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bigmclargehuge

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bigmclargehuge ,
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Debian might at least be worth a look. It's been around for ages and is incredibly stable. No, it's not bleeding edge, but there's always Debian Sid (unstable).

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Never liked XBox controllers. They feel fat and clunky, especially trying to use the bumpers, I feel like I have to strain my fingers. I also hate the way the sticks feel in general, theres something about the friction curves that's just... off. Idk how to describe it. Also, no gyroscope. I will praise the triggers on the XBox one controllers though. I like the shape and the amount of travel they have, I think they rock for racing games.

My favourite controller is the Dualshock 4. Haven't had a chance to try the Dualsense but even that looks a little bloated. The DS4 is lean, has all the features I want, and those thumbsticks are the best I've used on a stock controller. You can practically use them like a trackpoint on a laptop, they're very precise and great for use with a linear response curve in shooters with zero deadzone.

I just finished setting up Linux Mint for an old buddy of mine on his old dog of a laptop, rendering it useful once again! ( i.imgur.com )

Edit 2: to everyone suggesting an SDD: i know. Look, if this guy had enough $$$ for an SSD, he could buy a used lappy less than half the age of this one that has an ssd and 2-3x the memory....

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Warms my crusty heard seeing tech saved from a landfill. Good job

Perfect Dark Reboot Is Allegedly In Bad Shape ( www.gamespot.com )

I don't think big companies know how to make a good FPS campaign anymore, let alone hone in on classic deathmatch multiplayer. The last FPS I bought was Half-Life: Alyx four years ago, and the first one to come along and interest me since then was Phantom Fury, but I'm letting that one iron out bugs for a few weeks before I...

bigmclargehuge ,
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They've actually stated within the last year that they are in fact considering moving away from the games industry if certain things dont happen for them. This came out during the whole court proceedings surrounding their attempted Activision buyout.

I can't remember the details and I'm too lazy to look into it again lol. There are some interesting articles out there tho

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Ground Branch on PC has some of the best I've ever seen. NPCs will, for example, if shot in the neck, clutch their throat and dynamically transition into a ragdoll as their animations become more sloppy until they go completely limp. It's actually kind of unsettling how brutal it is.

What's sad is that this game is a low budget passion project made by former Rainbow Six devs (the OG R6 games), not a AAA game backed by a massive corperation.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

99% positive. Wayland works flawlessly. HDR didn't cause issues (all AMD hardware).

The only issues I have off the top of my head are

1: Some icons in the system tray and system settings menu (the 'Clipboard' icon on the dock and the 'Touchscreen' tab in settings, and a couple others) display as a blank rectangle sometimes. Other times, they display as they should. Haven't even bothered looking for a solution as it doesn't effect usability in the slightest.

2: Certain pop up menus for dock applets, ie the Bluetooth applet, display incorrectly. I actually saw a post of another user having this issue, where the window only shows as a small square, and can require a re-log to actually make it work.

Other than these minor glitches, nothing has given me any issues.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

My go-to for a workaround to networking issues is to use USB Tethering from my phone. Most Android phones from the past decade or so should support it, not sure about Apple. It's super handy because all the configuration is done via the phone, so the computer needs no drivers or settings. Just plug n play until you get things set up on the computer.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Bounced on my boys joystick to this for hours

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Wouldn't it be nice to not have your info spread across thosands of accounts that you yourself even implied you don't keep track of?

What sony pulled, and coporate moves like it, are at least in part a result of people saying "meh, what's one more account, I've already got thousands."

We as a community aren't an immaculate entity. Companies don't just make these moves out of nowhere, they analyze what we're willing to do so they can take advantage of those things to make money. That's not some sleazy secret scheme, thats basic market research. If we collectively show we do actually care about this stuff and won't supoort their business when they do it, it might not happen so often.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

I mind.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Yes. Sony went back on the PSN requirement. No one on PC needs to sign in to anything other than Steam.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah as an Arch user I disagree. Imo a handheld meant to be a plug and play system would hugely benefit from a stable OS with a laid back update schedule. You don't see PlayStation pushing constant updates the second BSD packages get new versions.

