Retro Desktop

A Windows 3.1 style desktop for Linux -- made first for Termux on Android (Termux:X11), so a phone or a tablet has a whole desktop: every X11 program in a 3.1 window, Program Manager with the programs you install, and the small programs a desktop comes with.

I made it with my own toolkit, Retro Nim UI: one program of about 5 MB, nothing to set up.

What is in it

• The window manager. Every program's window gets the 3.1 frame: the title bar to move it by, the border and the corners to size it by, the control-menu box (Restore, Minimize, Maximize, Close, Switch To), the minimize and maximize buttons. Minimized windows are buttons on the panel (or, with the panel off, icons along the bottom of the desktop, as 3.1 had them). Click to bring a window to the front; Alt+Tab shows 3.1's box with the next window while Alt is held; Alt+F4 closes one. Every window can be sized -- by its border, a corner, the top of its title bar, or Alt with the right button; Alt with the left button moves it from anywhere. Windows snap to the screen's edges and to each other as you move them. Dialogs open over their windows, programs that go full screen (videos, games) get the whole screen, and the windows follow when the tablet turns. The programs open when the desktop ended -- you exited, or Android stopped Termux -- open again where they were the next time.

• Snapping as in Windows 11: drag a window to the left or right edge and it fills that half, to a corner that quarter, to the top the whole screen (a frame shows where first); then the other windows are offered for the rest. Rest the pointer on the maximize button (or press Win+Z) for the layouts -- halves, two thirds and a third, thirds, a half and two quarters, quarters -- and click a part. Win+arrows move a window between the halves and quarters as Windows 11 does; dragged away, a window comes back to its own size.

  

• The panel, Windows 95's taskbar in 3.1's colors: the Start button (the desktop's picture, no word on it) opens the Start menu as 95's -- Programs (every group of Program Manager, each opening beside it, each program with its icon), Documents (the files opened last), Settings, Find, Help, Run, Shut Down -- with the band down its side and large pictures. A button for each window, the tray, the clock (resting on it: the date). Drag it to any edge -- bottom, top, left, right --, make it taller or wider by its inner edge; a right click on it: Cascade, Tile, Minimize All Windows, Task List, Properties (Always on top, Auto hide, small pictures in the Start menu, the clock). Control Panel > Windows turns it off.

• Icons on the desktop: what is in your Desktop folder -- folders, files, programs -- where you drag them; Program Manager's File > Put on the Desktop makes a program's icon.

  

• Program Manager, with the groups 3.1 had -- Main, Accessories, StartUp -- and a group for each kind of program you install: Internet, Office, Development, Graphics, Multimedia, System, Games. Every program installed with a desktop entry is there by itself (Firefox, VS Code, GIMP, LibreOffice...). File > New puts in programs of your own; StartUp starts them with the desktop. The Android group has the apps on your phone (a double click opens one on Android).

• Setup, as 3.1's: the blue screen, the programs to choose (browsers, office, development, graphics, music and video, games, fonts), the space they need and the space there is, a gauge while they go in -- and Termux's packages (apt, as pkg runs it) doing the work underneath. Clear a program that is installed to remove it. Retro Browser asks to install Firefox through it when Firefox is not there.

  

• Terminal, the desktop's own: the shell in a PC's 16 text colors (black on white, as Windows had it, or MS-DOS Prompt's gray on black), for everything from ls to vim, nano, htop and mc -- xterm's escape sequences, 256 and 24-bit colors, the mouse, a scrollback, copy and paste (Ctrl+Shift+C, V).

  

• Retro Browser: Firefox dressed as a 3.1 program -- gray toolbars, square raised buttons, tabs like buttons, a sunken address field, the menu bar, the desktop's colors, scroll bars always there -- on a profile of its own, so your own Firefox stays as it is (pkg install firefox).

