Piece of shit software - Crappy software/apps/programs that make you MATI

[Gargamel]

VMware Workstation is a huge piece of shit software, at least on Linux.

It needs kernel modules to work. These aren't in the kernel. VMware supports a handful of older kernels per point release. I guess it's okay if you use Ubuntu, but I do not. So I have to clone some github repo and build the modules from that. I have to do this every time I take a kernel update.

It has on numerous occasions locked up on me, leaving me unable to halt the VM and close the program. It does not respond to SIGTERM or SIGKILL. It will not allow my system to cleanly shut down. The only way out is to power cycle.

It still has issues with certain guest operating systems. I seem to remember shared folders being broken in Windows 2000, for example.

It's a shame because when it works it works pretty well. I can run 3D applications (like Solidworks) in Windows guests no problem, given an appropriately spec'd host.

I'm seriously considering switching to VirtualBox, but I'm not really sure how well that works these days.

On the big iron I use kvm but I don't really want to deal with that on my laptop.

 

[Brabbit Narp]

VMware Workstation is a huge piece of shit software, at least on Linux.

It needs kernel modules to work. These aren't in the kernel. VMware supports a handful of older kernels per point release. I guess it's okay if you use Ubuntu, but I do not. So I have to clone some github repo and build the modules from that. I have to do this every time I take a kernel update.

It has on numerous occasions locked up on me, leaving me unable to halt the VM and close the program. It does not respond to SIGTERM or SIGKILL. It will not allow my system to cleanly shut down. The only way out is to power cycle.

It still has issues with certain guest operating systems. I seem to remember shared folders being broken in Windows 2000, for example.

It's a shame because when it works it works pretty well. I can run 3D applications (like Solidworks) in Windows guests no problem, given an appropriately spec'd host.

I'm seriously considering switching to VirtualBox, but I'm not really sure how well that works these days.

On the big iron I use kvm but I don't really want to deal with that on my laptop.

Virtualbox works fine, albeit not as optimized as some other options are out there.

As of present, I use Virtual Machine Manager/QEMU for my purposes. I tested the two software on my laptop, and QEMU/VMM works buttery smooth compared to VB.

https://virt-manager.org/

Granted, VMM is merely a good GUI interface for QEMU, but I like it regardless. Easy for a tech normie like myself to configure without hassling too much with the command line. But if you want to go fully into that, there are options available out there.

 

[SilentDuck]

VMware Workstation is a huge piece of shit software, at least on Linux.

It needs kernel modules to work. These aren't in the kernel. VMware supports a handful of older kernels per point release. I guess it's okay if you use Ubuntu, but I do not. So I have to clone some github repo and build the modules from that. I have to do this every time I take a kernel update.

It has on numerous occasions locked up on me, leaving me unable to halt the VM and close the program. It does not respond to SIGTERM or SIGKILL. It will not allow my system to cleanly shut down. The only way out is to power cycle.

It still has issues with certain guest operating systems. I seem to remember shared folders being broken in Windows 2000, for example.

It's a shame because when it works it works pretty well. I can run 3D applications (like Solidworks) in Windows guests no problem, given an appropriately spec'd host.

I'm seriously considering switching to VirtualBox, but I'm not really sure how well that works these days.

On the big iron I use kvm but I don't really want to deal with that on my laptop.

VMWare workstation was a lifesaver in its day. Now it's use cases have gotten pretty fringe. The 10.x branch on Windows ran like a dream alongside 7 and I thought it would last forever but it certainly did not. If you like lively debates and stellar meltdowns by people who just want stuff to work like it used to, the version 14.x vs 16.x arguements are stellar. I updated to 17.x and it is slow as molasses. Almost like a joke virus or a 1990s DOS trojan infection running as a TSR eating all your RAM until the system halts. But, according to the army of pajeets that run VMWare now from top to bottom, I must have bad hardware or be doing something grossly incompetent.

Weird thing about VMWare is the keygens all work and the keys aren't banned. There is an entire github full of keys for all versions and they all work. They want you to steal it and use it. It's almost like an apology for how shitty it is.

