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Latest Comments by Purple Library Guy
Debian 10 "Buster" has finally been released
9 July 2019 at 5:50 am UTC

Quoting: Patola
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: dvd
Quoting: fagnerln
Quoting: ThormackThe new Steam officially supported distro just launched.
Awesome.



(Just a speculation, for now...)

Nah, I don't think so.

There's a lot things to do after the installation. IMO they will support a more friendly distro, preferably with a corporation behind, like OpenSUSE or Fedora

Maybe they create a new distro for desktop use based on Debian.

I don't see where people get the impression that Ubuntu is more 'user friendly'. Nothing says that better than their python based installer that regularly crashes at the partitioning step with a bunch of exceptions that are surely easier to read for the average user than plain language.

Because the average used does not use whatever advanced setting that you are using that are causing those crashes. They will simply click "next" all the way. And once they have done so they will have a fully working desktop, and if they need further customization or changes then the Internet is full of blogs and nice looking guides for how to do this in Ubuntu.

That is why.
Agreed. Although I do have one minor peeve about that Ubuntu (and Mint) installer nonetheless. As a pretty basic user, I still tend to need to muck with the partitioning. Why? Because even the most basic user would be well advised to put their /home on a separate partition from the / with the actual OS. Eventually you're gonna update or reinstall or try a different distro or something, and when you do your life will be so much easier if your actual data you care about is on a separate partition from the one that's gonna get formatted. Sure, you should do a backup anyway, but having those two partitions is basic. But do they have that as an option, or even the default? They do not. If you want that you have to go into the full partitioning thingie and worry about swap and a little boot space and crap like that. Grumble mutter whine bitch.
(I swear I have a recollection of Mandriva having that option available in its installer in the old days)

What you cite is not an argument for partitioning, but rather for the use of LVM.

And frankly I don't know why anyone would partition any linux installation today (except for sharing a drive with Microsoft crapware, of course). It seems to me that this should have been abandoned in the nineties, when I fully switched to using LVM on every installation.
Yes, well, I've never really understood exactly what LVM is or what it's for, but presumably the same point applies: If it's so awesome and will do something to help me not reformat my data when I do a new install, it should be an option available in the installer, or even the default, so that it can happen without me having to understand how to set it up.

Debian 10 "Buster" has finally been released
7 July 2019 at 5:05 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: dvd
Quoting: fagnerln
Quoting: ThormackThe new Steam officially supported distro just launched.
Awesome.



(Just a speculation, for now...)

Nah, I don't think so.

There's a lot things to do after the installation. IMO they will support a more friendly distro, preferably with a corporation behind, like OpenSUSE or Fedora

Maybe they create a new distro for desktop use based on Debian.

I don't see where people get the impression that Ubuntu is more 'user friendly'. Nothing says that better than their python based installer that regularly crashes at the partitioning step with a bunch of exceptions that are surely easier to read for the average user than plain language.

Because the average used does not use whatever advanced setting that you are using that are causing those crashes. They will simply click "next" all the way. And once they have done so they will have a fully working desktop, and if they need further customization or changes then the Internet is full of blogs and nice looking guides for how to do this in Ubuntu.

That is why.
Agreed. Although I do have one minor peeve about that Ubuntu (and Mint) installer nonetheless. As a pretty basic user, I still tend to need to muck with the partitioning. Why? Because even the most basic user would be well advised to put their /home on a separate partition from the / with the actual OS. Eventually you're gonna update or reinstall or try a different distro or something, and when you do your life will be so much easier if your actual data you care about is on a separate partition from the one that's gonna get formatted. Sure, you should do a backup anyway, but having those two partitions is basic. But do they have that as an option, or even the default? They do not. If you want that you have to go into the full partitioning thingie and worry about swap and a little boot space and crap like that. Grumble mutter whine bitch.
(I swear I have a recollection of Mandriva having that option available in its installer in the old days)

10 years ago GamingOnLinux was created, what a ride it's been
5 July 2019 at 5:07 am UTC Likes: 2

Wow, 10 years! That's a long time to work on anything. Also, it's impressive and always makes me feel heartened to see someone's labour of love turn into something they can viably do full time. On both counts, congratulations! And thanks for making a place I really enjoy spending time at.

