It is crazy how fast—and dramatically—tastes change.
Looking at old screenshots of Ubuntu is like looking at an old photo of yourself with a dated haircut!
The video embed above is of my customised Ubuntu 8.10 desktop back in in 2008, in all of its gaudy, over-glossed glory.
AWN? Check. Screenlets? Check. Compiz cube? Ch-ch-check!
Looking back at old videos and screenshots of my Ubuntu desktop is much like looking at an old photo of myself with a hair style or fashion choice that has dubiously dated in the decades since.
Yet, aside from being a bit cringe, the above video also demonstrates how far Linux desktops have come in the aesthetic stakes. The days of needing to go out to add apps, themes and other ephemera to make your desktop look passable have long since passed.
Linux distributions these days look great out of the box, no blingy baubles required!
Compiz, My True First (Linux) Love
Having blown the dust off my that personal YouTube account to upload a new video I, inevitably, began to trudge down memory lane to see what else I ‘related video’ rabbit hole to see what other olden, golden glimpses of over-styled Linux desktops others had shared.
Suffice to say, I was not alone in thinking “Man, my Linux desktop looks so freakin’ rad I should share it with the world” back then.
I won’t embarrass others by sharing their videos, but here’s another somewhat pointless dozy of “fluff” from back in the day (this one from the OMG! Ubuntu YouTube channel):
Back before the “YouTubers” arrived (and cynically produced outrage content became a mainstay of the sidebar), the video sharing site was was home to three things:
- Low-res music videos (240p, how we do not miss thee)
- Badly staged, filmed and received prank videos
- Silent Linux desktop screencasts involving Compiz effect demoes
Watching (and indeed uploading) Linux desktop screencasts of crazy Compiz effects was a rite of passage for Linux newbies at the time. Well, that and uploading a screenshot of your desktop to the Ubuntu Forum cafe thread!
They weren’t meritless uploads, either.
What helped sell me on Ubuntu was seeing a low-res, screen-tearing 3D Compiz cube. I didn’t know a lot about what “Linux” was at the time, but seeing such crazy effects had me hooked!
Windows couldn’t — still can’t — do anything as advanced or as shamelessly over-the -top as Compiz could.
And you know what?
As cringey as the old desktop screencasts look to my modern eyes, and as rough the UX was thanks to see-through menus and wobbly window borders, I do miss the days of wild experimentation simply for the sake of it.
Don’t get me wrong: Linux desktops look better, work better and (thanks to user interfaces designed based on user-testing and usability studies) easier to use than ever. That focus on making Linux usable and not just desirable is why Linux marketshare is rising fast.
Call it nostalgia or the slow rate of change, but I think it’s great that, all the years on, I can continue to enable and play with Compiz-style effects. They aren’t as intrinsic to modern desktop environments as they were before, but it’s all still around.
Which leads nicely into what I wanted to say by posting this video.
Now that newer technologies are bleeding into the “Linux mainstream” (howdy, Wayland) I hope we don’t loose some of the …spunk that led to the creation of things like Compiz.
Amid our rush to adopt and conform to modern best practices, as we churn our newer, nimbler tech that is more streamlined that those from the past, I hope we don’t lose our ability to imagine or indulge in excess and superfluous fluff for the sake of it.
These new technologies will hopefully lay a framework for the community to keeping building what others can’t or won’t.