The Mint Team is working on the Cinnamon Desktop to prepare it for Wayland. The laptop I game with is on Linux Mint XFCE Edition. I am not fussed about Wayland support. I also have confidence that when the XFCE team is ready to move the XFCE desktop to Wayland, it will be rock-solid stable.

I haven't experienced any issues gaming on X11. I don't imagine I'll experience any issues with Wayland either, once I get around to trying it. For me, X11 is stable and that's all that matters to me.

I guess I just don't utilize the features that cause so many others distress. I'm not polarized for or against either X11 or Wayland. For now X11 serves my purposes and some time in the future, Wayland will replace it. I'm good either way.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Great article. You had my interest with the pictures (especially that one from your desktop session with the sandworm rising) but you lost me with the word MMO. Just not my thing.

I do think they are heading in a better direction, though -- one-time payment, no subscription fees and no microtransactions. For those of you that like MMOs, enjoy!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I think it highly likely that M$ will charge a license fee for every Windows handheld install. What are Valve's intentions with SteamOS?

I agree that M$ has had a lot of failures but I worry that they are just trying to pull another scam to bring down the competition, like they did to the netbooks. Will they care if they lose money in the short term?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

@Pyrate

About the screenshot: The real reason why we're so deep into this bad state for the industry, is because you have people excusing that shit. Unreal.

I really didn't find his response all that objectionable. I've seen far more arrogant stuff coming from the likes of Todd Howard or Tim Sweeney. And then there's good old Bill and his successors ...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

A lot of good observations here. I agree with a lot of them. I remember when Ultima IV for PC released back in the day. The sticker shock was incredible - they wanted $100 Cdn at launch. Higher prices were really not unusual for triple-A games with long development cycles. Back in the early nineties, low-end IBM PCs were typically $2,500 Cdn or more. Clones were often half that price for a basic PC.

I think it is a matter of perception, really. When we paid $100 for that game back in the day, we got a physical box & media. We got a nice printed manual and other support materials (medallions, coins, other booklets, etc.). RPGs such as Ultima often included a cloth map.

Compare that to a digital release. Nothing physical to hold in our hands. Nothing to give a sense of value to the purchase. From that perception of value, the consumer doesn't see that they are getting as much for the $80 US price tag on a purely digital purchase.

So, yes, there are still distribution costs behind the scenes, but it is not as obvious to the average consumer as a physical product in their hands.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

@Stella

I dual-boot on all my systems (I paid for the license, so I'm not going to delete it). I spend very little time in Windows, except for games or applications that won't run in Linux (which is getting to be fewer & fewer all the time). I noticed a couple years back that the same game would run better in Linux. I also like that I can give each game their own prefix, so there is no chance of one installation corrupting the other.
Windows has always sucked for performance and bloat.

I can't comment on battery life, however, as I rarely use my laptops that way.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

@PurpleLibraryGuy

I may have been confusing liberalism vs. conservatism with left vs. right, then. After all, it is possible to be a left-leaning conservative. It is also possible to be a right-leaning liberal. This tends to make things too complicated for the polar thinkers out there.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

@Cato-the-younger

From the way others have written to you, I assume you are Russian? Or, live in one of the former Soviet satellite states? I cannot presume to understand every detail of what things were like for Soviet citizens. Yes, looking back at what I wrote, you are correct -- I was echoing Western propaganda and making assumptions about the how things were under Soviet rule. If you have firsthand experience, clearly your knowledge is greater than mine. Unbiased information is difficult to come by no matter where we reside.

I do not want to wade back into the "Fascism is a form of Socialism" debate, as clearly the views of what constitutes Socialism are too dogmatic here. I would like to make the point, however, that, under Fascism, while the means of production may have been privately owned, control was supposed to be in the hands of the state. Mussolini, generally considered to be one of the founders of Fascism, was reportedly hostile to private corporations and the free market economy. Whether this hostility appeared in practice, I haven't been able to discover yet. I also cannot speak as to whether all forms of Fascism from that era followed along the same lines. In seeming contradiction, modern definitions state that Fascism is the ultimate synthesis of state and corporate business. Perhaps this applies more to Neo-Fascism?

And, yes, I have been checking my facts.

I find it interesting, your statement that the means of production belonged to the worker. Is this truly the case -- using a single factory, as an example -- that the workers in that factory made all the decisions without any interference from the bureaucrats in the government above? This would be remarkably similar to an employee-owned business here in the West. If so, this is certainly not what Western propaganda has led us to believe.

Thanks for the polite correspondence. It is appreciated.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

@tuubi

you seem badly misinformed ...

Funny. I could have said the same thing about you. I just chose to be polite and end the conversation. I didn't see you backing up your claims either.

You are not going to convince me and I am not going to convince you. Let's just call it a day, shall we?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

@tuubi

You might want to check a dictionary for a definition of Socialism.

No offense, @tuubi, but you might want to check an encyclopedia yourself.

If workers don't own the means of production, it's not Socialism

You have defined Communism (or, perhaps, Marxism), not Socialism. Socialism comes in many variants. Karl Marx was not the originator of the idea of Socialism, as many have come to believe. In regards to Socialism, it is generally considered that the resources and means of production should be controlled by the state. Not the workers, the state (i.e., the government). And this does not necessarily imply ownership, either. Capitalism functions quite well with many forms of socialism.

As I was taught long ago, Fascism is typically placed on the right of the socialist spectrum, whereas Communism has been placed on the left of that spectrum. However, in terms of political systems, all socialist idealogies are considered to be left-leaning (i.e., more government intrusion). The true political right leans towards less government involvement in society, not more. The failure to distinguish the difference between the socialist spectrum and its place in the entire political spectrum has led to a great deal of confusion as to what is left or right.

Fascism was developed by two socialists, expanding on the ideas of Karl Marx. What we now know as Nazism was originally called National Socialism. Both put the socialist focus on the nation instead of the working class, as would have been advocated by Marx.

Contrary to the assertion of @Purple Library Guy, Hitler did not hate the Communists. He considered them brothers and said so publicly. Hitler did, however, silence anyone he believed opposed him.

FYI, my understanding of the political realities of the first half of the 20th century pre-dates YouTube. Please do not attempt to denigrate my opinions by suggesting they are influenced by social media.

This is the last I have to say on the matter.

View this comment - View article - View full comments