Patreon Logo Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal Logo PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
Latest Comments by slaapliedje
Atari VCS RAM upgraded to 8GB and Atari confirm you can put a normal Linux distribution on it
20 Jul 2018 at 5:13 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: YesmanDepending on how the chassis' construction is and the final price I would be tempted to buy one to just gut it and use the chassis to make a sexy lil HTPC, well, that is if it can actually house a mini itx board, but I digress.

Very promising product all around and I'm interested in seeing how it progresses.
yeah, if they would just sell a case for Mini-ITX boards. Then again with their comments about Ryzen being temperature throttled.. sounds like the case design isn't the greatest.

8-Bit Adventures 2, a retro-inspired RPG that aims to be more than just a throwback will support Linux
20 Jul 2018 at 5:11 am UTC

Quoting: CriticalGamesAUHi everyone, developer of 8-Bit Adventures 2 here - thanks for the comments! =D

Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: slaapliedjeI am still waiting for the Adventure II to be released for the actual Atari 8-bit computers. It looks amazing. I have been thinking recently of getting an Atari 5200 just to play it.

This looks fun too, but more 16bit than 8.
They're clearly going more for the 8-bit NES / Sega Master System style than anything western. Looks (and sounds) much closer to that target than what stuff looked like on Super Nintendo, Megadrive or the Amiga. But I gather you might have been in the Atari ST camp in the 16-bit era. :)
tuubi hit the nail on the head; we're definitely talking Japanese hardware rather than western. Thanks for taking the time to clarify things for everyone! Just to say, our artist has spent the last 3 years trying to evolve the standard 8-bit graphical style, while maintaining several of its key limitations – much like Shovel Knight. For example, while we use the NES colour palette, we aren’t limited by its hardware, and so can display as many colours on a single screen as we want. There was a great Gamasutra article on the subject by one of the Shovel Knight devs if anyone's interested in learning more about a similar approach, but it's definitely more about the spirit than the technical for us (even though we do spend a lot of time trying to get certain aspects of the technical right).

Quoting: GuestLooks like another one to pick up when it's out ^.^
Thank you very much! =D The plan is to release before the end of 2018, so you shouldn't have too long to wait (even if the Linux version does end up taking a little bit longer due to testing). If you use Steam and want to get an alert when the game is released, I recommend adding it to your wishlist: https://store.steampowered.com/app/733110/8Bit_Adventures_2/ [External Link]

Quoting: 14Would be great for anyone who picked up one of those pocket Linux computers.
I don't know much about those sorry (devices like the Gemini, right?), but so long as the specs are up to par, then I think that sounds like a great idea!
Okay, I looked at the actual video some more and it looks more SMS than NES. It is really the Pallette that I was commenting on. No way the 8bits could display thelat many colors at once. Love the dig at the Atari ST... but to be fair I now own many Atari computers and one Amiga 4000. But it is with a 68060 and Radeon graphics.. also, I have an Atari 130XE that is probably pretty close to a stock A1200!

8-Bit Adventures 2, a retro-inspired RPG that aims to be more than just a throwback will support Linux
18 Jul 2018 at 2:37 pm UTC

I am still waiting for the Adventure II to be released for the actual Atari 8-bit computers. It looks amazing. I have been thinking recently of getting an Atari 5200 just to play it.

This looks fun too, but more 16bit than 8.

Atari VCS RAM upgraded to 8GB and Atari confirm you can put a normal Linux distribution on it
16 Jul 2018 at 7:43 pm UTC

Quoting: Mountain Man
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: Mountain ManIt's easy to "upgrade" the specs when you're dealing in vaporware.
Is it technically vaporware until after it's supposed to have come out, and then doesn't?

I mean you could say anything is vaporware until it's released. But I wouldn't assume it's vaporware until it's past time it's at least announced to be released.

But you're right, they can change the specs easily when the system isn't out and about. The question is, will it be like a Mac and have soldered on memory? Or will it be user upgradable?
There's just been a lot of fishy stuff surrounding this thing, such as missing the original target date with no explanation, no working prototypes being publicly demoed, and company reps who don't seem to know anything about their own product [External Link]. It's hard not to draw parallels between the Atari VCS and the infamous Phantom console [External Link] from Infinium Lab [External Link].
Can't really disagree with you. I think the only explanation they really gave for the initial delay was 'we're not ready'
But I think it was right after that that Feargal Mac took a walk.

SteamOS has a minor update to test the waters before a bigger update
16 Jul 2018 at 3:34 pm UTC

Quoting: TheRiddick
Quoting: ElectricPrism
Quoting: TheRiddickMost steam machines where upgradable in every respect except for the Motherboard. It would be nice if they went with a ITX standard however!
It's pretty simple --

$260 -- Dan a4 SFX [External Link]
Yes I know about those cases, BUT JEBUS 260USD for a case? common man, that is seizure inducing expensive!

