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Making Ubuntu Look Like Windows 7
DeviceGuru writes "Although it won't help Linux run Windows-specific software applications, this easy hack produces an Ubuntu desktop that looks and feels a lot like Windows 7. It's particularly suitable for reviving older PCs or laptops on which the main activities will be web-browsing, email, document writing, and streaming music and videos from from the web. The process installs a Windows 7-like GNOME theme on an otherwise standard Ubuntu 10.04 installation, although it might work on other Linux distros with GNOME and appropriate other packages installed. Naturally all this begs the question: why would anybody want to do this? Why indeed!" People have been doing this sort of look-and-feel swap-out for years; it seems best to me as a practical joke.
I think a more interesting thing here would be to share desktops in (hopefully) a one-click magical and revolutionary solution. Idea 105's time has come.
Actually, I sort of like it. My friend, and her 4 year old can now both use her windows 7 machine, or my linux machine equally as easy. Win - win.
last minute desperate solutions to impossible problems created by other fucking people.
The basic idea of a theme isn't new. A friend of mine had an XP theme on his desktop, and had a guest at his home using his computer for over half an hour without noticing anything. He asked "Do you find my Linux computer easy to use?" and the guest hadn't even realized it wasn't Windows XP.
That sort of thing is mainly useful as evidence to counter the idea that a Linux desktop is "hard to use".
The major new thing with Windows 7 is its dock. I have never much been interested in docks but it seems like they are popular. Do you use a dock in Linux? If so, could you please answer these questions:
0) Which dock do you use?
1) Why do you prefer your dock to others you have tried?
2) Is your dock similar to the one in Windows 7?
I know someone who uses Gnome Do and Docky, so I'm interested in those, but I know there are others around.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Move to linux if you like freedom and privacy, don't if you don't. But "it looks like windows" ???? sheesh, how 1995 can you get.
for example, there was a time when a foregone conclusion was one that was so unlikely you may as well not think about it
When was that? AFAIK, "Foregone conclusion" comes from Othello, where it means not "unlikely conclusion" but a conclusion that already happened. Not quite the modern sense of "predetermined conclusion", but pretty close.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It was circular, in a sense. Look at the following:
[T]his easy hack produces an Ubuntu desktop that looks and feels a lot like Windows 7. It’s particularly suitable for reviving older PCs or laptops on which the main activities will be web-browsing, email, document writing, and streaming music and videos from Pandora, YouTube, and elsewhere on the web.
The claim in bold is only a true claim if you already wanted the UI of your system to look like Windows 7, but it is given as a justification of the implication (made by the non-bolded statement) that you’d want your Ubuntu desktop to look like Windows 7.
Maybe the circular reasoning would be clearer if it was written like this:
This easy hack produces an Ubuntu desktop that looks and feels a lot like Windows 7. Now – “Why would anyone want to make a Ubuntu desktop look like Windows 7?”, you might ask. Well, Ubuntu is particularly suitable for reviving older PCs or laptops on which the main activities will be web-browsing, email, document writing, and streaming music and videos from Pandora, YouTube, and elsewhere on the web, and if you did decide to install Ubuntu you’d obviously want it to look like Windows 7.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
it's pretty frustrating when there are two meanings for a phrase and the meanings are contradictory.
You mean like "cleave" and other contronyms?
Well, what I don't get is why they are having so bad usability despite all this testing? The ribbon is really an awful idea. I cannot find anything there plus it takes far too much precious vertical screen area. I also know that basically all our customers (a lot and very IT savvy people) use pre-ribbon Office.
Then there is the fact that win7 does not have virtual screens. I find that I am not happy with at least a 3x2 grid of them and usually use 3x3. Is this why some people doing development work on Windows want two monitors? They would not nearly be enough for me. And with edge-scroll (fvwm has had this 20 years ago) it is actually faster to switch virtual desktops than turn your head.
There are other things, like no icon boxes, hard to customize menus and the like.
I guess, I am just not in their target group, possibly because I have not only seen how to do it better, but also used something better for more than 20 years.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.