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For those stumbling across this GOL article who are not in the know. One good alternative is Matrix

Join one server, the list is here:

https://servers.joinmatrix.org/

And then on Linux you can use one of many Clients available:

https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/

I recommend https://flathub.org/en/apps/im.nheko.Nheko

to log in (on Nheko at least), its a bit different from a typical corporate social media site like Discord , you would put @newfunkynameichose:tchncs.de

the name first then > : & then what ever server authenticator/database you chose to register your username. Other apps might do it different and require an @ for instance.

Hope that helps

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Quoting: pb

Quoting: dziadulewicz

Quoting: williamjcmI hope it'll get released as a Flatpak, because I don't like installing stuff through the AUR or pip.

Exactly. A flatpak or a snap or best both. It's BS for this day and age to not be able to install a damn app with a couple of clicks, honestly 😀

yay -S prefixer *is* a couple of clicks ;p

Huhh dat a termnial command so no its not jus clicks

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Honestly it's about time, and whomever ends up creating the graphical wrapper of this will be a boon to the community as well. Protontricks/Winetricks is a friction point to the ecosystem just because of their less than intuitive interface and the weird silent pauses and slowdowns that make you wonder if it's working or not. If a game needs tweaks from Winetricks, having something fast and smooth like this is huuuuuge.

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Quoting: williamjcmI hope it'll get released as a Flatpak, because I don't like installing stuff through the AUR or pip.

I hear you, the pipx install I did was so incredibly fast though, and the program is so incredibly useful. If I'd know what I was getting I would even have scrabbled around compiling from source, but there was no need.

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Quoting: williamjcmI hope it'll get released as a Flatpak, because I don't like installing stuff through the AUR or pip.

I hear you, the pipx install I did was so incredibly fast though, and the program is so incredibly useful. If I'd know what I was getting I would even have scrabbled around compiling from source, but there was no need.

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Quoting: PyratePerhaps this is the wake-up slap that capable devs need to realize relying on a proprietary surveillance tool was bad from the start, and that a proper alternative can be developed.

I don't think this is up to the devs per-se. This is more like market forces/apathy. If I'm a dev and my potential customers aren't asking for in-game chat, why would I spend time on making one? Heck, even if they are asking, do they really "mean it"?

Or in the case of a discord alternative, sure there is that spike in searches, but it is already dropping off. I seriously doubt that people will actually move away from discord. Network effects and all that. Even if, and I'm sure someone will try, a good alternative is made, I doubt most people would switch. Though I'd love to be proven wrong.

Bluesky didn't topple twitter even though there were a lot of very vocal people saying it "should" and it seems like a good site (I don't use either). I've seen quite a few boycotts over the last decade that have gone exactly nowhere. If the people can't kill something as simple as Bud Light (please ignore the politics behind it, simply an exampe) by not purchasing a single brand of beer for a year, I feel like there is almost no hope.

Maybe I've taken too many black pills, but I have pretty much lost all hope on consumers actually sticking to what they say. Again, I hope I'm wrong, but can anyone give some examples of success in the regard? A company that did something shitty that actually produced some kind of change?

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Behavioural analysis to estimate user age without looking at message content… I’m struggling to imagine how that would be effective.

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oh so its actually worse. They're using a worthless ai script to estimate peoples ages which it will of course get wrong everywhere.

cool cool cool cool cool cool

my deleted account won't have to worry about anything!

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Perhaps this is the wake-up slap that capable devs need to realize relying on a proprietary surveillance tool was bad from the start, and that a proper alternative can be developed.

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The real FAQ is: What have you done to prove and guarantee and ensure that these new vendors aren't going to leak PII just like previous ones did? It's not enough to say, "We picked new vendors." You "picked new vendors" before, which resulted in the 2025 leak. You have to show that you have implemented meaningful proactive safeguards that are different to any previous ones you may have had before anyone sane can actually trust you.

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Quoting: dziadulewicz

Quoting: williamjcmI hope it'll get released as a Flatpak, because I don't like installing stuff through the AUR or pip.

Exactly. A flatpak or a snap or best both. It's BS for this day and age to not be able to install a damn app with a couple of clicks, honestly 😀

yay -S prefixer *is* a couple of clicks ;p

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Sooo... Kerbal Steampunk Program?

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Another game (sorta) saved from big bad companies by its developers. What a great time we live in currently, in terms of games 🥰

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Quoting: williamjcmI hope it'll get released as a Flatpak, because I don't like installing stuff through the AUR or pip.

Exactly. A flatpak or a snap or best both. It's BS for this day and age to not be able to install a damn app with a couple of clicks, honestly 😀

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> they're using an age inference model / a machine learning model already in the background based on what you do and how you interact with Discord to predict what age group you fall into

btw a few years ago my kid almost got scammed by someone posing as a discord employee performing an age check; luckily at some point he realised he was being scammed (probably when they asked him for cc details); I can't help but wonder how much more of this is going on right now and will appear in the near future. They're talking about how 'external partners' are 'trusted' to handle IDs and facial images, but now it's open season for scammers to contact anyone on discord and ask for ID scan and facial image...