• The accessories: Write (a word processor: bold, italic, sizes, colors, lists; Word documents (.docx) opened and saved, HTML or plain text), Clock, Calculator, Calendar (with appointments and notes; the Hijri date beside the other, Control Panel > Date/Time), Cardfile, Clipboard Viewer (and Android's clipboard, with Termux:API), Task List (Ctrl+Esc: every window and the memory its program takes; End Task ends one that hangs), Control Panel (with Date/Time and the screen savers: Blank Screen, Starfield, Mystify, Marquee), Character Map, Picture Viewer (thumbnails, a slide show, set as wallpaper, send to Android), PDF Reader, Media Player (mpv underneath), Sound Recorder, News Reader (RSS and Atom), Disk Space (what fills the storage), Share Desktop (this desktop on a computer, through VNC), and on a phone, with Termux:API, Camera and Phone Dialer (calls, contacts, the messages as conversations, the call log). Write and Notepad print to PDF.

• The games: Minesweeper, Solitaire (Klondike, the bouncing cards when you win) and Reversi, drawn for a mouse and for a finger; Freedoom (a free Doom, from Setup); and a DOS group: install DOSBox-X with Setup, put your DOS games in the folder DOS in your home, a folder each, and they are there, a double click away.

  

• Sounds, wallpapers, colors: chimes of the desktop's own for its events (Control Panel > Sound; through PulseAudio or Android), nine pixel-art wallpapers (Bricks, Tartan, Argyle, Circuit, Starry Night, Waves, Checkers, Marble, Sunset) and more color schemes (Emerald City, Rose, Slate, Bordeaux, Canyon, Tweed, Leather, Neon, and Sunlight for a phone outdoors, beside Hot Dog and the rest); night colors -- another scheme between the hours you choose; fonts of your own (Control Panel > Fonts > Add a Font).

  

• Help everywhere: F1 (or Help > Help Topics) in every program opens its page of Help, with links between the pages; the first start offers a short tour.

• Opening files and links: a file opened from File Manager (or a link from any of the desktop's programs) goes to the program for its kind -- the one you chose ("Always use this program"), else the one that says it takes it, else the Open With box (in Termux, an Android app too).

• From Retro Nim UI's examples: File Manager (Retro Files), Paintbrush (Retro Photo), Board (Retro Board), Notepad, Mail (Retro Mail: Microsoft 365, Outlook.com, Gmail) and Communicator (Retro Communicator: chat on XMPP -- an account on any public server, made from inside it if you like; friends, groups, rooms, away messages, files, voice messages, your history brought in from the server when you sign on, and end-to-end encryption with OMEMO, as Conversations and the others do it).

  

• English or Arabic: Control Panel > International puts the desktop's programs, its menus, the frames' titles and Help in Arabic, right to left -- the panel too: Start at the right, the tray at the left.

• The same look for the other programs. GTK programs (and Chromium, Electron, Firefox) get the color scheme as a "Retro31" GTK theme with 3.1 scroll bars (always there, with arrows), the 3.1 cursors at the screen's size, the desktop's fonts (GNU FreeFont) and its size; Qt and older X programs get the size and the fonts. Control Panel changes the scheme, the fonts, the text size and the size of everything, and every program of the desktop follows at once.

• Made for phones and tablets. The size follows the screen's density (a 2K tablet is not tiny); frames for fingers (taller title bars, wider borders, icons that open with one tap); hold a finger on a title bar for its menu; windows that open maximized on a phone's screen; Termux kept awake (termux-wake-lock); the memory watched -- when the phone runs short the desktop lets its caches go and says so, and Task List shows which program holds what (its own share: what it alone holds, and its part of what the programs share). At rest the desktop takes no CPU and about 15 MB; Clock, Calculator and the others about 6 MB each. Program Manager keeps the icons it drew (~/.cache/retrodesktop), so it opens quicker the next time; it comes first at the start, the other programs after it. Minimized programs can be paused (Control Panel > Windows): no CPU, no battery, until you bring them back. OpenGL programs can draw on Android's GPU (Setup > System > 3D graphics: VirGL; the desktop starts its server).

• The keyboard: the Windows key and Ctrl+Esc open the Start menu; Win+R, Win+E, Win+D, Win+L, Win+arrows (halves, quarters, maximize, minimize), Win+Z (the layouts), Ctrl+Alt+T, Ctrl+Shift+Esc -- Control Panel > Keyboard changes them. English and Arabic (or other layouts) with Alt+Shift, the panel showing EN or ع; how fast a key repeats.

