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Latest Comments by slaapliedje
DOSBox Staging 0.79.0 is out now
24 Sep 2022 at 6:27 pm UTC

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.

DOSBox Staging 0.79.0 is out now
24 Sep 2022 at 5:52 pm UTC Likes: 1

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/ [External Link]

(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.

System76 reveal their new and improved Thelio desktop design
24 Sep 2022 at 4:54 pm UTC Likes: 1

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...

GNOME 43 is out now with Quick Settings, refreshed Files app and lots more
24 Sep 2022 at 4:42 pm UTC

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...

GNOME 43 is out now with Quick Settings, refreshed Files app and lots more
23 Sep 2022 at 8:38 am UTC

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.

GNOME 43 is out now with Quick Settings, refreshed Files app and lots more
23 Sep 2022 at 5:42 am UTC

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.

GNOME 43 is out now with Quick Settings, refreshed Files app and lots more
23 Sep 2022 at 5:41 am UTC Likes: 1

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 :)

GNOME 43 is out now with Quick Settings, refreshed Files app and lots more
23 Sep 2022 at 1:35 am UTC

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.

GNOME 43 is out now with Quick Settings, refreshed Files app and lots more
22 Sep 2022 at 11:50 pm UTC Likes: 1

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.)

System76 reveal their new and improved Thelio desktop design
22 Sep 2022 at 10:49 pm UTC

Quoting: scaine
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: scaineThat's a beautiful looking case. Very tempted... but no need for a new PC right now. One to keep an eye on.

Quoting: Guestmore like Puke_OS!
Seriously? It's just Gnome with tiling features and a dock. No need to be weirdly aggressively rude about it.
Nah, they janked it more with 22.04 and called it Cosmos or something. I tried installing it on my Thinkpad P52and it felt like I'd installed it on a 386 with an early VGA card! It was a slide show. Then randomly after trying to get it to update, it started working better... but then they built their packages to depend on not having gnormal gnome-session installed (like I tried installing their nvidia-prime package and it'd remove gnome and install cosmos) so I did what I didn't think I'd do... installed Ubuntu and ripped out snapd.

Sad as I really think that's a missing niche; a distribution that is released every 6 months with a new Gnome that is Debian based that doesn't have snapd. Basically Fedora; but Debian.
Pretty sure you can turn Cosmos off with a couple of sliders in the control panel.
I think you could do that with the earlier releases that were still 'Gnome with Tiling' it was basically an extension. With 22.04, which I think is their first real release of Cosmos, it's a whole new DE. I don't know this for sure though (hence phrasing it as 'I think...') Would like to be shown I am wrong.

Of note; the reason I'd like to do this is the absurd amount of effort Ubuntu is going through to force it's users to use snapd. Like if you have the gnome-software-plugin-snaps (or whatever it's called) installed at all, it wouldn't even allow me to install from flatpak, I had to purge all snapd stuff.