As others have said, Valve has their own immutable release system, so it doesn't really matter. In this case, the rolling release has even less to do with it. They likely chose Arch due to the up to date packages which benefit gaming.

bigmclargehuge , (edited )
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Remember when telemetry/data collection across the internet was often optional and pretty minor?

The more shit we absentmindedly agree to because it's not really a big deal in the short term, the worse it gets in the long term.

If I play a game on Steam, then Playstation, EA, Ubisoft, etc should all fuck off. I already gave those companies my money, it's insulting that that isn't enough anymore.

Edit: great point I just saw someone else mention, the fact that Sony has allowed over 100 million users' data to be exposed due to various breaches by bad actors over the past 15 years. At least one of those times, the data was revealed to be nowhere near as secure as it should have been.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Why is that too high of a bar to clear? I'm not saying every game should be open source from day one (and tbh I think the people who say all software should be free have their head up their ass. People worked on it, some people want to get paid for that work).

However, how does it hurt Ubisoft to wait 5 or so years after shutting down the crew, then releasing the source code? By then, anything relevant to a competitor looking to ape off them, or a bad actor looking to cheat or carry out an attack would be irrelevant, and it would at least give the community a chance at creating something from the leftovers (even a dummy server that doesn't allow multiplayer, but just lets the game pass any "can I connect to the master server" checks, kind of like what the Single Player Tarkov mod does).

I mean, Doom is the prime example. Would people care anywhere near as much about Doom if it never went open source? It would be a great game, but it would probably no longer be relevant. I can't see that as being a bad thing for most companies (although I'm perfectly aware that the suits of major game studios will never see it that way).

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

I got into linux right before all the snap drama really blew up (it did exist but didn't seem to be quite as hot of a topic). I really liked my experience with Ubuntu, but seeing where Canonical has taken it, I'd never recommend it to anyone. I'd honestly advise newbies to use Debian. It's incredibly stable, has a fantastic and well established community, and has everything an average user would want without adding layers of confusion with things like snap.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

The reason no one is making HL3 is because no one wants to, at least not long term.

Idk if you know much about how Valve is structured as a game studio, but it's a bit atypical. It's not like Gabe Newell comes in and says "today everybody starts working on HL3", projects get greenlit and then whichever employees want to work on them are free to do so, and if they decide they're uninterested, for whatever reason, they can leave the project.

What this means, is that if a project starts to pick up steam (no pun intended) within the company, more and more people join in, and this creates a passionate team. Various Half-Life projects since Ep2 have been started, none were finished (until Alyx), not because they were decisively axed for more corporate reasons like many other games, but because for one reason or another, the devs became uninterested or burned out, and went to work on other things they actually wanted to work on.

I think at this point, the only way we'll ever see HL3 is if a team comes up with something completely groundbreaking and is absolutely dedicated to getting it done. Apparently, there just hasn't been that winning combo yet. I can't blame them, because if they half assed any aspect of it, they'd never hear the end of it.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Eyes open for my countries petition. Been wanting to support this for a while

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

This was my fathers approach when I was growing up. I was basically allowed to do whatever I wanted offline. But, outside of a small handful of websites (a couple gaming websites maybe), everything online needed his permission. This gave me a really solid understanding of how things worked, troubleshooting, etc, while also not letting me see anything too heinous.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Hehe well my dirty secret is that I was a Windows XP and MacOS X kid😅 I still have a real soft spot for those systems, especially XP. If I were ever to have kids though, I'd take this approach and introduce them to Linux young.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

I love tactical shooters and, at its core, EFT is one of the best. By core, I mean the movement, gunplay, physics, sound design, etc. When the going is good, there is almost no experience as visceral as EFT.

