this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
124 points (83.3% liked)

Memes

45764 readers
1475 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (7 children)

GNU/Linux:

  • Can I install this 20yo software?
  • Is already installed.
[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can I install this 20yo software?

user is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported

SUDO Can I install this 20yo software?

Is already installed.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Jumuta 18 points 1 year ago (4 children)

how about this driver for an obscure 20yo laptop's touchpad?

already installed

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Had this exact scenario with an old flatbed scanner. No win10 drivers and it never had mac drivers. Ran without issue in up to date Mint.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you do echo "3 6 * p" | dc in a terminal it'll give you the result of 3x6, but the dc part of that is software that was written probably between 1969 and 1971.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

there is nothing to do

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What a fuckin lie. Can't play some Windows 7 games on Windows 10 or above but on Linux it works.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I will always remember Battle For Middle Earth working first try on Linux after spending hours fighting with it on Windows

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That game is a classic.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
  • "Can you run on this 20 y/o piece of hardware?"
  • Linux: "hold my beer!"
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Only if you use 15 years old distribution. Linux actually drops support of older hardware faster than Windows, it just doesn't happen consistently. Old drivers are maintained by volunteers so if someone wants to spend their free time on a driver for 25 years old hardware then it will work. But the moment that single developer disappears or stops caring then this driver is booted from the kernel fast. Supporting old hardware isn't the goal of Linux unless someone make it their goal (and core developers don't care either way as long as it's not their job).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I mean, tons of old drivers are on the repositories of major distros, you just have to install them. Just because it's not in the kernel as pre-configured doesn't mean you can't just add it.

[–] socialjusticewizard 3 points 1 year ago

That's never been my experience in the slightest.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Linux gang has entered the chat

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Linux:

User: Can you install this 50 year old program?

Linux: it's already installed

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

User: Linux can you install this software from this ancient obscure operating system?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

No you can't because the dependency doesn't exit anymore.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Tfw compatibility for some old Windows programs and games is better in Wine than in modern Windows

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

In my experience, Windows can install a 25 year old program, but it won't work

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Gonna be honest, this isn't my experience, a lot of stuff just doesn't work on Windows anymore

I can get those same programs to work fairly easily on linux though using Wine/Proton

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Windows is def better than Mac for backwards compatibility, but nah dude it's not even close to perfect. Ive had better luck using wine for old windows programs

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Windows is 90% bloat, 9% library and 1% operational...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Not my experience. I've had multiple old games and an old printer that just straight up didn't work under Windows. On Linux however (using wine for the windows exe's) it usually does run. Sometimes it does require some googling, but there's usually someone who tried it before.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Games are actually the hardcore compatibility test. They are much less compatible than the average piece of software. That's due to them using much more of the hardware/low-level-APIs of the OS, but also due to DRM and Anti-Cheat-Software (where applicable).

And printers are also (for some reason) super difficult. Probably because they are cheap, planned-obsolescence pieses of crap hardware, which are chock-full of DRM.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do current Windows versions even start anything that was compiled for pre-Vista? I thought they don't?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes. It's 16bit app support for win3.1/95 stuff that ran in the DOS layer that's depreciated, but even then they'll sometimes run.

[–] flambonkscious 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

We still have some ridiculous genetics algorithm running inside dosbox, of all things, in an App-V virtual environment deployed across a farm of hundreds of Citrix servers running inside various VMware hosts and published up to some geneticist freaks at the hospital I look after.

It's absolutely insane...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Yes, you can start almost all 32 bit software in Windows 11.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

if that's the case why do I still have to support XP as some shop floor measurement device still uses software from that, and window 7 for the database of greases then the likilhood is the windows 10 to windows 11 project is taking 6months planning of impact assessments. (pretty sure if we had let them the tool planning dept would still be running their windows 3.1 lotus suite

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

More like "Installing... Do you want avast or X or Y installed along with it?" No thanks, I very much prefer Linux package managers.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The third panel of that is LINUX: Can you install this 25 year old program?

It was already installed on there.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Sadly exactly that is the reason that windows is just a bunch of spaghetti code XD

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I tried to install Civilization 2 from a CD on Windows 10. It didn't work.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

there's workaround but it's a pain in the ass... https://www.myabandonware.com/game/sid-meier-s-civilization-ii-453

basically

  1. the game use old .bin disk file, you must convert it to .iso
  2. mount the .iso
  3. run the setup.exe to install Civilization II
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Windows after launching the exe: Monitor flickers, mouse freezes and here is free blue screen!

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And yet somehow, it's also complete garbage. I've tried installing win10 while having 11 drives connected to my system. Guess what, the win10 installer can't count past 10, so instead of installing to drive 11 like it should have, it installed to drive 1. Because no one would ever use more than 10 drives in their system I guess. Drive 1 was my current OS and got nuked hard, even my backups couldn't get it to work again.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah Windows compatibility is both amazingly impressive and complete garbage.

Need to run something from 1992? Sure! No problem!

Need to run something from 2021? Sorry, no compatibility for that old API.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This has been a great boon to me. Whenever Apple upgrades Mac OS, I check my regional equivalent to craigslist for cheap music gear that stops working. Has worked twice for me. I got a really nice 24 channel audio interface for 20 bucks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I hear a lot about Windows backwards compatibilyty, but i don't think it has ever actualy worked for me. Every time i tried to install a program meant for anything older then win7/win10 i get some cryptic error and end up using a VM.

load more comments
view more: next ›