[quote=Cyril]

Quoting: Cyba.CowboyAnd what about Peertube? It's Free and Open Source and can be self-hosted.
Regardless of the content you are looking for, of course.

Never heard of it, but I'll look into it...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: fedotix

Quoting: GuestStadia has problems, sure, typically from latency I would imagine.

...back to watching...

Of course, if you want to take advantage of stadia, you should have optical fiber or cable.

So most of Australia is s#&t out of luck for the foreseeable future then (it's only single digits of Australians that have access to either fiber or cable broadband, with no plans to change this in the foreseeable future)...

Quoting: jarhead_hI won't be using Stadia just because it's Google, and I'm still in process of cutting Google out of my life so adding something back in would be rather counter-productive. I still have Chrome installed for those rare instances I need Flash since it's baked in and I still have an Android phone which will be replaced by a Librem5 by end of year. And I have a GMAIL account so that I can have a Youtube account which I will actually start producing content for in a month or two and hopefully the Patreon/SuscribeStar/LibrePay dollars will come trickling in... which will then allow me to dump Youtube for Bitchute and get rid of gmail.

This guy gets it.

I still have a YouTube account, but have cut Google out of pretty much every other aspect of our lives... Our domains were moved away from Google Apps (or "g suite", as they now call it), almost all of our data was deleted and we've moved away from Android entirely.

I keep YouTube for now, but prefer to use BitChute where ever possible... With regards to the latter, it is lagging a long way behind YouTube - but there's not a whole lot of alternatives our there and sadly, BitChute is the best of them.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Seriously, why all the code? You're just making things harder to be than they need to be!

Whilst I can't speak for other controllers (though my understanding is that it is generally the same)(in my experience, wired USB gamepads of various types "just work"), all you need to do is put a Sony DUALSHOCK 4 into "pairing" mode and "pair" it with your computer over bluetooth using the usual process... As you can see from my Ask Ubuntu post ( https://askubuntu.com/a/546832 ), everything works pretty seamlessly, with most games.

I'm sure your heart is in the right place, but it's articles like this which keep people thinking that Linux-based operating systems are harder to use than they are... If you're going to post an article like this, you post the KISS solution first, then post the Terminal-based solution for those of us that prefer that method (I prefer Terminal for a lot of - but not all - things).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: EikeI wish them all the best, but IMHO, such attempts are doomed to fail. In the end, it will cost more than hardware off the shelf, not offer more, and there's not enough people caring enough for the topic to make it a success nevertheless.

Good luck.

Define "fail". Will it grow them to the size of Dell or Apple? No. Will it make money? Maybe. Yes, this is a small market niche; I'm sure they know that. But they're not a huge company. Even a small market niche, if they're the main people on the planet doing it, could well bring in enough revenue to be a rousing success by their standards.
I mean, how many computers get sold in the world every year? How many computers do you get to sell if you have a niche representing 0.1% of that? Quite a lot. Enough to keep a few people in bread and butter, I expect.

You have to remember that as well as consumers, System76 have a lot of big corporate customers, too... Pixar being one of the most well-known examples - and companies like Pixar spend a lot of money.

Also, System76 have repeatedly said that Pop!_OS was specifically designed with their customers in mind (if I remember correctly, they even went as far as stating that this claim was in reference to their corporate customers in one or more blog posts); it would be natural to assume that the same can be said about their "Open Source computer".

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: GuestPlus, if this continues with system76's legendarily awful build quality, it'll be a total flop.

I've heard quite a bit about System76 over the years, and yet this is the first time I've heard about their awful build quality. I infer that it can't be that legendary, being as how "legendary" implies "people have heard about it".

I've heard the claim a couple of times over the years... But from what I can tell, poor quality hardware is not as common as one would think; it seems to just be the age-old "angry customers make the most noise".

Based on what I can see online, the overwhelming majority of System76 customers have always seemed quite happy with their purchase and as I said above, clearly their hardware is of a high enough quality to attract the likes of Pixar, among other corporate giants...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Purple Library GuyOf course many other laws do not agree with that principle of common law. I'm pretty sure that in Canada, mineral rights are/can be separated from general land ownership, even though we are a country which has sort of inherited the British common law. And I'm pretty sure most jurisdictions do not allow most private property owners to stop planes from overflying their property; things would be tough for the airline industry otherwise.

I actually looked this up a couple of months ago out of curiosity and mineral ownership only applies in Australia if you bought your property before a certain year (sometime in the 1960s, if I remember correctly); furthermore, if the property is passed from one family member to another, the latter is subject to the current laws (i.e. the Crown has exclusive rights to any minerals under your land). Frustratingly, I cannot find the specific legal reference at this time, and I really can't be be bothered digging deep for it just to prove a point - but there's plenty of easily located discussions regarding this.

With regards to upwards, it gets a little more complicated... The general rule is that you own high enough that you can have a "reasonable expectation of privacy"; most areas in Australia have state or local laws which prevent you from building your own private version of Isengard though, before anyone gets excited.

Of course ultimately, you only purchase the right to use the land in Australia (rather than "pure" ownership in the traditional sense) and there are countless laws under which the Government can revoke this right at their discretion... But that's a whole other discussion.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: chancho_zombieEven Gabe Newell knows that DRM is a bad thing, it doesn't add anything positive. Hope one day steam makes the move of being DRM free. But let's face it DRM is still there because devs and specially companies are control freak outs, publishers and devs won't be happy if steam removes DRM.

