Windows 7 theme pack

What features/apps/bugfixes needed in a future Puppy
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tronkel
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Windows 7 theme pack

#1 Post by tronkel »

I've been having a play with Windows 7 this week. A lot better than Vista, but still has the usual MS drawbacks nevertheless.

I've also got Ubuntu Lucid 64 bit Gnome desktop version installed, for which there is a theme pack available built by Gnome-look.org - called the Win2-7 pack (about 43MB compressed download).

With this pack installed the average user wouldn't twig that this is not real MS Windows 7. They have done an enormous amount of work on this. (see screen shot attached). Even Explorer (Nautilus in disguise) has the default MS navigation buttons.

What a chutzpa! LOL Steve Ballmer will go ballistic when he sees this. :D

The truth is though that this copy-cat theme is better implemented than the original MS attempt. Better transparency if you have Compiz installed. 64 bit Ubuntu is much faster than Windows 7 on my hardware as well.

So what can be done for Puppy in this regard? Any graphics experts up for it? Ttuuxxx, Lobster, WhoDo .....?
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P123
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Hungarian pup

#2 Post by P123 »

Have you tried the Hungarian puplet SevenPuppy 09?

I have tried it but the keyboard is set for there country - there is a fix in there forum.

But I have now switched to Fluppy, so I would love the SevenPuppy themes, if anybody has it as a pet file.

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#3 Post by disciple »

A lot better than Vista
http://xkcd.com/528/
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john biles
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#4 Post by john biles »

Hello tronkel,
Had a good look and downloaded the theme for future reference. They've spent a lot of time on this!

But in the end what do you get Ubuntu dressed up as Windows 7. A Windows user would start / try and use it and while it looked right, would find that things were different. You could lie and say it's a special edition that Microsoft are exploring different ways of doing things, you might get away with that.

I've come to realize that by trying to turn Linux in to Windows aren't we disrespecting Linux and the very things that attracted us to Linux in the first place.

If you want to do things the Windows way, stay with Windows.

If your willing to learn new ways of doing things learn Linux.
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ttuuxxx
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#5 Post by ttuuxxx »

The latest version of 2.14X has metacity and xfce mix I put together and uses Gnome metacity themes for the window decorations, it comes with a couple vista/seven themes already.
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tronkel
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#6 Post by tronkel »

@john biles

This is not a case of disrespect for Linux.

Compared with the latest Ubuntu, Windows has slipped behind Linux by some considerable way IMHO. Windows 7 still inherits the old Windows problems of its registry, vulnerabilities to viruses, slowness and even graphics performance.

If you are supporting a computer system for someone, you're also likely to find that supporting any version of Windows is more time-consuming than for Ubuntu say, and certainly more than that required for Puppy.

Dressing up Ubuntu to look like Windows is a way of helping clients to migrate to Linux more easily. It's amazing what effect look-and-feel has on users' perception of the usability of a system.

As you've also noticed, it has been an interesting challenge for the Win2-7 pack developers.

I personally don't mind the appearance of Windows, but I don't like its ways of doing things at all. Linux is at least one notch higher in this respect.

While MS isn't going to depart the scene overnight, unless they get down to basics and get back to the drawing-board with a clean sheet, Linux will continue to take bites out of its (MS's) customer base in any case - look-alike packs or not.

If a new-generation Windows system ever appears in the future, it's very likely to have a lot more in common with Linux, than the other way round. i.e. very unlikely indeed that Linux will get to be like Windows.

The fact that Linux is becoming so good now, will put continuous downward pressure on Windows pricing to the point where Windows will cost very little money. On the other hand, ways could be found to enable Linux to generate more income. This is where these two systems migrate towards each other in a financial sense - even if MS never goes open-source as such. A future Windows could actually appear in the form of a closed-source Linux look-alike clone.

These Windows themes are really only intended as a superficial spoof/technical exercise in any case.

