Quoting: sub

They're also still working on the next major release with DOSBox 0.75

I know, it's just a number, but isn't DOSBox at 0.74-x for more than a decade? :D

Few things are as slow as DOSBox development cycle.
To be fair, it's not like new games are coming out to catch up with and it kinda works reliably, but on the other hand, there are so many glaring issues that just are not getting tackled, it's just weird.

Quite frankly, DOSBox is not a good example of how to develop software, but it's the only thing we have doing what it does. *shrugs*

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If only they would fix their window management to allow you to easily change resolutions at runtime, alt-tab, multi-monitor management, etc.
Then again, Wine has similar problems with its virtual desktop, so maybe emulation (yes, yes, Wine is not an emulator, but who cares) devs think window management is something dirty.

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Quoting: Linas

Quoting: Salvatos

Quoting: Mountain ManAt this point, what is the best Ubuntu alternative?

Depends on what you're after. I left Ubuntu after they forced too many UI decisions I didn't like, so Mint was a natural choice for me. Similar look and feel to good old Ubuntu + Gnome.

And Debian Testing is a rolling distribution with packages that are fairly up-to-date.

Rolling distributions are a rather big red flag for some distros.
Like, I'd always recommend Manjaro stable over Arch for most users, as it has a more thorough process of making sure things remain stable before updates roll out - or rather, an additional round of checking on top of what Arch does.

Nonetheless, if Steam would officially support Arch, that would (if I'm not mistaken) include Manjaro, so...

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Well, I did hope some positive things came from this mess.

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Quoting: EikeEven tinfoil hat wearers won't have everything in their lives wrong.

Of course not!
Their brains are not yet rotting away from cellphone radiation! Duh!

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: TheSHEEEPThat's not at all what I was saying,

Then learn to communicate.

I'll learn to communicate when you learn to read without interpreting in whatever way you feel like right now.

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: einherjarThanks Canonical :><:

Now we will have lots of game devs and publishers saying:
"See, there is no reliable Distro in the Linux world. It doesn't make sense to ship software for Linux"
We need a big popular and reliable Distro, to have enough marketshare and live the "diversity". With 1% marketshare distributed across more then 10 Distros, we will remain irrelevant (on Desktop) for most of the companies.

As may be--would you be happier right now if Ubuntu were the only Linux distro?

If it was, this situation extremely likely wouldn't have happened as we would have a ton of developers working on Ubuntu to solve problems like these, or rather try and make sure they don't arise - instead of everyone and their mum going about to make their own distros for a teeny weeny difference to the next best distro...
People want Linux to keep up with (or rather catch up with) the big ones, but only few seem to understand that this can only be possible under a more unified hood.
Everything else is fragile at best.

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Quoting: Hori

Quoting: TheSHEEEP(...) is sometimes just too much, especially with the traffic management which I wish you could mostly just disable...(...)

said every real life city planner ever :)))

I'm not one, I swear it!

Sounds convincing, though. At least in Skylines you can just destroy everying around a street if you need a roundabout there without the citizens rallying in protests against you ;)

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Quoting: GuestLooks nice. I just checked and i see hardware requirements for Linux.

Same for me now. Guess they added it very quickly after seeing it's not there.

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Quoting: Maath

After the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release we had extensive threads on the ubuntu-devel list and also consulted Valve in detail on the topic.

I don't see how this statement could be true, and yet shortly after Canonical's announcement a representative from Valve stated that they would be seeking a new Linux distribution.

Maybe a left hand/right hand problem.
Possible that neither Valve's nor Canonical's hands properly talked with each other.

This all really does scream "COMMUNICATION ISSUES - collapsing empires since ancient Rome".

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: TheSHEEEPI simply look beyond a few personal inconveniences at the bigger picture.
And the bigger picture is that progress requires sacrifice. Can't play some games/use some apps anymore? So be it, if that's the price to pay to finally get rid of old stuff like 32bit for good.

Because . . . the libraries take up a few megs on your terabyte+ hard drive? Yeah, surely it's worth getting rid of some functionality to get that!!!
But you know, all you have to do is delete the relevant libs. Nobody's stopping you.

That wouldn't serve any purpose, as it would only be for me. As I said, I'm looking at the bigger picture here.
And the bigger picture is that right now, 32bit is like an annoying mosquito at the butt of many developers and users... just look at this very situation.
If 32bit were gone for good, well, so would be situations like these.

Yes, if 32bit were gone for good, never again would people complain about the removal of 32bit. This is kind of a tautology about any course of action, whether wise or moronic. If Canonical decided to ship without a graphical desktop environment so you just had a terminal and nothing else, after the initial firestorm they would never again have to face complaints about them ripping out the graphical environment. So I suppose by your logic they'd better go ahead and do that.

That's not at all what I was saying, but as those mental gymnastics must have been very straining, you get an A for effort.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyAnd as far as I can tell, 32bit is only an annoying mosquito to whoever maintains the libs. I have seen no case advanced by anyone in which the existence of the libs causes any problems for anyone else. Whereas lack of it is a really significant problem for a lot of cases. So the big picture seems to be that the only reason for supporting the removal of support for 32 bit applications is a sort of abstract hatred of old things and an annoyance at people getting to retain old functionality.

Manpower spent on maintaining old software is not spent on developing, testing or improving new software. Which is even worse in a space as fragmented as linux.
That affects everyone in the long run, even if not directly & immediately.
I also can't really imagine maintenance of 32bit libraries to be a very fulfilling activity, so it always seems a bit threatened to me if nobody is directly paying for it.

As a software developer myself, I can say that one of the biggest costs in development of almost any software project that is going for a few years is usually maintenance of legacy code/libs.
Yes, getting rid of old software/libs means a few people will be inconvenienced due to a change of functionality, but as long as you offer a working "good enough" replacement, the cost is much smaller in the long run than having to maintain obsolete stuff for all eternity.
As such, I understand the desire to get rid of old stuff very much.

Now, Canonical failed at this attempt as they simply did not offer a working replacement at all.
I don't care what the eventual replacement for being able to run 32bit will be. It can be emulation, Snap/flatpak-like or a big ol' precompiled "32bit compatibility pack" for all I care.
I'm just saying that the current method is obviously not the best if it causes Canonical to kick off such a fuss (and so obviously ill-prepared), and this isn't even something new, these discussions have been going on since what, 2014?
Who knows, maybe this chaos has the potential to bring some better solutions.

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