Latest Comments by Cyba.Cowboy
Martian city-builder 'The Farlanders' has a big new release up with a Happiness system
21 February 2020 at 11:37 pm UTC

Quoting: Alm888
Quoting: Cyba.CowboyHopefully this comes to GOG.com. because I like the look of it and would buy it if I could get it on GOG.com...
Why GOG? Itch.io has everything you probably need (DRM-free, client, "Early Access" access).

Does Itch.io have DRM-free content too? Might have to take a look then...

Martian city-builder 'The Farlanders' has a big new release up with a Happiness system
18 February 2020 at 2:47 am UTC

Hopefully this comes to GOG.com. because I like the look of it and would buy it if I could get it on GOG.com...

Paradox have updated their handy launcher - should help Linux gamers too
18 February 2020 at 2:43 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: The_Aquabathandy here means other thing, in english speaking countries is called radio handheld.

Uh, no.

In Australia, we usually call them "CB radios", though they are sometimes called "handheld radios" or just "radios"...


Quoting: Liam DaweHandy in the UK means convenient or useful.

Same in Australia.

A note on using Steam Play Proton and counting the sales for Linux (updated)
11 February 2020 at 3:12 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: RickAndTired"early stage" he says, yet Proton already allows me to play so many great games effortlessly. I can't wait to see where it keeps going.

Any idea when they're going to update the "white list"?

protondb has a pretty long list of my games with a "Gold+" or "Platinum" rating, yet the "white list" for Proton hasn't been updated in quite a while...

Linux Mint and the Cinnamon desktop progressing well, all-time high donations
5 February 2020 at 11:03 am UTC

Since the very beginning I used Ubuntu, then Canonical decided to abandon the brilliant Unity desktop environment (not to mention everything else, too!), which I absolutely loved.

I stuck with GNOME for a little bit, but the more I used it, the more I hated it for more reasons than I care to list... So I took Linux Mint for a spin, with Cinnamon.

To be honest, I'm still not sold on the Microsoft Windows-style menu that Linux Mint uses (I haven't used a Microsoft Windows-based operating system outside of occasional use in the workplace in years!), but I like it slightly better than GNOME and for the most part, Linux Mint works pretty good. It looks good too, though I might be a little bias because green is one of my favorite colors.

As others have said, Linux Mint is not perfect, but it's great for beginners and the lazy alike... It's almost like the Linux equivalent of Apple macOS - because it "just works".

The Children's Commissioner in England has called on the government to class loot boxes as gambling
23 October 2019 at 12:07 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: fagnerlnHERE WE GO AGAIN...

We don't need the government controlling even more our lives, the parents should moderate what their children are using.

Like it or not, "loot boxes" are a form of gambling and whilst the game industry has not been "ruined" because of them, "loot boxes" have certainly done a lot of damage to the industry (as have "freemium" games - but that's another discussion)... I agree that having the Government take control is not necessarily the best approach, but if it's going to reduce the number of "loot boxes" used in games, then the end absolutely justifies the means.

Of course, nothing has actually happened yet and nothing may even happen - if my understanding of this article is correct, the "Children's Commissioner" has only made a recommendation, which may or may not see results; given everything going on in Britain at the moment, I don't see this being a priority.

Vulkan support is not far away now for the flight sim X-Plane 11, physics & flight model updates coming
21 October 2019 at 10:32 am UTC

Quoting: EhvisBesides, even if they did make it run natively on Linux, I have no reason at all to trust Microsoft for the future. I'll stick with X-Plane.

This. I trust Microsoft as much as I trust Mark Zuckerberg - which is not at all... Call it "paranoia" if you want, but I don't trust Microsoft in any context.

Vulkan support is not far away now for the flight sim X-Plane 11, physics & flight model updates coming
20 October 2019 at 10:42 pm UTC

Quoting: Mountain ManI agree that competition is a good thing.

Gonna be picky here, but Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is not expected to support Linux-based operating systems though, so technically, X-Plane has no real competition...

Vulkan support is not far away now for the flight sim X-Plane 11, physics & flight model updates coming
20 October 2019 at 10:03 pm UTC

Quoting: iiari
Quoting: Ardje
Quoting: SkipperroMan... I'm collecting everything with Vulkan support and I have X-Plane on my wishlist for a long time, but I'm not as big of the simulator fan to pay freaking 65$ for it. I would rather save it for Kerbal Space Program 2.
I have X-Plane also on my wishlist. I did have some fun with Euro Truck Simulator, but I guess X-Plane is more realistic. And I actually don't want that.
Quoting: EhvisCompletely different beasts. ETS2 is still a game. It's open ended, but the simulation level and mechanics are still geared to have fun even without skill. X-Plane is not a game, it is just a simulator. I think most flight simulator enthusiasts will tell you that flight simulation is a hobby. With matching time consumption and expenses. I have many hours in various X-Plane version, but haven't done too much of it lately and I'm getting rusty to a degree where I couldn't even get my B727 started any more. :D
Yeah, absolutely what @Ehvis said above. X-Plane is a hard core sim to the level that flight schools actually use dedicated commercial versions of it to train future pilots. There really is no "game" here unless you buy mission or sim-economy mods, which people say are a lot of fun but I just don't have the time for...

Call it "geeky", but this post just sold me on X-Plane, 100%... Knowing that this Linux supported flight simulator is so in-depth and complete makes me want to rush out and buy it now - except that right now, I only own a laptop with above-average gaming capabilities - so it will sit on my "wish" list for the time being.

Does X-Plane support all those fancy flight simulator input / output devices (such as all the stuff Logitech sells? What about virtual reality headsets - are they supported under Linux-based operating systems?

If those things are supported, I could build a pretty slick - Linux powered - flight simulator in my garage... ;-)

The Internet Archive website has added another 2,500 MS-DOS games
17 October 2019 at 12:20 pm UTC

Quoting: Kimyrielle
Quoting: mahThis project really legal?
I seems, they can't clear copyright problems.
OTOH, I can't see anybody suing them over it, either. These games have no commercial value anymore.

There's some pretty big names in there though... LucasArts (now owned by the Walt Disney Company), Sierra (now part of Activision Blizzard), EA (under a dozen different studios, including EA itself), id Software, Ubisoft, Atari (under various studios) and a laundry list of others.

Some of those companies might turn a blind eye - but I highly doubt all of them will.


[quote=Klaus]
Quoting: Kimyrielle
Quoting: mah[...] These games have no commercial value anymore.
Not entirely true. Some of them are being sold by GoG still. (Though in the case of Ultima VII, I think I got that on GoG for free at some point.)

There's a whole heap of them that are still for sale on GOG.com and / or Steam (mostly the former though)...