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Latest 30 Comments

News - Proton 11 Beta arrives to bring enhanced gaming compatibility to Linux / SteamOS
By shimmy, 18 Apr 2026 at 8:07 am UTC
Sigh. Doesn't seem like it's using the Wayland driver 🤔
News - Linux Mint confirm longer release cycles, the next release is planned for Christmas 2026
By tuubi, 18 Apr 2026 at 6:09 am UTC
Quoting: enigmaxg2
Quoting: WanderdueneI really enjoy using Mint because it's stable and very user-friendly, and I also welcome the fact that planning and stability are being prioritised by the developers. Will Mint's extended release cycles have an impact on me as a gamer?
For gaming, if you play the latest and greatest: CachyOS or Bazzite

If you wait some time to play them (waiting for bugfixing, DLC, etc) you can go with a more slow-paced distro.
I'm not outright disputing your claim, but is this based on any evidence? Can you name a game that worked on CachyOS at launch, but not Ubuntu? I get that sometimes a new feature in DXVK or Proton might require a recent GPU driver / Mesa, but those are readily available on any stable distro. And Linux native games tend to recommend (and test against) stable distros like Ubuntu anyway, and so does Valve with Steam.

The question is genuine, simply because I don't remember a single situation where I wanted to run a new game but couldn't due to my choice of distro. Might be because I mostly buy native Linux games. Non-native games I might pick up heavily discounted a year or two after launch. I've always got a long wishlist, and I seem to be immune to FOMO.
News - METRO 2039 gets revealed for release this Winter
By M@GOid, 18 Apr 2026 at 2:25 am UTC
Personally I'm happy there are studios still focused in creating single player FPS games, specially AAA ones that cost a lot of money to make it happen.

Not that those had disappeared, but I'm under the impression we only get one per year, while there is a sea of multiplayer FPSs, with more appearing each month.
News - Linux Mint confirm longer release cycles, the next release is planned for Christmas 2026
By enigmaxg2, 18 Apr 2026 at 2:02 am UTC
Quoting: WanderdueneI really enjoy using Mint because it's stable and very user-friendly, and I also welcome the fact that planning and stability are being prioritised by the developers. Will Mint's extended release cycles have an impact on me as a gamer?
For gaming, if you play the latest and greatest: CachyOS or Bazzite

If you wait some time to play them (waiting for bugfixing, DLC, etc) you can go with a more slow-paced distro.
News - The first major update for Slay the Spire 2 is out now
By inlinuxdude, 18 Apr 2026 at 12:12 am UTC
STS2 is great already (and getting better all the time)...Not sure why Chinese players don't understand its early access and still being worked on... :(
News - Proton 11 Beta arrives to bring enhanced gaming compatibility to Linux / SteamOS
By AnonymousBroccoli, 17 Apr 2026 at 11:48 pm UTC
With this ARM64 & FEX business, someone got a very early version of SteamOS running on a Nintendo Switch.

[SDHQ news post](https://steamdeckhq.com/news/steam-game-mode-nintendo-switch-proton-11-arm/)
News - The first major update for Slay the Spire 2 is out now
By Arehandoro, 17 Apr 2026 at 6:56 pm UTC
I feel like Early Access games should not have reviews enabled, or they should be only private to use as feedback for the developers.
News - SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) ban AI / LLM code contributions
By Purple Library Guy, 17 Apr 2026 at 6:34 pm UTC
Quoting: SakuretsuCan they really be 100% sure none of the code from some contribution was generated by AI?
No. No project can. And? What's your point?
News - SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) ban AI / LLM code contributions
By Sakuretsu, 17 Apr 2026 at 6:32 pm UTC
Can they really be 100% sure none of the code from some contribution was generated by AI?
News - Proton 11 Beta arrives to bring enhanced gaming compatibility to Linux / SteamOS
By Blisto, 17 Apr 2026 at 6:30 pm UTC
Quoting: TimeFreezeNot sure how Deadly Premonition is considered Playable now. All i get is an immediate Crash to Desktop after the startup and few logos.
If you have the time then I'd appreciate if you could comment in the Proton issue https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/2284
Include a Proton log
News - PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 can now auto-configure games for you
By StalePopcorn, 17 Apr 2026 at 6:13 pm UTC
I need to get an optical drive. I want to play Metal Gear 4 again
News - METRO 2039 gets revealed for release this Winter
By Eike, 17 Apr 2026 at 5:58 pm UTC
I'm not sure what "this winter" means? We've got spring in my (northern) book, so I guess end of the year or beginning of next one?
News - Linux Mint confirm longer release cycles, the next release is planned for Christmas 2026
By Caldathras, 17 Apr 2026 at 5:50 pm UTC
Well, two points I can make about it as it relates to myself:

(1) I don't run on the latest and greatest hardware, so most of the benefits that one would look for in a bleeding-edge rolling distro wouldn't be of use to me anyway.