What I personally think fucking sucks is basically everything else. Especially the tryhard, creatine-powder-snorting, sweatband wearing *community that has zero sympathy for people who actually have a life and want a really detailed tactical shooter, without dedicating 15 hours a week into researching bullet penetration and common camping spots. Couple that with devs who seem to show active distaste for a lot of their more casual fans, and casual gamers in general, and you end up with a really mixed bag.

I'm one of the people who had this game completely revived for me by the single player mod, SPT-AKI. I can play on my own, with progression, and slightly more laid back difficulty, while still enjoying challenging AI and some of the best gunfights in gaming. I would absolutely love to play an official pve mode, I absolutely refuse to pay $250 for it.

*edit: this only obviously describes a portion of the community. Should clarify that I know there are plenty of players that this doesn't describe.

bigmclargehuge ,
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Single Player Tarkov. It's a mod that replaces player PMCs with modified AI, plus allows the installation of numerous other mods.

Basically perfect for people who love the gunplay and gameplay loop, but don't care for the playerbase.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

This is the first im hearing of project fika, I'd actually looked into co-op SPT a few months back and things weren't seeming optimistic, it's super cool that it's come that far.

And yes, the game has tons of detail and it's worth at least brushing up on some wiki articles to understand things like ammunition hierarchy. I actually tend to prefer games that lend themselves to a bit of research to get the most out of them (300 hours in Elite Dangerous and I'm still a noob).

Really I was just trying to make the point that this is a game where if you just want to jump in for a few matches without doing that research, you'll get absolutely demolished, even if you don't meet a cheater, because so many people play this game obsessively.

That's why I vastly prefer PVE and always will. That detail is there, but I'm not at a complete disadvantage if I want to take a more relaxed approach. I'm not forced into a match against players who take this video game more seriously than I take my job.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

I'd really love to see an open source Steam Controller. I love those things and the supplies are basically dried up.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

It doesn't really matter though, because Wine is mature enough that it's not a hacky diy fix, it's a viable solution. None of the games I play run any worse on Linux than they did on Windows, and some run better. The vast majority of people don't care whether it's native or not, they just want it to work.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah but here's the thing. The linux community actually has measurable and immediate impact on the OS they choose to involve themselves in.

Have an issue with MacOS or Windows? The absolute best case scenario is that you complain to the devs and they might fix it in a future update.

Have an issue on Linux? Luckily the community you are a part of is also the development team, so you can work together to directly make changes. If those changes aren't to your satisfaction, you can even find some like-minded people and start your own distro.

bigmclargehuge OP ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

I'd be willing to use flatpak if all else fails. I've had lots of wierd issues with flatpak that overall have me leaning away from using them if at all possible. I generally prefer using native programs unless there is literally no other option.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Worth mentioning that Helldivers is hugely and openly influenced by Starship troopers, which although not as big as something like D&D, is still pretty well known in pop-culture to this day, at least in the sci-fi circles.

bigmclargehuge , (edited )
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

I use jstest-gtk. Really light handy tool for testing and calibration. Antimicrox also works great for rebinding controllers.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

If you reset all theming options to default (icons, window decorations, colors, etc), and backup your config files, there should be no issues upgrading to KDE6. Keep in mind though, most themes for KDE5 don't work for 6 unless the author updated, or you're willing to manually modify a couple files. Most icon packs should be available though.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

There was never really "a burning" that destroyed it in one go. Over many years, there were numerous factors that caused many of the works to be lost. Some were lost to smaller fires, some were stolen, some just disintegrated due to age. If no one bothered to copy them by hand to have more than one copy, that was that.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

I'm personally not a fan of any universal packaging solution. I've tried flatpaks, appimages, and snaps, and ran into weird, annoying issued that I just never have when I install via package manager, build from source or even just run a portable build of an app.

