Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Linas

Quoting: GuestObligatory stop promoting Blizzard comment. [...] Blizzard, EA and Ubi can all go die in a fire.

I get the sentiment, but to succeed as a platform, we need support from these companies. Otherwise Linux will always be a niche market.

I wish I could say I agree, I mean I understand, but they are so anti-consumer no one on any platform should support them. My roommate was one of the ones caught in Ubi's little account purge scam now they want all sorts of legal BS to prove she's the owner of her account and she can't play the games she paid for.

I don't know how many times I've been screwed by Blizzard "freezing" my account due to suspicious activity. Suspicious login from the same IP that has always been logged in from...RIGHT...

This stuff transcends the platform you're on but it's accepted because everything is rented/leased and loaned -paid for or not these days. Sadly most the time when talking about this stuff you just get trolled by young kids who have no experience or clue they could OWN something without accounts or 3rd party reliance and still play it 20+ years later.

It's weird, right? Like you used to be able to buy stuff and think 'hey, I can keep this for 20 years and then play it whenever I want.' Now I've seen articles stating that a vast majority of young people don't even think they'll ever own a house. I bet if Disney could buy up large amounts of homes and create a Disney City, and just lease it out to people, they would.
This is one of the reasons why I randomly go back to playing older games on the non-connected consoles. Look at how many games on the PS2 can either no longer be played, or have lost multiplayer functionality because the services have gone down. That was one of the early consoles to allow network play.

How many games are now unusable on Windows 10+ because they dropped support for safedisc and securom? Unless of course you pirate, or are lucky enough to want a game already packaged up on GOG.

And the accounts... seriously hate it. I was commenting the other day about going to a physical store and then being asked for your email address. Like.. why? So I can get all the latest news from a store I visit once in a blue moon? No thanks, I'll pass...

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Quoting: Whitewolfe80

Quoting: Craggles086So the official DOSBox is version 0.74-3, and this Staging is version 0.79.

No one thinks we might be ready for a version 1 yet, after how many years of DOSBox?

Yes but dos box is not in active development so never for 1.0 but dosbox staging may well do as it's actively in development

It seems to be in a very sure and slow development. Initial release was in 2002... latest was 2019. So it's still being worked on, just gets really slow releases, though some of that is because there are a lot of industrial uses for it, so it needs to stay stable.

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Quoting: whizse

Quoting: Craggles086So the official DOSBox is version 0.74-3, and this Staging is version 0.79.

No one thinks we might be ready for a version 1 yet, after how many years of DOSBox?

Just to be clear, despite the name, this is a separate fork and project from the original DosBox:
https://dosbox-staging.github.io/about/

(Yes, it's a confusing name considering the Wine and Wine-staging relationship which is quite different.)

Both projects might reach 1.0 at some point, but they have different developers and different goals.

It's even sillier to think that DosBox-X is yet another project as well.

Curious; Luxtorpeda supports DosBox Staging? I thought Boxtron would be the one to support that, as Luxtorpeda is more about installing native open source engines that are available for Windows only games (for example, Morrowind, Arx Fatalis, etc). Roberta is for ScummVM games of course.

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Quoting: scaineI think you might misunderstand a tiny bit - I agree with what you said. I just don't like the negative way you said it. I'm on KDE on Endeavour these days, don't have much time for Gnome myself - I tried to use it after Ubuntu ditched Unity in 2018, but it just wasn't for me.

But so what? That's my point - some people do like it, and it doesn't affect me AT ALL that they do.

There's absolutely nothing positive that comes from in-fighting, whether it's over distros, DEs, your packaging system or the stores you prefer. All I want to see is Linux becoming viable as a platform to combat the depressing defacto standard of "just use Windows". And tearing down good efforts to deliver that platform into the hands of the masses, like System76 and Pop_OS... it's just counterproductive. It achieves nothing, and worse, creates bitterness and negativity around something that, for someone else, might be magical and engaging.

It's even worse than you think!

So you have users fighting against each other, and that's fine. Sometimes it's constructive when people can actually point out the specific thing that they don't like about the DE they are bashing on.

It's worse when you have Ubuntu having their own modifications to Gnome, and then Pop_OS hating Gnome (is it Gnome, or Ubuntu's Gnome?) so much that they ditched it and started creating Cosmos. The distributions that actually use Gnome without really modifying it (at least that I know of) are Fedora and Ubuntu, who basically just package up the upstream stuff and send it out. The Gnome you get with Ubuntu and it's multitude of spinoffs is actually one that has features enabled somewhere that are not on standard Gnome. I don't even know of a way around that either, as even if I install the standard gnome-session, it has weird tweaks to it. No extensions or nothing.

So is it that people hate Gnome? Do they hate a flavor of it? Do they hate that they have to install extensions 'to make it usable'? I've been using Gnome-shell pretty much since about 3.10 or so? Once you understand what they are trying to do with it, it's actually quite good. And I'm one who will bitch about a right click menu changing in Windows 11 and refuse to use it as such...

