libxfce4ui-nocsd VS Chicago95

Thanks. It will be interesting between this project and libxfce4-ui-nocsd go, in the future. I'm just not terribly interested into turning my desktop into a FrankenXfce that I have to personally spoon-feed.

looking at the installing page for libxfce4ui-nocsd, it seems that there is no other choice but to do a manual installation. you could try using a ppa on debian but i wouldn't reccomend it

I love Linux and I've used it for nearly 15 years now but the sad truth is the author cited by this article jwz isn't wrong. The problem is essentially that the DE devs don't care about their users, they just do whatever the hell they feel like c.f. GNOME 3. A more recent example is XFCE adopting CSD, it completely breaks the consistency of the environment, and users don't like it, but the devs don't care.. And that's XFCE! Supposedly one of the more conservative DEs!

You can use this. https://github.com/Xfce-Classic/libxfce4ui-nocsd

You can turn CSD on for all gtk3 apps by adding export GTK_CSD=1 to ~/.profile and you can turn off CSD in Xfce apps with using libxfce4ui-nocsd. https://github.com/Xfce-Classic/libxfce4ui-nocsd

You can patch the CSDs out with stuff like gtk3-mushrooms/gtk3-classic and libxfce4ui-nocsd, but those are band-aids on a gaping wound. In order to kill it off, we need to convince the devs that it's a bad idea.

More of Xfce's apps will be moving to CSD, like the upcoming task manager. One way around it is nocsd, which is a fork that was made during the 4.16 development cycle to leave CSD off. https://github.com/Xfce-Classic/libxfce4ui-nocsd

If that's a concern for you, there are themes for GTK3 and GTK4 that replicate classic 3D widgets and remove much of the excess padding in modern apps. https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Windows-95 https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 (You should install both; Chicago95 is more actively developed, but B00merang gives you a GTK+4 theme that's currently missing from Chicago95.) Works reasonably well as a daily-driver, giving you a similar look to the modern SerenityOS GUI on a standard Linux system. Even the modern GTK+4 "responsive" apps work as designed, with some non-critical graphical quirks.

https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

Chicago was the code name for the development version of the highly anticipated Windows95

Haven’t tried it, but there’s https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

Might be looking for something closer to this: https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

I bloody want my Linux and apps on it to look like this or something of this flavour. Most retro themes are poor quality shams (Chicago95[1] is the only good one, yet still not perfect). I feel like I would gladly pay serious money for a really high quality conversion of all the parts, including themes for all widget libraries and no quirks.

[1]https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

Chicago95

Related: you can make Linux look like Windows 95 (98/2000/XP), icons and all: https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

It works really well.