If you were asked to pick the most annoying of the various Microsoft Windows interfaces that have appeared over the years, there’s a reasonable chance that Windows 8’s Metro start screen and interface design language would make it your choice. In 2012 the software company abandoned their tried-and-tested desktop whose roots extended back to Windows 95 in favor of the colorful blocks it had created for its line of music players and mobile phones.
Consumers weren’t impressed and it was quickly shelved in subsequent versions, but should you wish to revisit Metro you can now get the experience on Linux. [er-bharat] has created Win8DE, a shell for Wayland window managers that brings the Metro interface — or something very like it — to the open source operating system.
The most beautiful horror to ever exist lmao
I actually loved this interface on my surface pro 2, especially when windows 10 came out and it would auto switch between this in tablet mode and a normal desktop when the keyboard was attached. I grew to like the same design language in the desktop start menu as well. Windows 11 was such a downgrade in UI.
That said, I will take the freedom of linux and customization options of KDE plasma any day.