I call bulldust on that, because not one of Valve Software's games is DRM-free, which Steam technically (though optionally) supports, as some people often point out on this site whenever the DRM argument comes up...

Quoting: psycho_driver

Quoting: CybolicEDIT: I believe most of this was sorted out with the DRM systems in place for home medias (DVDs and BluRays); ie. you bought the thing, you have the right to modify it to make sure you can actually use it.

To this day, fuck the Bluray Consortium. Its their own friggin fault Kodi w/ shady plugins is such a big thing now.

Yep.

Thankfully, it's not that difficult to get around the DRM of a Blu-Ray Disc and it's only a matter of time until the DRM of 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray Discs is broken, too... Already specific 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray Discs have had their DRM broken.

Quoting: WabbitSlayer

Quoting: Dribbleondo> This does make another interesting case for DRM free games outside of Steam, since a developer can't just take away your ability to play it. While a DRM free store could remove the game from you, you're still able to fully back it up yourself.

Subtle.

A drm free store took all my games away. GOG. I did a creditcard chargeback on the virtual goods I purchased. GOG closed my account.

There's two important take away points from this though:
1. You've cancelled a transaction after receiving the goods, without returning the goods; there might be more to the story, but based on what you have told us, you should be doing the digital equivalent of "returning the goods" and deleting any copies of the game you have;
2. There was nothing to stop you backing-up the game offline, so that you could still play the game should such a thing like this occur...


Anyway with regards to the article, this should not be an option for developers as many have pointed out... Sure, there are certain niche user cases where this might be justified (e.g. stolen credit cards), but Valve Software should change their policies and only allow themselves to do such a thing or put tighter controls on a developer's ability to revoke keys (e.g. all revoked keys are subject to review by Valve Software and/or only beta/testing/etc keys can be revoked, not "full" keys).

I should point out one rather important fact though (and one that applies to most digital stores) - my understanding is that via Steam, you are only buying the right to play the game, not the actual game itself... Therefore according to their terms, you technically don't "own" the game.

I personally don't agree with that stance, which is why I prefer to buy my games DRM-free and when I reluctantly buy something protected by DRM (comics, Blu-Ray Discs, eBooks, CDs), I immediately strip the DRM from it (if I cannot remove the DRM, I usually skip that purchase, and move onto something else)... But the point remains - most digital stores technically license the right to use the game to you, not ownership of the game itself.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: DuncI can't help wondering if the survey window is appearing underneath the main Steam window for some people and they just don't notice it. I don't like to cast aspersions on fellow GoLers' window management skills, but it's surely a possibility. And if it is the case, it's something Valve should fix.

I'd agree it's plausible once, maybe even twice... But four times, across multiple computers and operating systems, with multiple users of (computer) skill levels from "highly competent" to "advanced"?

Unlikely.

Certainly plausible for some people, but not in our household...

Quoting: GuestWhat is "SurveyDateType" ? Others I've seen here are "3" ?

Yeah, I've seen a couple of different types myself... There's obviously some sort of difference, and it'd be interesting to know what that is.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: Cyba.Cowboy~/.local/share/Steam/config/config.vdf

Search the file for the term "SurveyDate" and supposedly that's the last time the survey was run... But as I said, it claims on our computers it has been run, when in reality it has not.

Hm. Mine is under ~/.steam/steam/config/config.vdf
It contains...

Quote"SurveyDateVersion" "3298391255500592656"
"SurveyDate" "2018-02-22"
"SurveyDateType" "2"

I seem to have the file at both locations - but based off the supposed survey information, it might have the same contents in each...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: Cyba.CowboyThe "survey" file (which indicates the date the survey was last supposedly run) seems to think that three of the different computers running various versions of Ubuntu in our house and used by different people have all had the survey in the last twelve months, when in reality, none of us have... That would be Valve Software claiming to query me, when it has not in fact done so.

I don't know anything about a Steam survey file... What does it say; where do I find it? I guess it's undocumented (IMHO the biggest problem about the Steam survey)?

~/.local/share/Steam/config/config.vdf

Search the file for the term "SurveyDate" and supposedly that's the last time the survey was run... But as I said, it claims on our computers it has been run, when in reality it has not.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: EikeDo you have data about these wildly differing results? These are for the next state elections here (Bavaria)...
http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/bayern.htm

I have no idea how the political system works over there and to be honest, I don't really understand too much about our (Australian) political system (only the American system makes sense to me, for unimportant reasons)... But I do know that in Australia, when they publish their polls in the news every week or every time a politician does something "newsworthy", you'll see wildly different results depending on which company the news is using for their source.

Maybe it's different in your country, but that's how it is here in Australia and that was my point - the Steam survey is similar in the sense that one should take its findings with a grain of salt, for a laundry list of reasons (one of which being the well-publicised Linux bug)

Quoting: EikeI don't understand your last phrase... Did anybody claim Steam polls are querying every user?!?

The "survey" file (which indicates the date the survey was last supposedly run) seems to think that three of the different computers running various versions of Ubuntu in our house and used by different people have all had the survey in the last twelve months, when in reality, none of us have... That would be Valve Software claiming to query me, when it has not in fact done so.

And no it's not "user error" (e.g. accidentally closing the survey) - we have a limited number of computers in the house running an Apple mac OS or Microsoft Windows-based operating system, all of which have been able to complete the survey just fine...

View this comment - View article - View full comments