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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[–] agentshags@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Workbench? How does one go about doing this, I'd love to feel like I was on an Amiga again lol

e: also is there a way to make my shell look like the commodore 64 blue screen

[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 4 points 3 days ago

You will have to submit to XFCE, I have it as a spare when I feel nostalgic from my daily DE (KVM).

Icons are.. hard to accomplish:

There are a couple of png libraries out there, so it is possible to recreate either the 3.5 or posterior looks, however the older workbench with its lovely drawers and different sized icons is something I haven't achieved.

You can still pick a modern DE, add png icons to the desktop and recreate something like this without the filesystem navigation (or prefs): magicWB

(I found interesting the lower bar with the nextstep-like icons, though this was on 1994 so..)

[–] addie@feddit.uk 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

AmigaOS is still available and able to run all your Linux favourite applications as well as 'classic Amiga software', except of course it requires you to be running a PPC processor. Plus it costs money. So you'd have to invest £lots in 'most of a new PC' to see whether it even works for you.

Now, if we could open-source it and get it running on x64, I'd love to be running workbench again. It was ahead of its time.

https://amigaos.net/

[–] SharkWeek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 days ago

Or you could just chuck AROS on a bootable thumbdrive.

I have my old Amiga hard drive image with Workbench 3.9, and sometimes start it up in an emulator ... it doesn't take me long to remember that guis have come a long way since the Amiga was relevant :-/