So, a while back I installed Xfce with Chicago95, but was disappointed. Xfce just doesn’t vibe with me, and a strict emulation of Windows95 is not really what I wanted, I just wanted something that “felt” that classic.
So I was gonna give up and just use KDE, until I saw TDE. I think TDE is probably what I’m looking for but I’m concerned about using anything so minor because security.
It TDE secure (for personal use)?
Can a DE even be insecure, or are they all generally as secure as each-other as long as you follow the rules (trustworthy software, closed firewall, install patches fast, and disaster recovery plans)?
What vulnerabilities can a desktop environment even have (edit)?
I don’t really like how I keep accidentally rolling-up the windows in Xfce and how long the settings menu takes to load, I probably had more qualms but I don’t remember what they are. It works fine (except for some aspects of Chicago95), but it feels outdated in a bad way rather than good way. Part of it is probably my crummy laptop with broken CTRL keys and incompatible bluetooth.
DesktopPal '97 seems really cool, but right now my top priority is switching to KDE Plasma 6 with custom themes and seeing how that goes.
Window roll-up can be disabled under Window Manager Tweaks > Accessibility > Use mouse wheel on title bar to roll up the window
Getting the bitmap font right goes a long way towards making the theme much more cohesive: https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95/issues/218
If you decide to return to any GTK-based desktop environments, I’d suggest trying out the GTK3 port of the Raleigh theme (https://github.com/thesquash/gtk-theme-raleigh). It’s a much less involved install compared to Chicago 95 but gets you most of the look-and-feel.
The Whisker menu properties menu also has settings to make it fit the Windows 95 style a bit better. Here’s how it could look:
I made the changes, and it’s slightly better but I think the main issue is my bad laptop and the negative association I have with Xfce as a result (since Xfce was what I was interacting with).
Raleigh isn’t really my style. Too many lines. Plus I’ve decide I’ll switch to themed KDE (and probably FreeBSD with TDE on one device).
The theme in the image you sent is really nice. Beige makes it feel more classic, and the red title-bar is far less jarring than a blue one is in 2025.
What do you mean by “window roll-up”?
Also, the settings menu thing is weird - mine takes less than a second to load, and I’m on a machine with a 7 year old processor at this point. I almost worry that if that takes a long time KDE will be more miserable performance-wise, unless you’ve already tried it on here.
By the way, what distro and XFCE version are you running - just for good measure.
The outdated sentiment is probably based, honestly. I think it’s gotten better, but there are rough edges. In the end, do what works for you.
Roll up is when you scroll-up while hovering over the title bar and everything except the title-bar disappears. In the image monovergent provided the title bar is highlighted in red.
I use Linux Mint with Xfce. Gonna change to OpenSUSE once I can be bothered distro-hopping.
EDIT: Specifically it’s the Font Settings that take forever to load, not all of the settings menu.
Oh yeh. The font menu is crap. I can’t argue with that.
It’s one of those mysterious annoying things that’s up there with the GTK file picker in some apps taking 10 seconds to load.
But I also don’t change fonts that often. Still, that has much room for improvement.