I see the appeal of a universal package, but imo a bigger emphasis on portable native builds would solve a lot of the issues these packaging solutions are aiming for, while not introducing many of the downsides

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

In an age where everyone rags on live service games that will inevitably lose support, a cheap, fun, well made, feature complete game (and was that way on release) that gets infrequent updates is "abandoned" and "insultingly barebones". Classic 2024 gamer moment right there

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Sorry, should say I mean feature complete in a relative sense. Ie, some EA games are essentially tech demos, and you're funding a theoretical game when you buy. If those games stopped getting updates, you're left with a mostly empty unreal engine project, not a full video game.

Valheim was a full video game on day one. A buddy and I played many hours when it first came out and thoroughly enjoyed it. If no updates came out, I might have felt like there was some unmet potential, but I certainly wouldn't have been insulted. Bottom line, take away the roadmap, I still see a great game with enough going for it to stand on its own.

What're some of the dumbest things you've done to yourself in Linux?

I'm working on a some materials for a class wherein I'll be teaching some young, wide-eyed Windows nerds about Linux and we're including a section we're calling "foot guns". Basically it's ways you might shoot yourself in the foot while meddling with your newfound Linux powers....

bigmclargehuge , (edited )
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

My biggest thing when switching to Linux was understanding why I didn't have permission to alter half of my file structure. I was trying to take ownership of my /usr directory as a user and had to have multiple people explain why that was a bad idea (and why simply making any changes as a super user via terminal was more than adequate for the results I wanted).

My mindset was a result of so many user files being spread across dozens of branches of the Windows file structure. Some very close to the root of the drive, some a few directories deeper. I didn't really understand the benefit of having all my stuff in /home (and am now a full convert. Just thinking about navigating a Windows drive makes my skin crawl now).

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Gotta say, yours ain't bad either my friend

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

As a few others have said, most distributions are good for gaming. Arch, being a distribution that requires lots of manual configuration, requires some setup for the best performance.

Read these two articles throughly and use the tweaks that apply to your system/needs.

Straight from the Arch Wiki:

Improving Performance

Gaming (section 7 and section 9 are especially useful).

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

When l go to upgrade my system and my skin crawls.

Seriously though, generally I justwantt only what I actually use. I recently reinstalled because I had a bunch if useless junk that was eating space for zero gain.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

"The new generation"

So there are no 40 year olds who blindly pre order the 15th CoD game because that's all they play? This is a general issue in the gaming community as a whole.

bigmclargehuge , (edited )
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Have it on GOG and play via heroic. I get 80+ FPS at high settings @1440p (balanced FSR), AMD R7 5800x, RX 7600XT. This is on Arch.

I had to use winetricks to install some DLLs to the prefix in order for the game to work properly with mods, but beyond that I've had no issues.

Edit, I just reinstalled the game yesterday. Installed via heroic, set my wine version to Proton experimental. Set my launch executable to Cyberpunk2077.exe, rather than the launcher (launcher was just a black box for me). Opened winecfg from heroics settings for the game, went to the Libraries tab, and added version to my list of installed libraries. That can be typed in manually, or picked from the drop down. After that, the game works as expected, and most mods I tried work (unfortunately, a resource called Codeware that a lot of mods rely on seems to crash my game. However, I only have a handful of mods, and none of the ones I use need it).

bigmclargehuge , (edited )
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Some Android phones can already be dual booted with (in theory) any other UEFI compatible OS. There's a whole guide on the PostmarketOS about setting up a dual boot environment.

I briefly tested PostmarketOS on a OnePlus 6T. The core functions seemed fine but overall it lacked functionality, so my plan was to dual boot with LineageOS (a degoogled android project) for the bits that really just want a true android environment to function properly, and PmOS for everything else I could manage. In the end I just wasn't up for the process of setting up a dual boot, and went with just LineageOS. Been really happy with it so far, and will probably revisit dual booting when PmOS is more feature complete.

