[kjellsbells]

I wonder if there is a market for something that runs after first install, or via the Settings app, that "makes my install look like X", for X in (Win2k, MacOS, Win10) say.

The point being that this very short list of options is extremely thoroughly-worked-out, which is a level simply not available today in a stock Ubuntu distro and its themes. I can choose elementary, or Mint, bitbthat is essentially an OS distro level decision. I can download some themes, but its not interchangeable at will, and the depth of implementation of gnome or kde themes is very shallow.

I expect that to truly do this would require not just graphical styling but also switching lots of packages around (eg a file manager). Maybe the path there looks like a giant Nix config to capture all the dependencies?

[bdw5204]

I think this would be extremely useful in increasing Linux desktop adoption. There's an enormous number of Windows users who hate Microsoft's changes to the Windows GUI and wish they could still run XP or 7. There's also a need to make sure it is stable enough that users never have to resort to the command line and that it runs "non-free" software out of the box, especially software originally developed for Windows. The latter, of course, is a necessary compromise to get people who aren't FOSS purists to use the operating system. I think the focus should be on Windows rather than Mac because Mac users generally like Mac.

Linux adoption, in my view, is held back by the existing community's lack of desire to deliver what the average user wants. Things are obviously better on that front than they used to be but Ubuntu is still quite bad at doing what non-technical users want from a computer. Most Linux users seem perfectly fine with that.

[Dalewyn]

To paraphrase Abe: Linux is an ecosystem of the community by the community for the community.

And I agree with you, the community (most of it) couldn't give a rat's arse what Joe Average wants. Heaven forbid you ask one of them how to do something that goes off of the One Linux Way(tm).

[shiroiushi]

There is no One Linux Way: that's why there's so many different DEs and other various competing projects.

GNOME itself is an attempt to give Joe Average what he wants: the whole idea of modern GNOME is to take a tablet-oriented UI and put it on a desktop computer.

The problem is that the people behind projects like GNOME think they're the next Henry Ford, who famously said that what people really wanted was a faster horse, and instead made what he wanted people to have (i.e., motor cars that are in any color you like, as long as you like black).

[jwells89]

> There's an enormous number of Windows users who hate Microsoft's changes to the Windows GUI and wish they could still run XP or 7.

The Windows 7 UI has aged pretty well too, even if the glossy visuals have become somewhat outdated (though personally I think they look better than modern flat stuff). I rigged up an old laptop of mine with 7 not too long ago and plugged into a modern monitor and it was striking how nice it was compared to 11.

High-fidelity 1-click reproductions of XP/7 for Linux would be very popular, I think. Bonus points if they can use the hundreds (thousands?) of XP and 7 msstyle themes on sites like DeviantArt.

[shiroiushi]

I think the "Aero" UI in Windows Vista was the high point for Windows UI. The OS ran poorly and its fundamentals (like all Windows versions) was junk, but the UI looked really nice. This modern flat stuff is crap.

[sylens]

Aero was still used in Windows 7, with some additional nice features. But I agree, it was the high point of Windows for me - jump lists, Aero Peek, window snapping. It was all transformative.

Then they threw the baby out with the bath water in Windows 8.

[shiroiushi]

I never really used Vista, only 7, but it seemed like 7's UI look was watered down compared to Vista: Vista looked prettier to me from what I saw of it.

[M95D]

It all depends when you started using computers. To me, Win95 was the high point for Windows UI.

[jwells89]

I started in the mid-90s, and though I didn’t use 95 much I did use 98SE (which is aesthetically very similar to 95) and 2000 plenty.

For releases with the classic Windows look, I think 2000 is best. It makes a few refinements to the theme that at least to me make it more pleasant to use than 95/98.

[shiroiushi]

I started well before Win95. I can still see that Aero was MS's peak UI, even though I never seriously used the OS myself (my workplaces all seemed to skip Vista).

[jwells89]

I think this would be a great feature, though faithfully reproducing a Mac desktop will likely be difficult, between making Command/Meta-based key shortcuts consistent through the system and making sure the global menubar actually gets populated.

The latter of those is actually the more difficult of the two. Last I knew the GTK plugin that provides application menus through dbus was broken, and many GTK apps don't have a menubar anyway (anything that doesn't fit into a hamburger menu gets binned). Qt apps are better here but there's some bug under Wayland that prevents menus from being pulled from those.

There really ought to be an XDG standard for UI toolkits to provide their menubars to system bars, HUDs, accessibility utilities, etc with.

[sgc]

Not for me, but the closest you can get is Zorin OS Pro, https://zorin.com/os/pro/