"Make Linux look exactly like Windows 95... I mean *exactly*."

https://lunduke.substack.com/p/make-linux-look-exactly-like-windows

OTOH, *I* have a desktop the looks much like DECWindows (on a VAXStation 3000)
(not exactly, but close enough). It is what I "learned" GUI on -- *I* never
used any version of either MS-Windows or MacOS as a desktop -- I went from
using a VT220 (on VAX-11/780s and VAX-11/750s) to using a VAXStation running
VMS and DECWindows, then to a DECStation 3000 running Ultrix to Linux on
"PCs". (Before the VT220 / VAX-11/780s, I used other glass TTYs (eg VT100,
VT52, H19, etc.) on the VAX-11/780s, and glass TTYs on mainframes, and real
TTYs (Model 33, 35, and 37s) on mainframes.) I expect that most younger (and
not so young) computer people would find my desktop very strange.

I'm not really sure what the point of emulating the look of Windows 95 is.
Why would a Linux/UNIX user want to do that? And most MS-Windows users would
find it strange as well.

At Tue, 1 Mar 2022 17:25:19 +0300 "Andrei Z." <no-email@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>
> "Make Linux look exactly like Windows 95... I mean *exactly*."
>
> https://lunduke.substack.com/p/make-linux-look-exactly-like-windows
>
>
>

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services

Why?

At Tue, 1 Mar 2022 17:25:19 +0300 "Andrei Z." <no-email@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>
> "Make Linux look exactly like Windows 95... I mean *exactly*."
>
> https://lunduke.substack.com/p/make-linux-look-exactly-like-windows
>
>
>

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services

On 01/03/2022 14:25, Andrei Z. wrote:
> "Make Linux look exactly like Windows 95... I mean *exactly*."
>
> https://lunduke.substack.com/p/make-linux-look-exactly-like-windows
>
Its so awful, I mean win 95? ghastly at the time, worse later.

--
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy

On 3/1/22 06:25, Andrei Z. wrote:
> "Make Linux look exactly like Windows 95... I mean *exactly*."
>
> https://lunduke.substack.com/p/make-linux-look-exactly-like-windows
>

Seems Perverse to me. But my first GUI was GEOS on a Commodore 128/64.
Then the Amiga which I somewhat emulate with KDE Plasma 5 on
PCLinuxOS. I would have to find a way to split the main menu into
multiple independent menus for full Amiga GUI emulation. My
system looks nothing like any other I have seen, On the Amiga
I used various hacks to extend the menu and re-designed the icons
for some of the extra stuff.
bliss
--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

On 03/01/2022 07:59 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 01/03/2022 14:25, Andrei Z. wrote:
>> "Make Linux look exactly like Windows 95... I mean *exactly*."
>>
>> https://lunduke.substack.com/p/make-linux-look-exactly-like-windows
>>
> Its so awful, I mean win 95? ghastly at the time, worse later.

A word in defense: When I first started running slackware, fvwm95
(based on fvwm2) was the most completely-configured window manager
included. (KDE was also included, but it looked ugly.) Over the
decades I have tweaked the original .fvwm95rc to look and behave exactly
the way I want it to -- with some features I couldn't find in other WMs.
Every once in a while I'll try something else, but find it wanting in
something I find essential.

I'm lazy. What I have works. I looked at Chicago 95. The only way it
resembles my screen is the taskbar, which I find essential. For the
rest, I like detailed text lists (otherwise known as xterms to REAL
users) rather than 'folder' grids. Drag+drop (which I assume is
included) would be handy, but not at the expense of actually having to
reconfigure everything all over again and deal with finding workarounds
for what I hate.

I've got a REAL win7 and a laptop with win10 (for taxes), and there's a
lot about both of them that I hate too.

--
Cheers, Bev
"Many realize that the control of language is power. If you can't speak
your mind, your opinions have no weight." --nightfire-unique

On Tue, 01 Mar 2022 09:58:47 -0600, Robert Heller wrote:
>
> Why?

