hello everybody and welcome back to
another video now in today's episode
we're going to be doing some Linux
related content yeah we're going to be
diving into Linux today and we're going
to be taking a look at a very cool very
unique essentially a transformation pack
for the xfce desktop environment called
Chicago 95 which if you can already tell
by the image we've got on screen right
now makes your system look like Windows
95 and it does a very very good job at
doing that now this project is nothing
new I just found out about it recently
myself the first version of Chicago 95
was released back in October of 2019 but
the second version which is what we're
going to be taking a look at today was
released last year now I got to give a
huge thank you to Dominic aka the fen
osdev for letting me know about this and
also for creating a very useful tool to
use with Chicago 95 called Chicago Fire
now before I explain what this does I
have to talk a little bit about how
Chicago 95 installs because there are a
couple different ways you can choose to
install Chicago 95 with version 2.0
there is an automated python based
installer that uh really mimics the
Windows 95 setup process but if you go
that route that will only apply the
Chicago 95 theme to your user account it
will not take effect systemwide there's
also a manual install that is heavily
reliant on the command line and then
you've got the systemwide manual install
which is also reliant on the command
line and you know it's not like the most
difficult thing in the world to do but
for somebody who's not familiar with the
command line it could be rather daunting
so that's where Chicago fire comes in
what dominic has done is created this
script that essentially automates the
entire process and we're going to be
going this route today and you don't
even have to download Chicago 95 from
its GitHub page because the script will
download it for you so we're going to go
to the Chicago Fire GitHub page I'll
have both of these down below by the way
if you prefer to go with the manual
method or if you want to install it for
your user session uh you can just go
with the automated install though you do
have to install python if you don't
already have it installed and if you
don't Chicago Fire will do that for you
so we're going to go ahead and download
it here we'll download the source code
in a zip file we are by the way using
zubu 2104 if you were curious or if you
couldn't already tell so we're going to
extract this uh to the desktop here and
we'll close out of this and the browser
and all we have to do is open up Chicago
Fire and we're going to open up a
terminal window and type in the command
bash space period Chicago fire. sh press
enter and here we go so it says welcome
to Chicago Fire an unofficial script to
do the transformation of xfce into the
Chicago 95 look before we begin huge
shout outs to Grass monk who by the way
is the developer of Chicago 95 and
everyone else who has contributed to
Chicago 95 without all of you this
wouldn't be possible to do so it's going
to tell us to press enter and a pseudo
paath password prompt will follow so you
have to enter in your user password and
you can also if you are curious you can
uh open up the script itself and read
through it if you want to see exactly
what it does uh so we'll just close out
of that for now but yeah right now it is
downloading the required packages and
once it does that it will download the
Chicago 95 package itself I also like
how it says grabbing theme GO Burr it's
got that a couple times throughout here
now this part of the script right here
is very useful and it's also unique to
Chicago Fire what this allows you to do
is replace Milla Firefox with Epiphany
also known as gnome web and the reason
you would want to do this is because
Milla Firefox it's not like it's not
going to work or anything but the theme
will not change the look and feel of
Milla Firefox however the theme will
take effect on Epiphany or again gnome
web that is the current name of the
browser but yes the Chicago 95 theme
will take effect on Epiphany which is
very useful if you're really going for a
systemwide Windows 95 look so we're
going to say yes we want to install
Epiphany and uh we'll press enter and
now it's going to go download uh some
more packages that it needs and right
here is where it launches the Chicago 95
python script so and as I said earlier
this really looks like the Windows 95
setup process they even got the
background here this allows you to just
go through select the components that
you want so we're going to get
everything here and uh we'll just go
with all of the default options for the
customizations screen right here we
click on install and this is where the
bulk of the theme is is going to be
applied so you can see that the design
of the windows and the taskbar and the
applications menu button have already
changed and there just modified the
icons and there it says installation
completed so we're going to click on
finish and now the terminal window says
welcome to Chicago 95 the system will
restart so it does a quick restart here
and once we boot back up here the first
thing you're going to notice is the new
design of the log on screen and there we
go so yeah we really got that Windows 9
next kind of design language going on so
we'll type in our password and we'll log
in and you will hear the Windows 95
startup
[Music]
sound and here we are logged back in now
you probably noticed when the python
script finished it opened up that text
document now that's here on the desktop
because we're not completely done with
the installation process yet even with
the Chicago Fire automated script there
are a couple of things we have to do
manually after the installation finishes
one of the things we have to change is
the applications menu button because you
can see it has not been changed but
check out the applications menu itself
it looks really good and it really
combines the windows 995 design with the
functionality of the applications menu
all that functionality is still here you
can still search for things you can
still uh you know go to your different
categories here and get them showing up
on the right side and check out all the
icons a lot of the default program icons
have have been changed to uh an icon
that fits in with Windows 95 even for
some thirdparty programs like libri
office which we will touch on in a
moment so for now though we're going to
close out of it and we essentially just
want to follow along with this text
document here so the first thing we're
going to do is enable the notification
theme so right now if I were to try and
change the volume for example we do have
the volume icon from Windows 95 but the
design of the notification itself hasn't
been changed it kind of looks out of
place right so what we're going to do is
open up the applications menu and we're
going to search for settings and you
want to open up the settings manager
here which by the way has also been
redesigned you got new icons all across
the board we're interested in going to
Notifications right here and you want to
go down here to theme and change this to
Chicago 95 and you see you get a preview
up here we're also going to change the
opacity to 100% And now when we click on
Show preview here's what it looks like
so we can close out of this and just to
show you now if I change the volume you
can see that is what it looks like next
thing we want to do is go back into the
settings manager we could have just left
it open and uh now you want to go to
panel right here and this will allow you
to change the design of the button
itself of the applications menu button
so uh we're going to uh just follow
along with what it says so we got to go
to the items tab then you want to double
click on whisker menu which is the name
of this menu itself here and you want to
go to panel button now you can change
the as I have here I've changed the
title of it to start menu so you can do
that if you want to but the the main
thing you want to do is click on the
icon right here and this will bring up
this icon Chooser but what we want to do
is go to the drop down menu up here and
change this to image files and that'll
bring up a file browser here now you can
go to your home folder right here now we
have to show hidden files by right
clicking and checking well show hidden
files and from here we want to go into
themes Chicago 95 you want to go to
miscellaneous now they've got different
options here depending on what gtk
version you have for me personally I
found that the Legacy gtk3 start buttons
work the best and in here you've got
tux. PNG windows. PNG and
x.png so we're going to select windows.
