Chinese pirates create Ubuntu clone of Windows XP
Is nothing sacred to Chinese pirates? Obviously not, because they’ve now created a version of Ubuntu which looks and feels almost identical to Windows XP, the beloved older brother of Windows 7. The question has to be, why?
If people could be defined by their choice of operating system then this is how I see it playing out. If you choose Windows then you’re calm, collected, and satisfied with life. Choose Linux and you’re likely to be adventurous, a little out there and geeky. Choose Mac OS X and you’re probably pretentious, shallow, and a Steve Jobs fanboy.
With that in mind it surely makes no sense for there to be any crossover between the operating systems. They essentially do the same job in a very similar fashion to each other, but they are also different enough to mean a choice between them is important.
Why would anyone using Linux want their new OS to look and feel like Windows XP? I personally haven’t a clue, but there must be some demand out there for the Chinese pirates who have developed such a chimera to have done so.
According to Download Squad, the Ubuntu clone of Windows XP is called the Ylmf OS, and it’s available to download from ylmf.org. Unfortunately, it’s only available in Chinese at this point in time so even if you had the inclination to test it out you’d need to be proficient in the language to do so.
As you can see from the multitude of screenshots on CNBeta, Ylms is a very good copy of Windows XP. But it’s still Ubuntu underneath. I know Windows XP is a much-loved OS but that’s surely missing the point a little.
After all, it’s not like you can’t get a pirate copy of XP easily enough, with the Tomato Garden Web site being a huge hit in China before it was shut down.
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December 28th, 2009
I looked at the screen shots…interesting and amusing.
Some might remember Winutuxu, a hybrid of XP and Ubuntu said to have been developed in Morocco from 2007.
I wonder if someone in Redmond is throwing a chair after reading this….
December 28th, 2009
Okay, what’s the point? OS skins/themes that make one OS “look” like another have been around for YEARS. And they’ve been proliferating on smartphones for a while now too. You’re just now figuring that out Dave? Or you saw someone else write an article about it and bootlegged the article idea for yet another lack of original ideas article?
From my BlackBerry Storm…
December 28th, 2009
Ok. As interesting as this article seems otherwise, this part stuck out to me..
“Choose Mac OS X and you’re probably pretentious, shallow, and a Steve Jobs fanboy”
Is this really necessary, or is Tech.Blorge just trying to fan the fires of web flamers? Comments like this make my interest in this site grow dimmer and dimmer each day. I use Windows, Linux, and Mac…so apparently I’m a shallow, pretentious geek, who can remain calm and collected all while being satisfied with life? Is there any way you can just bring us the news about technology on this site without insulting your loyal readers?
Thanks!
Josh
December 29th, 2009
You know when people want “free” XP and not able to get one.
Either download a “Tomato Garden”(not available and author in jail for 3 years)
Or they go to pirate for “free alternative”. There is nothing about linux or freebsd or some other indeed, its about price for now.
For average folk ,a XP license means a half to a quarter of its monthly income. Windows 7….
January 3rd, 2010
Josh, I totally agree with you. That remark is pretty pointless and insulting.
I am typing this on my Mac mini though I also own several PCs running Windows XP/2003 and OpenSuse. So that means I am calm, collected, adventurous while also “pretentious, shallow, and a Steve Jobs fanboy”?
Very disappointed with this site and the author.
January 3rd, 2010
Although there are some people out there that are users of all 3 (actually, that still would be TWO in reality, because the fact of the matter is it is not Windows vs Mac vs Linux, the reality actually is Windows vs Linux, because like the companies that actually proudly call there products destributions of Linux (whether Ubantu or Redhat, or etc.), Mac is a destribution of Linux too, just done differently, but at the core, it has Unix does it not!) do exist, but, they are very rare. Users of only “2″ of the “3″ options are slightly more common. But the clear majority (90+%) is using Windows, and most of the time only windows and nothing else.
Sure, you can say that whether the majority likes something or not, that doesn’t define the true best of the best. But, I would have to say, when it comes to almost everything, Windows is the clear best of the best. Since so many people know how to use Windows you don’t need to bust your balls looking for great Linux IT guys, because great Windows IT guys are everythwere. Windows used to be glitch-filled (pre-Windows 2000), but since Windows 2000, it has taken leaps and bounds, amazingly.
I once ran my computer on Windows 2000 for 2 months without turning it off or restarting it at all, I did the same thing with Windows XP for a half a year, I could without a doubt do the same with 7, but what’s the point.
Viruses used to be a problem, but things have changed, people who are not real n00bs (but not necessarilly “experts”) know enough about computers to know how to avoid most viruses, especially the worst of the worst (or enought of there own antivirus program to know how to get rid of it).
This is not 1998 anymore, this is not (bug-filled) Windows 98 anymore, things have changed. Windows is clearly an amazing system.
But, I do have to say that I do have allot of respect for Linux, and it’s user base. Unlike Crapple fanboys/users Linux users are not brainwashed n00bs/dummys, and clearly just as much computer experts as advanced IT people for Windows (in some cases even more so).
January 3rd, 2010
You guys are really girls. Who cares about your feelings. Wake up this is the real world. Put yourself in the shoes of the author and editor. He and or she didn’t pour the hard work and money into a site for them not to be able to express there opinion. You the reader have the option not to read.. Don’t waste anymore of the authors time with your frivolous whining. You don’t like his/her opinion don’t read.. But don’t make the rest of us read your whining.
January 4th, 2010
Lucky B…you have the option to not read the comments good sir;)
If you feel this is whining…you should be part of the solution, and not contribute more whining. Unless you’re taking the “fight fire with fire” approach?
January 4th, 2010
Linux users are not … n00bs/dummys, and clearly just as much computer experts as advanced IT people for Windows
Which is exactly why casual users would want something that looks like Windows than “Ubuntu Komplikated Kangaroo”…
June 14th, 2010
no biggie… ubuntu that looks like win, is still ubuntu, still linux, i have seen many beautiful GUI in Linux, but none of them could prorperly run the WIn code. And vice versa.