I think my biggest complaint about KDE is that the default has always just reminded me of using Windows, and I wanted to get away from that interface. The core technologies that drive it are really good, and it's really customizable, but at the same time, it's customizable enough that you could spend days getting it just right... and sadly I don't have enough time for that.

I also kind of think macOS is kind of garbage, and they seriously need to do something with Finder, which hasn't fundamentally changed since macOS 7...

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Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyone figure out how to get it onto the SteamDeck yet? Still maintain that Gnome would have been a better interface on it...

Gnome would be a worse interface due to it’s forceful restrictions and constant desire to break it’s addons.

Plasma is looser but less likely to decide things like “the global file menu isn’t necessary” or “the calendar and clock should be centered”.

So don't use addons. The only one that's necessary in some instances is AppIndicators. Can you name some of these forceful restrictions?

Yikes, that’s the whole issue with Gnome is telling it’s users what they do and don’t need. I don’t use Gnome at all because it’s very restrictive. To the point where you have to install a separate config utility to tweak certain options on the desktop.

So I will gladly not use addons because I don’t use Gnome I use KDE Plasma.

I'm not making any assumptions about what you want with your desktop. I'm simply saying that if you want GNOME to be reliable, don't rely on extensions. If you can't use GNOME without extensions, it almost certainly isn't for you, and you'll have a bad time with it.

Maintaining an extensions API requires time and attention that can't be spent anywhere else. That's why the GIMP Team almost deprecated their extensions feature recently until somebody offered to maintain it. I can't begrudge the GNOME Team for focusing on what they believe is important at the expense of what they don't.

GNOME being opinionated is a good thing, as well. It means their small team only needs to focus on specific use cases they want to support, and most features work very reliably. More features are being moved from GNOME Tweaks to the general settings application over time, though I think the only feature that doesn't belong in Tweaks right now is Startup Applications.

There are things about GNOME that I wish were different, of course:

• I wish that I didn't have to go through dconf-editor to add keyboard shortcuts for workspaces 5-10 (and I wish that I didn't have to spend far too much time figuring out the keysyms to get this done, even working around a bug that prevents the "correct" keysym from being used)


• I wish that there was an option that dismissed notifications after 3 seconds.


• I wish GNOME Books wasn't useless.

I'm actually using Sway right now, but I've always been fond of GNOME. I think it takes all the good things from macOS, combines that with solid window management and workspace management, and doesn't ship a terrible file manager. I've always treated it as a WM with far less time investment required from the user.

I really don't think GNOME is particularly restrictive...it just doesn't have some of the features you want, and if you want them, you can rely on an extension at your peril. If GNOME were really adamant about their way being the only way, they wouldn't bother maintaining their extensions feature at all, and they wouldn't ship GNOME Tweaks. Instead, they nudge their users into considering an alternative to the traditional desktop metaphor because they think it's better.

Or I’ll continue using KDE which is stable and has many ways to extend the desktop. Why would I sacrifice usability for opinionated desktop? Especially if I can get that opinionated style with greater flexibility elsewhere.

You'll notice that I never suggested you use GNOME.

But you did suggest using Gnome without extensions. Which I wouldn’t ever do. A lot of extensions are things like “system tray shortcut for X app”. Those break all the time and it’s often weeks before it is working again. I don’t know how Gnome fans can continue to ignore it but I literally changed distros from Pop_OS to Manjaro because of Gnome and it’s extension breakage.

Maybe they think it’s better to restrict the desktop but I have a strong disagree.

As for terrible things in Gnome, the file manager might be one of the biggest.

Curious what you think makes the file manager so terrible. It has always just 'worked' for me. The update to GTK4 makes it a bit nicer as well.

Ha, I've never heard of an extension that gives a shortcut for the system tray. The only ones I ever use is the Vertical Overlay (because I think with the activities being up in the corner, then putting the dash on the bottom is kind of dumb... and then the AppIndicator (systray) because some apps refuse to stop using it...

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Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyone figure out how to get it onto the SteamDeck yet? Still maintain that Gnome would have been a better interface on it...

Gnome would be a worse interface due to it’s forceful restrictions and constant desire to break it’s addons.

Plasma is looser but less likely to decide things like “the global file menu isn’t necessary” or “the calendar and clock should be centered”.

So don't use addons. The only one that's necessary in some instances is AppIndicators. Can you name some of these forceful restrictions?

Yikes, that’s the whole issue with Gnome is telling it’s users what they do and don’t need. I don’t use Gnome at all because it’s very restrictive. To the point where you have to install a separate config utility to tweak certain options on the desktop.

So I will gladly not use addons because I don’t use Gnome I use KDE Plasma.

Eh? dconf is included as part of gnome. If that is what you are referring to. I think Tweaks is now deprecated, and even extensions can be managed through their website (which is weird to me, but generally works.) Extensions not working shouldn't be a thing if developers would simply have a VM installed with the gnome nightly set up... at least I would think so, I haven't developed one, so I may be speaking out of my exit orifice.

The issue isn’t the developer’s setup but rather the constant moving target.

