Quoting: GuestAn example? Sure, every non-windows program, including the drivers. All the stuff that used to come on CDs. Then the stuff to overclock your hardware, the countless programs to clean windows, antivirus or browsers. (though i guess people just use edge and windows defender now) I don't understand how it's less fragmented than what we have.

Yet your initial statement was that were no fragmentation (emphasis mine):

Quoting: GuestThere is no fragmentation. On Windows every program every secon pwrusr g4m3r uses is a third party program that offers next to no integration to the supposedly "non-fragmented" desktop/toolchain.

The difference being, a program for Windows targets a version, not a flavour. Which means that it will work, no matter if you are running Windows <insert version here> Home / Pro / Business. On Linux, packages exists for some distributions only (if any), and after then it is up to the user to sort things to make it work.

Quoting: GuestYou are not forced to run a kde/gnome/xfce/openbox frankendesktop, you can just as well run one of them and pretend the others don't exist, same as on windows.

I have seen plenty of threads on forums where someone asked how to do this and that, and usually, the first answer was along the lines of : "which DE are you using ?" or "I don't know for <insert DE #1>, but on <insert DE #2>, do [...]"
Which usually end up on some obscure command line (so modern... :whistle:) which may also target a certain distro (aka "sudo apt-get [..]" which is royally ignored on Manjaro and stuff...)

Quoting: GuestFor games all of this stuff is largely unimportant, since they will only use a handful of libs like sdl to interact with your window manager/DE of choice. and any version mismatch can be bridged by the way steam and gog handle these things. It won't eliminate all possible errors under the sun but that's avoided by the existing approach to pick one officially supported distro for a game.

This is exactly the point: developers end up resorting to targeting one (or a few) distro, and it's up to the users to check how to install missing stuff on their specific distro (aka "not out-of-the-box experience"). They cannot simply target, say, Linux 5.4 (or whatever is the latest stable kernel version) like they target Windows 10. Also, package names tend to change between distros, so the user has to double-check the package name in his distro.

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Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: brokeassbenI'm having frequent complete system freezes that require a hard reset and nothing I've tried so far is helping. Different drives, entirely different distros, updated the BIOS, tested RAM, and still freezing. Sooo damn frustrating.

Power supply is the next item on your checklist.

In addition to CatKiller suggestion, you may also want to try setting a fixed voltage for your CPU, closest to the "auto" setting. I remember having to do that on "cheap" motherboard, and setting a fixed value solved the problems for me. Might be worth a try. Also, check the CPU temperature, in these hot days ; you may want to try underclocking the CPU a little, and see if it improves stability.

As for me, this week I tried again to make a Windows VM work for music making. After a lot of trouble installing all Windows 7 updates from all those years, I found out that my motherboard makes it difficult to passthrough my USB audio card. So, I may end up buying a dedicated PCI USB controller to make it easier. In any case, I am making a lot of notes on what to look for for my future PC upgrade :smile:

So, I gave up for now and I (finally) went back to Wizard of Legend [External Link]. I had not play for a long time, so it was nice to see all the new stuff (and boss !) they added to the game. What was less nice it that my saved game was wiped, so, time to unlock everything one more time I guess :whistle:

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: furaxhornyx

Quoting: GuestAs for support, all is really needed is that they figure out a base set of (external) libraries they want/need to support. And steam/gog provides them that already, so even them targeting ancient library versions are not a problem anymore.

To my mind every single dev/publisher that figured out that steam can ship their version of libraries and that it is enough to support one distribution to satisfy 99% of linux gamers has done a good enough job. This has nothing to do with how many desktop environments and how many "linux" distro flavours are out there.

99% seems a bit optimistic, if we look at the GOL statistics (assuming of course that those statistics are representative)

Not the point being made. He's not saying nobody uses other distros. He's saying that by and large those other distros, if their users are likely to have the faintest interest in gaming, will ensure that the Steam approach will work on their distro. So game developers code to Steam's de facto standard of what libraries to use and such, distros make sure that works, 99% of Linux gamers find games work. Thus, functionally not fragmentation.
Note that I don't know if this is true, I'm just trying to make sure you're not talking past each other.

