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ZDNET Key Takeaways
- A Linux developer has created Windows 8 DE.
- Win8DE looks a lot like Windows 8.
- This new desktop is still in alpha stage.
Remember Windows 8? I’m sure I can guess what you remember from that less-than-ideal iteration of Windows. UI.
Microsoft decided that a “card-based” interface was the way to go. At the time, they were also taking advantage of Windows Phone, and when you compare them side by side, you start to understand why they took this path.
Microsoft wanted to overtake Apple.
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Whether the Windows 8 UI was a success or a failure is a matter of taste. I know people who hated it and people who loved it. As for me, I’m indifferent because I never had to use it.
There is a Linux developer who may have either used it and missed it, or may have decided that there were enough people to constitute an audience for a Linux UI that closely resembled Windows 8.
The developer in question goes by er-India on GitHub, and his evil-scientist project is called Win8DE. Now, before proceeding further, I must say that I spent about 2 hours installing Win8DE but with no success. The reason behind this is dependency issues. Of course, this is an alpha release of the software, so there will be issues with installation as well.
Still, you can check out the developer’s GitHub page for the project and see how close he’s come to the Windows 8 desktop. Impressive.
What options are there?
After failing to install Win8DE, I decided to scour the internet for Windows 8-esque themes for KDE Plasma or GNOME, but came up empty. Sure, there are some themes that resemble Windows 8’s color scheme, but none that mimic its card-like UI. That’s one of the reasons why this developer’s project is so impressive.
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Although I’ve always disliked the Windows UI (in all its incarnations), I can see why someone might embrace the Windows 8 UI. Of course, I tend to go against the grain in everything I do, so weird and wonderful things always fascinate me.
what’s that for
At the same time, upon examining the developer’s screenshots and reading about his project, it all makes sense… especially if you’ll be using this DE on a touchscreen device.
you can see this animated clip Which shows Win8DE in action. Watching that clip has convinced me that I’ll be spending this weekend running it on a virtual machine. I am determined.
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Of course, knowing that someone who has been using Linux for decades is going to spend a weekend trying to get a desktop going should tell you everything you need to know about the state of Win8DE. It is not ready.
The latest version of Win8DE is v0.5.0, so I’m guessing it’s a long way from the stable release. And given that this is a one-man show, I wouldn’t expect it to reach version 1.0 for some time.
Still, Win8DE is a cool project that perfectly shows that anything is possible with Linux. Although I’m not a fan of the Windows UI, I’ll certainly be interested to see how this project progresses.
