Right. GCC -f optimizations are basically like “how hard are we going to try to be clever” and are, I believe, orthogonal to the actual instructions used. Machine dependent args start with -m, like -march or -mavx etc.

I feel guilty about it, but I appreciate the monthly pass. I played EUIV for exactly one month, at a total cost of like $7 (got the base game for free at some point) with all the bells and whistles. It seemed like a good compromise because you’d have to pay it for years at this point to cover the DLC out right, but it is a disgusting level of rent seeking behavior.

Now it bothers me that I’d need to put another $7-$10 into the machine to access those saves, but not as much as if I’d throw down hundreds of dollars on it to own the content for a 10 year old game.

For XP, the machine KVM presents as may be too new, but that isn’t an issue with non-virtualized QEMU.

TIOBE is weighted toward languages that have existed for a long time by virtue of counting lines written / skilled engineers etc. but the speed at which Rust is climbing that list is a better indicator. Also, a lot of the languages above it wouldn’t be appropriate for anything like a DE.

But you’re right, it’s hyped, I just think the hype is real.

This is a weird take. Rust is very popular and is the current heir apparent to C for systems level stuff. It’s a great choice to start a new DE/toolkit.

As for the rest, you’re right the end user doesn’t care about the language their graphical app is in, but the developers fielding their bug reports and making fixes/features sure do.

That trackpad was a game changer for playing KB+M games with a controller, but to be honest sometimes I really miss the right joystick. The trackpad can fake it, but it’s not the same.

If they ever do another standalone controller I’d want it to be like a screen-less Deck. Both joysticks and trackpads and a couple more grips.

Sims 3 was my favorite for the open world and freelance jobs too. Was nice to be able to secure an income without disappearing off the map for 8 hours a day. Was surprised 4 didn’t follow through on that as much but I only played it a little.

My wife plays Sims with cheats all the time and I get that it becomes a fancy interactive dollhouse in that case, but to me the game is all about that progression from bachelor in a one room box to old family man in a mansion.

John Carmack, author of the Doom engine, is a long time Linux user and for a while the policy was to open source the idTech engines once they had moved on.

However, Doom was hugely popular on its own before this, and was actually more pivotal for making Windows a gaming platform (over DOS).

The reason it runs everywhere is a combination of it’s huge popularity, it’s (now) open source and it’s generally low system requirements.

It does that everywhere, even on non .deb distros.

One thing I’d like to suggest is get most of their forward facing apps as Flatpak and let them install software that way instead of using the system package manager (even if it has a GUI). This jibes with others suggesting an immutable base system.

Obviously this may be more of a concern for older kids, but my kid started with Linux and it did fine… Right up until Discord started breaking because it was too old and they didn’t want to tangle with the terminal. Same thing when Minecraft started updating Java versions. Discord and Prismlauncher from Flatpak (along with Proton and Steam now) would have kept them happier with Linux.

As for internet, routers come with parental controls these days too, which have the added advantage of being able to cover phones (at least while not on mobile data). Setting the Internet to be unavailable for certain devices after a certain time on school nights may be a more straightforward route than DE tools.