I’ve been playing a lot of Surviving Mars lately. It’s like a city builder without most of the boring stuff, and needing to keep an eye on your resources while you are trying to build a colony on a hostile planet gives it a survival vibe.
Back in the day I used a surface pro 3 dual booting windows and linux. Linux didn’t have the drivers to support the pen back then so I used windows and one note for note taking.
I used an acer switch 12 convertible during uni until the battery started bloating up and I put it out of order. The pen wasn’t great, especially the palm rejection was pretty bad, but that wasn’t a Linux issue it wasn’t great on windows either, overall it was pretty much the same. Linux ran great though, given that it only had 3 or 4 gigs of ram and a low tier i3 (I think 3rd or 4th gen) processor. I ran mint with KDE and I’d recommend running something with KDE (or gnome haven’t tried that since I prefer kde if it has to be a full DE and not a lightweight WM) as well.
I have experience with a Fujitsu Lifebook U9310x.
My general advice would be, if you’re going to use Linux on a convertible, install Fedora. It has the best and newest implementation of Gnome, and Gnome has the best support for convertible, touchscreen and on-screen keyboard support.
On Fedora, the experience was almost as good as on Windows, whereas I had issues with Debian not correctly switching modes when I fold the keyboard back, not popping up the onscreen keyboard and not correctly rotating the screen.
Disclaimer: I haven’t tested Ubuntu because I personally dislike it. But if it’s certified for your hardware, that would be the first thing I’d try.
Hardware advice: Don’t get a Fujitsu Lifebook U for writing. The keyboard sucks badly, to the point where about every 50th keystroke simply doesn’t register. There’s a Lifebook E convertible now which is more budget-friendly and has a better keyboard, but it’s too thick and heavy for use as a tablet.
Thinkpads consistently have the best Linux support, so that’s what I’d have bought if I hadn’t got a 60% discount on the Fujitsu from work.
I had good experiences with the Zenbook-Flip Series from Asus. Linux support is great, build quality too. It even survived a big drop with only the screen falling out, but still working. I just inserted it again. Battery life is also great which is perfect for university.
Palm rejection did not work reliable however. I just got used to disable the touchpad with a keycombo whenever I started typing longer passages of text.
I tried Quake Champions for the first time earlier but I don’t think I’ll get into it.
Robocraft 2 just launched and I have no desire to play it after reading reviews.
I streamed Nosferatu: Wrath of Malachi on Halloween and magically beat it in 3 sessions with the best possible ending. So now that’s done. I just don’t know, man.
Also been playing RTM with a friend the past week. Definitely fun but still pretty buggy. TBH it’s the sweet spot for us LOTR fans and Survival fans. It’s got a bit of both but does not excel in any of them.
The more I play it, the more I enjoy it. Sure it has its flaws and definite issues, but they’ve also hit a perfect mid of systems to manage (food, temps, disease etc) where it makes sense and it’s not too overbearing. They’ve also included a hefty amount of welcome QoL changes.
Still, I can’t craft bulk cloth at once etc and some of those things irk me. The procedural (?) generation is a bit repetitive and mob spawns are a complete mess
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