Following the line of Linux distributions that aim to simulate the look of Windows to make the transition easier, we inevitably come across some quite advanced projects. One of them is ChaletOS, which thanks to the new LTS base of Ubuntu, now has a new version. Its lead developer Dejan Petrovic published a small tutorial teaching how to modify the appearance of ChaletOS 16.04 to get closer to what Windows 10 offers today.
A New LTS Base for ChaletOS
With the new LTS edition of Ubuntu released into the wild, many other distros based on Canonical's operating system published updated versions that incorporate its main improvements. Some changes were small, while others had a much larger impact (new kernel, systemd, and the retirement of Ubuntu Software Center, for example), but at the end of the day it's each project's decision on what to incorporate or what appearance to adopt. And speaking of appearance, appealing to Windows familiarity has always been a good trick to attract more users to the Linux world. While it's true that the penguin can be quite capricious at times, there's nothing lost in giving it a try, especially with resources like the classic Live USB. That said, why not take a look at the new build of ChaletOS?
Making ChaletOS 16.04 Look Like Windows 10
It's obvious that ChaletOS is much more “inspired” by Xubuntu LTS (based on the XFCE environment) than by traditional Ubuntu with Unity, but that's not exactly what brings us here today. With minimal adjustments and an additional download, it's very easy to make ChaletOS 16.04 resemble Windows 10. According to its lead developer Dejan Petrovic, all we need to do is download the “Windows 10 Icons Pack”, extract its contents into a subfolder within our main folder (i.e., Home), and rename that subfolder to “.icons”. The dot before “icons” will automatically hide the folder, and a reboot should be sufficient to apply the change.
Impressions and Availability
Beyond aesthetics, we can say that the overall experience of ChaletOS is not far from Xubuntu, although personally I still lean toward “intact” Xubuntu (I have it on my netbook, and deeper desktop tests will come soon). Logically, this relationship means that ChaletOS inherits several of Ubuntu's weaknesses, and to cite one case, I think AMD graphics card users aren't having a good time with the latest LTS. ChaletOS comes in 32 and 64 bits, and its download is around 1.3 gigabytes.
For more information and to download, visit the official ChaletOS site.
