Can I make Linux look like this?

M

Murp

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Attached to this topic you'll find three pics of what my computer looks like. I'm running Windows XP, obviously, with the Classic appearance enabled.

I'm trying to convert to Linux, and I want whatever Distro I go with to look like my current XP setup. The high-contrast, white-on-black appearance is an utter necessity (bad eyes). I also strongly prefer text labels to fancy-schmancy icons, the "tray" at the bottom instead of the top, and I absolutely loathe the "Other Places" pane at the left side of all open windows in Windows 7/8.1 and pretty much every Linux distro I've ever looked at.

I've heard of IceWM, but can I customize it to the extent necessary to get the look I desire? And do any distros use IceWM by default? I'm obviously trying out Live CDs, and unfortunately, they pretty much all have the prettiest, fanciest, most-obnoxious user interfaces available. Another problem is that Linux seems highly uncustomizable, as far as appearance; I can't even freely change window color on most distros I've looked at, and I can't find configuration for the tray (such as auto-hide) or windows (such as removing certain buttons/menus; you see how minimal windows in my XP setup look) anywhere.

Can I get any Linux distro/GUI/WM to look even remotely like my XP setup?

Edit: Oh! And icons! I need icons to be small and drag-around-able like in XP; I hate the fixed, unmovable, "panel-like" icons of Windows 7/8.1 and pretty much all the Linux distros I've tried.
 

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Can I make Linux look like this?
Yes.

There are at least two distros which are specifically for people who are blind or partially sighted. Adriane Knoppix and Vinux. I think that Klaus Knopper's girlfriend/wife is partially sighted so he created a version of Knoppix for her.

You can install high contrast fonts, icons, themes on an ordinary distro

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Adriane_Knoppix
http://vinuxproject.org/

I would steer away from IceWM - and Windows Managers in general. There are two types of GUI, Desktop Environment and Windows Manager. Desktop Environment is the higher end. The advantage this has is that it builds/rebuilds/maintains its own menus. Windows Managers tend to have the opposite disadvantage that YOU have to build/rebuild/maintain the menus. Not impossible, but more difficult.

You might be be better with something like XFCE .

Perhaps a useful place is: http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/soc/easypc.htm
 
Yes.

There are at least two distros which are specifically for people who are blind or partially sighted. Adriane Knoppix and Vinux. I think that Klaus Knopper's girlfriend/wife is partially sighted so he created a version of Knoppix for her.

You can install high contrast fonts, icons, themes on an ordinary distro

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Adriane_Knoppix
http://vinuxproject.org/

I would steer away from IceWM - and Windows Managers in general. There are two types of GUI, Desktop Environment and Windows Manager. Desktop Environment is the higher end. The advantage this has is that it builds/rebuilds/maintains its own menus. Windows Managers tend to have the opposite disadvantage that YOU have to build/rebuild/maintain the menus. Not impossible, but more difficult.

You might be be better with something like XFCE .

Perhaps a useful place is: http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/soc/easypc.htm

Haha, I think I may have given the wrong impression. I'm not partially blind or anything, I suffer from chronic blepharitis and severe chronic dry eye. The dark visuals are necessary because the bright white of most GUIs makes my eyes really dry, really fast. Makes sense -- a light background is like staring at a lightbulb! Dark visuals increase the amount of time I can comfortably use a computer before having to stop. Thanks, though. I have several medical problems, so I'm always concerned about accessibility, even for problems I don't have.

Anyway, I was under the impression that Desktop Environments were a total package that included Windows Managers. They're two completely different things? And what do you mean I have to build/rebuild/maintain the menus? You mean like, do some programming type setup?

It's good to know I can get high-contrast and dark-visual GUI elements on any given distro. That solves that concern. But what about customizing the default appearance of windows in ways other than color? Notice in my screenshots; windows are opaque, there's only the address and navigation buttons at top (no "Places" pane or whatever), the icons are medium-sized and separate, and I can drag them around freely (they don't snap to a grid).

I've tried several Live CDs with several different DEs and as far as I remember, none of them allowed icons to be dragged around, I couldn't find any way to resize the icons or disable the "Places" sidebar, etc. The only customization options for windows that I was ever able to find was changing Themes, font and color. I don't like the concept of "themes" (one of the reasons I don't like Windows 7), I prefer to be able to just open a configuration thing and adjust everything, ala the "Display Properties" window in my third screenshot there. Is there something with that level of customization in any DE you know of?

And as for DEs with lots of fanciness (transparency, animations), is there generally a way to turn them off?

Oh! My LinuxLite distro just finished downloading. It uses XFCE, which I tried before and couldn't figure out how to customize. I'll fire it up, try again, and be back next post with much more specific, solvable questions than the general ones I've asked thus far :p
 
Okay, I'm currently running the Linux Lite Live USB, and the themes are very confusing. I was directed by the Linux Lite site to...
http://xfce-look.org/?xcontentmode=420
...and I dunno, it's confusing. There's a totally unique, complex install process for almost every theme there.

