Patreon Logo Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal Logo PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
Latest Comments by silmeth
European Commission gathering feedback on the importance of open source
12 Jan 2026 at 5:01 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: LoudTechieEdit:
What would you guys propose?
I was thinking about stuff like this about a month ago and I’d like to see 2 things, both giving more state funding towards open-source I think could work:

1. Requirement that all software commissioned by European states be open sourced – so that it is easily maintable, available to citizens, and providers of that software can be changed (there could be exceptions for specific use-cases, like I understand to keep new military tech classified for some time; I’d still require that to eventually become open-sourced after, say, 20 or 30 years).
2. Maybe a separate open-source fund working similarly to private copying levies and the like – with a tax on income from products involving the use of open-source components. The idea would be that, say, if a company has annual income of over ~1 million euro and the product they’re selling or the infrastructure they maintain uses open-source components (libraries, databases, operating systems…), they pay some low tax (0.5%? 1%? I’ve no feel for what a specific good value would be) of the income. They could avoid paying that tax by either showing that they use absolutely no open-source (and thus don’t benefit from open-source directly) or that they are already contributing back by releasing their stuff (so if they release open-source and earn by maintaining it themselves, they’d be free from the tax). The money would be used by the state to pay foundations, societies, and other organizations maintaining and supporting open-source projects.

Point 2 is pretty much treating open-source as the public infrastructure it de facto is and fund it from taxes from the institutions that use it, as normally it’s done with public infrastructure (roads, media, health-care…).

Valve tries to improve Big Picture Mode on Linux for NVIDIA GPUs
18 May 2023 at 12:40 pm UTC

At first try (clicked “Restart” after update) it logged me out of Plasma, and when I logged back in my BT headset settings were broken (could not choose the high-quality output audio device profile, only bad quality output + mic were present – no idea how the log-out or Steam caused this… or if something else happened simultaneously and broke the BT device settings…).

But after a full reboot it seems to be OK. High dpi UI scaling still doesn’t seem to work, but the Big Picture mode isn’t as sluggish as before. The performance isn’t great but it’s no longer a slide-show. So I guess some HW acceleration started to work?

Space station management with a little RTS, Spacebase Startopia is out now
29 Mar 2021 at 12:14 pm UTC

In the original old game the AI is there with you, trying to help you. Often judgmental and sarcastic, but still – happy when you do good and frightened when you screw things up. You feel you’re both in this together even with the occasional slam at you.

From what I’ve seen, in this game the AI is constantly insulting your intelligence and then after some time it explicitly points out that it insults you – because you might have not been smart enough to notice yourself… And does so with the synthesized(-like) impersonal voice that isn’t that enjoyable to listen to either.

So I think I’ll pass on that one, at least for now – but I’m still grateful as this new release actually made me aware of the original game and I must tell I do enjoy that one. :)

The GamingOnLinux Podcast returns, in a special Co-Op News Punch episode
2 Oct 2020 at 9:59 am UTC

Quoting: EhvisNot so sure that even microsoft would do that for a relatively small gain.
I’m afraid that works on XBox without porting or translation layer might be much more than ‘a relatively small gain’ in MS eyes. But we’ll see.

(Then of course… they could just allow Vulkan drivers on XBox to make it work without porting. But obviously they won’t.)

The GamingOnLinux Podcast returns, in a special Co-Op News Punch episode
2 Oct 2020 at 9:42 am UTC

Samsai seemed to claim that MS would force id to use DX12 only if they aimed at complete XBox exclusives.

But DX12 also works on Win10 – so unfortunately I think they might push for DX12 with the argument that then it works both on PCs (actually only on Win10, but that’s PC for them, isn’t it?) and on XBox. They don’t need to aim for exclusivity to go the DX path.

Linux distro Fedora 33 may get DXVK as the default for Wine
22 Jul 2020 at 8:30 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: jensWhere do got the impression that DXVK is a fork? It is not.
I think they might be confusing general situation around the D3D translation tools, especially DXVK (D3D9–11, originally started by doitsujin as C++-based D3D11 implementation on top of Vulkan) with Vkd3d (D3D12 implementation, started by Wine team, esp. by Józef Kucia, after whose death it was indeed forked and the fork is used in Proton) – and hating on all of them just in case.

Anyway, you’re fighting a troll.

Linux distro Fedora 33 may get DXVK as the default for Wine
22 Jul 2020 at 2:39 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: EhvisSounds like a terrible idea. DXVK is for games and does not work for most non-game software. The default should not be limited like that.
What do you mean by ‘does not work’ here, that it somehow breaks that software? If so, do you have any source on that? What software gets broken by DXVK? Sure, the emphasis of the project is on gettings games to work, but since it should mostly be a correct D3D implementation on top of Vulkan, I don’t see a reason why it would break non-game software (but I might be wrong, never tested DXVK with ‘regular’ programs myself). I cannot imagine Fedora installing it by default if it broke ‘most non-game software’.

If you mean just that most non-gaming software does not need most of D3D implemented (so it is not used) – the same can be said about many other libs installed with default Wine… If you don’t use it, you just don’t use it. And the proposal acknowledges the possibility to opt-out of DXVK installation.

Linux distro Fedora 33 may get DXVK as the default for Wine
22 Jul 2020 at 11:03 am UTC Likes: 3

It took just about 4 years from first public Vulkan API spec release to distros switching to Vulkan-based solution for D3D translation on Wine by default. I’d say that’s a pretty good time frame for adoption of brand new graphics API.

The FOSS real-time strategy 0 A.D. gains FXAA, more animals and a lot more ready for Alpha 24
10 May 2020 at 10:01 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: AvikarrThis game is amazing! Are there more high-quality opensource games like this (not specifically RTS, any genre will do)?
If you enjoy Thief-like stealth games, then The Dark Mod [External Link] (which contrary to the name is a full game, not a mod) is definitely worth recommending (code on GPL and BSD, assets on CC by-nc).

And there is a space-sim commercial game but with the source code fully open source (still you need to buy it to play, assents aren’t free): Helium Rain [External Link] (BSD-licensed source code on GitHub [External Link] ).

According to NetMarketShare during April we saw a big bump in Linux use - Ubuntu gains big
6 May 2020 at 12:27 pm UTC Likes: 2

Ubuntu gained 1.61 % (from 0.27 % to 1.88 %) of the whole market-share while Linux as a whole gained 1.51 % (from 1.36 % to 2.87 %) of the market-share.

So the whole gain is only Ubuntu (and other distros actually lost some share in Ubuntu’s favour).

Looks like some change of the method of classifying Ubuntu (1.5 % ‘stolen’ from what previously has been classified as Windows?) + some fluctuations between distributions (0.1 % of the whole gained by Ubuntu from other Linuxes).