Was my first idea too. Windows 95 not even creates any nostalgic
feelings.

In the mid 90s it might had helped to get some Windows users to have a
look into Linux.

> At Tue, 1 Mar 2022 17:25:19 +0300 "Andrei Z." <no-email@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Make Linux look exactly like Windows 95... I mean *exactly*."
>>
>> https://lunduke.substack.com/p/make-linux-look-exactly-like-windows
>>
>>
>>

--
Andreas

Andrei Z. <no-email@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "Make Linux look exactly like Windows 95... I mean *exactly*."
>
> https://lunduke.substack.com/p/make-linux-look-exactly-like-windows

Neat. While not looking exactly like (though not any better than)
Win95, I've basically got JWM set up for equivalent functionality,
plus window depth options and multiple desktop views. Funny that
they couldn't live without a search function in the start menu
though, I've never had any attraction to that (perhaps because I
place all the menu options myself).

Modern Windows drives me nuts with their subsequent changes to the
start menu and task bar (hiding multiple windows in the same task
bar item annoys me especially - why more clicks?!), so I'd much
rather a theme pretending to be Win95 than Win11. Maybe there are
some Windows users who feel similarly but haven't switched to
Linux, and this would be an attraction to them? Especially if
they're not technical enough to customise a window manager like
JWM to their liking on their own.

Personally I'd leave the Explorer file-manager look-alike out for
sure though. I've got no love for that, compared with
commander-style programs. Though at least the Win95 version of it
was better than what came later.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> Andrei Z. wrote:
>>> "Make Linux look exactly like Windows 95... I mean *exactly*."
>>>
>>> https://lunduke.substack.com/p/make-linux-look-exactly-like-windows
>>>
>> Its so awful, I mean win 95? ghastly at the time, worse later.
>
> A word in defense: When I first started running slackware, fvwm95
> (based on fvwm2) was the most completely-configured window manager
> included. (KDE was also included, but it looked ugly.) Over the
> decades I have tweaked the original .fvwm95rc to look and behave exactly
> the way I want it to -- with some features I couldn't find in other WMs.
> Every once in a while I'll try something else, but find it wanting in
> something I find essential.
>
> I'm lazy. What I have works. I looked at Chicago 95. The only way it
> resembles my screen is the taskbar, which I find essential. For the
> rest, I like detailed text lists (otherwise known as xterms to REAL
> users) rather than 'folder' grids. Drag+drop (which I assume is
> included) would be handy, but not at the expense of actually having to
> reconfigure everything all over again and deal with finding workarounds
> for what I hate.
>
> I've got a REAL win7 and a laptop with win10 (for taxes), and there's
> a lot about both of them that I hate too.

Ditto...I've been using fvwm95 (with various personal tweaks in menus and
modules) on top of fvwm2 for quite some time now, with slackware for even
longer. The FvwmTaskBar is no longer installed in /usr/libexec/fvwm/2.6.x
and I've had to propagate a copy. But I've found the totally empty screen
lots more usable than all those other highly-decorated window managers.
--
John Forkosh ( mailto: j@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )

Le 1/03/22 à 15:25, Andrei Z. a écrit :
> "Make Linux look exactly like Windows 95... I mean *exactly*."
>
> https://lunduke.substack.com/p/make-linux-look-exactly-like-windows
>
Including all bugs???

Make Windows 11 act exactly like Linux.
--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doctor@@nl2k.ab.ca
Yahweh, Queen & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism https://www.empire.kred/ROOTNK?t=94a1f39b
The enemy works against human rights, and too often for them.-unknown Beware https://mindspring.com

On 3/1/22 10:58 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
> Why?

For fun apparently. But I liked W2k better ....

XP probably had the best "all around" interface - business
without TOO much eye-candy and run-arounds. The nearest
thing is LXDE (which I use everywhere). Beyond XP they
seemed to keep dumbing it down and hiding stuff. "The
Look" became more important than functionality.