Thank you for the clarification ; English is not my native langage, so I read it like "[...]it is enough to support one distribution to satisfy 99% of linux gamers"

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: randylThe one thing I hope comes out of this summit is a better way forward for application development. Our diversity is one of our greatest strengths and weaknesses (due to fragmentation). I feel like we're often so worried about courting Windows and Mac users and making our software available to their platforms that we've neglected the deep fragmentation in our own.

There is no fragmentation. On Windows every program every secon pwrusr g4m3r uses is a third party program that offers next to no integration to the supposedly "non-fragmented" desktop/toolchain.

Could you give an example of such third-party program ?

Quoting: GuestAs for support, all is really needed is that they figure out a base set of (external) libraries they want/need to support. And steam/gog provides them that already, so even them targeting ancient library versions are not a problem anymore.

To my mind every single dev/publisher that figured out that steam can ship their version of libraries and that it is enough to support one distribution to satisfy 99% of linux gamers has done a good enough job. This has nothing to do with how many desktop environments and how many "linux" distro flavours are out there.

99% seems a bit optimistic, if we look at the GOL statistics (assuming of course that those statistics are representative)

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Quoting: grigiNo, the "fragmentation" isn't a bad thing. Think of it in terms of innovations, if only one thing is allowed, will we ever actually get progress?

In terms of innovation, yes, but no so much in terms of development (I quote below a good illustration):

Quoting: randylWhen we ask a game studio to support "Linux" and provide us a native "port", what exactly are we asking? What are they supposed to target and support? Do we expect them to support all our various packaging systems?

--8<--------------

Quoting: slaapliedjeIn my mind we should be asking 'please support this game on Linux via Steam or GOG or itch.io.' not "please make debian packages."

But wouldn't targeting a "store" end up for example like what we see with Epic Game Store getting exclusives ?

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I have started a third run on Punch Club [External Link] :whistle:

I also played a bit of Left 4 Dead 2 [External Link] with a friend. We both haven't played this game since a looong time (my resolution was still set to match my old 4:3 monitor, which is now my secondary monitor :tongue:), so the first minutes were just us running headlessly everywhere... But it was fun !

I haven't bought Carrion [External Link] yet, because I had mixed feelings with the demo...

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Quoting: ValckNow this looks interesting!

Hopefully now I can finally turn off the RGB crap you simply can't avoid buying these days... will this idiocy never stop?
Glossy glarey displays, piano black finish, RGB lighting inside closed cases, I don't even want to know what may come next.

This reminds me, on Windows, I had a special software with my GPU, but I didn't know what it was for. After a bit of research, I found that... its purpose was to synchronize the RGB "breathing" effect (lights increasing and decreasing, in a seemingly "breath in, breath out" motion) between my Asus GPU and Asus monitor... :huh:

Fortunately, the lights can be turned off for the monitor, and my GPU is not visible inside my PC case... but I am with you: the RGB-everywhere nonsense has to stop...

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I love the trailer music :tongue:
I will look into this, added to wishlist for now

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I finished my second playthrough of Pine [External Link]. It wasn't planned, but I "accidentally" ended up again with all the collectibles (and associated bonus items), which is always nice to have :smile:

I also bought two copies of Mists of Noyah [External Link] for coop play, but did not have the opportunity to try it yet.

I also bought Blacksad [External Link], but unfortunately the game crashed repeatedly, I could even go past the menu. So I had to ask for a refund :sad:

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Did a second run on Punch club [External Link], this time triggering another story line (I didn't even know they was more than one). That's pretty cool, wonder if I will get another surprise on my third run (with the last fighting style, the Turtle).

I also played a run on Refunct [External Link]. The game is very short (< 10 min), this is probably the best introduction to speedrun you will find, all in a very chill atmosphere.

I tried the demo of Neon Abyss [External Link] and I quite enjoyed the run. It seems to have a lot in common with The Binding of Isaac (which I don't like much), but I prefer the platformer approach more. Release date is scheduled for tomorrow (July 14th)... Decisions, decisions :tongue:

Finally, I started playing Divinity II: Developer's cut [External Link], but the choppy camera made me stop after 2 hours. The problem seems to affect the Windows version too ; currently the only suggested fix that seemed to work was to cap the game to 30 fps, using libstrangle [External Link] (strangle 30 %command in Steam)... which is not that great :sad:

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