Steam's top releases of May show why Steam Play is needed for Linux
4 July 2019 at 7:19 pm UTC Likes: 2

Personally, at the risk of getting extremely political, I'd like to say I think Beamboom is absolutely right given the constraints of our current economic system, while Shmerl makes excellent points about more fundamental ethical and aesthetic values, which is why we need to overthrow the system. :D
But while we're in this one, it's hard to blame people for operating within it.

Valve are asking for help testing "ACO", a new Mesa shader compiler for AMD graphics
4 July 2019 at 8:12 am UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: GrabbyYou're probably correct on all those points. But gradyvuckovic's remark was more about Nvidia realizing that a lot of good things can come out an open-source ecosystem.

Nvidia doesn't care. They are like Oracle in this sense. They deal with open source very reluctantly, because they totally don't get the point of it.
I think what Oracle gets is that, whatever the point of open source is, it probably isn't getting Larry Ellison an even longer yacht, so they are deeply suspicious.

The former Paradox Interactive CEO thinks "platform holders" 30% cut is "outrageous"
3 July 2019 at 11:30 pm UTC

Quoting: Mal
Quoting: cprn"Epic is fixing it" while they have money... But they'll have to start making it at some point. And those extra data centres aren't free. Things like power, storage, transfer, backup, people and hardware redundancy cost a little fortune. That debt will sooner or later have to be paid. By us. So lets not fall in love yet. With any side.

I have a theory. Imho people don't understand that it's not loyal consumers Epic is after. The customers they have will just go back to Steam or Gog as soon as they have the freedom to do so. At Epic they are not so stupid to not see it. They can't be. Steam is superior and Epic has no intention to ever compete with them feature wise. Sweeney said that over and over.

Epic just want an install base large enough to convince the remaining big publishers to join their cartel. Including publishers with their own launchers like EA. The 12% thing is there to convince them that it would be much more convenient even for them to just let them handle distribution. Then they will have all the cards in their hand. And with that they will be able to dictate the rules: prices and conditions.

After trying to make a sense from what they are doing, I convinced myself that the real monetization they are after will come from monthly subscription memberships for all the on line features that as of today status quo are included a PC game price tag (the evil 30% steam tax) as opposed to pretty much every other console or stream service out there. Once they have all the large publishers on board, they will be able to force that kind of model on PC. And even Steam would not have the resources to challenge that (their full set of features benefit more small devs compared to big publishers which can invest in their own infrastructure. So in a sense big ones pays for small ones in Steam). The final objective is to make PC market more console like.

Ofc it's just theory of mine. But if I had to be convinced to invest ton of money and assets in this crazy adventure, that is the kind of argument that would convince me.
Interesting theory. No way of knowing at this point if it's true, and with luck they'll fail completely enough that we'll never find out. But I wouldn't rule it out.

Valve are asking for help testing "ACO", a new Mesa shader compiler for AMD graphics
3 July 2019 at 8:54 pm UTC Likes: 8

Quoting: GuestSo previously I would point out that Valve only fund work that someone has started.
It's therefore only fair of me to look at this and point out that, I believe, this is instigated, developed, run by Valve itself.

Nice project. If it continues and becomes a more defacto backend for Mesa, I wonder what will happen with the llvm one. Doubt I'll be playing with ACO myself until it's more mature, but it's very nice to see this kind of investment.

...makes me wonder again what Valve are driving at. This kind of investment for a small market share platform? I don't believe it. They'll be wanting GNU/Linux (and it has to be GNU, there's no sense in not using the GNU components) to have a larger market share, so I'm curious what the plan is about that.
Yeah. I too think they must have something in mind. It's a nice thought; I hope they get it right this time.

