I hate to say this, because I know how cringe it is, but… Windows 7 actually removed a lot of features that made Windows fun. And yeah, I’m talking about ricing and I’m unironically saying ricing is valid.
The mid 2000s was an awesome time to be in the ricing community - between litestep, blackbox, foobar2k, rainlendar/rainmeter etc, you could actually make your experience look however you wanted.
And, litestep in particular, for me, was a gateway drug to openbox and therefore Linux - when you finally hit The Windows Wall, where, to go any further, you had to step into Linux, Ubuntu was there, and then Mint, and then…idr what.
I still have my 2007 Ubuntu installation cd that they mailed to me for free. Sure, you could just make your own installation cd rom, but, if you couldn’t, they would happily mail you one - or, as in my case, you felt motivated to evangelize, they’d send you a bunch that you could give out to people. I gave mine to friends and left some others at the local anarchist bookstore (I don’t remember the name of it but this was Washington DC just north of Chinatown).
Windows 7 was a big step backwards. You could still do a lot of ricing, but less - and it was very clear from the direction that Windows 7 went, that whatever came next would be worse.
Idk if I would say it’s looks > usability, and it’s certainly not gaudy… There are theming styles that are much more unusable and gaudy than the “riced” look.
It’s an aesthetic that idealizes a kind of barebones utility, and while it often will lean towards the look over the usability, the look itself is like a “beautiful utilitarian” - minimalistic, uncluttered, etc.
Oh shit, I remember LiteStep and spending hours and hours to just fiddle with how my desktop looked. I personally felt Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of MS OSs (except so many games etc. wouldn’t run because rightly the OS reported it was Windows NT and a lot of games shat themselves at that)
I hate to say this, because I know how cringe it is, but… Windows 7 actually removed a lot of features that made Windows fun. And yeah, I’m talking about ricing and I’m unironically saying ricing is valid.
The mid 2000s was an awesome time to be in the ricing community - between litestep, blackbox, foobar2k, rainlendar/rainmeter etc, you could actually make your experience look however you wanted.
And, litestep in particular, for me, was a gateway drug to openbox and therefore Linux - when you finally hit The Windows Wall, where, to go any further, you had to step into Linux, Ubuntu was there, and then Mint, and then…idr what.
I still have my 2007 Ubuntu installation cd that they mailed to me for free. Sure, you could just make your own installation cd rom, but, if you couldn’t, they would happily mail you one - or, as in my case, you felt motivated to evangelize, they’d send you a bunch that you could give out to people. I gave mine to friends and left some others at the local anarchist bookstore (I don’t remember the name of it but this was Washington DC just north of Chinatown).
Windows 7 was a big step backwards. You could still do a lot of ricing, but less - and it was very clear from the direction that Windows 7 went, that whatever came next would be worse.
What is “ricing”? Sounds like you might be talking about theming?
Yeah, ricing is slang for the r/unixporn kind of themeing. It comes from car culture, where RICE stands for “race-inspired cosmetic enhancement”
Fwiw rice is a backronym, it originally comes from just “rice burners” which were the kind of cars & motorcycles that got “cosmetically enhanced”
Yikes, I think I’ll just stick to “themeing”
Ricing is usually used for extreme, often gaudy theming and personalization, with emphasis on looks rather than real usability
Oh uh yeah my grandpa uses that word in a very similar context, not sure I’d repeat it though myself
Idk if I would say it’s looks > usability, and it’s certainly not gaudy… There are theming styles that are much more unusable and gaudy than the “riced” look.
It’s an aesthetic that idealizes a kind of barebones utility, and while it often will lean towards the look over the usability, the look itself is like a “beautiful utilitarian” - minimalistic, uncluttered, etc.
Oh shit, I remember LiteStep and spending hours and hours to just fiddle with how my desktop looked. I personally felt Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of MS OSs (except so many games etc. wouldn’t run because rightly the OS reported it was Windows NT and a lot of games shat themselves at that)