Anyway. VirtualBox is the preferred choice on linux now and there's no way around it. If you really want to use VMWare its like a growing number of linux things; you need to run mainline Ubuntu or RedHat because you are already a fringe of a fringe and there is just no business case to cater to the petty troonery of modern day linux + kernel + GUI.

 

[Mister Uno]

Fuck Android Auto. You're basically forced to use Google's applications since not much else works on the damn thing, and only certain media players will work on it as well. Hell I have to keep Google's phone application just to make calls or their dedicated Google app to use any voice commands. I am so close to just purging it all and getting a phone mount/bluetooth, making my media dashboard a glorified remote. Wish there was good alternatives out there that let me fully utilize the damn thing.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

Fuck Android Auto. You're basically forced to use Google's applications since not much else works on the damn thing, and only certain media players will work on it as well. Hell I have to keep Google's phone application just to make calls or their dedicated Google app to use any voice commands. I am so close to just purging it all and getting a phone mount/bluetooth, making my media dashboard a glorified remote. Wish there was good alternatives out there that let me fully utilize the damn thing.

Android Auto is trash. Phone + bluetooth is rock solid and you're not limited to certain apps.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

I just made a major PC upgrade and Ableton Live (digital audio workstation software) loads just as slowly on a new six-core CPU from an NVME drive as it did with a decade old dual-core Haswell and a no-name SSD.

I swear to God its splash screen runs on a fixed timer rather than denoting any data actually being loaded into RAM. What a piece of shit.

 

[innocent jogger]

VMware Workstation is a huge piece of shit software, at least on Linux.

It needs kernel modules to work. These aren't in the kernel. VMware supports a handful of older kernels per point release. I guess it's okay if you use Ubuntu, but I do not. So I have to clone some github repo and build the modules from that. I have to do this every time I take a kernel update.

It has on numerous occasions locked up on me, leaving me unable to halt the VM and close the program. It does not respond to SIGTERM or SIGKILL. It will not allow my system to cleanly shut down. The only way out is to power cycle.

It still has issues with certain guest operating systems. I seem to remember shared folders being broken in Windows 2000, for example.

It's a shame because when it works it works pretty well. I can run 3D applications (like Solidworks) in Windows guests no problem, given an appropriately spec'd host.

I'm seriously considering switching to VirtualBox, but I'm not really sure how well that works these days.

On the big iron I use kvm but I don't really want to deal with that on my laptop.

VMWare was amazing back in the day. I had some fun blowing normie minds showing them OSX Snow Leopard running inside WinXP, but as others have said it is severely depreciated now.

I've been using VirtualBox (Linux-Debian-Openbox) for around 8 years and have been pretty happy with it. I only run older versions of Windows and mostly for some utilities and emulators that I can't find decent Linux equivalents of.

I will say that I have been unable to upgrade to VirtualBox 7 since it breaks my Win7 machines. Not sure why and I don't use them enough to really dig in or try to rebuild them with it so I have just stuck with VB6. I am planning on testing out QEMU soon and if it does what I need then I will be switching to it and dropping VirtualBox.

Oh, and FYI VirtualBox also requires kernel modules to work.

 

[innocent jogger]

One thing that severely chaps my ass isn't related to program functionality but how their GUI won't window properly in Linux.

A good example is Handbrake which is an awesome ripper and encoder but it's GUI has always been an asshole that won't allow me to resize it at all AND doesn't have scroll bars. Trying to use the latest version pushes the bottom part of the window completely off my screen on my laptop with no way to access it.

Another (more petty) example is when a GUI refuses to use the system theme and window decorations and instead gives me a stupid giant bar at the top with the hamburger icon. It still takes up the same amount of space though. Here is an example of what I mean:

Versus a standard system theme like this:

 

[Gargamel]

VMWare was amazing back in the day. I had some fun blowing normie minds showing them OSX Snow Leopard running inside WinXP, but as others have said it is severely depreciated now.

My very first use of VMware was to test drive the deadmoo image. This was before hardware virtualization so it was actually kinda slow on the Northwood P4 I was running it on, but it worked.

I quickly moved on to Leopard, running bare metal on a newer machine with a Prescott P4 with Space Heater technology. At some point I was running Snow Leopard, but this is about where I hopped off the OSx86 bandwagon.

