Just A Windows Thought/Idea

[glynallinson]

Reading through many threads, there are people who's families/relations have asked/told them to install Windows back onto the computer.

I've seen XP themes and most of them look great. However my thought is:
Is it possible to install a *unix distro to have a directory structure like XP or would it be classed as copyright infringment.

If it is possible, i doubt many XP users would notice the difference much.
And it would overcome the fear of switching Operating Systems.

There are lots of *unix applications that are available for XP, so it could be a idea for thoses using XP and want to switch, to install XP versions of the *unix applications.
And show that things aren't really that different.

[wolfen69]

there's always Linux XP (http://www.linux-xp.com/).

[kdorf]

Things really are that different, however. The folder structure is the result of using a different filesystem. There's not really a lot that can be done about that. The only way would be to have Linux running on NTFS or FAT32 I would think, and that'd probably be a disaster.

People need to get over Windows. Linux is not Windows, nor does it try to be. Linux can be user-friendly, but you have to adjust. Things don't work exactly the same.

[gunashekar]

I was talking to two young persons who make a living out of servicing home and small office users of computers. Though they have a "hardware maintenance contract" with their clients, most of their work involves rescuing their clients from virus/malware attacks on windows systems or installing some software (most often illegal) for them. Recently they have been bitten by Ubuntu and have started installing Ubuntu with a windows XP like desktop on the computers they maintain for their clients.I saw one of the installations and someone has gone to great lengths to even make openoffice.org menus and icons look like MS office. Some of their clients do not even know the difference and are happier with the mock XP they have.

While we can keep saying "Linux is not Windows" or tell ourselves that as linux users we possess some superior intellect or ability than the "dumbos", the truth is that there is a big number of users who just need their computer for some work or entertainment and do not care what lies under the hood as long as it works and doesn't hang or crash. I do not see any harm in providing them with a system that looks familiar and "just works" . Of course, cloning the trademarks and icons is a bit too much, but who cares?

[pirate_tux]

Reading through many threads, there are people who's families/relations have asked/told them to install Windows back onto the computer.

I've seen XP themes and most of them look great. However my thought is:
Is it possible to install a *unix distro to have a directory structure like XP or would it be classed as copyright infringment.

If it is possible, i doubt many XP users would notice the difference much.
And it would overcome the fear of switching Operating Systems.

There are lots of *unix applications that are available for XP, so it could be a idea for thoses using XP and want to switch, to install XP versions of the *unix applications.
And show that things aren't really that different.

Please, tell me this is a joke.

[pparks1]

I think the primary problem for most people who want Windows back onto their computer is not the actual look of the product, but rather that the software that they use, the peripherals that they own and the experiences that they have are all Windows based. Unfortunately, until they decide that they want these things to change and want to learn something new, Windows is likely their best option.

In my opinion, most of the people who succeed with Linux are those who had quite a good idea of what they were getting into when they started. Those who fail are typically told by somebody else they need it, or have simply heard it's the next big thing and all too often they rush into it and get frustrated really quickly and then are left with a bad impression of Linux in general. To make matters worse, most of these so called computer experts really aren't that computer savvy...they just think they are...which makes the problem even worse.

[darrelljon]

I think the directory structure is part of what defines an operating system as UNIX-like.
If you mean a FOSS operating system with a Windows directory structure then there is ReactOS.

[maybeway36]

It would be possible, but I'm not sure how useful it would be.

[aysiu]

Mac OS X has a *nix-like folder hierarchy, and I have never heard any Mac users complain about it, even ones who have recently switched from Windows.

Yes, Mac OS X has /usr and /bin and /lib and all that good *nix-ness.

Why don't Mac users care? Because they didn't care in Windows either. Do you think most Windows users know that My Documents is really C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents? Do Mac users know that their Downloads folder is in /Users/username/Downloads or that any drive they plug in is mounted inside /Volumes?

Nope.

Most computer users don't really care about folder hierarchies. They just want easy access to the folders they use most.

I really don't see how adopting a C:\WINDOWS and C:\Program Files and all that will make the transition easier. If anything, it'll make the transition more difficult by giving the false impression of similarity.

Ubuntu isn't a problem-free version of Windows. It's a completely different operating system.

[Fzang]

C:\Program files is hardly qualifying as a system folder, it's just a place where programs install by default where you could just install everything to a folder named "pie" (that'd be awesome though....)

Oh, and Linux XP sorta creeps me

[kaiju]

Is it possible to install a *unix distro to have a directory structure like XP[...]

while it certainly does seem possible to imitate the windows directory structure, it's unlikely that it would do much good.
i just can't see why e.g. /usr/bin would be more obscure for the average user than c:\windows\system32\.
with the right bookmarks in the file manager, all the user directories are perfectly accessible to any newcomer. and then it can't be that hard to learn that most of the stuff is in /home, /media and /mnt...