For REAL fun, you CAN run Win3.x, even Win2.x and Win1.x,
in VirtualBox ........

1.x was really bad ... you could get better on a C64.

I also have DOS2.x and even CP/M-86 on VBox too, including
a lot of the development tools. Retro fun galore. IBM 'C',
IBM/MS Pascal and FORTRAN .... ah, the good old days of
multi-pass compilation & linking :-)

On 2022-03-03, 25.BX943 <25BZ493@nada.net> wrote:

> On 3/1/22 10:58 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
>
>> Why?
>
> For fun apparently. But I liked W2k better ....
>
> XP probably had the best "all around" interface - business
> without TOO much eye-candy and run-arounds. The nearest
> thing is LXDE (which I use everywhere). Beyond XP they
> seemed to keep dumbing it down and hiding stuff. "The
> Look" became more important than functionality.

Yup. When I have to do Windows work, I use a copy of XP under
VirtualBox. If you open Control Panel and select Display, under
the Themes tab you can select "Windows Classic". This gets rid
of the Fisher-Price look and makes it fairly usable.

IMHO Windows' usability peaked sometime between 2000 and XP,
and has been declining ever since. I have bad chemistry with
7, and there's no way that I'd ever open myself to all the
coercion and surveillance of 10 or later.

My Linux desktop is Xfce. Lean and mean.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.

On 3/3/22 2:15 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2022-03-03, 25.BX943 <25BZ493@nada.net> wrote:
>
>> On 3/1/22 10:58 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
>>
>>> Why?
>>
>> For fun apparently. But I liked W2k better ....
>>
>> XP probably had the best "all around" interface - business
>> without TOO much eye-candy and run-arounds. The nearest
>> thing is LXDE (which I use everywhere). Beyond XP they
>> seemed to keep dumbing it down and hiding stuff. "The
>> Look" became more important than functionality.
>
> Yup. When I have to do Windows work, I use a copy of XP under
> VirtualBox. If you open Control Panel and select Display, under
> the Themes tab you can select "Windows Classic". This gets rid
> of the Fisher-Price look and makes it fairly usable.

Alas I had to install a REAL Winders because of some work
I've had to do - XP wasn't quite compatible enough, I
needed the Vista+ "file ownership/secuity" stuff to
be there.

-IX security is easier to cope with .....

> IMHO Windows' usability peaked sometime between 2000 and XP,
> and has been declining ever since. I have bad chemistry with
> 7, and there's no way that I'd ever open myself to all the
> coercion and surveillance of 10 or later.
>
> My Linux desktop is Xfce. Lean and mean.
>

I've got XFCE in the list, but I almost always start
up LXDE. Even leaner - but still totally usable. Still
don't like LXQT - there's something weird about it.

On 03/01/2022 11:04 PM, John Forkosh wrote:
> The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>> Andrei Z. wrote:
>>>> "Make Linux look exactly like Windows 95... I mean *exactly*."
>>>>
>>>> https://lunduke.substack.com/p/make-linux-look-exactly-like-windows
>>>>
>>> Its so awful, I mean win 95? ghastly at the time, worse later.
>>
>> A word in defense: When I first started running slackware, fvwm95
>> (based on fvwm2) was the most completely-configured window manager
>> included. (KDE was also included, but it looked ugly.) Over the
>> decades I have tweaked the original .fvwm95rc to look and behave exactly
>> the way I want it to -- with some features I couldn't find in other WMs.
>> Every once in a while I'll try something else, but find it wanting in
>> something I find essential.
>>
>> I'm lazy. What I have works. I looked at Chicago 95. The only way it
>> resembles my screen is the taskbar, which I find essential. For the
>> rest, I like detailed text lists (otherwise known as xterms to REAL
>> users) rather than 'folder' grids. Drag+drop (which I assume is
>> included) would be handy, but not at the expense of actually having to
>> reconfigure everything all over again and deal with finding workarounds
>> for what I hate.
>>
>> I've got a REAL win7 and a laptop with win10 (for taxes), and there's
>> a lot about both of them that I hate too.
>
> Ditto...I've been using fvwm95 (with various personal tweaks in menus and
> modules) on top of fvwm2 for quite some time now, with slackware for even
> longer. The FvwmTaskBar is no longer installed in /usr/libexec/fvwm/2.6.x
> and I've had to propagate a copy. But I've found the totally empty screen
> lots more usable than all those other highly-decorated window managers.