I will say that I have been unable to upgrade to VirtualBox 7 since it breaks my Win7 machines. Not sure why and I don't use them enough to really dig in or try to rebuild them with it so I have just stuck with VB6. I am planning on testing out QEMU soon and if it does what I need then I will be switching to it and dropping VirtualBox.

This is retarded design. An update to a hypervisor should never break a virtual machine running a supported guest operating system.

QEMU (what I called "kvm" in a previous post) works pretty decent. On amd64 with an amd64 guest it actually is kvm under the hood. You can use Virtual Machine Manager as a graphical front end, that works pretty good too. I use it to run Windows 10 in a VM with a PCI passthrough GPU. For that setup it was buggy as fuck in the beginning but it's gotten better over time. It lacks some features though, such as autosizing the guest resolution to fit the window.

Oh, and FYI VirtualBox also requires kernel modules to work.

Yeah, but it mostly "just works" unlike modern VMware.

Another (more petty) example is when a GUI refuses to use the system theme and window decorations and instead gives me a stupid giant bar at the top with the hamburger icon. It still takes up the same amount of space though. Here is an example of what I mean:

That's GTK, Client Side Decorations, GtkHeaderBar, and possibly one other thing I can't remember the name of, courtesy of the GNOME developers who think their way is the only way.

There's supposed to be an environment variable to turn that off per-application and also a way to turn it off globally.

Xfce (I think 4.16) tried this bullshit on their built-in apps, and the backlash was so bad that they made it optional and defaulted to disabled in the next major release (4.18 )

 

[innocent jogger]

That's GTK, Client Side Decorations, GtkHeaderBar, and possibly one other thing I can't remember the name of, courtesy of the GNOME developers who think their way is the only way.

I was never a regular GNOME user but I explored it a lot via Knoppix in my early Linux days and I immediately figured this out when GNOME 3 appeared and they said fuck you to GNOME 2 which was a way better design.

There's supposed to be an environment variable to turn that off per-application and also a way to turn it off globally.

Believe me, I have looked into this repeatedly, changed various environment variables and config files and have yet to find a solution. If anybody out there has more info I would love to hear it. i don't plan on ditching my current setup unless I absolutely have to someday because it just werks for me.

Xfce (I think 4.16) tried this bullshit on their built-in apps, and the backlash was so bad that they made it optional and defaulted to disabled in the next major release (4.18 )

I never heard about that. Good for them for not doubling down like the GNOME retards. Maybe the kids are alright.

 

[generic sauce]

Granted, VMM is merely a good GUI interface for QEMU, but I like it regardless. Easy for a tech normie like myself to configure without hassling too much with the command line. But if you want to go fully into that, there are options available out there.

VMM is how I manage my VM's from my tossaway shit to my full windows gaming vm with gpu passthrough. IMO really makes working with advanced VMs piss easy.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Fuck Android Auto.

100%. I have it in my current daily (fitted as a replacement for the broken dumb radio, because I thought it'd be nifty). It's marginally useful, but the fact that it defaults to a mangled view with the map always visible and minimal media controls, and the fact it doesn't play nice with my preferred media player, makes it more of a distraction most of the time. My previous car, I fitted a chinesium double din android head unit and it worked just fine, with way more options than auto had. I might try that again, though the more generic ones tend to be marginally out of spec and can't be secured in place.

Obviously, in modern cars where the head unit is completely integrated into the dash, this isn't an option.

 

[FATTESTCUNT 2.0]

There’s this program that comes preinstalled on most copies of Windows 10/11 by default (specifically the ones that come with prebuilt desktops/laptops) called OneDrive and it’s the most insidious piece of shit program I have ever seen in my life. If you aren’t very particular about completely opting out of, disabling and removing OneDrive when you first set up the PC, it makes everything on your hard drive automatically sync up to Microsoft’s cloud storage network and will make weaker computers shit the bed when doing even the most basic file management. I had this issue when I helped some family members set up their brand new PCs only to find several months later that the computers were both constantly synced up through OneDrive, meaning anything downloaded onto one would transfer to the other and vice-versa. These PCs had about a terabyte of space each, but all of that was reserved by OneDrive except a hundred gigabytes or so for personal/system files. Essentially, anything you downloaded and put into your hard drive would be transferred between both computers unless you specify to move it to the space that isn’t being used by OneDrive. It’s the endgame of “you will own nothing and be happy”, it’s a nightmare to remove and an absolute clusterfuck of horrific optimization when it is present, and worst of all? You have to keep paying to use it.