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I hope it'll get released as a Flatpak, because I don't like installing stuff through the AUR or pip.

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Anyone still willing to remain deserves any and all of the dystopian b.s. that Discord is pulling here. Please, please make the jump to something else. We have the power here. They barely support us on Linux anyway. We're clearly not very worth their time, so let's treat them in kind.

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I'm late, but I want to say whenever I hear "I used clowns to determine whether I should read a post or not" I'm even more glad they were removed. Clowns can be awarded by anyone, including clowns themselves.

Frequently what I would see is pro-consumer posts being bombarded with clowns, such as asking for the removal of heavy-handed DRM. You always get replies like "you just want to pirate the game" as well. I don't know what kinda response that is, it reeks of either astro-turfing or there seems to be a psychological phenomenon where people feel the need to defend a game or series they enjoy from criticism involving "outside factors" like DRM

Either way good riddance, as bait posts aside, it was also used for bullying

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Smells of Palantir.

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we offer multiple privacy-forward options through trusted partners.

The point is you trust those partners, but we don't - especially considering the past data breaches.

Fool me once...

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Dystopian platform for dystopian times. If one must use this horrid mess, they should never say anything personal on it.

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I will definitely not hold my face up to the camera or show my ID. The moment Discord asks me to do so, I will delete my account, lol.

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ray tracing improvements for rdna4 so it matches performances on windows would be cool

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After bugs in their game stole all my equipment (and that of several friends) multiple times (and several vehicles as well, some of which still rot behind the game-world's cliff walls to this very day), and their "support" basically giving me a big middle finger to the sky about my bug reports ("Sorry. We see the bug in our logs, but we can't / won't do anything about it."), you couldn't pay me to play their game again, and I won't be buying any games from FunCom going forward, nor suggesting any to anyone else.

I left two massive bases and thousands of units of Spice to rot, and honestly don't care one bit at this point. Only sucks that I wasted money and time on that game in the first place when I could have been playing anything else...

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I've gone and set up a Matrix account and am ready to move there when this takes effect. With how many breaches Discord has had, I just can't trust them with info this sensitive.

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Y'know, I don't mind the art style, but I do think it's holding this game back a bit. Maybe more than a bit. On one hand, I recognise the author looking at it - and that's not a bad thing. On the other hand, I feel like the author has stopped developing. I do find it slightly unpleasant how large some of the UI is, same for the text boxes etc, and the same goes for the large-but-simple art. Doesn't feel great to look at it sitting in front of a monitor, and it ties into how the game doesn't feel satisfying to control with a mouse. That last part sometimes feel like an art that's bound to become a lost one. UI elements just don't click and clack like they used to (much more often) once. It's always been a pet peeve of mine.

Normally, I wouldn't lead with all of the above, but for a massive game like this... it is a problem if I feel all of it since minute one. It will only fester and grow.

So, yeah, there's stuff. I suppose this many games in I would've hoped for a bit more polish in places that are maybe not very obvious? The game overall is fun to play, though. Great core idea that's well developed, solid mechanics, a lot of personality... I just probably won't be joining the "GOAT!" crowd on this one.

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Quoting: CorbenIRC was never gone... it's now libera.chat after the freenode takeover

Yeah, I still use IRC actively on a very regular basis, and I've still got a not-quite-disingenuous opinion that no other internet chat system has managed to eclipse it. Though with less rose-tinted glasses I'd have to acknowledge that IRC still has many problems of its own compared to the kind of administrative capabilities available in its newer competitors (not to mention its essential non-"richness" of the text it shuttles around the system). Still, the fundamental service remains, IMO, one of the best.

That Freenode -> Libera thing is actually a wonderful example. Freenode got shitty with a sort-of hostile takeover thing, and within a week or so it was Business As Usual at Libera. Folks had to re-register nicks, some channels got renamed a bit, some channels jumped ship to places like OFTC, and not everything was perfect, but the sysops still all had their familiar tools they'd been using for years, and mostly all users had to do was update a hostname. In the end, everyone's day-to-day experience remained virtually unchanged, just on a different network.

Anyway, I also feel compelled to point out that Libera is hardly the only bastion keeping IRC alive, though it's one that Linuxfolk are likely to be familiar with.

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Quoting: gbudnyI always thought that Quake 3 was a black sheep among games for Linux. I wish this game hadn't been released because this decision could have saved Loki from bankruptcy.

I do not think that is entirely fair to be honest; as you yourself pointed out, the bigger issue was Loki's tendency to over invest and stretch their resources far further than their income stream could support. Them ordering way too many Collector's Edition tins was just a symptom of a wider problem.

Regardless, by black sheep, I meant more Call to Power's standing in relation to the rest of the Civilization franchise more than its standing on Linux. Although based on the small sample here, it does seem to have a more positive reputation among at least a subset of Linux gamers than I have seen elsewhere. Quite effusive in fact.

