Chinese Pirates Launch Ubuntu That Looks Like XP

An anonymous reader writes "Ylmf, famous for pirating Windows XP, have just released a version of Ubuntu that looks just like Windows XP. Really, really similar. Apparently because Microsoft were cracking down on the actual Windows XP pirating — though I think they will still suffer for ripping off the GUI exactly." Of course, if that's the sort of look you like for your desktop, you need not risk any download cooties or language barriers; a reader in the Ubuntu Forums suggests this instructional video for giving Gnome the XP treatment.

Re:The Year of the Linux on the Desktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

xmms has always looked like winamp and can even use winamp skins

Re:why?

[furbearntrout]

The PHB is looking over my shoulder.

• PHB: What is that
• me: Linux.
• PHB: That hacking thing? ZOMG HAX PINKSLIP!!10101
• me: ???

Waiting for the KDE version.

[furbearntrout]

Flame wars aside, I'm just getting used to KDE4, now I have to learn gnome? No thank you sir.

What about Icon and Graphics Copyrights?

[CodeBuster]

Anyone here on Slashdot who knows me knows that I am not a big fan of copyright in general as a concept and certainly not the current US implementation which has been really skewed against the public since the Copyright Act of 1976 and followed with real gems like the Copyright Term Extension Act (a.k.a "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act"). However, having said that; doesn't Microsoft own the copyrights on the Windows XP icon set? It seems to me that they could still quash this in the United States because it appears that the icon files have been ripped verbatim from Windows XP.

Links

[a0schweitzer]

The Linuxologist ran a story covering the video [linuxologist.com] (and accompanying conversion script), mentioned by the OP, a while ago. Apparently there's an entire project [online02.com] for a gnome GUI conversion to make it look like XP.

I think it's pretty useful for convincing family members to make the switch to Ubuntu and cut down on personal Windows-related maintenance time.

Linux XP

[ahabswhale]

The Russians already did this: http://www.linux-xp.com/desktop/2010-release-notes/ [linux-xp.com]

Re:why?

[arthur.gunn]

Well the command line would be one good way.
If you want a GUI gnome-schedule [ubuntugeek.com] looks good too.

Make WinXP look like KDE; Make GNOME look like .

[hduff]

Make WinXP look like KDE http://www.tech-atom.com/windows/ultimate-linux-transformation-pack-for-windows-xp.html [tech-atom.com]

Make GNOME look like WinXP http://ubuntu.online02.com/xpgnome [online02.com]

Make WinXP look likeUbuntu http://pc-hacks.blogspot.com/2007/10/make-up-over-your-windows-look-like.html [blogspot.com]

Make WinXP look like Enlightenment http://www.litestep.net/ [litestep.net]

Make Linux look like Win95 http://fvwm.org/ [fvwm.org]

It all makes my head hurt.

Re:Of course. Open source rarely gets the GUI righ

[Cyberax]

"The other classic vice of the Unix/Linux world is the one-way GUI. Input is graphical, but output is in a text window, because the GUI is wallpaper over some text-oriented application. This comes from a design flaw of UNIX - when you run a subprocess, you can pass in a list of arguments, but all you get back is an exit status and maybe a text stream. "exit" should have had "argc" and "argv" parameters via which the subprogram could return structured results to the caller. "

From what century are you writing this? 18-th or maybe 19-th, I wager?

Re:Of course. Open source rarely gets the GUI righ

[jonaskoelker]

all you get back is [...] a text stream. [...] could return structured results to the caller.

Parsers. 'Nuff said.

Two rules often forgotten: "You should never have to tell the computer something it already knows"

I'd like to extrapolate that: you should never have to tell the computer the same thing twice. You should be able to make the computer act on general rules.

I really hate that with Network Manager, I can't tell it "whenever you see one of the essids [home, work], connect automatically". Why the hell do I have to spend my precious time clicking stuff when I already know what I'm going to click on?

(Linux lets me express general rules about what my computer should do, in the language of shell scripts etc.; for that, I love it. Thanks also to wpa_supplicant's roaming mode.)

