Added bonus is that it runs MegaMek natively

This is always a fun thing to read in the wild. Keep on stompin’, MechWarrior! O7 (salute)

Gentoo might have been quite a leap! :p I wanna try it some day as a challenge but it’s def intimidating.

I run Tumbleweed on my main rig and love how crazy stable it is for being cutting edge. Endeavour OS is also cool for this. Both great communities too.

But agree with you on Mint. It’s just a really nice smooth experience. So far it’s on my “little media laptop I won’t update much, need to be reliable, and will probably hand to family on occasion”, and I can trust it’s just gonna work.

Wow, I really appreciate you taking the time. I’m bookmarking this. Thanks, Dan!

As I look to upgrade or re-factor the server a bit, I’m gonna take a closer look at Podman. Not running as root by default sounds extremely sensible!

I tried that with a few of my Docker containers with results ranging from “Did it actually do it?” to “Nice job breaking it, hero.” Lol

OMV has a really nice Docker GUI built in, but I’d much rather be ready to understand the open-for-all solution if I could. :)

Hope you have a great one!

Lutris is cool! It definitely streamlines the process of running things with WINE.

It could have gone through some major changes since I’ve tried it, but I found Heroic to be just a bit more plug-and-play in the sense that it handled the fancy Galaxy stuff like auto-updates, play-time stats, achievements, and cloud saves.

Literally just click install and go, like a drop-in replacement for Galaxy.

I also like that you can choose a Linux build (if it exists) or a windows-with-Proton approach depending on the game.

The only game issue I had was Undertale’s Linux build that had a bit of dependency hell and wouldn’t start…so flipping it to EXE-with-Proton worked like a charm.

Coolest part though? You can totally have both.

I’d personally use Lutris for things like old games that aren’t from digital platforms, or for RetroArch.

I like Heroic for managing cloud saves and handling achievements with GoG titles.

Either way, both are viable and you’ll get your games running somehow! Just different approaches. No harm in seeing which you like most!

Random ProTip while we’re at it: If you couch game, you don’t need to give that up with Linux either! Steam Link can be its own separate program from Steam itself, so it runs a lot leaner. If you have an Nvidia card you can also check out Sunlight/Moonlight for game streaming.

We truly live in exciting times. Happy gaming. :)

“Hey c’mahhhn it’s my birthday, you wouldn’t delete mah account on my birthday, I’m just’a lil’ birthday boi!”

Their Galaxy client seems like it’ll never get there. Fortunately we have Heroic Launcher, and it pretty much rocks! I’m fully confident I can enjoy the vast majority of my games on Linux now.

Okay but at the end of the day it’s not like you’re Tony Stark making Jericho missiles.

Linux, encryption, the Internet, heck, computers, are so generalized as a technology that the burden of sin lies with whomever would pervert these tools against their fellow man.

I’ve heard of Palantir, now Anduril… What’s next, Saruman Ltd.? Uruk-Hai-corp? Poor Tolkien doesn’t deserve his mythology being co-opted by war profiteers. :(

All the Deus Ex games go for ridiculously cheap and are such a great fun-per-dollar ratio IMHO.

Yes, even Invisible War, if one embraces its weird consoley quirks. XD (bias: I enjoyed it on my OG Xbox back in the day. Universal ammo is so stupid though.)

Still gotta play Mankind Divided. I hope they finish the series one day. They absolutely nailed it with the iconic aesthetic, and Adam Jensen is just so freaking cool. :)

After a while I finally picked up Parkitect. I’ve been having a blast with OpenRTC2 lately, and everyone says if you like Rollercoaster Tycoon, Parkitect really follows that idea.

Still burning through the old school games, but I’m excited to play this one! Especially with workshop support.

Meme gave me a laugh. XD

I see people not happy with Docker as a company, and, I get that, tech co. Lol

But I gotta admit, it’s definitely been awesome for self hosting. My home server would probably just be OpenMediaVault and a Samba share if I couldn’t just spin up compose files and had to worry about every app wanting its own database and stuff!

Are there better alternatives for newbs who just wanna self host stuff?

Haha so many times I’ve heard stuff playing that sounds catchy in like random sandwich shops, and hunt down where I can get a clear detection on it.

It’s actually pretty impressive what the average smartphone mic can pick up … For better and worse. =\

But I’ve found some favorite songs that way. It beats the old days of trying really hard to discern some words in the lyrics and hoping a search engine would help!

It even works for the music library!? Jellyfin is crazy rad.

And the story is set in modern times but it sounds like an 80’s arcade cabinet. Bwoop-bwoop pew pew!

Granted some people are so focused while gaming that they look like drowned salmon, but streamers have proven you can still be emotive and act whilst gaming lol.

by calling MS support.

Which hopefully wasn’t a 1-800 number flashing obnoxiously on the screen. 😂

Awesome! Thunar is legit. 😁

Unless you’re Bruce Wayne, in which case when asked you might say NA NA-NA NA-NA NA-NA NA…

I’ll see myself out.

It has nothing to do with fun, they just want the carrot being dangled in front of their nose.

This might explain the marketing that seemed to start with mobile games and now infects AAA MP titles:

“PLAY NOW AND GET 34 GAZILLION WORTHLESS EMERALDRUBYGEMCOINS and a RARE DROP POPSICLE MAGIC DOMINO”

Like…a newcomer would have zero idea what the heck they’re even talking about but somehow it seems to work, to entice players with worthless free…server database adjustments?

Hardly any focus is on the games being unique or exciting (Surprise, they aren’t!) It’s all about a reward-based impulse, like training a bunch of rodents to use a casino.

In an alternate timeline Fireworks MX went open source and people might use one or the other but everyone’s happy. Lol

if they changed the workflow to be like Photoshop, it would leave those of us who know how to use Gimp but not Photoshop high and dry

That’s a VERY good point. I think a good example would be how Blender has evolved in the last decade or so.

It started out very “in-house” and unconventional, but it had very specific UX principles in mind rather than just aping “ThE iNdUsTrY”. Coming from learning 3D MAX to OG pre-3.5 Blender was really difficult. Right-click select?!

But like Blender, I feel like GIMP could benefit from having easily adjustable settings that could line up with what a particular user finds intuitive. Certain layer behavior seems to be the big one here. The settings are there, they’re just awkwardly small buttons or buried in menus.

(Adding the universal transform tool was a VERY nice jump in the right direction.)

Blender’s UI / UX overhaul caused a bit of screeching, but overall was instrumental in balancing accessibility with familiarity to existing users. It made those options very accessible and modular.

For instance, I always use left-click-select, but I use the “Blender way” for everything else. If someone’s coming from Maya? There’s the “industry standard keymap” for them.

Sorry for the ramble. LOL

WW2 again, I don’t mind learning the era but I’ve relearned the same thing over and over again

When your history class is written by the same folks responsible for the History Channel circa ~2002-2010.