Window managers to increase nostalgia

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UndeTerminated
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Window managers to increase nostalgia

Post by UndeTerminated »

Are you looking for something what will increase homesickness? Or maybe idea for Old Computer Challenge? Are you a fan of macOS/Windows, but still you want to use Unix OS? No problem, look below.

MLVWM - Macintosh Like Virtual Window Manager
This window manager emulates System Software 7/Mac OS 8/9, its source is available from GitHub https://github.com/morgant/mlvwm/ also as binary for Arch-like distros (via AUR), NixOS, OpenBSD Ports, pkgsrc, Fedora (via RPM Sphere). It is recommended to copy configuration file - mlvwmrc to $HOME as it contains configuration of applications.

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Stolen screenshot

Progman
This window manager emulates progman.exe of Windows 3.1. Source is available from GitHub https://github.com/jcs/progman, dependencies are X sources and gdk-pixbuf-xlib. As binary it is available for Fedora, pkgsrc, T/2 and EPEL. It is very helpful to copy progman.ini from source to ~/.config/progman/.

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This screenshot is also stolen
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tekk
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Re: Window managers to increase nostalgia

Post by tekk »

My preferred throwback wm is amiwm:

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I think the latest version is here?

I like the mac wm in theory but sadly it was too early to support the now (kinda?) working standard for a global menu by a few decades, so it felt like it was always missing a big part of the mac feel for me.

Of course for the unix classics there's always NsCDE (a fvwm clone of CDE) and Maxx desktop, which clones the SGI graphical environment. I don't have screenshots handy for those though.
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mavica
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Re: Window managers to increase nostalgia

Post by mavica »

ouuhhh i thought i was cool with windowmaker, i gotta give these a try!!!!
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claudiom
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Re: Window managers to increase nostalgia

Post by claudiom »

I'ma toss this into the fray...

Enhanced Motif Window Manager

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https://fastestcode.org/emwm.html

This site also provides updated versions of Xfile and other utilities that seem to integrate nicely with EMWM.

https://fastestcode.org/

It's available in FreeBSD and OpenBSD, and should be available in Linux distributions as well.
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tekk
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Re: Window managers to increase nostalgia

Post by tekk »

Any of y'all spend much time with RoX trying to recreate RISCOS? I never spent much time with either but I know it's a thing. Technically not a window manager itself though.
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Re: Window managers to increase nostalgia

Post by mavica »

i got nscde working on my t42

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claudiom
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Re: Window managers to increase nostalgia

Post by claudiom »

mavica wrote: Sun Mar 16, 2025 5:28 pm i got nscde working on my t42

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Wow, that looks really nice!
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zero cool
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Re: Window managers to increase nostalgia

Post by zero cool »

Aye nsCDE is a pretty sweet thing!
It's missing the ever glorious gkrellm system monitor there though :o
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Re: Window managers to increase nostalgia

Post by mavica »

zero cool wrote: Mon Mar 17, 2025 4:41 pm Aye nsCDE is a pretty sweet thing!
It's missing the ever glorious gkrellm system monitor there though :o
sorry, fixed
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Re: Window managers to increase nostalgia

Post by zero cool »

Nice one.

I'll toss in the desktop of my daily driver, even though it's not a window manager. But, you know, the forum not really having any rules and that.. :D
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