Quoting: gbudnyFor example, you probably need the French version of Civilization: Call to Power for Linux to use installers and patches for this specific version, but you can't change it to English. Please correct me if someone tried it.

There are separate patch installers for both version upgrades and language conversion listed:
[https://www.lokigames.twolife.be/products/civctp/updates.php](https://www.lokigames.twolife.be/products/civctp/updates.php)

I was able to change my Linux install from English to French and then to German. That may have been useful for me to experiment with before as there were several cheap German boxes of Call to Power for Linux listed on eBay, while the English version I did finally buy cost me quite a premium, while also still being shipped from Germany ironically enough. Too late now though.

I did pick up a very cheap French copy of Call to Power for Windows just for the CD audio to prevent further wear on my expensive Linux disc; the eBay listing never mentioned that it was in French, but it was from a Quebec seller and you can see French text if you really squint at the picture of the jewel case, so caveat emptor I guess. By copying over the English data from my Linux install and modifying the civpaths.txt file was able to convert it over myself manually, although again, the CD audio was all I was really after. No idea why French versions of older games sell for as cheap as they do to be honest.

Quoting: gbudnyDid you find any commercial games for Linux published in 1997?

I have never really thought of it in those terms before, but I certainly can not think of any off the top of my head. You certainly listed all of the notable ones from that period.

On a separate but related tangent, whether Call to Power was the first or second Linux game to be sold at retail is somewhat muddied by the fact that Macmillan Publishing announced their boxed Quake releases on May 13, 1999 (my fifth birthday) while Call to Power did not start shipping until May 15, 1999 despite being announced months earlier.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20081005014949/http://happypenguin.org/html/qlinux.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20081005014949/http://happypenguin.org/html/qlinux.html)
[https://web.archive.org/web/20011201235040/http://www.lokigames.com/news/archive.php3?051999](https://web.archive.org/web/20011201235040/http://www.lokigames.com/news/archive.php3?051999)

So you might need to get into an argument over store stocking, logistics, pre-orders, and the like.

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a gentle reminder for everyone who cares about protecting themselves from identity theft (gov's certainly don't - they are counting on it being rampant to gain widespread support for international digital ids) to minimize the external services you use on your internet/phone as - this is just getting started. get a phone that can run lineage or graphene os, what services do you use that aren't self hosted? anything social media related consider it a matter of time til the same requirements will apply. i would be particularly concerned about things you may be subscribed to and pay, to then be potentially be locked out after an unannounced update occurs requiring id, so you can disable alter your paid subscription (eg spotify). the other one would be perhaps another service with your data or photos on it.

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Thank you for writing this article!

I always thought that Quake 3 was a black sheep among games for Linux. I wish this game hadn't been released because this decision could have saved Loki from bankruptcy.

I know it's an important game for Linux, but I didn't spend much time playing it. It's on my list of games that I have get back to playing.

I appreciate that Loki ported Civilization: Call to Power to Linux. Some games created by other companies from 1999 didn't always support the fullscreen mode: Quake: The Offering, Quake II: Colossus, Hopkins FBI, Theocracy, etc. You can use failsafe session to force a fullscreen mode in them.

Weirdly, the first Loki game had some unresolved bugs because they invested a lot of time and money in building installers for Linux x86/PowerPC/Alpha/Sparc. Additionally, they created boxed versions of games that support four different language versions, and I don't even mention other releases. It was a huge investment made by Loki for a system like Linux, with one or two games released every year between 1994 and 1998. I don't know any other games that have so many boxed versions for Linux. The list of patches is also long, and some names are confusing:

CivCTP-1.2-alpha-german.run
CivCTP-1.2-alpha-europe.run

I even see patches for the Italian version, but I'm not sure if the box version for Linux was published.

Does anyone have the Italian version of Civilization: Call to Power for Linux?

@Hamish

Loki also bolted on extra multiplayer modes, as well as putting out a sprite editor and installers for switching languages.

I could be wrong about it because I didn't check it out. I have other language releases of Civilization: Call to Power for Linux, but I only opened the English version. I suspect that you can't use any of the French/German/Spanish installers with your English version. These boxes are a bit smaller than the English version of Civilization: Call to Power for Linux.

For example, you probably need the French version of Civilization: Call to Power for Linux to use installers and patches for this specific version, but you can't change it to English. Please correct me if someone tried it.

LGP didn't make this mistake, and they always released one patch for all architectures, and their games frequently had different language versions on the same CD/DVD.

@Hamish

Did you find any commercial games for Linux published in 1997?

It's the only year when I didn't find any commercial games released for Linux. I hope it's not true because it would be depressing to wait for over a year for Quake 2 and Ultima Online:

1994 Doom, Doom 2
1995 Abuse, SimCity
1996 Inner Worlds, Quake
1997 Nothing?
1998 Quake 2, Ultima Online

Maybe someone remembers it.

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