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Latest Comments by s8as8a
You can now support the Flatpak package format on Open Collective
12 August 2021 at 6:06 am UTC

Quoting: Klaus
Quoting: s8as8a
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: s8as8aIf you don't need macro compatibility, perhaps you would also like ONLYOFFICE?
Maybe. Looking at those links, it seems potentially decent. But I like LibreOffice fairly well, and I have confidence that it will continue to exist and see updates, and it's open source--does ONLYOFFICE get me anything LibreOffice doesn't?
I meant to use it in addition to LibreOffice, not instead of it. In fact, I too prefer LibreOffice overall; what ONLYOFFICE offers is superior Microsoft Office format compatibility (supposedly because its native format(s) is/are Microsoft's proprietary format(s), and it therefore doesn't have to convert from Microsoft's format(s) to its own open one(s), like LibreOffice does), and, as can be seen on the Flathub page, ONLYOFFICE is also free as in freedom. (I should probably have said that last time. ;P)

Also, for what it's worth, in my case, using ONLYOFFICE on the cloud also allows me to have a free-as-in-money office suite that is more free as in freedom, has better compatibility with Microsoft Office and is less likely to spy on me than Google Docs (or Office 365!).

I gave OnlyOffice a try. For basic office use it is fine and breaks Microsoft documents less than OpenOffice, but for my use it turned out too incomplete.

For instance, when editing Powerpoint slides some bullet point symbols would be encoded and decoded incorrectly, and there is no method for editing the slide master yet.

The equation editor has some weird bugs and omissions, that affect productivity worse than running Microsoft Office in a VM.

Overall it leaves the feeling of "why would I use this, when I already have an MS Office license?" At home I don't, and I don't need the extended features, so there I use LibreOffice and OnlyOffice. At work, I use OnlyOffice only as a viewer for MS Office documents, so I don't have to switch to the VM.
Oh, thanks for your feedback. I'll likely mention your experience to anyone with whom I talk about ONLYOFFICE.

In my experience, it worked well with every file I used, even with documents that weren't properly imported by LibreOffice. Having said that, it occurs to me that I didn't do much editing with it, though, mostly just viewing.

P.S.
Sorry for the delay in my response.

You can now support the Flatpak package format on Open Collective
3 August 2021 at 8:15 am UTC

All right, glad to have potentially helped. :)

You can now support the Flatpak package format on Open Collective
2 August 2021 at 10:41 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: s8as8aIf you don't need macro compatibility, perhaps you would also like ONLYOFFICE?
Maybe. Looking at those links, it seems potentially decent. But I like LibreOffice fairly well, and I have confidence that it will continue to exist and see updates, and it's open source--does ONLYOFFICE get me anything LibreOffice doesn't?
I meant to use it in addition to LibreOffice, not instead of it. In fact, I too prefer LibreOffice overall; what ONLYOFFICE offers is superior Microsoft Office format compatibility (supposedly because its native format(s) is/are Microsoft's proprietary format(s), and it therefore doesn't have to convert from Microsoft's format(s) to its own open one(s), like LibreOffice does), and, as can be seen on the Flathub page, ONLYOFFICE is also free as in freedom. (I should probably have said that last time. ;P)

Also, for what it's worth, in my case, using ONLYOFFICE on the cloud also allows me to have a free-as-in-money office suite that is more free as in freedom, has better compatibility with Microsoft Office and is less likely to spy on me than Google Docs (or Office 365!).

You can now support the Flatpak package format on Open Collective
2 August 2021 at 7:53 am UTC

Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: KlausThe other part (mostly relevant for corporate environments) is that a natively or indistinguishable-from-native running version of Microsoft Office releases from the last ten years isn't optional. I tried with OnlyOffice and LibreOffice, but the moment your working with a customer who uses Microsoft Office, you will need it somehow, or the customer will be annoyed at you for breaking their documents; The only solution working properly here is a virtual machine with Windows and native MS Office.
Office is for sure a big issue. Luckily my work doesn't really fiddle documents in that kind of detailed way where an odd looking font here and there will cause any problems, and I don't use any really advanced spreadsheets, so I can get away with LibreOffice. Which is nice, because I hate the bloody ribbon; at this point, I actually like LibreOffice's UI better. But none of that changes the fact that Office remains the standard and for a whole lot of work-type requirements, from document exchanges to high-end Excel features, you really need it.
Does Office work in Wine these days? Man, if I were massively rich I would pay some outfit to get Office, Acrobat and Photoshop all working hiccup-free on Wine, no muss no fuss, maybe with special installers or something just to give people a button to click.

