I’m not so sure. Like I say, we saw several studios say “Well since Proton works so well, we’re going to stop supporting a separate Linux version. Linux users are to install the Windows version under Proton, and we’ll only support that.” Because almost all player communities are mostly Windows. As much as us Linux nerds hate it, we’re a small (but rapidly growing!) minority, and developers would rather support the thing most people use and just ladle what everyone else is drinking into a sippy cup for the special kids than have to make a whole separate jug of kool aid. I don’t think we’ll see a reversal in that until Linux-based platforms represent an actual majority of the install base and do so for awhile. Nothing is more permanent than a bodge job that works for now. Not to call Proton a “bodge job” but you know what I mean.

ARM is yet another leap, possibly a farther one, than Linux.

Cinnamon is the second of five attempts to defuckulate Gnome that I’m aware of, and my personal favorite.

A big barrier to Linux adoption is lack of software, and immutable distros locking you out of the traditional package managers like APT or DNF or Pacman and limiting you to what is provided on Flatpak, I think might trip some folks.

I learned how to Linux on a Raspberry Pi. That is, in fact, what they’re for. I’ve got one (a Pi 2) that sits on my LAN with a hard drive attached as one part of my backup solution.

So, when Proton came out, and Windows games Just Worked on Linux, a lot of developers gave up making or maintaining native Linux versions of games, and the way you make games for Linux is make them for Windows and run them in Proton.

Are we now going to make games for Windows x86 and run them in Proton, on ARM? And are we going to get to a point where we start actually making games for the hardware and OS we play them on, or are we just stuck with compatibility lasagna?

The real problem is the hardware. Somebody needs to make a handset that has any chance of actually working out of an SoC that the manufacturer isn’t actively trying to stop people from using for anything other than mass mind rape. Once you’ve got that made, some neckbeard will have Debian running on it by sundown.

Possibly for this reason, Mint is a great choice for “keep my PC going so I can get to the google and the email and the facebook without having to buy another $1000 machine.” Mint is my go-to to keep a Pre-TPM computer on the road.

If you’ve got actual work to do, don’t.

I’ve got Bazzite on my TV PC, and it’s pretty cromulent for that, but Flatpak alone doesn’t have everything I need to do actual work.

You know that fat British guy that someone is posting shorts of on Youtube/Tiktok? “I was working for a company and their main product wasn’t selling. They asked me if they should lower the price, I told them ‘no, make your entry level product more shit.’ So they took their entry level product and added roofing nails to the seat cushions. Overnight, sales of their main product skyrocketed because no one was buying their entry level anymore.” That guy? He said he likes Samsung’s folding phone because “I’m old and my vision is failing, so I like the larger screen of the Fold. But you can’t sell that, because it’s not cool to sell products for the old and infirm.”

We’re at a point in history where an Apple computer is kind of difficult to recommend as a Linux box because they’ve pulled off of x86. Gaming. On Linux. On Apple Silicon. I bet you can do it, the Asashi or whatever people have done a remarkable job of reverse engineering from no published documentation at all from what I hear. But, we’re several generations of Apple Silicon in, I imagine the people who have jumped ship for Linux have done so by now, leaving the blue bubble brigade to themselves.

Remember, to many people, that Apple badge on the lid of that laptop isn’t just a billboard for a company you don’t own, it’s the badge of an in-group. There are entire states in the union where they won’t let you buy food if you’ve got a Samsung phone. It’s now government policy in Israel.

I’m convinced Atomic systems are going to be useful in a lot of applications but I’m not giving up a typical Linux system for my main computer yet.

Apple probably isn’t seeing it as a factor. Anyone switching from MacOS to Linux on Apple hardware has purchased Apple hardware and will likely continue doing so because they’re the kind of people who buy Apple products and you can’t change that about a person.

Of those Windows users switching to Linux, how many of them have decided to stop using a Windows license they’ve had for years? Instead of upgrading to 11 for free, they’re switching to Linux? Or, how many of them are rocking the Activate Windows watermark? There’s probably a pittance or two lost in ad revenue, but Microsoft almost isn’t a B2C company anymore.

Bazzite has been one in a LONG line of Trendy Distros Of The Month. People have been trying to make CachyOS happen, Zorin has made a couple appearances, ElementaryOS and Pop!_OS traded blows for awhile, Nobara was in there, a long while ago there was Peppermint, I’m forgetting a lot of them.

I somehow doubt that.

My last desktop PC has been retasked as an HTPC. The CPU in it requires a graphics card for the system to POST, it’s currently mounted in a SFF case with barely room for two 2.5" drives, so it would either make for a shitty, difficult to service, bulky for what it does, power inefficient NAS, or I’d have to buy a new case and CPU.

My current machine is in an mATX mini-tower, there’s room for hard disks and the 7700X has integrated graphics so I could haul the GPU out, but it’s still kind of bulky for what you’d get.

So I’m gonna keep my Synology in service for a little while longer, then build a NAS from scratch selecting components that would be good for that purpose.

It is my understanding that this is a byproduct of Google’s company culture. Google hires software engineers, they’re incentivized to invent something of their own. They do so. They get promoted. There isn’t room in their company structure for anything to be maintained, maintaining someone else’s project isn’t a path to promotion. So Play Wallet is now Android Pay is now Google Pay is being sunset.

Oh, and Google is an American corporation, so anything that doesn’t promise infinite exponential growth in revenue or unprecedented opportunities for cruelty is shot in the head as worthless.

Those are where the money comes from, re adsense. Remember, Google is a B2B company, they sell public attention to advertisers.

Or installing software the Windows way: google “something doer” and click the second link, find the Download page and then click yes when it asks “Allow Sworn Enemies Of Democracy to make changes on this computer?”

I begrudgingly prefer AppImage to being told to make make install, at this point. You know those little projects that will never go into a standard repo or flatpak. For example, some ham radios used a converter box that hooked up to a Windows 95 PC via serial so you could program its internal memory. Well, none of that shit exists anymore. so some guy somewhere has written a thing to do it with a Raspberry Pi’s GPIO. 444 people in the world will ever download and use this software. I’d rather you AppImage that than tell me to git clone make make install.

I think they broke up.

I am in the final stages of building two PCs for relatives of mine, and I don’t think I did so an hour too soon. I watched RAM double in price the day after I bought it.