My background is various photos that change every few minutes. I rarely
see them because my screens are generally covered with firefox,
thunderbird, chrome (I generally turn it off as soon as I'm done with it
-- it frequently runs away with the CPU and the temp goes up to 98C,
which is bothersome) various xterms and whatever else I might be doing.
I have 4 screens which I can access just by moving my mouse to the
edge of the current screen. I can also switch between windows just by
moving my mouse over them. I think this is called 'mouse focus' and I
find it essential. It just means I have to leave corners of windows
exposed so I can get to them without moving other windows.

If I left-click on any edge I move that window. If I right-click on any
edge or corner I can resize that window. Efficient. Chrome,
unfortunately, along with a few other apps, refuses to allow any
resizing and requires me to left click in the titlebar to move a window.
WTF would they do such a stupid thing?

Win95 was really obliging about allowing the user to change the fonts,
colors, borders and other window-part attributes. Later versions made it
possible, but more difficult. Trying to find stuff in Win10 is
maddening so I just don't bother. If I have to use that laptop to do
taxes this year I'm going to be REALLY unhappy.

--
Cheers, Bev
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet
without fear of attack: the illiterate and the Amish.

The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> wrote:
> It just means I have to leave corners of windows exposed so I can get
> to them without moving other windows.

If you can configure your WM, add a mouse click to "push down" a
window (i.e., to lower it to the bottom of the stack).

That makes "finding" a window that has happened to fall behind others,
without moving them all around, significantly easier.

On 03/02/2022 08:54 PM, 25.BX943 wrote:
> On 3/1/22 10:58 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
>> Why?
>
> For fun apparently. But I liked W2k better ....
>
> XP probably had the best "all around" interface - business
> without TOO much eye-candy and run-arounds. The nearest
> thing is LXDE (which I use everywhere). Beyond XP they
> seemed to keep dumbing it down and hiding stuff. "The
> Look" became more important than functionality.
>
> For REAL fun, you CAN run Win3.x, even Win2.x and Win1.x,
> in VirtualBox ........

I ran VB with Win7 for a while, and then it inexplicably stopped
working. The last thing I want is something unreliable to do taxes with.

Looking back, I actually liked Win3. You could edit the .ini files at
will and recover easily from errors. I never felt comfy editing the
Win95 registry. Make a bad enough mistake and you were totally hosed.

CP/M was OK too. And GEM -- I was a real whiz with Ventura Publisher,
but I don't think anything else used it. Maybe it was a subset of CP/M...

> 1.x was really bad ... you could get better on a C64.
>
> I also have DOS2.x and even CP/M-86 on VBox too, including
> a lot of the development tools. Retro fun galore. IBM 'C',
> IBM/MS Pascal and FORTRAN .... ah, the good old days of
> multi-pass compilation & linking :-)

I kept the big fat paperback (that came with a disk) about MSDOS when we
gave the rest of our obsolete books to the library (possibly against
their will, I did it after hours). It was the perfect reference work.
Not sure where it is now, but if I REALLY needed it I could probably
find it.

--
Cheers, Bev
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet
without fear of attack: the illiterate and the Amish.

