Worst OS setup possible

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Worst OS setup possible

09 August 2023, 21:46:13

Tell the worst OS setup possible, (e. g. google chrome plus snap and flatpak togheter all in a KDE desktop with an horrible anime wallpaper and 45 different fms)

Re: Worst OS setup possible

Reply #1 – 09 August 2023, 23:50:46

I recently had the opportunity and questionable honor to do a win11 install for someone, patently absurd process.

So worst setup, windows, and all the spyware it brings with it, and the ridiculous post install questions concerning the spyware that's allegedly optional.

Once finished after phoning home to MS multiple times, it said "welcome back!"

Second place of worse, systemd distros, ms svchost.exe clone. :p

Re: Worst OS setup possible

Reply #2 – 10 August 2023, 09:09:47

If you have to give someone windows 11, use tiny 11

Re: Worst OS setup possible

Reply #3 – 10 August 2023, 10:43:59

windows 1, reversi
no I don't want kreversi, that lame clone

but the worst I can imagine is:
in macos running a windows vm to access wsl

Re: Worst OS setup possible

Reply #4 – 10 August 2023, 11:52:00

host: manjaro + gnome3 -> v-box guest: windows + putty.exe -> ubuntu server

Re: Worst OS setup possible

Reply #5 – 10 August 2023, 12:06:24

I call gnome the teletubby UI.

Re: Worst OS setup possible

Reply #6 – 10 August 2023, 12:30:50

Ex (and good friend) of mine who is totally non technical recently got a new job which involved some home working and propriety software. Including Zoom or Teams or similar (can't remember )

After some discussion we agreed that she'd need to start using Windows and also upgrade her 10+ year old laptop. Even though she'd been using Linux (KDE Neon) all this time she had no idea how it worked, It only ever got an update when I rarely visited.

So she buys a cheap laptop with Win 11 pre-installed. As preparation for helping her set it up I installed Win 11 in a VM and then reset it so I could go through the process step by step with her.

While doing the first install, after the spyware nonsense, the first wall I hit was the insistence that you have to use a Microsoft/Outlook account to create a user account! No problem I thought I'll disconnect the VM from the internet. Surely that will work?
No. I can't remember the error exactly but pretty sure it had the audacity to say you had to have the internet to setup your computer. Outrageous.

So I did some searching and found a possible solution, among others which involved rescue disks and registry editing or escaping the setup into a command prompt and issuing various commands (too technical for her and I didn't want to mess up her brand new laptop), which I can't believe worked.
Use [email protected], any password to log in. An error comes up "Incorrect password used too many times" and windows lets you set up a standard user account (This may have been closed by now?)

So now I help her over the phone (She's a four hour drive away) get to, and through that point, success.

The plan had been I was going to verbally get her to download and run some remote access access software on windows 11. She would start the ssh server on her linux laptop (which thankfully was already set up but not started by default) and I'd transfer all her data to the new laptop by sftp. And also download and setup the software she needed for work. Simple.

Well it should be. Turns out she didn't have a Win 11 Home install. She had a Win 11 Home 'S' install which only lets you install from the windows store. Bit of panic from her (understandably) thinking she's got the wrong laptop.

Quick search and panic over. The "S" part can be removed. "Easily" the page said. "Just click the windows store" they said. Click "Switch out of S mode" they advised.

Except you need a Microsoft account to access the store! I could find no way around this that again didn't involve rescue disks and registry editing so I had to create a throwaway account and talk her through adding it to her user account (all the while mirroring the process on my VM so I could see what she saw, plus I don't know my way around windows).

That done we finally got control of the laptop and I got in and did what needed to be done (and removed the microsoft account)!

Sorry for the long post but I suspect that was a rant that's been waiting for a chance to get out

Re: Worst OS setup possible

Reply #7 – 10 August 2023, 12:37:44

Quote from: suren – on 10 August 2023, 10:43:59

windows 1, reversi
no I don't want kreversi, that lame clone

but the worst I can imagine is:
in macos running a windows vm to access wsl

Hehe, i think TDE repos have the kreversi from 2005. Or, use OTVDM in wine. Yes that actually works

I had entire elf executables from linux and zsh script running directly in MacOS lol. We may laugh but at the current state of MS i'd be happy with that. I know W11 still keeps the old nt stuff as backend, but the rest got too FUBAR'd

@gripped I worked for a very short time for some idiots who really wanted to use 11 so their solution was putting the login+etc workarounds in with Rufus on a stick and reinstalling every time, even if it already came with 11, lol.

Re: Worst OS setup possible

Reply #8 – 10 August 2023, 12:57:54

@Hitman

Yeah I read about that as a solution, and would maybe have resorted to that if I hadn't found the [email protected] workaround.
But she didn't have a usb key, would be bewildered by the bios and I wouldn't be able to see what she saw so would have had her reading whole bios pages to me ! All in all too technical.

What amazed most me was this 'S' thing. I'd heard mention of it but somehow it's function had passed me by until then.

How many millions have computers that are lobotomized at birth and they can't install what they want on it and and have no idea that changing that is possible or how to do it.

Even Mac's let you install what you want don't they ? (I'm guessing)

Re: Worst OS setup possible

Reply #9 – 10 August 2023, 13:57:43

That S mode thing should be easier to change indeed, MS is the prime offender in believing ppl are stupid, at least put a disclaimer that says you can get viruses if you run junk programs, agree or go back :-)

Macs do let you run executables, but they have just as bad issues AFAIK, firstly actual mac compiled "applications" have to either be signed or allowed permissions through some menus, secondly file access is completely isolated (and probably tapped into as a consequence). They kinda do this as a smarter way to avoid malware, which at least is not completely stupid like the S mode is, at least for regular people.
I would have also included lack of customization that apple started but eh, MS now followed suit (you can still replace the ugly start menu and fonts/style in nt stuff but the rest is garbage).

////////

To stay on topic, i saw last year this public signage thing, was a raspberry pi most likely, running plasma, showing a webpage and remoted into a windows 8.1 machine full of junk on the desktop :-) Kde notification probably messed up the guy's pretty setup lol.

Re: Worst OS setup possible

Reply #10 – 10 August 2023, 15:41:16

Ok, what about the worst Linux setup insead?

Re: Worst OS setup possible

Reply #11 – 10 August 2023, 15:59:12

Quote from: alreadycat – on 10 August 2023, 15:41:16

Ok, what about the worst Linux setup insead?

In no particular order (and only my opinion which whether right or wrong will remain my opinion).

Any desktop system with flatpaks or snap, crackle and pops
Any simple server using docker, kuberwhatsit etc
Any system that uses Gnome
All tiling window managers
Wayland other than to fix certain games issues under X with gamescope

Re: Worst OS setup possible

Reply #12 – 10 August 2023, 16:13:35

I installed Calculate Linux on a 32 bit C840 a few years ago, here are some notes I made at the time regarding how slow and inefficient the Gentoo package management tools were, despite it using precompiled binaries it was still hopeless, a pacman package search would have returned with no appreciable delay even on that old machine:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

They might have improved things since then though, haven't checked.
Although it is Windows again, XP and Vista used to have a thing where you couldn't ctrl click too fast or it would spew copies of everything you had selected all over the dir which took ages to get rid of, clicking at the enforced slow Windows pace, that was very annoying.