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Latest Comments by Linas
Developer of Robo Instructus gives out sales info after a year
17 July 2020 at 3:49 pm UTC Likes: 4

Even a Linux gamer, who only buys Linux games, would have hard time noticing these smaller games. There is simply so much to choose from. Even on an indie haven such as itch.io it's very hard to get noticed. Probably even harder.

Tough times.

Psychological horror adventure 'Saint Kotar' gets extra Kickstarter time
15 July 2020 at 12:47 pm UTC Likes: 5

Quoting: PatolaSaint Knights of the Old Republic
A story about a young boy recruited by a cult, slowly succumbing to madness and darkness after series of traumatic events.

The Linux market share appears to continue rising with Ubuntu winning
3 July 2020 at 8:14 pm UTC

Quoting: DefaultX-od
Quoting: LinasNone of the most popular options are particularly gaming-oriented.
Did I said something like this? All I said is that people who use Arch happened to discover this site more than users of any other distros.
Well technically you didn't say that. But what would make an Arch user more likely to discover this site than let's say an Ubuntu user?

The Linux market share appears to continue rising with Ubuntu winning
3 July 2020 at 7:50 pm UTC

Quoting: DefaultX-odI'm not getting defensive, but you can see there that Arch is the most popular distro, which is not represent the full picture. It's just happened that more users that use Arch discovered this site...
What are you basing this on? People here use a variety of distributions and desktop environments. None of the most popular options are particularly gaming-oriented.

The Linux market share appears to continue rising with Ubuntu winning
3 July 2020 at 9:11 am UTC

Quoting: DefaultX-od
Quoting: TheRiddick3) Nvidia to offer Wayland support.
They are offering it, it's just none of DE willing to implement it
What do you mean? Is there something Nvidia-specific they need to implement?

Chrome OS appears to be edging closer to Steam support with Linux
2 July 2020 at 11:51 pm UTC

Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: LinasI find Googles direction for Chromebooks very confusing. [...] full-blow VM [...] This is the exact opposite of simple.
Users don't see any of that though. My wife has one. All she ever uses a computer for is web browsing, email (in the browser), and occasional small documents.
That's exactly my point. Your wife is the original target demographic for Chromebooks.

By adding Crostini they more or less acknowledge that you need a real Linux distribution if you want to do some productive work. Like run Gimp, Inkscape, Audacity, or anything else that even a non-techie user may want to do from time to time. But then they do it in the most obscure way possible, so that a non-techie user never will.

Just take a look at this huge FAQ, and count how many times "currently, no" is the answer.

The Linux market share appears to continue rising with Ubuntu winning
2 July 2020 at 11:24 pm UTC Likes: 5

Quoting: KohlyKohlI remember at my last job I had to ask them to flip on Linux support for the Cisco VPN. They didn't want to right away but I talked them into it.

They refuse to support Linux at my current job.
It can be challenging. There is a strong cultural gap between Windows and Linux administrators. Unfortunately in Windows it is very common to use proprietary configuration management solutions that completely hide what it is actually doing. There is no standardization and proprietary wrappers are used even for the most basic functionality.

I found that the best chance to get your way is to demonstrate that you can take care of yourself and try to earn the respect from the IT guys. They are techies like most of us here, and if instead of being a constant burden on them, you show them something cool, they may be way more willing to assist you. Something like yeah I can run Microsoft Teams, but have you seen KDE Connect, so that you can get notifications from your phone as well? Or no, unfortunately I don't have Visio, but take a look at this fancy Graphviz diagram that I made in 20 lines of shell script that maps out our entire network.

What I did is publicly document all my setup with configuration scripts for everything in the company: communication tools, email, Samba shares, printers, network, VPN, programming tools, etc., so that anybody that wants to use Linux can get up and running in no time. Also openly showing what exactly you are doing removes quite a bit of friction and uncertainty.

Were are in this for the long haul.

P.S. Being willing to risk getting fired for going against the corporate policy helps a bit too.

The Linux market share appears to continue rising with Ubuntu winning
2 July 2020 at 2:21 pm UTC Likes: 8

There is a huge resistance to Linux adoption in workspace IT support departments. Most places I have seen it's either completely forbidden to run Linux on your work machine or "don't ask, don't tell" kind of situation where you get zero support if something goes wrong. Software is bought and deployed without any consideration for Linux compatibility making it a minefield to navigate through as a Linux user. My direct boss literally pretends not to know that I run Linux, saying that I run "a more exotic kind of setup" if asked by the IT guys.

Chrome OS appears to be edging closer to Steam support with Linux
2 July 2020 at 11:59 am UTC

I find Googles direction for Chromebooks very confusing. It's supposed to be this simple unbreakable mom'n'pop computer. But then they add Crostini, which is a full-blow VM, which doesn't even allow calling the host kernel, or direct access to the hardware. Literally everything is virtualized. That's why it has taken them forever to implement basic features such as clipboard sharing, or access to the filesystem. This is the exact opposite of simple.

Sure you can switch between different guest distributions relatively simply (if you are good with the command line), but why exactly? Who is this for? It's not pretty experience for a Linux user, because you are locked down in a limited VM. And certainly not something your average user would want to go through.

I would find Chromebook way more attractive if it was running a more standard Linux distribution with Google and Android apps nicely integrated into the system. Security-wise something like SELinux with a signed kernel would be perfectly adequate for keeping the system safe and sound. No unnecessarily paranoid VM needed.

Mesa 20.2 gets Valve-backed ACO shader compiler on by default for AMD RADV
26 June 2020 at 12:54 pm UTC Likes: 10

I am so happy I went with AMD for my gaming build. The experience has been getting better and better. With Mesa, amdgpu, DXVK, Proton, it's almost getting too easy being a Linux gamer. Feel like I am losing my nerd cred because I don't need to put the effort into it anymore.