On 3/3/22 12:47 PM, The Real Bev wrote:
> On 03/02/2022 08:54 PM, 25.BX943 wrote:
>> On 3/1/22 10:58 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
>>> Why?
>>
>>     For fun apparently. But I liked W2k better ....
>>
>>     XP probably had the best "all around" interface - business
>>     without TOO much eye-candy and run-arounds. The nearest
>>     thing is LXDE (which I use everywhere). Beyond XP they
>>     seemed to keep dumbing it down and hiding stuff. "The
>>     Look" became more important than functionality.
>>
>>     For REAL fun, you CAN run Win3.x, even Win2.x and Win1.x,
>>     in VirtualBox ........
>
> I ran VB with Win7 for a while, and then it inexplicably stopped
> working.  The last thing I want is something unreliable to do taxes with.

It might not have been VirtualBox ... but Win itself. IT is
unreliable ... and is getting worse.

VBox seems to work quite reliably with Linux/BSD VMs.

You might also try KVM. There is a GUI for setting things
up which at this point looks very much like VBox's - though
it has a few differences. Setting up common folders between
the VM and host is a tad more complicated, but you don't
need those accessory files VBox requires. Enlarging the
virtual disk IS more complex. On the plus, it seems more
stable than VBox and is easier to set up to auto-start
when yer machine does. There's also XEN ... but I've had
more failures with that. DOES use the same GUI as KVM.
KVM and XEN also have a lot of detailed command-line and
config-file tweaks VBox does not.

> Looking back, I actually liked Win3.  You could edit the .ini files at
> will and recover easily from errors.  I never felt comfy editing the
> Win95 registry.  Make a bad enough mistake and you were totally hosed.

Win3/95/98 ... the most EVIL aspect was DEVICE DRIVERS.
I remember endless fiddling, and failures, with those.
With XP on MS really did smooth over that aspect (of
course the device drivers ARE still in there somewhere).
I think the "How To Write Win Device Drivers" finally
became standardized/regularized which was a big help.

Win3.x didn't really have "internet" or TCP stacks, you
had to buy some add-on programs. I once used one that let
me "shotgun" three dial-up connections and make them seem
like one faster connection. Actually, with three 56k
modems, it wasn't so awful ........

> CP/M was OK too.  And GEM -- I was a real whiz with Ventura Publisher,
> but I don't think anything else used it.  Maybe it was a subset of CP/M...

CP/M was crude, but usable. QDOS, which Gates stole, really
was better as it combined most of the PIP stuff live on the
command line. CP/M came from a world with even less RAM ...
so PIP was a way to only use more RAM when absolutely needed.
On the whole though, the two systems are far more alike under
the hood than different.

>>     1.x was really bad ... you could get better on a C64.
>>
>>     I also have DOS2.x and even CP/M-86 on VBox too, including
>>     a lot of the development tools. Retro fun galore. IBM 'C',
>>     IBM/MS Pascal and FORTRAN .... ah, the good old days of
>>     multi-pass compilation & linking  :-)
>
> I kept the big fat paperback (that came with a disk) about MSDOS when we
> gave the rest of our obsolete books to the library (possibly against
> their will, I did it after hours).  It was the perfect reference work.
> Not sure where it is now, but if I REALLY needed it I could probably
> find it.

My treasure is the original IBM-PC Technical Reference Manual.
It was VERY VERY detailed. There were all sorts of tricks you
could do, esp with the ROM-BIOS, few ever heard of. I wrote
something akin to NotePad (non-GUI of course) in assembler
with a lot less effort than you'd think by using that
"secret" ROM code.

There is on OS I regret becoming "lost" - VAX-VMS. It was a
highly advanced system ... one that understood connections
with remote machines, national/international, over various
kinds of data links well before the WWW and was built from
the ground up for multi-user/multitasking. I have a manual
for a late 70s/ early 80s VMS .... it's in kinda small type
and about three inches thick. They borrowed some ideas from
UNIX (or maybe it was the other way around) but the two are
distinct systems. VMS was built for business/science with
a full grasp of using remote databases and such.