Office365?
Dunno. That's the web thing, right? Does it have all the features of the real thing?
I think not. For example, last time I checked (quite a long time ago), if I remember correctly, I vaguely remember that it didn't seem possible to insert math equations in Office 365 (but it was possible to use the local client (on Windows 10) and have it synchronize immediately to the web version (so that others using only the web version could see the equations added live)).

If you don't need macro compatibility, perhaps you would also like ONLYOFFICE?

P.S.
https://www.onlyoffice.com/

https://personal.onlyoffice.com/

https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.onlyoffice.desktopeditors

A new Valve game for the Steam Deck? It's not out of the realm of possibility
23 July 2021 at 4:40 am UTC

Instead of excluding non-Linux users from being able to play a game, maybe they should just give away a free major game (that they made, so that it costs them less while still providing value to the customer) only to Linux users? Perhaps one of the three games they mentioned, if it's played for a certain amount of time in Linux?

Valve corrects the RAM specs for the Steam Deck, games should run nicely from SD Card
23 July 2021 at 3:56 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: slaapliedjeHell, you could probably make a 1mb partition and just put grub into it, with it pointing to the SDcard for the boot. It's EFI likely, so should be very easy to do something like that.
Even better!

Quoting: slaapliedjeWould be pretty funny if the EFI didn't support secure boot, so specifically blocked Windows 11 from working... or missed TPM 2.0, etc.
I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that Windows 10 will work on it and that Windows 11 won't.

Valve corrects the RAM specs for the Steam Deck, games should run nicely from SD Card
22 July 2021 at 5:44 am UTC

Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: s8as8aDoes anyone know if the Steam Deck can boot an OS (or at least a GNU/Linux OS) from a memory card?

Also, does anyone know if the Steam Deck can boot an OS (or at least a GNU/Linux OS) from a USB drive?

Also, does anyone know what the maximum memory card size that can be used with the Steam Deck is?
Well, you would have to ask Valve that as there isn't any out in the wild... but I would hazard a guess that at least USB seems logical. Depending on the SD card reader used, that would answer your other questions. I have never known a laptop that could boot off an SDCard, but I think it would be a cool feature. Make you feel like an old time console, where each 'cart' was a game. Imagine an AmikitDeck distribution on an SD card (minimal footprint instead of a liveUSB stick. Same reason I hate that Gotek went with USB instead of SDCard...)
I asked because people in the community sometimes notice things that I don't, so I thought it was worth asking just in case.

Having said that, thanks for your answer. :)

For what it's worth, in a handful of years, when my financial situation hopefully gets better, I'm thinking of getting one and booting Debian from the memory card (directly or indirectly, see below) and to use the internal memory as a cache (via LVM), so that it feels like a large and fast drive (at least, for frequently-accessed data).

Perhaps, if and when the time comes, assuming that I can't directly boot from a memory card, I can put a 1 GB boot partition on the internal memory and use the rest of the internal memory as the cache, and have the boot partition instruct the OS to boot from the memory card?

Valve corrects the RAM specs for the Steam Deck, games should run nicely from SD Card
21 July 2021 at 10:46 pm UTC Likes: 2

Does anyone know if the Steam Deck can boot an OS (or at least a GNU/Linux OS) from a memory card?

Also, does anyone know if the Steam Deck can boot an OS (or at least a GNU/Linux OS) from a USB drive?

Also, does anyone know what the maximum memory card size that can be used with the Steam Deck is?

There's now a Debian User Repository in the style of the Arch User Repository
29 June 2021 at 12:57 am UTC

Personally, I prefer the Debian project's high-quality process and their repositories along with Flatpak+Flathub for certain key apps for which the most-recent stable release is needed for a particular use case.

Wolfire Games filed a lawsuit against Valve over abuse of their market position
5 May 2021 at 12:42 am UTC

Quoting: Interknet
Quoting: s8as8aFor what it's worth, the 30% (or any percentage) cut doesn't seem bad to me (even if they didn't "give back" anything to the community, but in our case, they do, and a lot). What does seem bad to me is the "clauses Valve have that prevent developers selling at cheaper prices on other stores" (because that improperly reduces competition among stores, and that likely is the point).

That sounds like a myth honestly. I'm sure I've seen games available elsewhere for less many times.
Maybe they were violating Valve's license agreement? To be honest, I'm not sure if that's true either, but what I meant was that if it is, I'm against that.