Linked a source of inspiration. This is a fuzzy topic but maybe will drive "engagement" of purists ๐
The idea is to get a daily driver machine GUI to look like a retro desktop or workstation while being functional. Sure, "functional" means different things for all people, tastes differ etc. Why? To me it's more soothing and makes me want to do Serious Computing (or even work, gasp) and not get distracted. Bonus points if we can actually run some ancient software for this (old Linux desktop environments? I once kinda got Enlightenment DE to work).
My current modern setup is KDE Plasma with "Platinum retro" theme: https://store.kde.org/p/1320042 and applications style (basically buttons) set to "MS Windows 9x". You can also mess with system fonts. Kind of lazy, but does give this gray austere vibe. Maybe people have more elaborate setups, or ones easier for non-Linux folks.