• The panel's tray: the layout, the volume, Wi-Fi, the notifications (a bell; a click lists them), the battery, the clock.

• Looking after it: Control Panel's System Check says what the programs need and whether it is there (Install for what is missing); Backup keeps the settings, groups, icons and fonts in one .zip, Restore puts them back; Setup installs a newer Retro Desktop from GitHub (the desktop says when one is out); a screen-saver password (Win+L locks); a 3.1 General Protection Fault box when one of its programs fails.

• Android: Main > Android Files shows the phone's photos, downloads and documents (it asks Android the first time); Android's Back can close the window in front (Control Panel > Windows; off at first, because Termux:X11 uses Back for its keyboard); programs' notifications (notify-send) become Android notifications with Termux:API, or a box at the bottom of the screen.

Install it in Termux

1. Install Termux and Termux:X11 (the app: from its releases).

2. In Termux:

   pkg install x11-repo
   pkg install termux-x11-nightly libx11
   apt install ./retro-desktop_0.1.13_aarch64.deb     # the .deb from the releases
   retro-desktop

retro-desktop starts the X server when none runs, brings Termux:X11 to the front, and the desktop fills its screen. Install programs with Setup (Program Manager > Main), or as you always do (pkg install firefox...): Program Manager shows them by themselves. With PulseAudio installed (Setup > Multimedia > Sound) the desktop starts it, so programs have sound.

So Android lets it run

Android stops programs it thinks you do not use. For a desktop that stays:

• Termux awake: the desktop holds Termux's wake lock while it runs (Control Panel > Desktop to turn it off).
• Battery: Settings > Apps > Termux > Battery > Unrestricted (and the same for Termux:X11).
• The phantom process killer (Android 12 and later stops programs started from Termux beyond a few): Developer options > Disable child process restrictions (Android 14), or from a computer with adb: adb shell "settings put global settings_enable_monitor_phantom_procs false".

Termux:X11's preferences

• Display resolution mode: native -- sharp text at the screen's own pixels.
• Touchscreen input mode: Direct touch (tap where you point) or Trackpad (a pointer you move).
• Show additional keyboard: Esc, Ctrl, Alt, Tab -- for Alt+Tab and the rest.
• Fullscreen on device display and Hide display cutout, for all of the screen.
• With a keyboard: Keyboard > Enable Accessibility service for intercepting system shortcuts manually (then turn on Termux:X11's service), so the Windows key and Alt+Tab reach the desktop; Prefer scancodes when possible, so other layouts (Arabic) type right. Other > Clipboard sharing (on at first) shares the clipboard with Android.

When something goes wrong

Start retro-desktop again: a desktop that stopped answering is ended and the new one takes its windows. What went wrong is in ~/.local/share/retrodesktop/desktop.log, and a program's failure in crashes.log beside it (its box's Copy Details takes it too) -- send me that with the issue. Control Panel > System Check shows what is missing. pkill retro-desktop ends the desktop and all its programs.

Using it

Keys	What they do
Alt+Tab	holding Alt: a box with the next window; Tab again for the one behind; let go to go there
Alt+Shift+Tab	the other way
Alt+F4	closes the window in front
Alt+Esc	minimizes it
Win, Ctrl+Esc	the Start menu (with the panel off: Program Manager; Ctrl+Esc the Task List)
Ctrl+Shift+Esc	Task List
Win+R, Win+E, Win+I	Run, File Manager, Control Panel
Win+Left, Win+Right	the window on the left or right half (from the other half: back to its size)
Win+Up	a half to its top quarter, a bottom quarter to its half, else maximize
Win+Down	restore a maximized window; a half to its bottom quarter; a snapped one back to its size; else minimize
Win+Z	the window's layouts (the arrows and Enter choose)
Win+D	every window minimized (again: back)
Win+L	lock the screen
Ctrl+Alt+T	Terminal
Alt+Shift	the next keyboard layout
F1	Help, at the page of the program in front
Android's Back	closes the window in front (when Control Panel > Windows says so)
Ctrl+Shift+C, Ctrl+Shift+V	copy and paste in the Terminal
Shift+PgUp, Shift+PgDn	the Terminal's scrollback

