circuitfarmer

I used to have a side system with /home on its own partition precisely to learn different distros and setups. It makes it much easier having a partition which is retained.

These days, qemu is your friend for playing around with random Linux stuff.

Yes, bigger than that. I have tried Clementine.

I really just want a media player that:

1. Has good media library support based on tags (lots do)

2. Has ReplayGain support (lots do)

3. Lets me have an album art panel bigger than a thumbnail (and here is where so many options fall short, including Rhythmbox)

Deadbeef seems to be the closest due to its good customizability, but the plugin which allows for actual media library capability is apparently Mac-only, for some unfathomable reason.

Gonna be stuck with Foobar via Wine for a fair sight longer, I think.

No. Exclusives suck for everyone in the long run. In this case, it would also be pretty heavily set against the Linux / FOSS ethos, too.

I use Gnome every day. My extensions break often.

We can disagree.

Nah. “It works fine on my system” is always a funny retort though.

Here’s to breaking everyone’s Extensions again

It’s just a matter of time as so many corporate products and services enshittify. That, plus FOSS’ main issue is the average person not having any idea what it is or what it means.

While I hope I’m wrong, I agree this thing will go the way of most Kickstarters. It is interesting, but it will never have appeal outside of the hobby space, and the cash needed to get this thing off the ground will be immense.

If that keyboard module isn’t extremely securely attached on there, I can 100% guarantee it is breaking in my pocket.

Would have much preferred if they were going to have just one base unit with keyboard. Other modules could fit over that.

By and large, unless you are playing one of a few multiplayer games which require kernel-level anti-cheat schemes, you won’t have issues running Windows games on Linux. Note that kernel-level anti-cheat is also a huge issue in general, for privacy and other reasons, so it’s not really something that should or will be fixed in Linux – it’s up to developers to stop requiring such schemes.

I’ve been a Linux gamer for about 3 years. 3 years ago, I had occasional issues. Now not for a long time. But I play almost entirely single player titles.

Hardware does matter a bit. AMD is extremely Linux friendly and drivers for AMD hardware tends to be in the Linux kernel, so there’s nothing else to load. Nvidia makes things more difficult.

I don’t even check ProtonDB anymore before buying a game. It just works the vast majority of the time, even without additional configuration.

I see the point about KDE, though I don’t think the learning curve on Cinnamon is hefty. I also think that KDE being so configurable can seem overwhelming to new folks.

This is generally true, but I’d also caution that the B580 is a brand new card with (somewhat lacking) Linux support.

In general, if you aren’t using bleeding edge hardware, you won’t have such issues. This is especially true of AMD hardware, which tends to be extremely Linux friendly.

Exactly this. Many people have a lot of apprehension until they actually try it.

Fair enough. I tend to agree, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, because, you know, FOSS and freedom.

Yes, anti-cheat specifically is a problem. That’s you fighting against the corpos, to be clear. Not really an issue with gaming on Linux itself.

Edit: not only against the corpos, but more generally against the idea of “kernel-level anti-cheat”. If you’re giving any corporation kernel-level access to your machine, you basically no longer control your machine. That’s true of Windows too.

It’s a big issue and the lack of support on Linux is a bit of a feature, not really a bug.

But… Why not now? I can’t think of a single reason.

I wouldn’t say SteamOS for new folks, tbh. Flatpaks are very different from the typical Linux flow.

This is fair. I should have given my own suggestions.

Mint is probably the choice at the moment for new folks. Also, this will be controversial, but feel free with Ubuntu. It will get you started, and that’s great.

Edit: I added some (open-ended) suggestions to my original comment.