P.S. I know my explanation of OneDrive might be difficult to parse but that’s really a reflection of the program itself. Anyone who has dealt with it for long enough probably knows my pain.

It doesn't make everything on your hard drive sync up to cloud storage. It gives you a OneDrive folder, and everything you manually place in there syncs, then you can optionally choose to have certain folders back up to the cloud: documents, music, pictures, videos, desktop.

It also gives you the option to have synced files/folders automatically download to all synced PCs, or you can choose to only see placeholders instead, so you still see all of your synced stuff, but it's stored in the cloud only until you click on a file/folder and only then is it downloaded. You can change those settings on a per file/folder basis.

Also, it can be uninstalled, just like any other program. Just right-click it in the start menu and choose "Uninstall".

If configured properly, I think it's really useful, because you can access your backed up files on any PC, via any web browser, and via the app on mobile.

You can have any photos/videos you take using your phone upload to OneDrive automatically, so then they will automatically appear on your PC.

You can share links to your files with other people, which doesn't require them to be OneDrive users.

Compatible files will open in the online version of Office, which is pretty cool, and it supports real-time collaboration.

It has a "vault" which is password-protected, so if you place your most secure files in there, they are encrypted and password-protected.

It has its own online recycle bin, so if you accidentally delete a synced file on your PC, you can still retrieve it.

I probably sound like an ad for it, but I don't mean to as I'm no MS fan, but you completely misrepresented what OneDrive is and does, based on what appears to be user error on your part.

 

[khaine]

What you say is all true, but OneDrive is still a giant piece of shit (or at least whatever the fuck my work has done to it).

 

[DavidS877]

What you say is all true, but OneDrive is still a giant piece of shit (or at least whatever the fuck my work has done to it).

I've found companies sometimes make it where your documents folder lives and sometimes some other default folders.

For a good time clone a git repository to a OneDrive managed folder. Talk about having a seizure. I don't remember what I finally had to do to get it all cleaned up. Repeatedly deleting and syncing until it stopped giving weird errors I think. then putting my git stuff in /Users/me/onedrive_sucks/ so it wouldn't try and sync them.

 

[Aljam]

I hate how bad windows has become. Whenever I hear its annoying notification sound or have to fiddle with anything windows I nearly stroke out in rage. Wmi pisses me off and aside from making my own custom panel to get quick access to things I want most of the menu interaction is shit and I'd rather edit a text config like on Linux. Powershell is at least better than the default cli but I hate writing powershell commands out and resort to aliases

 

[Car Won't Crank]

I hate EFF and Snap. Why did cerbot insist on using Snap as the primary installation method?

 

[DavidS877]

I hate EFF and Snap. Why did cerbot insist on using Snap as the primary installation method?

My guess is Canonical went to the EFF and said "We'll give you money if you use our crappy 'packaging' format."

Still the Python version and other alternatives like acme.sh at least.

 

[User names must be unique]

I was going to say Corsair icue then I remembered Asus armoury crate but then I remembered AMD adrenaline.

Seriously why are all utility programmes so unbelievably shit. or did I just happen to pick a component from the worst 3?

 

[Flabba Wabba Jabba]

I was going to say Corsair icue then I remembered Asus armoury crate but then I remembered AMD adrenaline.

Seriously why are all utility programmes so unbelievably shit. or did I just happen to pick a component from the worst 3?

Holy shit dude I am in the same boat. I don't understand why it's so fucking hard to just keep their util tools simple. They have to blow out and try incorporate every feature under the fucking sun. There have been numerous times I'm playing vidya and lose because I press a keyboard combo that opens AMD Adrenaline and then I fucking die in game. Here's all the garbage "gaming" software I have:

• Corsair iCue
• Logitech GHub
• AMD Adrenaline
• Sennheiser EPOS Gaming Suite
• GPU Tweak III

I also have Focusrite Control, but it's actually a good example of simple software that doesn't go beyond its intended purpose.