Latest Comments by Purple Library Guy
Steam on a Chromebook could be closer than we think, with an AMD dGPU model coming
15 July 2021 at 6:08 pm UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: MalChromebooks are already great as they are. They're cheap and they can do everything a generalist user need for a tenth of the price of an Apple counterpart.

But if they also start to support steam libraries then there might be a case for buying the premium versions. They would still be cheaper than premium Apple counterparts and able to run more games.

If might help "pure" Linux popularity as well if Chromebooks start to educate people that you don't need to be ripped off by Apple to have a portable pc that actually works. Though, at the same time, ever since Chromebooks I find it harder to justify installing an Ubuntu on a relative's pc given their use case. As opposed to the times when you just had to replace windows with Linux to fix every issue a year old notebook could have, with Chrome OS things just works. In my opinion there are little reasons to "upgrade" to Linux from Chrome OS if your a generic user, gaming being probably the only one until borealis takes it away.
My wife has a Chromebook. And indeed, for her use case it is generally just fine. But a cheap real-Linux box would probably be better. (In theory you can probably stick Linux on my wife's Chromebook, but it looks like it's rather tricky--not like wiping a normal Windows laptop and sticking Linux on it, at all)
The reason has to do with Google's insistence on controlling the experience . . . and the files. This is occasionally irritating in normal use; Chromebooks will let you put a file on the machine itself or into a USB stick or whatever, but they don't want you to and they don't make it easy. Google wants you to be using Google Docs and keeping all your stuff on their cloud. They want you to barely realize your files are anywhere, they certainly don't want you to be controlling them.
This becomes a much bigger problem if something goes wrong . . . which seems to be happening increasingly as the machine gets older and Google want you to buy a new one. A while ago my wife basically lost all her files. The machine had been saying that there would be no more upgrades to the Chrome version on her machine (so she should get a new one), but then something went wrong, and in recovering there was, ironically, some kind of forced upgrade or something, and when the dust settled it had lost her files. They probably exist somewhere on some Google server, but Google said it wasn't able to restore her access or something, so for practical purposes, gone.
There are also occasional annoyances when my wife wants to do something her way rather than Google's way, or wants to do something that's not obviously part of the limited set of things Google has laid out for you to do. This doesn't come up often, but even someone who normally just browses the web, does email and creates a few documents will sometimes want to do something else. On Linux, that means either it's already installed and you check the menus, or you fire up the Software Centre or whatever and install something that does that. On a Chromebook, that means you shrug and do without what you were hoping to do.

So yeah, I think there's still a case for putting a "generic user" on Linux rather than ChromeOS.

That said, this news is still a Good Thing.

Stadia gets more generous revenue models plus a porting toolkit for DirectX to Vulkan
14 July 2021 at 11:58 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Guest
Quoting: kellerkindtI think this is where valve should step in an help out and/or push game studios to also update & publish the Linux/Stadia version onto Steam for Linux desktop... which seems to me like low hanging fruits...?

Why would Valve do that?

Leaving aside that Google probably has terms in place precisely to prevent such a thing, especially if they're directly helping game studios to create that version, there's really nothing in it for Valve, no incentive for them to do so.
Well . . . probably no incentive. If they are actually trying to make a Switch-like, Linux-based gaming platform thingie and are serious about it, they have an incentive to boost the number of titles which will work reliably on that platform when it comes out.
If. So far our speculations on that issue have rather thin foundations.

Dark mysterious metroidvania Crowsworn is live on Kickstarter and flew past the goal
13 July 2021 at 8:14 pm UTC Likes: 1

There are a lot of games where the protagonist has amnesia, aren't there? I guess it's a good gimmick for games because it gives you a reason why you're involved and yet have no idea what's going on and have to find out.

The 'Homesteading' update for survival game Vintage Story is shaping up to be huge
12 July 2021 at 2:59 pm UTC

Quoting: ixnari
Quoting: torhamI'm under the impression that, like Minecraft, this game has DRM and you must login everytime you play. Yuck.

Just once, actually. Then it lets you play offline whenever. It doesn't make it any less annoying, though.
I would think that would actually make it somewhat less annoying. Perfect, no, but there's a serious difference in annoyance level there.

Linux Mint 20.2 is out now with upgrades from 20 and 20.1 possible
12 July 2021 at 2:47 pm UTC

Quoting: Guppyfingers crossed that they solved the pluseaudio - hdmi issue, "pulseaudio -k" is by a very wide margin the most run command on my 20.1 system these days >_>
What does that issue do? (wondering if this might be relevant to a problem I've been having)

Total War: WARHAMMER II - The Silence & The Fury releases soon as the last DLC
7 July 2021 at 4:26 pm UTC

I can see why they called it that. You got this stealthy shaman, so silence. And on the other side, Beastmen. So, The Silence and the Furry.

DOSBox-X and DOSBox Staging both had new releases lately
5 July 2021 at 7:29 pm UTC

Quoting: Nocifer
Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm losing track. How does Boxtron relate to these projects?

It's DOSBox Staging behind the scenes.
Thanks!

12 years ago we appeared online, Happy Birthday to GamingOnLinux
5 July 2021 at 6:29 pm UTC Likes: 4

Well, hurrah! Happy birthday!
You know, GoL has become the place where I go for Linux news, period. Anything important and relevant to the desktop tends to be relevant to gaming as well, so I see it here. And other Linux sites tend to be full of stuff about servers or whatever, that I don't give a damn about. So after I found GoL I gradually realized I really had no need for other Linux sites as a rule.

DOSBox-X and DOSBox Staging both had new releases lately
5 July 2021 at 6:10 pm UTC Likes: 1

I'm losing track. How does Boxtron relate to these projects?

Heroic Games Launcher 1.8.0 'Arlong' is out now and goes multi-platform
4 July 2021 at 12:25 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: denyasis
Quoting: 14It's like I'm at capacity for this kind of stuff: Steam native, Proton, Lutris, Battle.net, Origin, minigalaxy, itch.io...

Exactly, someone should make one launcher to unify them all!

(Yes, I'm joking... kinda)
You sly XKCD referencer, you.