Disrespect for Linux? - you must be joking!
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#7 Post by ttuuxxx »

Hi tronkel how's it going bud?
I've always liked the look of windows xp,vista,seven. Ummmm just the look :) I've always hated what is underneath the hood :) Hey lets look at it this way, they spend tens of millions of dollars making it look pretty, Then I donate 2-7 days and come up with a theme that either matches or outdoes it, lol. But it does inspire my themes.
I do wish that one day jwm would handle png images and not gradients plus have a nicer menu like gnome does.
Or a minimum a jwm taskbar only version so that we could use metacity as the default wm and jwm as the taskbar.
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http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
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#8 Post by john biles »

Hey tronkel,
I like the look of Windows 7 and have even played with Longhorn the one some programmers tried to get working correctly until Microsoft pulled the plug. All I can say on that is it was "buggy to the max" I see why Microsoft dropped it. My XP install is themed like Vista even though I don't use it much. I respect the work these guys have done for this lookalike for Ubuntu which would have taken 100's if not 1000's of hours to create. I'm excited to see how it looks on my daughters Ubuntu PC so I downloaded it. Shame it doesn't unzip correctly and Ubuntu 10.04 giving errors. I found a way to get the icons out of it which for some unknown reason took hours?? Puppy wouldn't unzip it either. I'll try and install it tomorrow.

I'm not a Windows theme hater, I just think Linux should look like Linux not dressed up as Windows.
Disrespect for Linux? - you must be joking!
Your quote I love it!
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tronkel
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#9 Post by tronkel »

Hi Ttuuxxx,

Life goes on - getting older by the second!

Yes, you'd maybe better give MS some help with their GUI before they disappear altogether. Come to think of it, there are really only 2 choices for the PC desktop Windows or Linux.

If ever Windows disappeared that would leave Linux with no major competitor. Not really a good thing since the incentive to innovate would not be there anymore. If they stopped making Windows as we know it, the only other major cash cow that they have left would be MS Office - but big Office packages seem to be less popular these days mainly because of up-and-coming cloud-based/no-cost alternatives.

Can they make money from programming tools like .NET?
These tools are very expensive to buy and MS are getting stingy with the freebies that they used to give away in this area. I reckon they're trying to leverage income from whatever development tools they are are still managing to sell. Linux has free or better alternatives for the majority of these tools.

MS has had a miserable failure with their mobile telecoms as well. Ballmer's job is under threat. Time is running out fast for them. They had better get some sensible projects up running and successfully completed soon, or they will go down. Windows 7 as it is at the moment is not nearly enough to save them IMHO. As Ttuuxxx also says, under the hood, Windows 7 just doesn't cut it.

The Linux community will have to be very watchful that MS does not "borrow" stuff directly from Linux and then not allow copyleft. I notice some very big similarities in Windows 7 that look as if they could have been lifted straight out of Compiz for example. They have been caught before doing this kind of thing.
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#10 Post by disciple »

Linux with no major competitor. Not really a good thing since the incentive to innovate would not be there anymore.
You don't seriously believe that competition from M$ drives innovation in Linux, do you?
What sort of innovation does it drive? Innovation in bling? The bling in Linux has been a couple of steps ahead for years.
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#11 Post by john biles »

Hello tronkel,
Got the theme pack installed in Ubuntu and could easily pass as Windows 7. I'll leave it there for the time being, see how it preforms. :wink:
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#12 Post by tronkel »

disciple wrote:
You don't seriously believe that competition from M$ drives innovation in Linux, do you?
How can that be when MS doesn't do innovation? LOL!

Thinking back to the days of Windows 3.1 and 4MB RAM (assuming you're old enough to remember that far back) - I thought it (Win 3.1) was great. I enjoyed using it - it was fast. If you upgraded to 8MB of RAM then MS Word ran great on it - better than Word runs today on much more powerful hardware. Even Puppy can't run in 4MB RAM now.