And more to the point, I don't really want a fully-packaged "theme." Can't I just make window backgrounds black and text white by default? In the Settings, there's no way to change window or font color :(

Yet several of the themes (which I can't use or figure out how to use) have black or dark windows and light text. How do they do it? How can I do it? This is all very frustrating!

Also, despite my best googling efforts, I can't find a way to auto-hide the taskbar, or configure it at all, or disable auto-align/snap-to-grid in the window manager (which is apparently called Thunar), or disable type-as-you-search in the same.

And I can't change the general font size throughout the OS. I can change the window title bar font size easily enough, but the font in most system windows is too small for me and I can't change it. See the attached image.
 

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Have a look at this: http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2012/11/xubuntu-1210-day-2-customise-desktop.html

Linux Lite is based on Ubuntu. Xubuntu is an xfce4 ubuntu.

Unfortunately I don't have xfce4 on any of my systems at the moment. (I sort of learnt a lesson while trying to help someone whose desktop did not show cyrillic Russian - I managed to change my desktop :()

There is nothing wrong with using a theme. You can keep the basics and change bits. Have a look at xfce-look.org. Something like?: http://xfce-look.org/content/show.php/Theme_white_on_black?content=165739
 

I found all that on my own (except the Panel customization -- there was none in Linux Lite; right clicking the Panel didn't do anything, and none of the Settings menus/launchers/whateveryoucallems had any "Panel" section). Unfortunately, none of that lets me do what I want -- change the window background color, title bar color, font color, and the font size for anything other than icons and title bars.

There were a lot of neat things, like the automatic background changer, the customizable hotkeys and the fact that you can make any window "Always On Top." But I need to set my colors/sizes the way I want, and I couldn't find a way.

Linux Lite is based on Ubuntu. Xubuntu is an xfce4 ubuntu.

Unfortunately I don't have xfce4 on any of my systems at the moment. (I sort of learnt a lesson while trying to help someone whose desktop did not show cyrillic Russian - I managed to change my desktop :()

There is nothing wrong with using a theme. You can keep the basics and change bits. Have a look at xfce-look.org. Something like?: http://xfce-look.org/content/show.php/Theme_white_on_black?content=165739

It's not a matter of "wrong" or not -- I personally dislike the concept of "Themes" and their effect on end-user customization. Because they're so incredibly complex and archaic to create, "Themes" encourages a small number of dedicated people to make Themes and the vast majority of users to select a Theme from among them. I don't want to pick a Theme from among a list; I just want to choose colors, fonts, etc. on my own (ala the Advanced Display Properties in XP).

That theme you linked to is sorta nice, but it's not exactly what I want, and I don't know slash can't figure out how to edit it myself. All the themes I tried downloading came with dozens, sometimes hundreds of files across multiple folders, with no explanation anywhere of what the files were. I tried editing some hex color values in some of them but it didn't do anything.

And actually, besides the fact that that theme says it's for GTK 2.x (I don't even know what that is and a quick google isn't enlightening) and not XFCE, the installation description is poorly-written and difficult to understand...
Description:
Theme derived from the Coreman(i hope with approvation!) \"ColorBlack Themes 0.2.2\" in white on black background.
Gtk 3 ambiance and Openbox simple theme also modified.
Before installing, make a backup of the folders:
.config/Trolltech.conf and .gtkrc-2.0 in your home, usr/share/themes/Ambiance and usr/share/themes/Simple(for openbox).

What I'm supposed to do with that mess?
What are GTK 3 Ambiance and Openbox? Are those things I have to install before this theme will work?
What's Trolltech.conf? I didn't see that in my usr/.config folder., nor .gtkrc-2.0.
Not to mention the atrocious grammar (I can't even parse that last line, I literally have no idea what he's saying).

I don't think Linux Lite is for me; this is just too frustrating. All I want to do is change a few colors, why is that so incredibly difficult? With all the fancy features, why can't I just change window color and font color from the default Appearance menu?

I'm back on XP now and I'm downloading Kubuntu. I'll see how that works. And I'm gonna see if I can get IceWM working in it, since that's specifically meant to emulate the Windows XP Classic look that I like.

Such a headache, I almost feel like it's not worth converting :(

Edit: Alright, I feel a bit better now that I found this, years old as it is...
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1002660
...apparently it's just that Xfce is notoriously difficult when it comes to simply changing colors. Apparently other DEs allow you to change color more easily. I've learned that KDE is very resource-intesive and fancy-schmancy, which I don't want, so I canceled my download and I'm now downloading LinuxMint with MATE. And if I don't like that I'll try IceWM.
 
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