KDE Plasma is a desktop environment developed by the KDE community for systems Unix-like, like Linux. Sorry, GNU/Linux. It is designed to deliver a modern, flexible and highly customizable desktop experience. To enable and use KDE Plasma, you need to install a Linux distribution that includes this desktop environmentsuch as Kubuntu, Fedora KDE, openSUSE Leap or install directly KDE neon (the peculiarity of KDE neon is that it focuses on integrating the latest versions of KDE software).
An environment like KDE Plasma offers a wide range of features, including a design highly customizable, auser interface intuitive, widget support and a wide range of integrated applications.
KDE Plasma brings Windows 7’s Aero interface to the Linux environment
Do you remember theAero interface of Windows 7? The visual innovations that Microsoft introduced into its operating system were one of the “highlights”. The windows of Windows 7, thanks to the Aero setting, they had transparent and bright edges; hovering the mouse cursor over icons in the taskbar, real-time updated thumbnails showed the contents of the windows; Aero Flip 3D it allowed you to navigate through open windows in a three-dimensional way; functionality like Snap, Shake e Peeksome also present in the most modern versions of Windows, allowed respectively to drag the windows towards the edge of the screen to maximize or organize them, to minimize all the windows except the selected one by quickly shaking the window being displayed, to quickly see the desktop by moving the mouse pointer over the right corner of the taskbar.
AeroThemePlasma is a project that aims to recreate the look and feelWindows 7 user experience, as faithfully as possible, on KDE Plasma. This is a project still in the development and testing phase, but the goal is to offer users of Linux distributions based on KDE Plasma the possibility to customize the appearance of the desktop to resemble that of Windows 7. The project, hosted on GitLab, is open to collaboration and contributions from the developer community.
Look at the image below: it’s not Windows 7 but the theme AeroThemePlasma running on a Linux machine.
Windows 7 vive… su Linux
Although some businesses continue to use it, Windows 7 is now dead and buried. Launched on the market in July 2009, Microsoft officially withdrew support for it in January 2020. At least for the wider audience of users. In mid-January 2023, the program ESU (Extended Security Update), which allowed paying customers (mainly large companies) to benefit from an additional period of up to 3 years to receive security updates and other patches for their Windows 7 installations.
Con AeroThemePlasmaLinux users can “experience the thrill” of bringing Windows 7 back to life, at least as far as its appeal graphic. The difference of this him compared to other works, is that it does not faithfully follow all aspects of Windows Aeroeven those that other projects have forgotten.
On the other hand, Windows 7 and Aero represented a real revolution in the Windows user interface: the most knowledgeable users can therefore set up a system that at first glance (and also at the second, third and fourth…) seems like the historic Microsoft platform but underneath beats the Linux kernel, with all the necessary updates.