Can I run Linux like Linux, but with the look and feel of XP?

When our Managing Editor came up with the idea of trying to make Linux look like Windows, it filled me with trepidation, but in an inquisitive way. So we agreed that it was worth giving a shot. What transpired took me a couple of days to figure out - options, possibilities, configuration and security issues being just the beginning. What follows is how it all worked out and explains why Neil and I had pretty much the same opening and closing thoughts.

Making something look like another is called “theming” or “skinning” in computer jargon. If you want to go all the way to theming, I must say that it is not as simple as changing Window borders or Menus. You have to consider everything from the icon set to the placement of menus, from window borders to menu backgrounds. If you fail to implement any single component as it should be, then your desktop will be inconsistent at best, garbled and unusable at worst.

Notes:

Many of the themes for making Linux look like XP take on the Gnome interface and I personally do not recommend going with KDE because the current KDE 4.x series are still having stability issues. So indeed the best place to start is with a Gnome-look.

Please note that we will be doing some tweaking here that has the potential to ruin your desktop environment with a wrong choice. So please proceed at your own risk.

To go with the installation, we first visit PhrankDaChicken's website and download the XPGnome.tar.gz file (the link here is the direct download link, so be careful.)

Open the tar.gz file to a folder of your choice. You will see a file named InstallXPGnome.sh and a folder named “files.” Double-click on the InstallXPGnome.sh file and a window will pop up saying: “WARNING: This script will change your Gnome desktop to look like Windows XP! Continue?” Hit OK and then wait for the installer to go on.

During the installation, the installer will ask if you want to change your login window to Windows XP-style. If you want to do so, click OK, enter your password when prompted, then in the newly opened window, switch to the “Local” tab, select the “XP Ubuntu” login window at the bottom and click “Close” when done. You do not need to go on with further tweaking in this window. When the installation is complete, you will see that your Gnome desktop has completely changed to an XP desktop.

As a Bright Hub tip, if you are not happy with the icon sizes because they are too big, right click on the icons, select “Stretch Icon” and then from the corners adjust their sizes as you prefer.

The developer PhrankDaChicken was so nice to include an uninstall script with the downloaded file. The uninstaller script is automatically generated during the installation and is placed in the folder where you first extracted the contents of the InstallXPGnome.tar.gz file. The folder is named as RestoreSettings_Date,Time where the date and time are when you ran the script. In this folder, there is a Restore_Settings.sh file which, as you guessed, will restore all your settings and remove all the changes the installer file made to your system.

I liked both the installation and uninstallation scripts. Unlike the plethora of Windows Vista/Linux issues we encountered, here both worked without any problems. If you want to make Linux run like Linux but look like XP then I think what I just discussed makes perfect sense and is a very good choice. At least, the theme worked as stated and did not cause me any pain, certainly not compared to the problems I encountered when changing Gnome's look to Vista.