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Latest Comments by soulsource
Valve talk about learning from mistakes with the upcoming Steam Deck
3 Aug 2021 at 2:49 pm UTC

Quoting: kuhpunktIsn't the Steam Deck also just a Steam Machine? It's a PC with SteamOS preinstalled.
Yes, but actually no.
Steam Machines all had Intel IGP graphics. They simply were not suitable for gaming, from a hardware perspective.

You can now support the Flatpak package format on Open Collective
30 Jul 2021 at 2:30 pm UTC

Quoting: KlausDEB/RPM Packages, if available, may be broken or at least incomplete for any given configuration. Often the only officially supported Linux is Ubuntu, on OpenSuse I often have to install things more manually, or fix things afterwards.

Additionally, adding non-repostitory software to the system has its risk. Installing OnlyOffice from a package left me with .so files that suddenly interfered with the build-and-run process.

By contrast, I'm never seeing similar issues on Windows. Software comes prepackaged as an installer, and the installer contains everything that's needed. (But sadly, Windows installers integrate Software too deeply into the system for my tastes.)
First thing first: Please do not take this as an actual suggestion. I just want to highlight that there's another way to package applications for Windows, Linux, etc.
Namely: portable packages. So, basically what most Windows installers do anyhow, but without any deep integration into the OS. Just bundling the program's executable and its dependencies in an archive file that users can extract to and run from wherever they like. Or go even further and just use static linking. I mean, on Windows most programs bundle their own copy of shared libraries anyhow, so what's the advantage over just statically linking those in? Actually the Unity Player does that, at least on Linux (for good or worse - having SDL2 statically linked is causing troubles for modders who want to talk to SDL2 from their .Net code...).

You can now support the Flatpak package format on Open Collective
30 Jul 2021 at 2:12 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: ZlopezI think the flatpaks are really great (I'm using distro, that is made for use with flatpaks), but there is one issue with Flathub regarding games, the runtimes (shared libraries between flatpaks) are updated continuously so you still have the same issue like with current Linux OS, the libraries will be incompatible in a few years. ...
Libraries do not get incompatible by themselves. This always requires a conscious decision by the library's developers, and unless they are utterly incompetent, they will not do any ABI breaking changes without also changing the library soname and therefore allowing multiple versions of the library to be installed at the same time.

What happens with traditional packaging is that distributors at some point stop packaging outdated library versions.

I'd be curious about the policy at Flathub: Do they plan to remove outdated, unmaintained versions of libraries from future runtime versions, or are they committed to keep some ABI compatible version of each library present (like Valve does in the Steam Runtime)?

The TUXEDO Stellaris 15 laptop launches with Intel and AMD options
30 Jun 2021 at 10:11 am UTC

Quoting: ArdjeYet another laptop with a very short life span due to the lack of proper GPU options.
I'm more worried about the driver situation...
I haven't used the proprietary nVidia drivers for some years now, so I'm not sure that's still the case, but back then there were two major pain points with those drivers, both mostly relevant on laptops:
  • PRIME support was lacking. There's bumblebee, but that's more like a workaround than proper support.
  • External screens/beamers/etc. were much more painful to configure than with any open source drivers, as the only tool that really worked was the nVidia Control Center

Humble Bundle replacing purchase sliders with less generous options
25 Apr 2021 at 6:39 pm UTC Likes: 6

Quoting: shorbergAs a side-note: Did it always say "Publisher", didn't it use to say "Developers"? Because those are not the same thing.
Well, originally it was Humble Indie Bundle. Then they started doing other bundles as well, and now Indie bundles have become quite rare in the meantime (if they even still do those). The change therefore makes sense.

That's also the biggest reason why I lost interest in Humble Bundle. The bundles have changed from "really great hand picked Indie pearls" to "just another random selection of 100% replaceable AAA games". So, yeah. I'm a bit sad that the sliders are gone, but personally it won't make much difference for me, as Humble has lost me as a customer a long time ago.

Linux Kernel dev bans University of Minnesota for sending malicious patches
22 Apr 2021 at 8:33 pm UTC Likes: 6

Quoting: slembckeUff. My cousin-in-law is an engineering prof there and seems pretty mad that the IRB allowed this. His words had more swearing though... Not clear if he knows more details than the article above though.