(2) For the most part, I don't play recent AAA games that would depend on me having the latest and greatest hardware. From recent games I do look at, I choose the ones that provide a broader range of hardware support than your typical AAA game manages to do these days. I am content to run on lower resolutions, especially if it will improve the performance of the game.

As a result, Linux Mint meets my needs. A longer release cycle doesn't concern me as it means greater stability and less time spent on troubleshooting O/S upgrades. Thus, more time to play actual games...
News - Proton 11 Beta arrives to bring enhanced gaming compatibility to Linux / SteamOS
By TimeFreeze, 17 Apr 2026 at 5:34 pm UTC
Not sure how Deadly Premonition is considered Playable now. All i get is an immediate Crash to Desktop after the startup and few logos.
News - Death Stranding 2 patch 1.4 should make it look better on lower settings
By Mountain Man, 17 Apr 2026 at 5:29 pm UTC
This game has been running great for me in Manjaro Linux.
News - The first major update for Slay the Spire 2 is out now
By bisbyx, 17 Apr 2026 at 5:18 pm UTC
The biggest change for me is that they removed the ability to progress or unlock things in custom games. Which I get. Feels reasonable. But also, custom games were where I was finding 99% of my fun the game. I'm not sure I would have kept playing as long as I have without that.

But I understand the change. The game is ultimately a roguelike. The random unpredictability is part of it.
News - Proton 11 Beta arrives to bring enhanced gaming compatibility to Linux / SteamOS
By Persephone the Sheep, 17 Apr 2026 at 4:28 pm UTC
Improved support for Kodi media player.
This confuses me so much it's so random and out of place.
News - Nintendo 64 emulator Gopher64 adds RetroAchievements support
By such, 17 Apr 2026 at 4:19 pm UTC
Personally... achievements are the one thing I really don't want in old games. Don't need that dopamine.
News - METRO 2039 gets revealed for release this Winter
By Liam Dawe, 17 Apr 2026 at 4:19 pm UTC
Quoting: RedjeWil this game have native build like the 3 other metro games?
The native versions of those games worked very nice for me!
Nothing on that has been announced yet.
News - METRO 2039 gets revealed for release this Winter
By Redje, 17 Apr 2026 at 4:09 pm UTC
Wil this game have native build like the 3 other metro games?
The native versions of those games worked very nice for me!
News - Death Stranding 2 patch 1.4 should make it look better on lower settings
By Arehandoro, 17 Apr 2026 at 4:01 pm UTC
Improved image quality for various textures when Texture Quality is set to Medium or lower.
I wonder how many titles could benefit from this or how many do it on purpose so people are "encouraged" to have more high-end components.
News - Mozilla announced "Thunderbolt", their open-source and self-hostable AI client
By rcrit, 17 Apr 2026 at 3:55 pm UTC
I'm no fan of AI but making it easier to run locally is IMHO a decent idea. I occasionally use ramalama to run cli models but having a GUI could be useful for coding. You'd probably want to get a smart plug so you can calculate how much local models cost you. My 3090 Ti regularly goes to 400W when asking complicated questions.

I always feel a little weird commenting on Mozilla stuff when their namesake is my avatar.
News - Mozilla announced "Thunderbolt", their open-source and self-hostable AI client
By Ehvis, 17 Apr 2026 at 3:23 pm UTC
The positive thing that I can see here is that if it helps knowledge go around that running local models is possible and easy, it might reduce the stranglehold of a bunch of companies on the market. I highly doubt the "general public" does anything with LLMs that is outside of the capability of open models. Of course I may be overestimating that "general public"'s interest in consequences of giving multi-billion dollar companies power.
News - Proton 11 Beta arrives to bring enhanced gaming compatibility to Linux / SteamOS
By Liam Dawe, 17 Apr 2026 at 3:19 pm UTC
Quoting: EhvisDid Proton 10 ever release out of beta? Don't remember ever using it except for one recent game where I had to use Proton Experimental.
Yes, it was initially in November 2025.
News - Proton 11 Beta arrives to bring enhanced gaming compatibility to Linux / SteamOS
By Ehvis, 17 Apr 2026 at 3:12 pm UTC
Did Proton 10 ever release out of beta? Don't remember ever using it except for one recent game where I had to use Proton Experimental.
News - US operating system age verification bill "Parents Decide Act" gets published
By LoudTechie, 17 Apr 2026 at 3:07 pm UTC
Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphone
Quoting: LoudTechieThat's the current design and is only hampered by the fact that not everybody celebrates their 18th birthday by doing online 18th birthday specific things.