Until a few years ago, there was a VMS image you could
coerce into running as a VM on x86 boxes - but the
owners eventually took it away (I think you can still
get it - but for big $$$, kinda like you can still
buy OS/9 - another promising system that never really
made it fully past the 8-bit world). Peruse the MicroWare
site for OS/9 ... still widely used for embedded stuff.
It is UNIX-ish ... but coded far more efficiently. It
was most popular on the old Tandy "CoCo" 6809 family
based computers. They've even ported LLVM/Clang to it
and there is an ARM version now that MIGHT run on
an rPI maybe ........

On 3/3/22 12:47, The Real Bev wrote:
> On 03/02/2022 08:54 PM, 25.BX943 wrote:
>> On 3/1/22 10:58 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
>>> Why?
>>
>>     For fun apparently. But I liked W2k better ....
>>
>>     XP probably had the best "all around" interface - business
>>     without TOO much eye-candy and run-arounds. The nearest
>>     thing is LXDE (which I use everywhere). Beyond XP they
>>     seemed to keep dumbing it down and hiding stuff. "The
>>     Look" became more important than functionality.
>>
>>     For REAL fun, you CAN run Win3.x, even Win2.x and Win1.x,
>>     in VirtualBox ........
>
> I ran VB with Win7 for a while, and then it inexplicably stopped
> working.  The last thing I want is something unreliable to do taxes with.
>
I used XP in VB for several years, for a couple of things that Mageia
Linux didn't provide. That included a newer version of Adobe Reader,
necessary if one was going to use New York's interactive tax form. Use
anything but Adobe Acrobat Reader, and all you would see is a notice
that it won't work without it, no matter what Linux pdf reader I tried.
The last Linux version would work, but you couldn't save the resulting
file. You needed version 10 or higher for that. So, I needed XP.

That worked OK until 2020, when NY changed the forms once again. The
form now has a special print button that generates bar codes with
embedded ID info, supposedly to help prevent fraud. And that print
button wouldn't work in XP with Adobe Acrobat Reader 10. So, I had to
move on to Win7 and AAR DC.

So far, that's working fine. A side result is that it took some getting
used to, but once I did I believe I like Win7 better than XP. Of course,
I like Mageia Linux far more than either.

> Looking back, I actually liked Win3.  You could edit the .ini files at
> will and recover easily from errors.  I never felt comfy editing the
> Win95 registry.  Make a bad enough mistake and you were totally hosed.
>
> CP/M was OK too.  And GEM -- I was a real whiz with Ventura Publisher,
> but I don't think anything else used it.  Maybe it was a subset of CP/M...
>
The Atari ST/STE/TT/Falcon used GEM as part of their "TOS." ("The
Operating System," aka "Tramiel Operating System.") I used a Mega STE
for a couple of years before buying a Win98SE computer from my brother,
so I could have decent access to the Internet. The STE did have the
Crystal Atari Browser, but it was horribly limited compared to the
Windows Netscape browser. I liked playing with the PageStream publisher,
and learned basic use of a spreadsheet with AtariWorks, but that was a
very, very long time ago.

If you feel like looking back, I've heard there are a couple of Atari ST
emulators for Linux, but I don't know anything about them.

TJ

On 2022-03-07, TJ <TJ@noneofyour.business> wrote:

> I used XP in VB for several years, for a couple of things that Mageia
> Linux didn't provide. That included a newer version of Adobe Reader,
> necessary if one was going to use New York's interactive tax form. Use
> anything but Adobe Acrobat Reader, and all you would see is a notice
> that it won't work without it, no matter what Linux pdf reader I tried.
> The last Linux version would work, but you couldn't save the resulting
> file. You needed version 10 or higher for that. So, I needed XP.
>
> That worked OK until 2020, when NY changed the forms once again. The
> form now has a special print button that generates bar codes with
> embedded ID info, supposedly to help prevent fraud. And that print
> button wouldn't work in XP with Adobe Acrobat Reader 10. So, I had to
> move on to Win7 and AAR DC.

