Quoting: g000hAh. The "good old days" of Linux - compiling your own stuff. Sure, you can still do it now, but most distributions give you awesome package management instead.

Gentoo offers both :P

About 10 years ago I had a bunch of hosts acting as distcc slaves for days of update fun.

But I agree, binary packages and generally all package managers improved immensely over time. Dependency hell is now mostly the subject of scary bonfire stories.

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You want a cake? You know the drill!

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I just got my survey a few minutes ago - the first in nearly 3 years. Always using the beta client, no hardware changes (my machine is still beefy enough for my needs). I'm a Ubuntu user switching releases with a 2 month delay, so I'm on 18.04 instead of 18.10 but had a few OS changes since the last survey.

Interesting pieces of information that I took from the results:

• is the survey poking at hardware connected to the system right now, or does it gather device driver information? Take the VR results for example: I know some players only plug in their HMD if they intend to use it and stuff it away otherwise. Will the survey pinpoint their device even if not in use when the survey runs?


• the average Linux box has double the RAM, but less hard drive space. In fact, most Linux gamers seem to have less than 100 GB free and just 250 GB max storage on average? Less than 5% have 1+ TB? Compared to more than half the user base in the combined rating having more than 1 TB and still 250 to 500 GB free? And while the installed base of 16 GB RAM at about 30% is the same across combined and Linux only, 16 GB is actually the most common value for Linux? Having something like 7 GB of system RAM would hint at either running a VM or integrated graphics cards, although the video card usage does not match with the high number of 20% of Linux users having 7 GB RAM. How many surveys were collected on virtual machines?


• I'd thought that the hardware survey would include other peripherals like gamepads/joysticks/wheels/etc or Steam Link by now, but that does not seem to be the case.


• can sparse infos, like the number of CPUs per month on Linux, shed a light on how often a survey is offered to users? 5 and 18 physical CPUs are only present in August and October? Can this help nailing percentages to absolute values?


• Even if highly rare number of CPUs are listed, more common network speeds are not. Network speed is also unknown most of the time, although it would be trivial to at least get a hint of by simply doing a download test during the survey. Why do they keep this score even if it has no value? Other than the likes of "no dial-up users anymore" of course...


• Language shifts quite drastically between combined and Linux only scores for English and Chinese, on Linux those seem to combine to plain English. Other languages like Russian or German remain quite constant instead. Is Linux lacking some essential support for Chinese or do they not bother to setup their regional settings over there when using Linux? Or is Linux hardly ever used in China at all, as indicated by their low language score of 0.07%?

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Steaming a cloud game separates the player from the game in all ways except audio, video and input. If you look back just a few decades and realize how many games, game ideas, mods, levels, add-ons, peripherals etc. rooted in the tinkering with game content on your own computer it makes cloud gaming look plainly harming. Think about how many people entered the gaming biz just because they were able to tip their toes on their computers at home.

Steam's streaming is making a game you bought and run on your own device available to other, lesser potent devices at home. That's convenience. It's still possible to mod the game, run it through a modern port or whatever you wish to do. Spectator streams just split audio and video to third parties, but the single player is still in control, only his or her input is used to interact with the game streamed to everyone else connected.

You can put Steam into offline mode and play any installed games without someone else knowing when you play which game for how long. Good luck doing the same on a platform that forces always online by design.

Yes, I can see the benefits for players just giving a game they are interested in a test drive before they buy. Or players without access to mid to high end gaming rigs having an option to play the game on devices that are incapable of running the code on their own. But I still think those walled gardens cloud platforms essentially are are harmful for the industry as a whole.

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Back to back, belly to belly - a zombie jamboree!

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Despite the name, Overload is the true successor to the series. It just feels, looks and sounds right. The game formerly known as Descent: Underground didn't excel in any of those terms.

Of course, I'd be more than happy if they improve massively on my first impressions.

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2015? I could have sworn the game was on my radar for much longer than that.

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I'm still quite early in Thief, now that I am able to play it for the first time at all thanks to Proton. My goal is to ghost every mission with no loot left behind, so I'm taking my time, having spent more than 20 hours in just the city hub and the first two main missions plus a few side quests. Sadly, I missed raising a suspicion in the hub somewhere, so there is no turning back without starting a completely new game :(

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Hot Lava and Thief (2014) with the help of Proton.

Received Hot Lava from a friend as a gift and wasn't able to get it up and running with Wine myself, but Proton is as easy as install and play from within Steam. Awesome! It's a Klei game, so you bet it's quality work, even in its pre-release state.

I bought Thief back when I was still dual booting, but I never was able to finish the tutorial mission because of a gfx driver related crash I wasn't able to resolve no matter which driver I used. Tried with Wine last year and had very poor performance and weird input behavior. Now with Proton it is very playable, only minor annoyances like subtitles not playing on cue. Going the full stealth route, no knockouts, no dousing flames and hoping to achieve 100% loot on each mission. Looking good so far :)

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Just another thought by another male that does not play Dota (anymore): the playerbase there is quite toxic. Everyone expects everyone else to just perform perfectly, otherwise the flames will rise. And have you ever witnessed the chat when a player identifies as female? Aside from lewd comments, you can bet on the team blaming a female member for losing the match.

So sure, more female characters to chose from would be nice and could invite more female players to the game. But then again, they will get bullied by the players in a way they do not want to return for more.

In other words: equalizing the genders of the heroes is a nice thing, but the game's problems are elsewhere. Deeper than just the visuals on the surface.

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