[...]

A great way to limit the damage would for example be to make certain that age checks can only happen on a certain time interval.
Say for 1 day every month.
Oh yes, than you are non of the people at this one day, but one of the 28-31 days bracket. Makes it so much more unlikely that they collect this data. /s

In fact, that blurs the data just a little bit, but it is still close enough that they can separate these persons from 99.9% of the world. So companies only need further information to find out who of the 0.1% of all people are that person. Without the one months idea it would be more like 0.01% (because as you say people are probably not online at their birthday). It is indeed better, but I think it is clear that "better" doesn't mean much more protection.

Edit:
[It's open source, so adding this feature is feasable and legal.](https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-app-android-wallet-ui).
At least something EU learned (making such tools open source). Yes I read it before. But it does not help against any of the bad things. For example if I would be a bad person, I could create an account for "my child" that is not existing and use it for myself to get merged to kids chats more easily etc.

The only way that is really feasible is to not send any data to any service. The services should provide age data themselves, so that a local parent control app can manage app access without exposing information to the companies. There is still a chance that some apps can get the age, but it is more likely to avoid exposing data entirely.

That app feels like the stupid attempt for the digital Euro, which exposes too much information (unlike GNU-Taler). The EU commission may learned something about Open Source, but still not enough to design good digital strategies. They should learn about data minimalism before creating such plans.
Why your solution is worse than the eu app and violates your own "no data transfer" rule:
Spoiler, click me

Letting the services collect the data themselves is only worse, because they will still know when you crossed the 18+ line(as ordered by you they've obtained this information themselves) and now they will also know whatever information you was provided to them, so they could figure this information out themselves.
The EU app blocks the transfer of the second set of data by centralizing this information by a party that already must have access to this information(this same database is used for the production of your id and all kinds of other government services reliant on date of birth). This is data minimalisation.
Your first point was that minimal data was too much, your second point is that everybody should collect minimal +1
On the pretending to be a kid thing:
Spoiler, click me

Yeah, duh that's out of scope and thus part of the data minimalization.
This app is supposed to provide proof that you're an adult. Not that you're underage and/or trustworthy.
None of the age gating laws require anyone to proof a maximum age(and none of kids group apps do either), because we know kids harm each other just as hard as adults harm them, so we provide them with adult supervision instead. It's just that adults should know better than to harm a kid, while kids don't have to.
Fundamental issues with the EU age gating method I admit to .
Spoiler, click me

The one thing I have a problem is that the government receives information about private activities of its citizens these citizens often would love to keep private("adult" consumption isn't something everybody is proud of), which is why I made the design I made before.
An alternate design that doesn't have the issues I admit to either:
Spoiler, click me

The requirements for a privacy respecting arbitrary static property verification system are that:
System abuse and it's prepretators can be detected.
The way it's used isn't detectable to the verifier of the static property.
The identity of the user isn't revealed to the ones who make the uses possible.

The hashsing algorithm I will be using is sha256, because I can assure that ids will be unique and unrelated.
I will be using the proven slow prngs, because the qualtity of this protocol falls and stands with the qualtity of a prng

The verifying party randomly generates n ids.

The verifying party runs each of the id's through the pseudorandom generator and generates (n-1)*p codes based on it.
It divides this set up in (n-1) subsets, one for each other ringmember.
Each of the subsets is labeled with a within the ring shared pseudonym for one of the other ringmembers.
The codes are send to the individual.
After which it's added to a pool of similarly labeled sets of the other ringmembers, here they are pooled together without saving to which member they originally belonged.

In total n*(n-1)*p=np(n-1)=n^2+pn-n-p codes are generated.
For each receiving server a seed is generated by the verifier and each of the codes is hashed with this seed as pepper.
This set of hashes, labeling and the seed is send to the receiving server, but not the original values.

When an individual connects to an age verifying server the server sends its seed and the individual randomly picks a value from the received ones and hashes it with the seed and sends that hash to the age verifying server.
If it matches the received hash with one of the hashes that hash is removed and the age is labeled as verified.

To determine potential abusers of the system the age verifying servers can simply check whether some of the n labeled subsets are getting abnormally underutelized.
If this turns out the system abusers are apperantly the ones in the underutelized sets.
After which not only the abuse, but also the abuser have been identified and appropiate action can be undertaken.
Many of these could involve reporting the abuse to some authority like the verifier.
This authority would need some proof of appropiate conduct at the side of the reporter.
The best I can offer is pseudonymous labeling for the subsets, so the reporter can't know who they reported.

