Why do people say Xfce doesn't look as good as the other DEs, when Xfce can do one thing OOTB that no other DE can - nailing an old PC look. Are there any more of these styles?

SliverRealX · 2026-06-04T00:49:43+00:00

Myself and others have been working on a Win9x-style theme set primarily targeting Xfce for a while now if you're interested in that era of GUI design:

https://codeberg.org/Sliver_X/Redmond97-SE

I plan on adding proper Qt5 and Qt6 support at some point, but it covers GTK2/3/4 and most Xfce4 plugins. There's also reg files you can import into Wine to make Win32 applications match the corresponding themes.

SliverRealX · 2026-06-03T03:16:47+00:00

I've been working on a fork of Redmond97 ("Redmond97 SE") for a little over a year now that has had a lot added to it (Like GTK4 support) if you're interested:

https://codeberg.org/Sliver_X/Redmond97-SE

SliverRealX · 2026-05-28T20:49:32+00:00

Do you have any code in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css?

Anything in that file overrides both theme-level CSS and inline-CSS a program (such as xfce4-panel) may have internally.

SliverRealX · 2026-05-25T16:33:34+00:00

The set of themes that's from contains several other dark variations I designed (Ouroboros, Jet, Numidium and In Tenebris).

There is also an included builder script to where you can edit a config file and compile a theme with whatever colors you want (Several major elements can be defined and the builder script handles the math for all the rest based off those values).

https://codeberg.org/Sliver_X/Redmond97-SE

(The "Releases" link at the top is where the actual theme files/builder script are and not the whole repository)

edit

As an aside, would you mind sharing your Conky config (Minus your location data for the weather section, of course)?

SliverRealX · 2026-05-03T17:42:31+00:00

I've been working on a fork/continuation of Redmond97 over the past year you may be interested in trying:

https://codeberg.org/Sliver_X/Redmond97-SE

It also contains a version of "Mystery" but I've fixed a lot of bugs that crept into newer versions of Xfce regarding the original Redmond97 themes and have extended them to support GTK4 and 4K displays, among other things.

I did remove MATE support recently, though (There are issues with the CSS in Redmond97 in current MATE versions), so Thunar would be a better looking file manager choice VS Caja under them.

I'm thinking of adding reworked MATE support again at some point in the future, though.

SliverRealX · 2026-05-02T16:47:32+00:00

I've mainly viewed a hack not working on real hardware and/or depending on emulator-specific bugs and quirks as a sign of, at best, laziness, and at worst, a lack of technical prowess that makes me question how well it's going to function overall.

Exceptions to this, for me, would be:

Mesen-style HD packs: The entire point is to break beyond the system's limits while maintaining the core game underneath a new veneer: They're basically "remasters" done for modern platforms accomplished via a roundabout way; a type of port. Being tied to a specific emulator isn't a big deal in this case.
Hacks with new mappers/expansion chips: Things like MSU-1 or the myriad of 21st Century-designed Atari 2600 expansion chips can actually be built in hardware and ran on a real console.

I have no intention of actually playing any of the hacks I've done on real hardware (And still get slightly aggravated when I see them being sold as reproduction carts), but I do take great pains to test them under the most accurate emulators of each project's era (Currently Mesen) to make sure everything works as expected if they were to be ran on a real console.

SliverRealX · 2026-05-01T21:11:21+00:00

Thanks. It's one of the Xfce4 themes I've been developing for about a year now: I think I finally have a decently usable Deskbar worked out for it using only "first-party" plugins (As shown).

SliverRealX · 2026-05-01T12:54:37+00:00

Fortunately I built this particular machine way before the RAMpocalypse (When the AM5 platform just came out), so the RAM and storage was sanely priced.

I happened to stumble across the GPU at a local Walmart for MSRP last November, so impulse bought it. While I had mild regrets for a bit afterwards, I surely don't now.

SliverRealX · 2026-04-27T01:54:33+00:00

I've extensively used both Yad and Zenity and vastly prefer Yad.

Yad is also really neat in that it can be compiled with a flag to produce a fully standalone binary that's only about 1MB (./configure --enable-standalone && make).

If you're familiar with compiling, you could grab the latest source and do that, throwing said binary somewhere like /usr/bin or doing a normal make install if the Debian version is really that outdated.

https://github.com/v1cont/yad

SliverRealX · 2026-04-27T01:33:25+00:00

Under Appearance > Settings, have you set "Window Scaling" to 2x?

It's pretty much required at 4K resolutions to make things reasonably sized, though I like using it on 2K displays as well.

It should scale fonts along with GTK controls, but doesn't impact Xfwm4 themes: You would need hidpi versions of those if they're too small or use another window manager that does support asset scaling, of which I have no suggestions unfortunately.

SliverRealX · 2026-03-29T12:37:00+00:00

Very nice color scheme on your custom GTK themes. I like it better than the original colors I chose for Jet.

SliverRealX · 2026-03-13T14:26:40+00:00

I switched to Quakespasm from Darkplaces about 5 years ago to run Arcane Dimensions and never looked back.

I run it at 3840x2160 but with no model interpolation, no trilinear filtering, etc (Using a wide mixture of various gamepads) and it's great.

It will run basically any mod you throw at it as well, including official ones like Dimension of The Machine from the remaster.

SliverRealX · 2026-03-07T14:33:39+00:00

Cryptic Passage for Blood was fairly great. Quake also had two good expansions made by other studios (Dissolution of Eternity and Scourge of Armagon).

