If you come from Windows Mint is an excellent starting point. People shit on it because it doesn’t have all the fancy bells and whistles you get with more latest releases, but on the flip side it’s super reliable and as a new user that reliability is worth more than all the bells and whistles.

Yeah, it’s definitely more of a case of being just unlucky because it’s not a common issue with the dock. Took me quite a while to find that wire trick.

I think Steam Deck is great and a huge impact on both Linux gaming and handheld gaming. My only gripe with the Steam deck is trying to use it in docked mode. I’m not sure if it’s the TV or the official dock but the only way I could get it working is when I disconnect all the wires from the dock and then connect them in the right order. I think it was 1) connect deck to the dock 2) Connect HDMI to the dock and finally 3) connect power to the dock. If I don’t connect it the right way the signal from the dock to the TV gets fucked up and I either get some really crappy resolution that doesn’t even get properly aligned, weird almost white noise or just straight up black screen. Not really a big issue for me since I mostly use the deck when away from home, but it still that using it at home is such a hassle (at least for me).

In his mind Epic doesn’t need independence from Microsoft because Microsoft isn’t taking a cut of his Fortnite money. Microsoft is bad but Apple and Google take it to the next level. Imagine if Microsoft needed companies to verify their software and with that verification Microsoft can take a cut of every purchase done in that software. So if Steam was verified games sold in the steam software would cost more than opening up a steam website and buying from there. That is Google and Apple in a nutshell. That is actually the case with Twitch subs, they cost more in the Twitch app because of the fee Google adds.

But it’s broken and unplayable because the developer/publisher renders it unplayable and that’s where the initiative comes in. The initiative wants to make it so that if the developer/publisher wants to turn off their official services they don’t render the game unplayable.

You’re stating it like it’s somehow objective, but it’s not. Battlefield 3 and 4 have been delisted and it’s a matter of time until EA turns off services and those games are left for dead. Battlefield 4 still averages above 1k players a month. It’s clear that EA won’t see value in keeping the light on and will turn off the services in the near future, but do you think the players will go overnight from “I want to play this game” to “This game is worthless”. Don’t you think the people playing BF4 wouldn’t want to continue playing after EA shuts down the services keeping the game running?

I think it’s pretty obvious that there are two groups who decide if a game has value or not, the company and the customers. Right now after purchasing the game the customers no longer have a say whether a game has value or not. Only the company has a say and if the company says it’s not worth it then the people who bought it just have to suck it up. And that’s the idea behind the initiative, to make it so that the company isn’t the only one who gets to decide how long you get to use the product you’ve purchased.

I think if we expanded the idea of bricking software beyond gaming, if companies could destroy any piece of software they made, you’d also be in favor of this initiative. Imagine if Microsoft could brick Windows 10 when they’ve officially stopped supporting it. Or Nvidia effectively bricking their older cards by stopping official driver support. Would you then also argue that the software has lost value and it’s acceptable behavior?

I usually agree with Thor but on this one I probably couldn’t disagree more. Based on what he says I’d say his mindset is completely opposite to what his initiative wants to do. He essentially said he doesn’t see any value in (live service) games after they’ve reached their end of service and from that perspective I can understand how this movement is pointless or even potentially damaging. But that assumes that the (live service) game loses value after the company stops supporting it and I just don’t think that’s the case.

A lot of games continue live despite the company ending official support for them. If anyone remembers there’s a gem called Wildstar that was shut down in 2018. Despite the game being shut down and even trademark has expiring people are still running the game on private servers. People are putting in sweat and tears to make sure a game is preserved. Imagine how much easier it would be if Carbine or NcSoft had released proper tools for it. Even Vanilla WoW exists because private server did it first and Blizzard wanted to get some of that money.

And another point that Thor made how it’s not about preservation because you can’t preserve a moment in time. I think that’s a completely disingenuous argument because it feeds into FOMO. If you join WoW today you will never experience “the golden age of WoW”. Maybe another game you might be interested in is having a golden age right now, better buy into the hype. You can’t argue against preservation like this because it’s literally impossible to preserve a moment in time except in your memory so you have be at that exact place at that exact time to really experience that thing, that is FOMO at it’s purest form. That argument against preservation is an argument in favor of FOMO.

Thors points come for a belief that live service games don’t need to be preserved after official support has ended, and he views this initiative through that lens. Of course he will have issues with the initiative because he’s opposing the idea at a fundamental level. It’s like asking a racist how to be more tolerant with other races, the answer obviously is that you shouldn’t want to tolerate other races. And just like you would ignore a racist I think you should ignore what Thor has to say on this matter because anything he says is against the idea of preservation.

I’m genuinely curious what game needs a different version of Steam.

Different versions of Steam? What the fuck are you on about? You must be making your Linux gaming harder than it has to be. I’ve done all sorts of weird shit to install games and mods on Linux but I have never even seen an installation guide that requires somehow creating a different version of Steam.

Even with launch scripts and wine versions Lutris usually covers almost every game I’ve wanted to install. Lutris makes setting up right scripts and wine versions as easy as it is to install runtimes on Windows.

That 7% might not even be people. It could be bots doing HTTP requests and throwing garbage in the user-agent.

I get the privacy issue but there’s effectively no non-kernel anticheats on the market. I think VAC doesn’t run in kernel level and CS is known to have a huge cheating issue, so much that competitive CS has spun off into third party provider who among other things uses a kernel level anticheat. You can’t be for client side anticheat and be against kernel anticheat. Non-kernel anticheat simply doesn’t do its job.

I can’t imagine how Microsoft locks down Kernel so that it’s also locked down for cheat developers (because they don’t really care about regulations). If it’s locked for anticheat developers but not for cheat developers then it’s going to end up being a bad time for us.

Have you considered that the reason cheaters have to go hardware level is because kernel level anti-cheats are effective at what they’re supposed to do?

I’ll also ask this question, what do you are the alternative solutions to client side anticheats?

So is Twitter but that didn’t stop Twitter from becoming wildly popular. YouTube shorts are just tweets in a video format.

Steam deck feels like a product people at Valve would use while the competition is making products they think would sell well. Turns out the product that feels good to use is much better than the product that looks better on paper.

Just last month I was wondering how I would get Vortex working in Linux and decided my backlog is long enough to not bother. Guess it’s time to start another playthrough of New Vegas.

You’re not the only user. Other people may benefit even if you personally don’t. Getting software you don’t want is a compromise for getting an easy out the box installation that comes with what you want already pre-installed.

If you want a more personalized approach there’s always forking a distro and customizing it so that it suits your needs (which is how Nobara came into being).

But I’m that case if Linux gets 1 new user and windows gets 10 then proportionally Linux usage would decrease despite the absolute number increasing.

I would argue the absolute number is meaningless because without context that number has no value. If I tell you there are 3.4 million Linux desktop users does that number actually tell you anything? Not really. You don’t even know if it’s a lot or not because you have no frame of reference. 4% already has that frame built in and gives you an indication how Linux stacks up to other desktop OSs.