To avoid birthday attacks p should be at least as large as n and probably larger, because accidentally matching a p row isn't a problem, but an n match allows one to blame other people for sharing codes.
p = 1.000.000
(n-1) = 1000

total storage use is
3 8bit bytes par sha256 hash
order can communicate subcatogrisation, since every other user has the same redundancy
n^2+pn-n-p
10^3^2+10^6*10^3-10^3-10^6=10^6+10^9-10^3-10^6=10^9-10^3=1,0000003*10^10
1,000003*10^10*3=3,0000009*10^10
around 10gb usage for the client
the servers store the hashes everybody and the seed, thus around
(n^2+pn-n-p)*n+1
1,0000009^10*10^3+1
is around 10 terabyte par server
On GNU Taler
Spoiler, click me

Yeah, that's a very smart and experimental system [as such the European commission is directly funding its development through NGI.](https://www.taler.net/en/news/)
[They also launched their own version.](https://www.taler.net/en/news/2024-01.html)
Edit:
On your criticism of my proposed in app solution
Spoiler, click me

Yeah indeed small precision costs are the weakness of latency methods.
Yet A. these first precision points are also where the biggest strides can be made(you can't personalize birthday adverts, you can't scam somebody by claiming to be a relative with proof that you know their birthday, you can't pretend to be them by their doctor who uses it as part of their confirmation method, etc.)
B. Yeah, that's the issue with the principle of least privilege we can't hide more data without significantly harming functionality.
Extra in app solutions to improve confidentiality
Spoiler, click me

Also something that might help a lot in this case is some form of rate limiting of requests like required user interaction and once a day.
This will amplify peoples own infrequency in adult consumption into uncertainty for the services.
News - Immersive sim boomer shooter Fortune's Run back in development as the developer is out of jail
By Purple Library Guy, 17 Apr 2026 at 2:49 pm UTC
Quoting: LoudTechie
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: LoudTechiecriminal dev: Most potential partners avoid me, because I've been proven to be violent in court
Assuming it was a violent crime. Even today, people do still sometimes go to jail for embezzlement as long as it wasn't a big enough amount to make you a new-minted oligarch . . .
According to our favorite mediaoutlet.
He claimed he was jailed, because he was "a very violent person."
Ah. Then I retract my point.
News - Proton 11 Beta arrives to bring enhanced gaming compatibility to Linux / SteamOS
By Jarmer, 17 Apr 2026 at 2:23 pm UTC
This is so awesome! With the arm improvements, I truly wonder if sometime in the future, one of my desktop pc builds will be arm architecture and not x86 ...!!! I've had nearly 40 yrs of x86 pcs in my house, wow.
News - US operating system age verification bill "Parents Decide Act" gets published
By PlayingOnLinuxphone, 17 Apr 2026 at 2:18 pm UTC
Quoting: LoudTechieThat's the current design and is only hampered by the fact that not everybody celebrates their 18th birthday by doing online 18th birthday specific things.

[...]

A great way to limit the damage would for example be to make certain that age checks can only happen on a certain time interval.
Say for 1 day every month.
Oh yes, than you are non of the people at this one day, but one of the 28-31 days bracket. Makes it so much more unlikely that they collect this data. /s

In fact, that blurs the data just a little bit, but it is still close enough that they can separate these persons from 99.9% of the world. So companies only need further information to find out who of the 0.1% of all people are that person. Without the one months idea it would be more like 0.01% (because as you say people are probably not online at their birthday). It is indeed better, but I think it is clear that "better" doesn't mean much more protection.

Edit:
[It's open source, so adding this feature is feasable and legal.](https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-app-android-wallet-ui).
At least something EU learned (making such tools open source). Yes I read it before. But it does not help against any of the bad things. For example if I would be a bad person, I could create an account for "my child" that is not existing and use it for myself to get merged to kids chats more easily etc.

The only way that is really feasible is to not send any data to any service. The services should provide age data themselves, so that a local parent control app can manage app access without exposing information to the companies. There is still a chance that some apps can get the age, but it is more likely to avoid exposing data entirely.

That app feels like the stupid attempt for the digital Euro, which exposes too much information (unlike GNU-Taler). The EU commission may learned something about Open Source, but still not enough to design good digital strategies. They should learn about data minimalism before creating such plans.
News - Proton 11 Beta arrives to bring enhanced gaming compatibility to Linux / SteamOS
By Leprotto, 17 Apr 2026 at 2:03 pm UTC
Did they backport the dll loading order patch? 👀
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