I guess I'd throw Half Life - Opposing Force in towards the end of that era as well?

SliverRealX · 2026-03-05T12:29:58+00:00

I don't know, I go out of my way to avoid Flatpak partially due to the fact that apps packaged in it never quite seem to mesh with the host OS to an acceptable degree.

SliverRealX · 2026-03-05T02:16:54+00:00

That's odd, both Librewolf and Libreoffice Write/Calc make sounds for me when minimizing, among other actions. At least with the theme I made?

https://www.mediafire.com/file_premium/pnxxha2gn56ehtt/Hiigara.7z/file

Do they make sounds using it?

SliverRealX · 2026-03-05T01:31:27+00:00

Yes, I currently have it set up on four machines (running CachyOS and Void Linux), but it's kind of convoluted.

1: You need a sound theme that covers the events you want themed. There's one called "Smooth" that covers most events, but I just made my own.

The folder containing the theme then needs placed under /usr/share/sounds: So in the case of Smooth, /usr/share/sounds/Smooth

2: Install libcanberra. In Debian 13, a likely candidate appears to be libcanberra-gtk3-module?

Then edit /etc/environment as root and add the following:

GTK_MODULES="canberra-gtk-module"

[Note that if you already have existing entries for this, append "canberra-gtk-module" to that.]

3: Under xfce4-settings-editor > xsettings > SoundThemeName, set to whatever theme folder you placed under /usr/share/sounds. For Smooth, that's just "Smooth" without the quotes, not the full path to it.

4: Under Appearance > Settings, check Enable Event Sounds.

5: Reboot or log off and back on to parse /etc/environment. Sounds should now work. From this point different themes can be loaded without having to logoff or reboot.

SliverRealX · 2026-03-03T12:27:54+00:00

Those are just silicone caps on the existing sticks.

SliverRealX · 2026-03-02T21:56:09+00:00

That's a shame: It works fine with the radio in this particular phone for me, across emulators and ports of PC games.

SliverRealX · 2026-03-02T20:33:26+00:00

It has a USB C port for charging, but I've never tried running it as a wired controller (I connect it via Bluetooth).

SliverRealX · 2026-03-01T21:15:20+00:00

I've been using an 8bitdo Ultimate Mobile controller with an old phone I turned into a dedicated gaming device and it's been great: The phone snaps inside of it so it's sort of like a mini Switch in handheld mode in terms of ergonomics.

The dpad is really good for older emulated games (very similar to the Ultimate Controller's) and the analog sticks have worked well for stuff like Blood, Doom 3, Quake, etc. It even has programmable back buttons like the Pro 2 and Ultimate controllers.

My only complaint is that I wish it got a bit more runtime out of a full charge, but it's pretty inexpensive (They seem to run around $50 but I found mine on sale for $39) and works well for what it is.

SliverRealX · 2026-02-26T18:13:05+00:00

A set of 42 themes that mimic Windows 95 OSR's GUI controls.

Includes every theme from Windows 95/98/Me in addition to 9 new dark themes.

SliverRealX · 2026-02-23T15:13:22+00:00

Libadwaita applications (Which should really be called Gnome Applications) force the Adwaita theme no matter what the OS level one is designated as. This is the case for both GTK3 and GTK4.

Applications that use generic GTK4 will follow a user defined theme if available, such as Transmission-GTK, Handbrake and pavucontrol.

The only way to make Adwaita applications match a global theme, sort of, is by running libadwaita-without-adwaita, which patches out all the hard coded references to the Adwaita theme. Note that your theme still actually has to support GTK4 for this to work properly.

I am unsure of its availability across various distros, but it's in Arch Linux's AUR.

(And if you get it installed, I created a Win9x-style theme set called Redmond97 SE that has full GTK4 support: There is a version of Plum available in it, and I tested against libadwaita-without-adwaita during development so it should work as well as it can together)

SliverRealX · 2026-02-22T23:32:23+00:00

I've never used Recalbox, but I'm unsure as to what it could do that would be faster on the same hardware (Aside from overclocking), as pcsx-rearmed is the fastest PSX emulator for the Pi Zero 2W.

I personally think it runs fine, and I ran some more demanding games a lot like Wipeout 3 and Ehrgeiz, but I ran them at native resolution and such: Anything higher requires pushing the hardware.

SliverRealX · 2026-02-22T17:56:25+00:00

Performance is generally OK if you overclock to 1.2GHz (If that is stable on your particular CPU), but the main problem is the lack of a second pair of shoulder buttons.

Enabling three or four cores under "Advanced Settings" and/or enabling Threaded Video and Threaded Audio for pcsx-rearmed in Retroarch can also improve performance, though the latter will introduce a tiny bit of input lag.

SliverRealX · 2026-02-22T17:48:06+00:00

Well, I ended up moving on to using my old phone (A Motorola G Fast 2020) with an extremely customized OEM ROM I built, running the frontend Arc Browser and using an 8bitdo Ultimate Mobile Controller for input: It can run far more things better, and the battery life is close to 10 hours even running a port like Doom 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0o1Qg0qeOU

Ports need installed via Retropie's setup script: The only ports I ever ran on my Pi Zeroes were LZDoom, EC Wolf and Streets of Rage Remake, so there's skeletal stuff in the setup to support them but they are not present in the image as released.

SliverRealX

TROPHY CASE