According to XDA-Developers, a developer known as abjumpr has forked the original KDE 1 desktop environment into a new project called MiDesktop. This modern revival is specifically designed to work on current Linux distributions, namely Debian 13 and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. The project is a direct homage to the late-1990s Linux interface, replicating its iconic aesthetic. However, it’s very much a developmental build with significant bugs, including major issues with Firefox and Chrome window sizing, disappearing taskbar menus, and quirks in the Control Center. There’s also no proper multi-monitor support. For now, it’s a proof-of-concept for retro computing enthusiasts, not a stable daily driver.
Why this exists
So why would anyone go through the trouble of resurrecting a 25-year-old desktop? It’s pure, unadulterated nostalgia. For folks who were there in the early days of Linux, it’s a digital time capsule. For newcomers, it’s a fascinating history lesson. You get to see the primitive roots of what would become the incredibly polished KDE Plasma we have today. It’s like finding the original, hand-drawn sketches for a famous painting. The fact that it runs on a modern kernel and can, in theory, launch contemporary apps is the real magic trick. It bridges two completely different eras of computing.
The bugs are the point
Here’s the thing: the listed bugs aren’t really failures; they’re authentic features. A browser window expanding to infinity? Menus that vanish? That is the late-90s desktop experience for many! It’s a reminder of how far we’ve come in terms of stability and polish. Trying to use this now highlights just how seamless and predictable modern desktop environments are. You’re not supposed to file your taxes on MiDesktop. You’re supposed to boot it up in a virtual machine, smile at the chunky bevels and low-color icons, open a terminal, and feel like a 1999 hacker. Then you close it and go back to your rock-solid, multi-monitor, perfectly-snapping windows on your main OS. The contrast is the whole lesson.
A niche but important preservation
Projects like MiDesktop are more important than they seem. They’re acts of software archaeology. They prevent historically significant interfaces from becoming lost to time, trapped on old ISO images that won’t boot on new hardware. By forking and porting the code, the developer ensures that a piece of open-source history remains accessible and, crucially, runnable. It’s a hands-on museum exhibit. And for developers working on current desktops, seeing the ancient, simpler codebase of a foundational project can offer surprising insights. It strips away decades of complexity and shows the core ideas in their raw form.
Should you try it?
If you’re curious, the instructions are out there on the project’s repository. But be warned: this isn’t a polished product. The MiDesktop page itself and reports from sites like Linuxiac make the experimental nature very clear. I’d only recommend this for a spare machine or, better yet, a virtual environment. It’s a weekend toy, a conversation starter. And honestly, that’s perfect. It accomplishes exactly what it set out to do: it brings a seminal piece of Linux history blinking into the modern sunlight, bugs and all. That’s pretty cool.