Just in case people aren't familiar, an IRB, or Institutional Review Board, is the group that review research proposals and get to say "no that's silly and/or unethical".
I can understand the swearing. This shines a pretty bad light on the whole university and everyone who graduated/works there. It wouldn't surprise me if this had consequences outside the kernel development, like editors of journals double-checking submissions from the University of Minnesota due to ethical concerns. Those guys probably hurt their own University more than the Linux project...

What have you been playing recently, come tell your thoughts
27 Mar 2021 at 2:26 pm UTC

Mostly Loop Hero and Stellaris.

Yesterday I tried Lutris, and I must say I'm a bit torn. On the one hand the community-based install scripts for games are really convenient. No need to check wine's appdb for workarounds, as Lutris just installs them automatically. On the other hand it downloads more than a gigabyte of ancient libraries, and also installs its own wine builds.
Overall, I'd say for me those downsides outweigh the convenience.

(Edit: After thinking about this some more, and just right now dealing with a stupid font rendering regression in wine, I see the benefit of Lutris installing its own WINE builds.)

Also, Lutris' GoG integration has potential, but feels incomplete in its current state, as update notifications seem to still be lacking, so there's no real gain over just using the website.

Long story short: I'll likely delete it again.

Paradox reveal the 3.0 'Dick' update for Stellaris due in April
21 Mar 2021 at 9:36 pm UTC

Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: soulsource
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: soulsource
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Purple Library GuyOh yeah, the other thing is that when I discover a planet that is uninhabitable but could be terraformed, which happens quite a bit, I nearly always never find it again. Those should show up in the expansion planner.
I do not have a save at hand to check right now, but I am pretty sure terraforming candidates can be found using the expansion planner. The trick is that they are not shown if you apply the filter "is colonizable".
Awesome! Thanks so much. Yeah, I usually use "is colonizable" because it seems kind of pointless to be trying to settle worlds in someone else's empire. I'll definitely have to try this out--in my current playthrough I think I found like half a dozen terraforming candidates but I have no idea where they are.
Iirc those in foreign empires also aren't listed if "Is colonizable" is disabled. Those in unclaimed systems are, however.

For me the biggest housekeeping improvement would be a list of claimed but unconquered worlds/systems. I know that the diplomacy map mode shows them, but one has to click any allied war participant individually, and the small spikes that mark completely occupied systems are a bit too easy to miss for my taste...
I swear I was seeing planets in other people's empires (that I explored first, before those other people claimed the system) on my last run-through. But maybe I'm remembering wrong.
I specifically meant planets on which an ally (or oneself) has a claim, and which aren't already occupied. Like a TODO list for wars, to make it easier to see what one still needs to conquer to be able to enforce demands.
No, I get that, and that seems like a good idea. I was just replying to the bit where you said "Iirc those in foreign empires also aren't listed if "Is colonizable" is disabled. Those in unclaimed systems are, however." I'm not sure that's the case for systems I explored which then got occupied by other races--I think planets in such systems were still showing in my expansion planner, for as long as they still hadn't been colonized by the race owning the system.
Oh, sorry for misunderstanding. Yeah, that's possible. In my current playthrough I'm already in the end-game, so there's nothing left to colonize, so I can't check...

The Humble Daedalic 15th Anniversary MEGA Game Bundle is now live
21 Mar 2021 at 1:25 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Liam DaweUh, no. They're also not a Steam sale site. They sell keys for GOG, Steam, Epic, Uplay and even the Nintendo Switch on top of all the regular bundles for games, ebooks and all sorts.
Oh, I wasn't aware they now even sell GOG keys!? That might make them interesting again to me.
But TBH, they lost me as a customer already quite some years back, even though I had been a strong supporter from their very first days on... :cry:
Yeah, it's sad that they basically abandoned Linux porting. Back in the days, if you wanted to be in their bundles, you had to supply a Linux build. Now it's just if you want to be in a Humble Indie Bundle, which have been strangely absent on their site for quite some time now...