Sounds like it's time for a class-action suit, charging digital racism.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.

On 3/7/22 12:49, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2022-03-07, TJ <TJ@noneofyour.business> wrote:
>
>> I used XP in VB for several years, for a couple of things that Mageia
>> Linux didn't provide. That included a newer version of Adobe Reader,
>> necessary if one was going to use New York's interactive tax form. Use
>> anything but Adobe Acrobat Reader, and all you would see is a notice
>> that it won't work without it, no matter what Linux pdf reader I tried.
>> The last Linux version would work, but you couldn't save the resulting
>> file. You needed version 10 or higher for that. So, I needed XP.
>>
>> That worked OK until 2020, when NY changed the forms once again. The
>> form now has a special print button that generates bar codes with
>> embedded ID info, supposedly to help prevent fraud. And that print
>> button wouldn't work in XP with Adobe Acrobat Reader 10. So, I had to
>> move on to Win7 and AAR DC.
>
> Sounds like it's time for a class-action suit, charging digital racism.
>
Nope. I'm perfectly happy with the State of New York attempting to make
sure that if a criminal tries to claim my refund before I do, he is
unsuccessful. If that means I can't use Linux because Adobe refuses to
support us, then so be it.

TJ

On 3/8/22 10:45 AM, TJ wrote:
> On 3/7/22 12:49, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> On 2022-03-07, TJ <TJ@noneofyour.business> wrote:
>>
>>> I used XP in VB for several years, for a couple of things that Mageia
>>> Linux didn't provide. That included a newer version of Adobe Reader,
>>> necessary if one was going to use New York's interactive tax form. Use
>>> anything but Adobe Acrobat Reader, and all you would see is a notice
>>> that it won't work without it, no matter what Linux pdf reader I tried.
>>> The last Linux version would work, but you couldn't save the resulting
>>> file. You needed version 10 or higher for that. So, I needed XP.
>>>
>>> That worked OK until 2020, when NY changed the forms once again. The
>>> form now has a special print button that generates bar codes with
>>> embedded ID info, supposedly to help prevent fraud. And that print
>>> button wouldn't work in XP with Adobe Acrobat Reader 10. So, I had to
>>> move on to Win7 and AAR DC.
>>
>> Sounds like it's time for a class-action suit, charging digital racism.
>>
> Nope. I'm perfectly happy with the State of New York attempting to make
> sure that if a criminal tries to claim my refund before I do, he is
> unsuccessful. If that means I can't use Linux because Adobe refuses to
> support us, then so be it.

Yea ... but MicroSoft has SO many security holes and cares
so LITTLE for your security and privacy that the chances of
bad things happening to your refund are FAR less than the
fallout from using Winders to claim it.

Just wait for the check to come in the snail mail. It works.

I sometimes have to use Winders for development reasons ...
but ONLY for that. I do no biz using Winders, just port
my code over to Win (not using MS compilers either) and
then turn the damned thing OFF. Bad is Bad is Bad.

On 2022-03-08 16:45, TJ wrote:
> On 3/7/22 12:49, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> On 2022-03-07, TJ <TJ@noneofyour.business> wrote:
>>
>>> I used XP in VB for several years, for a couple of things that Mageia
>>> Linux didn't provide. That included a newer version of Adobe Reader,
>>> necessary if one was going to use New York's interactive tax form. Use
>>> anything but Adobe Acrobat Reader, and all you would see is a notice
>>> that it won't work without it, no matter what Linux pdf reader I tried.
>>> The last Linux version would work, but you couldn't save the resulting
>>> file. You needed version 10 or higher for that. So, I needed XP.
>>>
>>> That worked OK until 2020, when NY changed the forms once again. The
>>> form now has a special print button that generates bar codes with
>>> embedded ID info, supposedly to help prevent fraud. And that print
>>> button wouldn't work in XP with Adobe Acrobat Reader 10. So, I had to
>>> move on to Win7 and AAR DC.
>>
>> Sounds like it's time for a class-action suit, charging digital racism.
>>
> Nope. I'm perfectly happy with the State of New York attempting to make
> sure that if a criminal tries to claim my refund before I do, he is
> unsuccessful. If that means I can't use Linux because Adobe refuses to
> support us, then so be it.

