Logout from your Linux desktop like it’s (Windows) ‘98

gdm85
gdm85
Jul 30, 2017 · 2 min read

In a recent blog post I was providing a solution for a struggling reality of modern Linux desktops, namely that you need to install systemd in order to shutdown/reboot. All this stirring in the pot of good code brought up nostalgia from a few decades ago.

Look at this UI beauty of merely 19 years ago

I have been longing for a chance to play with GTK in Go language, and now it has materialized with this tiny project: let’s replace the dull XFCE logout dialog with one resembling Windows 98!

Please note the friendliness of the question posed to the user:

What do YOU want the computer to do?

It feels like we have lost a lot of this spirit along the years.

The tools of the trade

I have found mattn’s go-gtk package which is a good pick for this small project; my only contribution has been for pixbuf objects embedding.

You can admire here the final result:

Please feel free to submit patches to better adjust the layout, as I am no GTK UI expert.

The Github repository is:

Give power to the user

Since we got onboard this project for a lack of user control, I decided to add a completely overkill customization of the entries via a .config/win98logout/win98logout.ini file.

The defaults looks like:

It is possible to add many custom entries, but the resulting UI layout might be imperfect.

Installation

You can use a script like the one provided in the previous blog post:

Enjoy!

Where do we Go now

8-bit adventures in Linux-land, with Go & other geeky companions

gdm85

Written by

gdm85

Thinker, software developer, cryptography passionate and an avid reader of science and technology.

Where do we Go now

8-bit adventures in Linux-land, with Go & other geeky companions

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