Anyway I have a Silverstone FT03-MINI case (the smaller one), the biggest issue is the GPU fan is not suited for it and I don't want a vacuum blower style fan so will be upgrading the 1080ti mini card with a GPU waterblock soon. (there is a way to mount a 140mm radiator loop in it, requires some minor modifications)

I was on the fence about doing that because the waterloop upgrade will cost $300 alone and the waterblock will likely be throw away once new generation hardware comes out.

GOOD news is that next gen hardware that is worth a damn is still close to a year away, and I don't think anything Volta is worth it. Will likely wait for a Vega 128 or the sun to explode, whichever.
This was the same reasons I gave anyone that the Ataribox or Steam Machine should be a viable thing, because just 'build your own' Linux box to sit under a TV is NOT easy, nor cheap. You have to take into account cooling / noise, get special cases, hopefully you can find a board powerful enough, etc. Unless you're just going to slap a full tower that sits on it's side (or a 'desktop' system, it's not easy to find that happy middle of performance vs size vs noise.

Hell, even the PS4 is a loud whiny beast when you're playing anything intensive on it. They supposedly fixed some of that with the Pro and even more so on the Slim at least.

Atari VCS RAM upgraded to 8GB and Atari confirm you can put a normal Linux distribution on it
16 Jul 2018 at 3:27 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: Mountain ManIt's easy to "upgrade" the specs when you're dealing in vaporware.
Is it technically vaporware until after it's supposed to have come out, and then doesn't?

I mean you could say anything is vaporware until it's released. But I wouldn't assume it's vaporware until it's past time it's at least announced to be released.

But you're right, they can change the specs easily when the system isn't out and about. The question is, will it be like a Mac and have soldered on memory? Or will it be user upgradable?

Kalypso Media buy the rights to the Commandos IP, a new game is coming plus updates to older titles
12 Jul 2018 at 8:27 pm UTC

Nice. Seems the only one Kalypso has published lately that didn't make it was Urban Empire. But reviews for that are mixed.

The Steam Linux market share for June was 0.52% as Steam is still growing rather rapidly
11 Jul 2018 at 6:00 am UTC

Well, I was going to recommend Parsix, since it was a Distro that was a Persian distro. But apparently it's gone.

Parsix GNU/Linux, a Debian-based desktop distribution, is being shut down. The project's home page has announced the Parsix repositories have been shut down and users of the distribution are encouraged to use Debian's package repositories. "Please point your apt repositories to Debian Jessie. Security repository is still active, however the plan is to shut it down on December 15, 2017."

SteamOS has a minor update to test the waters before a bigger update
11 Jul 2018 at 5:53 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: YaroKasearI like the sound of major updates. Does this mean major updates to Steam for Linux itself or ONLY Steam OS?

I won't lie, I kind of feel like Steam OS should have been Arch-based from the beginning. Debian's nice and stable and everything but even when it has a new major release its kernels tend to be on the old side. Not a good option for a gaming-centric Linux distribution that could be running on computers on the leading edge of hardware. Does Nouveau even properly support a GTX 1080 Ti yet? I still see slightly-aged Linux distributions fail to initialize KMS properly on a GTX 1080 with Nouveau.

I know I'd end up using the proprietary driver, but until its installed you're at the mercy of the limited support of Nouveau. And who knows if you're using a very new motherboard? A lot of the sound chipsets on new gaming motherboards today are not your typical Realtek HDA chips which have been supported for a dog's age but are often stuff like Creative X-Fi.

Had Steam OS been based on Arch Linux we'd have been able to pretty confidently assure ourselves up-to-date hardware support pretty much every time Steam OS would update.

Does Steam OS backport new kernels? I don't see how it'd get the best gaming performance out of an old kernel.
Could you imagine the support nightmares of using Arch as a base for a commercial product? Yes, Debian/SteamOS both backport kernels. Probably one of the reasons they went with Debian instead of Ubuntu. That and a few year life cycle vs 6 month (or 2 year for LTS Ubuntu). Really surprised though that SteamOS hasn't become Stretch based yet. Maybe they're just waiting for Buster? Looks like Buster is estimated to hit freeze in Feb of 2019, So it's probably about 8-10 months away? Anyhow, Stretch comes with 4.9, but has backports for 4.16. But then again being 'Debian based' doesn't mean SteamOS can't just roll their own kernel, from what I understand they do that anyhow. Using Debian as your base only entails the package availability and core stability and security support.

SteamOS has a minor update to test the waters before a bigger update
7 Jul 2018 at 9:48 pm UTC

Quoting: GuestVery naive question but what would be the main advantages for them ? Larger hardware support ? Newer kernel features they could use ? Just not to be cut from main support ? Aren't they not taking care of the GPU driver side of things themselves already ?

I confess i know little.
It is about the equivalent of going from a 4 year old operating system to a 1 year old one with much better support for backports.