[qwerty456127]

By the way, what I find weird is NO Linux modification (DE/WM theme or whatever) marketed as a Windows XP (or Windows 98) clone ever actually looked close to the original - every single one looked a rough parody. I wish there were some really good...

Even today the default Raspbian LXDE could look less ugly if they could make taskbar-based launcher and tray icons slightly smaller (kind of like in Windows 95-XP) rather than 100% taskbar height, but they won't.

[anthk]

Classic 95 with XFCE is really good, and some modern themes from b00merang in Cinammon look really close.

You didn't look enough then...

https://b00merang.weebly.com/themes.html

[pxeboot]

If you like the Win10 look, dash to panel [1] for Gnome can be almost indistinguishable if you change a few settings.

[1] https://github.com/home-sweet-gnome/dash-to-panel

[zozbot234]

> Even today the default Raspbian LXDE could look less ugly if they could make taskbar-based launcher and tray icons slightly smaller rather than full taskbar height, but they won't.

You can tweak size for icons and the taskbar in the panel settings, AIUI. It's relatively easy to give LXDE or Xfce that kind of "classic" look.

[qwerty456127]

I couldn't find such an option when I last checked. Thank you, knowing it really is there I'll try harder.

[Cloudef]

There's IceWM that in my opinion does the "windows like" experience best. For some reason it's not very well known however.

[qwerty456127]

How do you connect to a WiFi network with a non-DE WM? I once thought about abandoning the DEs world for a WM - I don't use any of the DE-standard apps anyway. I didn't even use the taskbar those days - I used a 3-rd party dock instead. Then somebody told me a DE isn't just about their own [webkit-based] browser, editor, media player etc - it's about many essential conveniences you take for granted and don't even think about as apps - e.g. the WiFi applet.

Whatever, IceWM looks awkward (I can see special charm in it and won't say "ugly" but many people would) anyway. It actually seems an example of what I mean under a rough parody to Windows. Whoever can't see the difference between this[1] and what does real Windows (even Windows 98, let alone styled XP) look like is kind of blind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceWM#/media/File:Icewmstartme...

[anthk]

nm-applet is the network manager applet on Linux, you need to place it at ~/.icewm/autostart:

nm-applet &

If you use wicd, you need to put "wicd-gtk -t &" instead.

[arminiusreturns]

Just remember that wicd/network manager are basically using wpa-supplicant as the backend, so either use applets for those, or script wpa supplicant or iwd (Intels more recent replacement for wpa supplicant). I finally turned mine into systemd services.