Edit, I suppose this doesn't touch on the idea of running two separate OS's on separate chips, and it does require a reboot to get the functionality of one OS or another, but besides that hiccup you'd get mostly the same functionality out of less complex hardware.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

I have a rule about acronyms: if the spelling makes sense to be said as a word, I follow the English grammatical rules. A word that's spelled s-u-s-e would be pronounced "soos", so that's what I say.

This is why I don't pronounce GNU as "ga-noo", it doesn't make sense as a word. In those cases, I just spell them out.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

No. I've never seen an english word resembling this type of spelling, so I just say each letter.

To each their own, imo my way reduces the risk of confusion. There's no way to misinterpret what I mean when I say G-N-U rather than g'nue

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Well thats the thing, generally if I see an acronym and have to ask myself how it would be pronounced as a word, by my rule I just spell it out.

For a great example of this (unrelated to FOSS), look at LGBTQIA+. Even though it's a mouthful to say each letter individually, no one wrestles it into "Leguhbuht'kwia plus", it just doesn't make sense and saying it that way would probably ellicit a dead stare from whoever heard it. Unless it's painfully simple to morph into a word or single syllable, I don't bother.

I'm not trying to say this is the right way, mind you. It's just the way that makes the most sense to me.

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Well I'll be, I humbly stand corrected. I will don the dunce cap for this one

bigmclargehuge ,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

How to actually get games running:

Download steam, make an account, log in. Go to the settings, find "Steam Play" and enable for unsupported titles. This enables Proton, which is a customized version of Wine, a Windows-Linux translation layer, plus some extra tweaks specifically for gaming. This lets you play the vast majority of all Windows games on Steam on your Linux machine.

Check out protondb to find out how compatible your chosen game is. You'll see a rating, as well as user experiences on how well it worked, what issues they experienced, and the tweaks they made to mitigate them (take note that there is a section on each games page that is specific to the Steamdeck, Valves handheld. Not all info in this section is relevant to general PC users, so make sure you follow the more generic section).

If you look around and find a specific game that isn't on Steam, Heroic Launcher and Lutris are your friends.

Heroic is a very nicely polished launcher for Epic Games, Amazon and GOG. It allows you to pool all three into a single library. You can use tools like winetweaks directly in the launcher, pick different Wine/proton versions per-game, etc. I'd use this as a secondary option to Steam.

Lutris also allows you to pool your games from multiple storefronts into one (Steam, Epic, EA, Ubisoft, GOG, and manually installed). Lutris can be a little complex compared to Steam and Heroic. It's very powerful, but somewhat spartan and can also be a bit buggy in some specific instances. It's very well suited for older games that aren't on major storefronts, emulators, or old CD games, mainly thanks to its option to set games up via standard windows installers or add existing games by pointing lutris to their installation path.

TL;DR, Start with steam, try some cheaper/free games. A great starting point would be Valves own games, as they're cheap and heaps of fun (Portal, Half-Life, etc). They also usually have a Linux native version so you don't need proton (although, counterintuitively, I find Linux Native games often don't work as well as Windows games+proton). After you get your toes wet, go for some other storefronts and library apps. Have fun and good luck, don't be afraid to ask for help.

Easily find program name from context menu/without terminal?

I occasionally need to know the names of programs. I asked here about "Run as Administrator" being added to the context menu (like in Windows), and the response was basically "can't be easily done". an example is if I wish to edit a config file it cannot be done without accessing the terminal. Knowing the name "gedit" is the...

bigmclargehuge , (edited )
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Find the .desktop file for the desired program (should be in /usr/share/applications) Right click, properties, then somewhere in that window, it should show the exact command that the .desktop file invokes when launched. In that command should be the actual program name (ie, /usr/bin/firefox-esr, firefox-esr is your program name).

Alternatively, right click, "Open With", choose a text editor, then you'll see a couple lines of information. One of those lines of info should be that command as well.

Edit, to be fair, I'm also not a fan of Gnome's obfuscation of program names. It may make sense for very new users, but I also found it counterproductive in certain use cases

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