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Tom’s Hardware
Tom’s Hardware
Technology
Ben Stockton

Developer's 1994 Linux desktop recreation runs in your browser as a modern web app — open-source project brings old-school CDE interface back from the dead and features classic 90s web browser, text editor, and more

CDE Time Capsule project screenshot showing 1990s-style Linux.

If you're tired of the modern internet, then why not dial back to the 1990s? One nostalgic developer has recreated the pinnacle of early Linux operating systems with the so-called CDE Time Capsule. Posted as an open-source project on GitHub under the GPL license, but accessible via its own website, the project has faithfully recreated the appearance of a Debian Linux installation, circa 1994.

For those who didn't get to experience those early Unix-based operating systems, they borrowed a lot from the -Unix part of their name. CDE, or the Common Desktop Environment, was the desktop environment used on Unix-based systems until successors like GNOME and KDE were released by the end of the decade. It was jointly developed by a number of big firms, including HP, IBM, and Sun, and first launched back in June 1993.

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