That was my point, you can install a Gnome Nightly VM that the Gnome team themselves manage. If you're developing an extension for Gnome, that's likely the best way to make sure it's still working when a new release is starting to trickle into distributions.

FOSS Maintainers usually do this as a side gig. It’s not something they keep up with because there is little incentive. The moving target desktop platform requires more time to keep up. So extensions get broken. It’s not the developer setup. It’s the time and effort cost and little to no return.

I know, what I am saying is the development effort would be less this way... I am betting most do not know that gnome has a nightly distro build. I was just trying to spread the word that it exists. There should probably be more communication between extensions writers and the Gnome Foundation on the directions they are going.

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Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyone figure out how to get it onto the SteamDeck yet? Still maintain that Gnome would have been a better interface on it...

Gnome would be a worse interface due to it’s forceful restrictions and constant desire to break it’s addons.

Plasma is looser but less likely to decide things like “the global file menu isn’t necessary” or “the calendar and clock should be centered”.

So don't use addons. The only one that's necessary in some instances is AppIndicators. Can you name some of these forceful restrictions?

Yikes, that’s the whole issue with Gnome is telling it’s users what they do and don’t need. I don’t use Gnome at all because it’s very restrictive. To the point where you have to install a separate config utility to tweak certain options on the desktop.

So I will gladly not use addons because I don’t use Gnome I use KDE Plasma.

Eh? dconf is included as part of gnome. If that is what you are referring to. I think Tweaks is now deprecated, and even extensions can be managed through their website (which is weird to me, but generally works.) Extensions not working shouldn't be a thing if developers would simply have a VM installed with the gnome nightly set up... at least I would think so, I haven't developed one, so I may be speaking out of my exit orifice.

The issue isn’t the developer’s setup but rather the constant moving target.

That was my point, you can install a Gnome Nightly VM that the Gnome team themselves manage. If you're developing an extension for Gnome, that's likely the best way to make sure it's still working when a new release is starting to trickle into distributions.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: slaapliedjeI've also found the 'hit a key and type' method of launching applications far more useful than digging through menus.

Doesn't do much for me. I have two basic categories of applications: The few I use all the time, which I have stuck in launchers on a taskbar. And the ones I use every once in a while, whose names I can't recall off the top of my head, but I'll know them when I see them in their menu category. That second sort, typing doesn't help me much with launching. The first sort, I click the launcher.
Use cases vary. I'm glad I use Linux, which has interfaces that are good for lots of people's use cases instead of Windows "one size fits poorly".

You can use vague terms too, like 'terminal' 'web' etc. So at least there's that. Metadata is nice :)

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Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyone figure out how to get it onto the SteamDeck yet? Still maintain that Gnome would have been a better interface on it...

Gnome would be a worse interface due to it’s forceful restrictions and constant desire to break it’s addons.

Plasma is looser but less likely to decide things like “the global file menu isn’t necessary” or “the calendar and clock should be centered”.

So don't use addons. The only one that's necessary in some instances is AppIndicators. Can you name some of these forceful restrictions?

Yikes, that’s the whole issue with Gnome is telling it’s users what they do and don’t need. I don’t use Gnome at all because it’s very restrictive. To the point where you have to install a separate config utility to tweak certain options on the desktop.

So I will gladly not use addons because I don’t use Gnome I use KDE Plasma.

Eh? dconf is included as part of gnome. If that is what you are referring to. I think Tweaks is now deprecated, and even extensions can be managed through their website (which is weird to me, but generally works.) Extensions not working shouldn't be a thing if developers would simply have a VM installed with the gnome nightly set up... at least I would think so, I haven't developed one, so I may be speaking out of my exit orifice.

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Quoting: TheRiddick

Quoting: itscalledrealityGnome would be a worse interface due to it’s forceful restrictions and constant desire to break it’s addons.

Yeah that is my biggest issue with Gnome, look at all those plugins you can use... oh wait they keep breaking because the backend code keeps going through fundamental changes for some reason and plugin makers give up... sigh..

Benefit to Plasma has been ALL THAT is available in some way out of the box if you learn how to customize it all.

In saying that I'm tempted to try out Gnome again. Maybe I'll create a new user account and test it out.

You really can make KDE look like whatever you want. So for those that love to do that, it's fantastic! Amazing even. I've gotten to the point in my life where that no longer is something I desire to do, and just want some good defaults. If there are more than just a few things that I tweak to get where I find a thing usable, then I'll give up and find something else to mess with. Which is sad, as I totally like messing around with stuff, and usually get bored if it 'just works'. Granted, I'll spend hours messing around with getting drivers and bits and pieces working on my Amigas... But that's fun. My Linux desktop is generally just there to launch whatever applications I'm trying to use.

I've also found the 'hit a key and type' method of launching applications far more useful than digging through menus. Though I think KDE finally added something similar (though they've had the 'start menu' style of it for a while, just didn't have the 'activities' version of it). Same with macOS, I use Spotlight search more than I'd ever use Finder / Applications.

Granted, I still install the vertical overview extension (it needs to be updated for 43) because with some screen ratios, it makes more sense to have it on the left.)

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