Re:Make WinXP look like KDE; Make GNOME look like

[shutdown -p now]

You forgot:

Make GNOME look like KDE [kde-look.org]

The other way around is built into Qt4 (Gtk theme).

Re:I actually looked

[shutdown -p now]

That's not impressive, they hadn't worked out the icons to look the same for instance.

Er, what? When I look at the screenshots, I see exact same icons as in XP. So much so, in fact, that I'm certain that they've just ripped them out of XP resource files.

Re:Open source windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft wasn't just a successful corporation, they broke antitrust fair trade laws.

yawn. why are you guys still harping on that? microsoft has 4000 products, only 1 of which is IE. how come every other software vendor except browser makers manage to convince oems to ship their crapware on brand new pcs? heck some even managed to convince dell to ship linux. guess what.. ms is not in control of what software pcs ship with, because they do not sell computers. they make a product and oems license it.

For example if you need a piece of application software that is only written for Windows, then it may make it hard or impractical to use Linux, even if you think Linux is better. That gives Microsoft a huge UNFAIR advantage.

unfair? microsoft _earned_ their marketshare starting from 0%. what were the competitors doing when ms was at 0% marketshare? asleep .. thats what. ms placed a bet on microcomputer software and they won. they deserve all the success they got.

Their domination of the market and the value of their intellectual property are ill-gotten gains.

fiction.

I believe that if half the computer users out there were equally familiar with Linux as the other half were familiar with Windows, and an equal amount of drivers and software were available for Linux, Windows would quickly be driven down by Linux to a niche like OSX.

the fairground you're looking for doesn't exist. the universe is fundamentally unfair. try working in sales of any company for a few years and you'll realize that fact soon enough.

Re:why?

[Hognoxious]

The relative merits of Windows and Linux are why people are paying for Windows.

Right, because more dollars always equals more quality. Monster cables FTW!

We'll leave aside the fact that the vast majority of computers come with windows preinstalled, so the buyer has no choice anyway - he pays it as part of the total price whether he likes it or not.

Re:why?

[tolan-b]

My Windows 7 install crashes every day or two.

Yes it's probably drivers but that was always the case with Windows and is due to its development model.

Re:I actually looked

[Anssi55]

Er, what? When I look at the screenshots, I see exact same icons as in XP. So much so, in fact, that I'm certain that they've just ripped them out of XP resource files.

AFAICS the screenshots in the article *are* from XP. This is how it really looks, as per comment #12 from the article:
http://i50.tinypic.com/2lar9s0.jpg [tinypic.com]

probably 99% actual windows source code

[peter303]

Chinese are nortious for stealing others people's source code and trying to sell it under various guises.

doesn't look like XP

[barnacle]

It appears that the screenshot was taken from the real Windows XP, and Ylmf OS does not look much like XP, but rather exactly like Gnome.

Here's a screenshot taken from someone who installed the ISO in VMWare and changed the locale to English: http://i50.tinypic.com/2lar9s0.jpg [tinypic.com]

Re:Open source windows

[mspohr]

Windows was designed as a single-user monolithic system with no mechanism to prevent malware from accessing the full machine. Newer versions have had security features patched into this system in an attempt to improve security but still leave many holes and a compromise anywhere in Windows gives malware access to the entire machine. Even the newest versions of Windows are easily compromised. In a monolithic system a security breach anywhere compromises the entire system. Monolithic design, core access and remote procedure calls all contribute to an easily compromised system. Windows 7 has patched on some improvements such as ASLR and DEP have made it harder to compromise machines but still leave the core monolithic structure exposed. Since there is still a lot of software which requires XP mode virtualization in Windows 7 and since this mode is a huge security hole which leaves the entire monolithic OS vulnerable, we are still seeing lots of malware on Windows 7. (If you run XP in a VM on Linux, it will effectively isolate the Windows VM from the rest of the Linux machine... not so on Windows.)

Unix was designed as a multi-user modular system with security built into the file, data, and execution modes and this gives it a secure foundation that is difficult to penetrate. By isolating files, data, and execution permissions, Linux gives each process the permissions it needs and effectively isolates the rest of the system from malware. Even poorly written Linux software will not allow access to the core of the machine. The layers of security and modular design limit the damage.