I sometimes wonder if the original push for Steam Machines was sort of partly an experiment, or ended up that way--like either from the beginning or part way through they started to realize that the infrastructure they needed to make it work wasn't in place, but they'd already made some deals so they went through with it kind of half-heartedly while noting all the points of failure as a learning experience. If you want to learn what you would need to succeed at something, there's nothing like trying and failing, to rub your nose in it.

Valve are asking for help testing "ACO", a new Mesa shader compiler for AMD graphics
3 July 2019 at 7:14 pm UTC Likes: 12

This seems cool, and once again Valve is doing things the classy way: Open source, working with the community, respectful tone.

The former Paradox Interactive CEO thinks "platform holders" 30% cut is "outrageous"
3 July 2019 at 4:38 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: Tuxee
QuoteWhat are your thoughts?

That Wester is either an idiot or a hypocrite. I'd go for the latter.

I would more say that he is speaking from the viewpoint of his own company, it's of course in Paradox best interest to keep their own prices as high as possible while having to pay as little as possible to others like Valve. That is hardly being a hypocrite.
Just because being a hypocrite is solidly in your best interests does not make it stop being hypocrisy.

So what does his hypocrisy consist of? AFAIK he is not imposing a 30% cut of other companies to use the Paradox store?!
I feel like backing up a moment and talking about what hypocrisy is. If you don't agree with me on that, then obviously we're going to see different things as hypocrisy. To me, hypocrisy is when people morally condemn the same or similar actions in some cases but not others, usually precisely because they are speaking "from the viewpoint of" their personal (not necessarily monetary) gain. It's a violation of the "what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" principle. Refraining from hypocrisy requires speaking not "from the viewpoint of your own company" but rather from the viewpoint of principle. That may seem like an unreasonable requirement, but it only kicks in if you're making ethical or normative claims--of course those should be based on principle because you can't have it both ways; if you want to talk from your parochial interests then you have no business bringing morality into it.

So here we have a guy who clearly charges what the traffic will bear for his products, condemning Valve for charging what the traffic will bear . . . and doing so in a disingenuous fashion which makes what are pretty clearly knowingly false claims about Valve's (lack of) expenses. So, clearly his condemnation is not made out of genuine moral impulses--he knows he's lying and he knows he'd do the same because he more or less does; he's just trying to put some pressure on Valve in hopes of getting a price break. The details are different, and no doubt he could defend his pricing practices, but he's making false claims about Valve's so it would appear he doesn't care about that kind of fairness. And of course another element of hypocrisy there is that he would surely object strenuously if someone claimed to him that all those DLCs cost Paradox nothing to make.

Seems to me like he's pretty clearly treating the Valve case very differently in terms of rhetoric and moral judgment than he would treat his own. And he is doing so in the interest of monetary gain. So that's hypocrisy.

If he just said "Valve's cut costs my company more than we want to pay, we don't want to pay it so we'd rather they reduced it" then he would be talking about his company's interests but not making a moral judgment and so would not be open to accusations of hypocrisy. One thing I find interesting is that in a world which is supposedly all about the dollars and cents, where the official ethos of the market is that there is no such thing as morality and profit is its own justification, CEOs very often end up reaching for ethical claims because in the end, no matter how much our system tries to explain them away, they remain compelling.

Linux Mint doing a small-form-factor MintBox 3, they don't sound too happy about Snaps
3 July 2019 at 4:05 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: MunkThose hardware specs don't seem to make any sense to me. It looks like it's going to thermal throttle immediately, especially the high end model. There's no point to buy high end hardware that's going to be thermally limited to performance of low end hardware.

That's entirely speculative, however. I've obviously not tested it. It just looks like there's not going to be sufficient cooling.

Edit: Just read that it's based off something that has been tested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35OyZzCvG0g
I stand corrected.
I'm always impressed when someone not only tests their own hypothesis but reports if they were mistaken.