hour, and you're there! :P

      For those of you who first started using PCs less than ten years ago, he's referring to the lack of stability Windows suffered from back then.

      Are you from the future?

    6. Re:why? by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Your support people shouldn't have to waste their time, teaching people to use a new OS or office suite. Feel free to use this canned reply to any frivolous questions.

      "Mr. Wimplestain, can't you see that I'm very busy? Isn't there a "Help" button at the top of your interface? Aren't you being PAID to use that software? Why don't you actually put the software to use, and click that "Help" button? I take it that you are literate, or you wouldn't have been hired. After you have read "Help" from top to bottom a few times, maybe you can come back and teach ME how to use Open Office, alright? NOW GET TO WORK, BEFORE I REPORT YOU, YOU GOLDBRICK!!"

      Insert some profanity as appropriate, for effectiveness. Office workers seldom understand anything, unless it's emphasized with plenty of profane terms. They're mostly just mindless zombies, after all.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    7. Re:why? by kurt555gs · · Score: 3, Funny

      Interesting that Chinese pirates have been able to do what the giant Microsoft could not. Make a version of Windows immune to spyware, viruses, trojans, have an uptime of years, not have to reboot after minor proggy installations and be able to use apt-get for updates.

      Profit!

      --
      * Carthago Delenda Est *
    8. Re:why? by BobMcD · · Score: 3, Funny

      This would mean people who were earlier using Windows would be a bit more comfortable using ylmf's ubuntu rather than the regular one.

      I don't see why it would make a difference. If you drive a Volkswagen and then go and drive a Toyota, the indicator and wiper switches are the opposite way round on the steering column, and the instrument panel looks different. If you're really lucky, reverse gear is in a different place on the gate, too. You don't get people whining about how they need to make the Toyota look exactly like a Volkswagen before they can drive it - they just accidentally wash the windows instead of indicating a few times for the first hour behind the wheel. Then they get used to it.

      The first cars came into popular use over one hundred years ago. The computer, relatively speaking, is only about fifteen to twenty years old. Certainly the internet is about the same age, and it has completely redefined what a computer even is.

      Car analogies aren't really applicable because the car was in heavy use when these people were born. They have never known life without one. Compare the same to a teenager today and perhaps you'd see less resistance to learning a new way to operate a computer.

    9. Re:why? by thisnamestoolong · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes, I agree. I also think that you should not drive a car unless you are able to rebuild the engine from scratch.

      --
      To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
    10. Re:why? by bobetov · · Score: 2, Funny

      Just bought the wife a brand new laptop for christmas. Booted up Windows 7, straight factory install. She bluescreened it within an hour.

      Moving a desktop widget.

      I don't even want to *know* how that is possible.

      --
      Looking for a Rails developer in Chapel Hill?
  2. Re:Open source windows by binarylarry · · Score: 2, Funny

    And in turn release a plague of garbage OS code on mankind.

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  3. Someone call the woodsman! by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

    User: What a pretty GUI you have.
    YImf: All the better to confuse you with, my dear.
    U: And what strange fonts you have.
    Y: All the better to break your layouts with, my dear.
    U: And what a lack of app support you have.
    Y: All the better to irritate you with, my dear.
    U: And what terrible hardware support you have.
    Y: All the better to eat up your time with, my dear!

    Just then the hunter entered the house and cut the YImf right down the belly.

  4. Finally Linux Gets a Decent GUI!!!! by linguizic · · Score: 5, Funny

    Finally Linux gets a decent GUI!!! [ducks head]

    --
    Does this sig remind you of Agatha Christie?
    1. Re:Finally Linux Gets a Decent GUI!!!! by Herkum01 · · Score: 2, Funny

      While intended as a joke, isn't this what Windows fan boys have been saying for years? "It does not act like Windows, it is not not ready."

      Well now someone took a can of paint and slapped it all over Ubuntu, and it looks like Windows. I guess it is ready for prime time!

  5. This is a complete waste of time by bashmohandes · · Score: 2, Funny

    Why would somebody spend this time to make a 2009 OS look like 1999 OS??

  6. and the blue screen of death? by mugurel · · Score: 4, Funny

    a cron job?

  7. Re:Open source windows by Arancaytar · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm in that 1%, you insensitive CLOD!

  8. Excellent! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is so perfect it isn't even funny. I can now replace the XP on my parent's computer with Linux and they won't know the difference. The "family support plan" just got a whole lot easier for me.

  9. Year of Linux on the Desktop by jonaskoelker · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why would I want a perfectly good Linux machine to look like a Windows machine?

    Don't you get it? In China, 2010 is the Year of Linux on the Desktop.

  10. This is GREAT... by tyroneking · · Score: 2, Funny

    .... just what I need to fool my clients into using Ubuntu instead of crappy Microsoft XP.

  11. Other uses... by heidaro · · Score: 2, Funny

    Finally, a good way of getting back at all those relatives who keep asking me to fix their PC.

  12. Re:Pirates by FrostedWheat · · Score: 2, Funny

    What should we replace it with? "I ninja'ed the latest copy of Photoshop" just doesn't sound right.

  13. Ahhhh!!!! by drewsup · · Score: 1, Funny

    Kill IT! Kill it with fire!!!!! Burn the Abomination!