In Spain, the central administration provides (gratis) software to do
the taxes safely in any platform. No acrobat required. But some other
taxes (inheritance) needed acrobat 12 years ago, dunno now.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 3/8/22 22:50, 25.BX943 wrote:
> On 3/8/22 10:45 AM, TJ wrote:
>> On 3/7/22 12:49, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>> On 2022-03-07, TJ <TJ@noneofyour.business> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I used XP in VB for several years, for a couple of things that Mageia
>>>> Linux didn't provide. That included a newer version of Adobe Reader,
>>>> necessary if one was going to use New York's interactive tax form. Use
>>>> anything but Adobe Acrobat Reader, and all you would see is a notice
>>>> that it won't work without it, no matter what Linux pdf reader I tried.
>>>> The last Linux version would work, but you couldn't save the resulting
>>>> file. You needed version 10 or higher for that. So, I needed XP.
>>>>
>>>> That worked OK until 2020, when NY changed the forms once again. The
>>>> form now has a special print button that generates bar codes with
>>>> embedded ID info, supposedly to help prevent fraud. And that print
>>>> button wouldn't work in XP with Adobe Acrobat Reader 10. So, I had to
>>>> move on to Win7 and AAR DC.
>>>
>>> Sounds like it's time for a class-action suit, charging digital racism.
>>>
>> Nope. I'm perfectly happy with the State of New York attempting to
>> make sure that if a criminal tries to claim my refund before I do, he
>> is unsuccessful. If that means I can't use Linux because Adobe refuses
>> to support us, then so be it.
>
>   Yea ... but MicroSoft has SO many security holes and cares
>   so LITTLE for your security and privacy that the chances of
>   bad things happening to your refund are FAR less than the
>   fallout from using Winders to claim it.
>
You misunderstand. I am not using Windows or anything else to file
electronically. If I wanted to do that, it's supposed to be possible
using a browser like Firefox in Linux. (I can't confirm that - never
wanted to look into it.) Filing electronically with direct deposit is,
in fact, what the state and the feds would rather was done. Less work
for them.

For tax purposes, I only use a Windows 7 Vbox guest to locally fill out
the one or two interactive forms New York has. The ones that include not
only the ID information, but do many of the calculations. (New York does
provide the old-fashioned form that has to be filled out by hand, but
that one is slowest for the state to process, is less secure, and is
more prone for errors to creep in.)

After printing, I shut it off and move the files from the special shared
folder, so that if I do run Win 7 for something else, they aren't there
to be accessed. Other forms that can be filled out with Linux pdf apps,
including all IRS forms, are done with Linux, then printed, and then put
into USPS hands.

>   Just wait for the check to come in the snail mail. It works.
>
Eventually, perhaps. The IRS took over a year to process my paper 2019
tax return, and they still haven't done my 2020 return. Fortunately (I
guess) I always owe money to the Feds, so I wasn't anxiously waiting for
a refund check. New York was considerably faster.

TJ

On 2022-03-09 14:37, TJ wrote:
> On 3/8/22 22:50, 25.BX943 wrote:
>> On 3/8/22 10:45 AM, TJ wrote:
>>> On 3/7/22 12:49, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

....

> Eventually, perhaps. The IRS took over a year to process my paper 2019
> tax return, and they still haven't done my 2020 return. Fortunately (I
> guess) I always owe money to the Feds, so I wasn't anxiously waiting for
> a refund check. New York was considerably faster.

Here (Spain) we simply can not submit paper anymore.

--
Cheers, Carlos.