As promised, I have some LookXP screenshots. I had to hunt down some Bliss-like (Blissful?) wallpaper and wrangle the idesk configuration file, but that wasn’t any kind of a trick. The idesk wiki has a sample .ideskrc file, and tweaking it is as easy as jotting a note to yourself.

There are the three traditional themes to pick from — WinXP Olive, Silver and Blue — plus one that was probably the original made (it differs slightly from the “canonical” XP look).

I also installed the GTK theme switch utilities, the GTK mist engine (which I happen to prefer) and menu, which helped a little in the configuration.

In all, it looks very sharp. It’s a tight mockup to the default XP style and with the exception of some of IceWM’s stock menubar perks, it would be difficult to distinguish it from XP at first glance. I could do with a little more tweaking to get it how I like, and I didn’t do much to get the Start menu working right, but that’s something that would come with time.

Speedwise it doesn’t strike me as any slower than stock IceWM from the repositories, and it looks a lot better than some of the bundled IceWM themes.

I like it. I’m not going to keep it because it doesn’t appeal to me to run an XP desktop, but if I needed to build a bulletproof XP box for someone — I don’t know why, maybe just as a giveaway perhaps — I think I’d go with it. I know there are plenty of themes for IceWM that make it look XP-ish, but for an all-around package — plus an infinitely easy installation — this one is hard to beat.

All that being said, it still won’t be taking over my Openbox rig. 😀