Yup. Form factors are often overlooked. I regularly use…
… for gaming and I play a wildly different set of games on each device. It’s hard to describe why exactly, but some games just feel more “correct” when played on one device over another.
My assumption is that it probably uses the same mechanism that most other SSDs already have where it always saves the data with internal encryption and simply overwrites the encryption key when a wipe is requested.
This same mechanism already allows SSDs to be formatted quickly while still being secure without having to zero out everything, which would cause a lot of additional wear.
The additional complete wiping would just be the cherry on top.
Agree. Outer Wilds is my favorite game and all the others in that section aren’t far behind.
That is, except for Ultros, which is a game I’ve heard about before but didn’t know it belonged in this category of games. I guess I know what I have to check out next.
First up, this fork is specifically about the Android client, not any other ones.
The fork of that always had some nice mobile battery saving features added, but morr importantly, the original version has been discontinued.
Adding onto that, the app StreetComplete makes contributing stupidly easy. You basically get a bunch of quests generatef around you with missing or potentially outdated data that you can fill in by answering simple questions. Basically Pokemon Go, but infinitely more useful.
Agree. It’s neat for file transfers and simple one-shot backups, but if you’re looking for a proper backup solution then other tools/services have advanced virtually every aspect of backups so much it pretty much always makes sense to use one of those instead.
I’ve also done the math a few times and every time the cost of GamePass was higher than the amount of money I would’ve saved in that same timeframe.
The only way I could’ve saved money would’ve been to not purchase any games not on GamePass and limit myself to (worse) games included in the subscription.
So if I, someone who purchases and subsequently abandons a lot of game, so basically the target audience, can’t make GamePass work, I wonder how many people just run on copium when they mention how much money they save. Either that, or they treat gaming like junk food and don’t care about quality.
Oh please, stop the act, we can see your shitty referral link.
I do think those featues have become pretty common in PC gaming nowadays, which is why I’m more in favor of openSUSE as the beginner distro if I had to pick just one, but sure, let’s put that aside.
When it comes to Linux though I just don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all distro yet that I can safely recommend to everyone. And getting beginners onto a distro that fits them can greatly benefit their initial experience, so I think it’s worth it to give them a few simple choices. That said, you’re completely right that the way OP tries to explain the differences isn’t how you should do it. Ever. Less choices, less jargon, less mentions of fringe distros. It also doesn’t help that a lot of it seems to be based on hearsay rather than actual first-hand experience.
Do you really want to recommend btrfs to beginners?
I mean, it’s the default on Fedora with all its spins, openSUSE, CachyOS and even SteamOS for its root partition.
So lots of people use it nowadays without even knowing.
Chiming in, I’ll say that I mostly agree with your points, except for one:
Someone who just started looking into switching to Linux is looking for neither X11 nor Wayland support.
They won’t care about X11 vs Wayland, sure. A non-ignorable number of them will care about stuff like HDR or multi-monitor setups where different refresh rates don’t stutter and VRR works, and that’s where proper Wayland support becomes a must.
If you recommend someone a distro that can’t do those things and later have to tell them that they have to switch distros for that chances are high they’ll just go back to Windows.
Yeah, that’s why I’m currently only recommending Mint to people who don’t do any gaming. It’s kind of a shame that Mint doesn’t have a KDE spin. It would be my unconditional beginner distro otherwise.
Personally I run CachyOS + KDE with native Wayland and HDR enabled system-wide. It’s kind of amazing how I don’t even need to clog the launch parameters of every game with a bunch of variables and tools like gamescope anymore. I just have to hit launch and all the fancy features just work.
I see.
HDR depends a lot on the monitor I guess. Mine isn’t really brighter in HDR mode than normal because it’s an OLED, so the big difference is that the darks can get darker and more detailed as opposed to the brighter brights on HDR LCD/LED panels.
As for VRR, I’m a huge fan of it and I can’t recommend it enough. Particularly on high refresh rate monitors and demanding game it’s a big win not having to tweak your settings so that the framerate always stays above the monitors specified refresh rate. No tearing. No penalty from not reaching the required framerate. Just a smooth presentation.
You can actually use VRR on X11, but only on for single monitor and it will introduce tearing on the others.
Neat theme.
everything has been running flawlessly.
I have to ask though: Do these monitors not have HDR or VRR and run at the same refresh rate?
Those are the things why I usually wouldn’t recommend Mint for high-end gaming rig like yours right now: None of the supported DEs are really ready for Wayland and therefore stuck with those problems (for now).
What’s extra funny is that I already did all of this, and yet, I’ve been informed that my developer account is subject to deletion because I’m not active enough. Since my game does not get regular updates I said F this, let them delete my account. It’s still available for sideload on itch.io anyway. Jokes on me for believing that.
So yeah, it seems like Google is actively hostile towards building a library of software/games that just work and intentionally only wants live service garbage apps on their platform because those make more revenue.
Because it wasn’t mentioned, I’ll just note that Joplin has also has the option to sync with a dedicated server component.
While it doesn’t work in a P2P configuration like a Syncthing setup allows, I’d recommend it for anyone with access to a server.
This, so much. Looking back, it’s just insane that pretty much every program you don’t regularly use will beg for updates on Windows. There are some bandaids like WinGet now that I appreciate, but it’s still nowhere as seamless as when the OS and the whole ecosystem around it are designed with a package manager in mind.
A huge chunk of the time I have to spend on tinkering is probably already saved by me not having to wait for updates.
Mint is a fine distro, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that wants to do gaming right now either. None of the first class DEs are running on Wayland yet, which means that most monitor features of the last decade are not at all or badly supported.
Considering this post is actually 8 years old with no follow-up and the newest post is 6 years old… I wouldn’t count on it.
In general, while some games still get HDR wrong, I’d read this article more as a time capsule from an age when HDR in gaming was still in its infancy.
What I don’t understand is why the person that owns the device wrote the following in their blog post:
This seems like that device was sold to him as “offline” capable. Where does that claim even come from? From a cursory glance I don’t see that product advertised that way anywhere.
Now, I’d be totally in favor that such devices working offline should be the norm, but then again, the person writing the blog should know how these devices currently work.