Some years back I was looking to buy some very expensive telescope eyepieces. Found a factory in China where a contract had been signed with them by the US designer but they had then pulled out due to some anti-Chinese manufacturing campaign at the time, decided to make them in the US instead with an even higher retail price than before. So the factory in China, having been sent all the designs already, just began producing them anyway and selling them for a tiny fraction of the cost of the US made ones. I picked them up and they were superb, could not see any signs of cut corners that affected their performance. Slightly different circumstances as it was the designer who breached the contract, but paid off for me.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: RavenWingsDamn, they all are just so great! Can I just put em all in a folder and have the Deck choose one at random? That would increase my average daily happiness by at least 10% :grin:

There is indeed. I highly recommend this. You can put weightings on them too.

random deck boot animations [External Link]

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: pb"someone [External Link]"

Has that user asked for donations? I checked and the site doing it previously was at other boot video site asking for donations [External Link]. That was the one where people were asking for their videos to be taken down from it.

EDIT: Ignore me, my brain is slow this morning, you were replying to the article and not me.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

There was a website doing this already, but I believe there was some controversy over it as the person was snagging boot videos from reddit and other places then adding donate options to their site for them, which they retained. This seems to be something entirely new and a lot better.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: wit_as_a_riddle

Quoting: Supay

Quoting: wit_as_a_riddle

Quoting: Supay

Quoting: BlackBloodRumI mean for example, let's take VPN connections. You simply can't set them up in KDE because OpenVPN/WireGuard isn't installed by default, if you put that into distrobox, you still won't be able to get a system-wide VPN connection.

Of course, if you enable "development" mode you can put OpenVPN or WireGuard in there, but as soon as the next SteamOS update is released those changes are wiped and you'll have to manually install them again.

Wireguard is available in the KDE network settings. It was one of the first bits I setup, so that I can access my home network and its media remotely. Haven't had to tinker with it since I did, through multiple updates. OpenVPN and pretty much any other protocol I might want is listed there too when I checked.

Were you able to set up a VPN on Deck without disabling the immutable file system? If so, would you mind sharing how?

Of course. Just go to the KDE settings, then network, then connections. Click the + and choose which VPN, add the config. You can import config files too. And you can set individual network connections to chainload VPNs automatically after they connect.

I meant can you connect to a commercial VPN service like PIA or NordVPN? You are using your own private VPN to access your files remotely I guess.

I am, though my traffic back via my home also gets routed back out via a commercial service. If they don't have a flatpak for their own app, they likely offer the config info to just set it all up yourself. I've rarely used the apps anyway, on Linux or Android, instead I just manually enter everything I need for the connection.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: wit_as_a_riddle

Quoting: Supay

Quoting: BlackBloodRumI mean for example, let's take VPN connections. You simply can't set them up in KDE because OpenVPN/WireGuard isn't installed by default, if you put that into distrobox, you still won't be able to get a system-wide VPN connection.

Of course, if you enable "development" mode you can put OpenVPN or WireGuard in there, but as soon as the next SteamOS update is released those changes are wiped and you'll have to manually install them again.

Wireguard is available in the KDE network settings. It was one of the first bits I setup, so that I can access my home network and its media remotely. Haven't had to tinker with it since I did, through multiple updates. OpenVPN and pretty much any other protocol I might want is listed there too when I checked.

Were you able to set up a VPN on Deck without disabling the immutable file system? If so, would you mind sharing how?

Of course. Just go to the KDE settings, then network, then connections. Click the + and choose which VPN, add the config. You can import config files too. And you can set individual network connections to chainload VPNs automatically after they connect.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: BlackBloodRum

Quoting: wit_as_a_riddleDid you see Liam's post about Distrobox? I know it isn't built into SteamOS but it does address your concerns I think.

I did, but while that's cool for running other distros and applications it doesn't help when it comes to stuff you want to modify on the OS itself.

I mean for example, let's take VPN connections. You simply can't set them up in KDE because OpenVPN/WireGuard isn't installed by default, if you put that into distrobox, you still won't be able to get a system-wide VPN connection.

Of course, if you enable "development" mode you can put OpenVPN or WireGuard in there, but as soon as the next SteamOS update is released those changes are wiped and you'll have to manually install them again.

Wireguard is available in the KDE network settings. It was one of the first bits I setup, so that I can access my home network and its media remotely. Haven't had to tinker with it since I did, through multiple updates. OpenVPN and pretty much any other protocol I might want is listed there too when I checked.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

May I introduce you to r/SteamDeckBootVids [External Link] and also a script to randomise the boot video at Github: randomise boot videos [External Link] though there is a forked version at Github: randomise boot videos and edit system [External Link] that changes system files for you to tweak the fullscreen and allow longer videos, and some other changes.

EDIT: If you use the script to change the system files, it does not always fully work. This may be because it is designed for stable branch and the beta branch files are different enough that it fails. You may need to make tweaks using the guide linked in the introduction on the github readme.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

So, you also post an article about how much you're loving that Disney game. And you make the headline for this as "Distrobox can open up the Steam Deck to a whole new world". Were you singing the last part in your head while writing this? :grin:

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: BlackBloodRum

Quoting: SupayOh, that was the first thing I tried. The card has its internal read only trip activated and it will not switch off by forcing via hdparm even as root. It doesn't mount whatsoever, read or read/write, and refuses any attempt to dd zero it out. Tried different sd card readers and distros on different devices, and inserting it into cameras etc to see if their format can do anything. Even tried my wife's Windows laptop. Looks pretty dead to me.

How strange. If no devices can flip that switch then I'm not sure what to suggest. Does the card still have its warranty? If so I'd say an RMA is in order.

With that said, just updated my deck to the latest stable build and both of my cards are still working fine after update (2x Samsung 512GB Pro Plus - not from Amazon, I don't use Amazon.)

So perhaps the card you have was just dying anyway? I mean you said it worked on stable, stopped working with beta and then worked on stable again and now doesn't work at all in any computer/device? That sounds like a card that was in the process of dying. :neutral:

Maybe, only had it a few days and has worked perfectly during that time. It was only when I ran that update that it stopped. I know it is a card that others are using in the Deck, so will be interested to see if anyone else has a failure, or if it is just me. They are replacing it anyway, got a new one already on the way.

View this comment - View article - View full comments