this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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The Windows Interface You Didn’t Like, For Linux (hackaday.com)
submitted 3 days ago by cm0002@lemmings.world to c/linux@programming.dev
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If you were asked to pick the most annoying of the various Microsoft Windows interfaces that have appeared over the years, there’s a reasonable chance that Windows 8’s Metro start screen and interface design language would make it your choice. In 2012 the software company abandoned their tried-and-tested desktop whose roots extended back to Windows 95 in favor of the colorful blocks it had created for its line of music players and mobile phones.

Consumers weren’t impressed and it was quickly shelved in subsequent versions, but should you wish to revisit Metro you can now get the experience on Linux. [er-bharat] has created Win8DE, a shell for Wayland window managers that brings the Metro interface — or something very like it — to the open source operating system.

The most beautiful horror to ever exist lmao

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[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

A bit ironic when Microsoft struggles because someone else keep breaking compatibility. Although I would prefer it to keep trying because that would have been more choice and competition in the mobile OS land

[–] silasmariner@programming.dev 9 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Microsoft windows has historically had pretty great backwards compatibility compared to macos, android or iOS; and pretty great device compatibility compared to basically everything.

[–] TacoSocks@infosec.pub 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think this is because they are forced to because of how many companies didn't want to update software to the latest OS. I remember the times when Microsoft had all sorts of compatibility issues with XP.

[–] silasmariner@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I remember being able to play fairly old games with 'run in compatibility mode for '98' or something (a right-click menu item maybe?), so guess we have different recollections there

[–] TacoSocks@infosec.pub 2 points 1 day ago

That feature came about because of all the compatibility issues. I can't remember but I believe one of the service packs really enhanced compatibility mode to make it functional.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 5 points 3 days ago

Yeah, I had in mind their office they changed every now and then to break compatibility with FOSS office, afaik this is not the only thing they did like that, but support for running old software usually was decent, true