Give Your Chromebook a Retro Makeover: Turn It Into a Windows 95‑Style PC with Linux

Okay, so you’ve stared at that sleek Chrome OS desktop for a while and thought, ‘What if my Chromebook looked like a relic from 1995?’ Believe it or not, you can give your modern machine a nostalgic facelift without breaking a sweat.

First things first: you need Linux running under Crostini. Head to Settings → Linux (Beta) and click “Turn on”. The wizard will walk you through a quick install; you’ll end up with a tiny terminal window and a fresh Debian environment. It’s basically a sandboxed Linux VM that lives inside Chrome OS.

Once that’s up, open the terminal and update the package list:

```bash sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y ```

Now, install a lightweight window manager – Openbox works great because it’s minimalist and won’t clash with the Chrome OS compositor.

```bash sudo apt install -y openbox obconf ```

With Openbox in place, you can start shaping the look. The community has put together a Windows 95 theme pack that includes the classic gray taskbar, the iconic start button, and even the nostalgic click sounds.

Grab the theme from GitHub:

```bash git clone https://github.com/robbydude/win95-theme.git cd win95-theme ```

Run the installer script (it copies the GTK and Openbox configs into the right folders):

```bash ./install.sh ```

If you run into permission issues, just prepend sudo. The script will drop the theme files into ~/.themes and ~/.config/openbox, then fire up obconf so you can select the Windows 95 look.

Next up: icons. The classic icon set is available in the same repo. Copy it to your icon directory:

```bash mkdir -p ~/.local/share/icons cp -r icons/* ~/.local/share/icons/ ```

Open the “Tweaks” app (install it if you need to: sudo apt install gnome-tweaks) and pick the new icon theme. You’ll instantly see the familiar 90s‑era folders and shortcuts.

Don’t forget the sounds. A small script called set-sounds.sh is included; it points the system’s ~/.config/pulse/default.pa to the .wav files that mimic the original Windows beeps and startup chime.

Finally, launch Openbox with the new theme. You can do this from the terminal:

```bash openbox --restart ```

Or create a shortcut in Chrome OS’s app drawer that runs bash -c "openbox --restart". Once it’s running, you’ll have a desktop that looks, sounds, and feels like a Windows 95 machine – all while your Chromebook still runs Chrome OS underneath.

There you go. A few commands, a little patience, and you’ve turned a sleek, modern laptop into a nostalgic time capsule. Have fun clicking that oversized start button and telling your friends you’re literally running “Windows” on a Chromebook.