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Cake day: August 6th, 2023

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  • I work at a game studio that provides Linux-native builds of our game. I don’t speak for them but in my opinion this gives us an opportunity to take advantage of Linux features such as better input systems, performance, dev tooling, and in the future maybe APIs like Wayland. While the Windows build does work via Proton, it’s limited to what Microsoft allows us to do with the Windows API. We also have to use a non-standard-compliant compiler (msvc) and overall maintaining a Windows build damages code quality, performance, dev speed, and end user experience. Our Linux userbase is already small enough, imagine if all our players started using the Proton version. It’d become impossible to justify spending as much time on the Linux builds as we do, and they would probably stop being available. So, although I see WINE and Proton as a net positive, I fear it will slowly kill Linux development and eventually all games will be limited 100% by what MS decides, despite technically playing them on a free platform.






  • I’m personally really excited for Linux phones and want to move to one relatively soon. They’ve done amazing work on the experience of using them. What I’d really miss, based off of talking to folks and trying them at conventions, is:

    • battery life. My Pixel 3a lasts over a day on Android, likely much less on pmOS
    • UnifiedPush for notifications. I only see a Matrix client listed as WIP. Every other app (Fediverse, Signal) I would have to keep running in the background
    • Notifications while in sleep mode. Looks like we don’t have “Doze Mode” from Android, so only calls & SMS work while asleep
    • Fingerprint sensor. More of a QoL but I kept my phone model specifically for the ergonomics of the sensor on the back, and being able to scroll with it. Communication with the sensor is not yet figured out






  • I had a ROG Zephyrus G14 “AMD Advantage” laptop with a AMD GPU in it that suffered from these “ring” crashes (according to dmesg). They came and went every few months sometimes with several weeks between crashes. When it would happen, audio kept playing but the display was frozen (can’t even go to tty) and I had to force poweroff. The crash could also happen on Windows (I installed it just to test repro) but Windows handled restarting the GPU so it wouldn’t freeze unlike Linux. The conclusion, at least in the community of people with that laptop, is that it was a hardware defect and the laptop needed to be RMA’d. ASUS wouldn’t do anything for mine though despite explaining the issue to them and showing it happening on Windows.

    Either way, I now own a Framework 16 with a 7000 series GPU and am very happy :)





  • mat@linux.communitytoLinux@lemmy.mlOkay why is your distro the best?
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    2 months ago

    I (maybe) ended distrohopping last year when I gave NixOS a shot. I can’t recommend it for beginners but once you understand generally how things work on Linux (and have an interest in programming) it’s a superpower to be able to define your entire setup as a single git repository. If something ever breaks, I can reboot into an older commit and keep using my computer, or branch off in a different direction… I’ve only scratched the surface of NixOS and yet I can already make a live USB containing my setup with a single command, or deploy it (“infect”) to another machine and manage e.g my work desktop and my personal laptop sharing most settings. Also it taught me about Nix (the package manager, which also runs on any distro and macOS independent of NixOS) which I now use to set up perfect development environments for each of my projects… if I set up dependencies once (as a flake.nix shell), it’ll work forever and anywhere.