Then Windows 95 came along amidst a great hoo-ha of marketing blurb. I thought it was a backward step rather than an improvement. It's been going downhill ever since, seemingly forever trapped by its requirements for backward compatibility. In the meantime it's Linux that has been doing the innovation.

Human nature is human nature though. If Linux were to ever become the only kid on the block, it remains to be seen if that frantic pace of innovation would continue.

It would be great to try to get Win3.1 running again on some modern hardware just to see how it compares speed-wise with Puppy.
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#13 Post by tronkel »

john biles wrote:
Got the theme pack installed in Ubuntu and could easily pass as Windows 7
It seemed to take me a couple of goes to get it properly installed with its dependencies. The second attempt was the install of the latest version from the gnome-look.org website. I use the standard 64-bit Ubuntu with the Gnome desktop.

Gnomenu still needs a bit of tweaking but it's getting close.

I wonder if anyone has ever developed a conversion pack that does the reverse, i.e. that makes Windows look like Ubuntu with Gnome. No way that MS themselves (assuming that that were capable of doing so in the first place), would be doing that. Some open-source project might exist though that caters for that.

Might even be a better idea for MS to wind back the clock and start again using Win 3.1 or Win 3.11 as a basis - but this time not using a registry and staying clear of bloat.
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#14 Post by john biles »

Hey tronkel,
My father brought a Osborne SX-25 in 1992 for $3000 with Windows 3.1 on it. Guess what I still have it and the 6 original install disks (floppy) and it works like the day he brought it. I have it stored away, may be in 20 years It will be worth something. :D
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#15 Post by tronkel »

john biles wrote:
I have it stored away, may be in 20 years It will be worth something.
It's probably worth something even now.

Since floppy disks can get corrupted over time, it might be an idea to make copies of the 6 original floppies onto other floppies at least.

It might also be possible to copy over the CAB files to CD so that the system can be installed entirely from there.

Other valuable legacy partner items would be early copies of Word, Excel and even MS Works. Actually it pays to hang on to older "redundant" software for as long as possible just in case someone finds a use for same.

Have you had any success with installing Win 3.1 on more recent hardware? Hardware drivers would be the problem here though.
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#16 Post by disciple »

Other valuable legacy partner items would be early copies of Word, Excel and even MS Works. Actually it pays to hang on to older "redundant" software for as long as possible just in case someone finds a use for same.
You can actually download one of (perhaps the last?) the old DOS versions of Word off the MS website. I can't remember why... maybe it was a bugfix for Y2K or something.
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#17 Post by James C »

To look authentic, don't forget to include all of the anti-virus and anti-spyware icons...... :lol:

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#18 Post by tronkel »

James C wrote:
To look authentic, don't forget to include all of the anti-virus and anti-spyware icons......
Yes that is amusing! It just demonstrates the power of a few well-chosen icons on user perceptions. Nice-looking desktop BTW.

People see what they expect to see in a superficial way - not really appreciating what goes on underneath the hood (the area that needs the most effort to create by far).

May also be the reason that so many people stick to Windows - they are simply so accustomed to the way it looks. Linux on the desktop is proving to be a hard sell to the average Joe Public user, simply because it looks different to what they are used to. The more Linux tries to alter its look and feel away from the Windows norm, the less secure Joe Public feels about the system. Joe Public is simply not interested in what goes on underneath the hood.

But level the playing field, and show him a good demo of real Windows alongside a Linux kitted out to look like real Windows and it won't take even 5 mins to make the point that Linux wins by a long stretch.
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#19 Post by Mobeus »

It would be great to try to get Win3.1 running again on some modern hardware just to see how it compares speed-wise with Puppy.
Tronkel, have you seen this? Run DOS/WFW in VirtualBox http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 532#381532

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Seven theme

#20 Post by MSXManiac »

James C wrote:To look authentic, don't forget to include all of the anti-virus and anti-spyware icons...... :lol:

Can you make a step by step tutorial or a pet package to install this theme?

It is done over JWM or another window manager?

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