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.
We have to admire his chutzpah in bringing the most Microsoft of things to Linux, and for doing so with such a universally despised interface. But once the jibes about Windows 8 have stopped, we can oddly see a point here. The trouble with Metro was that it wasn’t a bad interface for a computer at all, in fact it was a truly great one. Unfortunately the computers it was and is great for are handheld and touchscreen devices where its large and easy to click blocks are an asset. Microsoft’s mistake was to assume that also made it great for a desktop machine, where it was anything but.
We can see that this desktop environment for Linux could really come into its own where the original did, such as for tablets or other touch interfaces. Sadly we expect the Windows 8 connection to kill it before it has a chance to catch on. Perhaps someone will install it on a machine with the Linux version of .net installed, and make a better Windows 8 than Windows 8 itself.