A right click on the desktop (a finger held on it) opens its menu, over every window: Program Manager, Task List, Control Panel, Terminal, Run..., Cascade, Tile, Arrange Icons, Exit. Menus work as 3.1's: the underlined letter chooses an item, the arrows and Enter too (Right opens the menu beside, Left closes it), Esc closes. Double click a title bar to maximize a window; double click its control-menu box to close it.

Menus open with a click or a finger, and the underlined letter, the arrows, Enter and Esc work in them as in 3.1.

Every part is also a command: retro-desktop progman, control, tasklist, terminal (terminal -e command runs a command in it), browser (Retro Browser; pages to open after it), setup (setup gimp: one program at once), write (a document after it), open (a file or a link, in its program), clipboard, mines, solitaire, reversi, run, help (a topic after it), tour, storage (Android Files), notify (as notify-send), sound (an event's sound), clock, calc, calendar, cardfile, charmap, pictures (pictures or a folder after it), pdf (a PDF after it), media (songs or videos after it), recorder, camera, dialer, news, diskspace, share, crash (the box, for a role).

On a Linux computer

It runs on any X screen with no window manager: from a text console (startx $(which retro-desktop), or exec retro-desktop in ~/.xinitrc), or in a window of your own desktop with Xephyr:

Xephyr :2 -screen 1280x800 & DISPLAY=:2 retro-desktop

Screen readers: with AT-SPI installed (at-spi2-core) and Orca running, the desktop and its programs are read and used from Orca -- their buttons, boxes, lists, menus and tabs, the desktop's icons and the icons of minimized windows, the Terminal's screen as its text. Started from a console, the desktop starts a session bus for its programs on its own.

Building it

You need Nim 2.2 or later and Retro Nim UI 0.21.0 or later.

nimble install retroui
nimble build -d:release                 # bin/retro-desktop for this computer

The Termux package (build/retro-desktop_<version>_aarch64.deb) with the programs from Retro Nim UI's examples:

sh tools/build-deb.sh

It has Retro Nim UI's File Manager, Paintbrush, Board, Notepad, Mail and Communicator too (RETRO_APPS chooses). Mail signs in with the Microsoft and Google app registrations it is built with: RETRO_MAIL_MICROSOFT_ID, RETRO_MAIL_GOOGLE_ID and RETRO_MAIL_GOOGLE_SECRET in the environment while it builds (the repository's secrets on GitHub). They are never in the code; without them Mail asks for your own.

In Termux it builds on the phone (pkg install nim clang git); on Linux it cross-builds for 64-bit ARM with the Android NDK (ANDROID_NDK_HOME) or clang with lld and an Android sysroot (tools/termux-cc.sh). It uses the Retro Nim UI checkout next to this one (../retro), RETROUI_SRC, or clones it.

GitHub builds the package on every push and pull request (.github/workflows/deb.yml), and puts it on the release when a version tag is pushed (git tag v0.1.13 && git push origin v0.1.13).

How it works

Retro Desktop is one Nim program. Started with no argument it is the desktop: a Retro Nim UI window that fills the screen, under every other window, and the window manager on the same X connection (Retro Nim UI's X11 driver hands it the events of the windows it manages). Each frame is an X window: its border drawn with plain X, its title bar drawn with the toolkit's canvas in the toolkit's fonts and colors. The other parts -- Program Manager, the accessories, Control Panel -- are the same program started again with an argument, each its own window in its own frame.

The look reaches other programs through what their toolkits read: XSETTINGS (the desktop is the screen's XSETTINGS manager), the X resources on the root window (Xft.dpi, fonts), fontconfig, and GTK 3's settings file and a GTK theme written from the color scheme.

Credits

Developed by Sultan Al Isaiee @foxoman -- www.foxoman.net -- sultan@foxoman.net

MIT License (see LICENSE).