Make Linux look like Amiga OS

Date:
Wed, 23 Mar 2022 19:10:52 GMT

Description:
(Or, at least, pretty gosh darn close.)

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We know how to make Linux look like Windows 95 , MacOS 9 , and BeOS but what about Amiga OS?

I mean, if were going to go through the trouble of making a Linux desktop
look like a classic computer systems it would be heresy to not include the Amiga!

What follows are the best options that Ive found to achieve exactly that goal

Well be starting with XFCE as our default desktop XFCE is sort of the gold standard for making your desktop look like older systems. If youre following along at home, I highly recommend installing XFCE before we get started. You can use pretty much any Linux distribution you like. The Window borders and decorators

To start with, lets make those window borders look like actual Amiga window borders.

Grab Amiga OS Themes for XFCE (XFWM4) . The creator of that window manager theme has done an excellent job of recreating both the Amiga 1.3 and 3.0 looks.

This is the Amiga 1.3 theme:

And this is the Amiga 3.0 theme:

Choose whichever you prefer. 1.3 is, obviously, far more old-school. But that 3.0 look and feel is excellent. Thats the one I go with, myself. The
GTK Theme

Next we need to change the look and feel of all the controls.

There are a handful of GTK themes available that are attempting to mimic (or are loosely inspired by) Amiga OS. None of them are absolutely perfect.

But this Amiga 3.x GTK theme comes pretty gosh darned close:

Its not exactly Amiga. But it is certainly Amiga-3.0-looking.

Note: The only downside to this one is that it is a GTK 2 theme. I have yet to find a quality GTK3/4 or KDE theme for Amiga OS. There are some out there that are clearly Amiga inspired (like this one and this one ) but none that truly capture the Amiga look. My recommendation is to grab one of those GTK3 themes that closely matches the color so that GTK 3+ applications dont look too out of place on your system. The Mouse Pointer

The Amiga has a distinct, red mouse cursor. It really stands out.

And, honestly, if you dont use a bold, red pointer your whole system is going to look Not Amiga.

Luckily there are two red, Amiga-inspired mouse cursor options.

Amiga Classic Red :

And Amiga OS Retro-Modern Pointer :

Both look great. The first one is a bit more old-school, but both do an excellent job of being well very, very red. The Topaz Font

All of the classic operating systems have their own, distinct font. Using
the wrong font will make your system look wrong.

For the Amiga, you need Topaz.

There are many Topaz fonts out there, but I recommend the Amiga Fonts collection. A recreation of Topaz fonts, with a careful eye towards getting them right for each era of Amiga (including different hardware releases as the font was stored in ROM).

Seriously. Dont go through the trouble of getting your system looking close to an Amiga and then skimp on the font. Youll thank me later. The Wallpaper

The wallpaper for an Amiga OS system can really be just about anything you like. Do a quick search, on whatever search engine you prefer, for Amiga Wallpaper or Boing Ball and youll find a large collection of Amiga-inspired options.

That said

If you want the true, default, classic experience

Set your desktop background to a solid color.

If you are mimicking the Amiga 1.3 look, choose this dark blue (0 red, 84 green, 177 blue):

If you are going for that Amiga OS 3.x look, youll want to use this gray
color (175 red, 175 green, 175 blue): Boot screen!

While the boot screen of your system may not be the most important aspect
(you do only see it when booting, after all) having an Amiga-styled boot loader is still a nice touch!

Luckily, there is a GRUB theme available that has iterations for multiple Amiga OS versions!

Not bad, right?

Now your system can look Amiga-like right from the boot loader! There are
some issues

Even after youve done all that there are a few things that just wont look quite, 100% Amiga.

Most notably the menu at the top of the screen.

On an Amiga, the Amiga Workbench menu bar shows the memory and has a hover-over set of menus that appear.

Your best bet is to simply put your XFCE panel at the top of the screen and tweak the color to match. What youre going for, with this part, is to make
it blend with your system as best you can. At least until someone comes
along and builds a plugin that mimics exactly the Amiga Workbench menu.

But, honestly, the whole look can get pretty darned close! It will never be 100%, exactly Amiga but you can certainly bring your system to the point of looking like an Amiga-descendant. Which is pretty cool.

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Link to news story: https://lunduke.substack.com/p/make-linux-look-like-amiga-os


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