PNG we'll just double click on that and
now check it out we've got the Windows
95 star button or at least a very close
recreation of it and when you hover over
the button that's when the title comes
up so right now it says start menu I can
actually change this to click here to
begin so we'll do that here click here
to begin there you go so that looks a
lot more windows 995es so yeah that's
the modifications you have to make to
the whisker menu and that completes the
PO installation procedure so it was
really just those two things changing
the notification theme which is again
this right here and changing the start
button so we can close out of this so
there you go congratulations you have
successfully installed Chicago 95
systemwide but before we end off this
video I do want to touch on a couple of
the applications that uh this theme
modifies the look and feel of and we're
going to start off with the web browser
now as I said before Firefox got
uninstalled uh because we selected yes
when it asked us we wanted to install
Epiphany so we're going to just search
for web here and uh we do have web and
web browser so web browser here so
you've got the dbn sensible browser and
the epiphany web browser which has the
IE icon right here so we're going to
select that and click on okay and that
setting modifies the favorites listing
right here so this web browser listing
will now open up the uh gnome web or the
epiphany web browser and here's how it
looks so yeah very very basic looking
honestly reminds me of an early version
of Internet Explorer which is what
they're going for here and you can still
open up new tabs by clicking right here
so now we've opened up a new tab uh that
you can see they don't really have like
a divider or anything like that that you
know something really pronounced that
lets you know that these are two
separate buttons uh so we can open up
all these tabs here and doesn't really
look like you know there's not like a
divider in between them and uh this
right here reloads I mean obviously like
I said the browser is going to function
exactly like the browser normally does
but uh even like the uh the settings
menu here you can see has kind of a
Microsoft Bob speech bubble look to it
which I think looks looks pretty neat so
we can go to preferences here here's
what the preferences menu looks like uh
and yeah so that is The Epiphany or The
Gnome web browser so we'll close out of
that next up let's take a look at the
terminal or should I say DOS prompt
because well it looks like a DOS prompt
now pretty cool right so yeah here it is
Microsoft Windows 95 the copyright info
there it even displays the current
directory that we're in in a Windows
like format so it now says the root
directory is the C drive which obviously
is not the case on a Linux system here
this is just done for cosmetic purposes
but it's pretty cool next up let's talk
about lib office uh which I briefly
touched on before we talked about the
icons which get changed to the old
Microsoft Office style icon so you got
word here for writer you've got the old
Exel icon for calc and yeah just takes I
mean the icons across the entire system
are pretty much modified there are you
know exceptions for certain applications
but they have modified most of them here
or the author has uh modified most of
them all of the icons within Libre
office itself though have remained
unchanged so there's not like a new icon
pack for lib office but obviously the
design of the window and everything gets
changed so yeah there you go that's how
libri office Rider looks and last but
not least one of the really cool things
that uh Chicago 95 has is the ability to
apply actual Windows themes from
Microsoft Plus for Windows 95 and this
is done through if we open up the
applications menu here and search for
plus there is uh Chicago 95 plus right
here so we can launch this and uh this
is going to look very very familiar to
you if you've ever used Microsoft Plus
yeah you have essentially what is a
recreation of the Windows 95 plus theme
picker and what you can do is I've got
the themes folder from a Windows 95 plus
installation I'm going to copy it over
to the VM here and I can apply one of
these themes so if I click on the folder
icon up here I go to desktop I go to the
new themes folder I've just copied over
and let's apply my favorite theme which
is inside your computer so we're going
to hit on open there we go so it gives
you a preview here and by the way there
is this uh command line window opened up
in the back room which you will have to
keep open and you can press okay on this
dialog box here this just lets you know
that when you click apply or okay you
have to leave it until it's done uh and
the more you use your computer the
slower the process is so it's just kind
of a little uh notification there just
to let you know that so we'll press okay
and just like with plus 95 you can
uncheck specific components so for
example if you don't want the icons or
the wallpaper you can uncheck that but I
want everything so let's click on okay
and there here we go guys the inside
your computer theme has been applied and
uh it looks good as ever you got those
Mouse pointers you got the icons even
the theme itself uh gets changed so now
it's got that that green uh color to it
which uh which looks pretty nice and yes
the wallpaper gets applied as well and
stay true to that Windows 95 fashion
it's in 4x3 as opposed to 16x9 there you
have it guys I mean that is uh the
Chicago 95 essentially I'm going to call
it a transformation pack that's really
what it is the Chicago 95 transformation
pack for the xfce desktop environment I
think it is super cool it is free it is
open source if you want to go check it
out the links will be down below to both
it and Chicago Fire and uh that's that's
really all I've got for you guys today
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and as always I want to thank you all so
much for watching and I'll see you in
the next video
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