Had a movie stop playing the other week (I use my PC as a Jellyfin server and watch on a Nvidia Shield in another room). I thought something had crashed, but when I went upstairs to check, it had realised nobody was watching it and fucking rebooted.
Steam itself does support VR on Linux, but most of the actual hardware (like Meta headsets) don’t have drivers for Linux. The ones that do (Valve Index) are buggy, but not unusable. But even then it doesn’t get you far, because 90% of VR games won’t run on Linux, even with Proton.
So Steam is not the problem. Hardware support and developer support is the problem. Can’t really blame developers for not caring, even if they make their VR game work on Linux almost no one would be able to play it anyway, so why bother. It won’t get anywhere unless hardware manufactures start making actual drivers for their headsets on Linux. Meta practically controls the market and they don’t care, so here we are.
A Steamlink app was added to the Meta store recently. It supposedly allows playing streamed desktop VR. I have been meaning to try it with Steam on my Linux desktop, so I can’t really vouch for it yet, it could just not work. And who knows if Proton works for any specific VR games.
It seems like Microsoft is going through a real phase of “I made this” and they’re adding all these features that were core to Linux since damn near Linux’s inception.
Multiple desktop instances, sudo (which isn’t the same sudo…), and now trying to mimic the rebootless update.
Pfffttt, Microsoft has been there, done this, and got a whole closet full of tee shirts for stuff like this many times over the years. In the end the users don’t care and can’t stop it. And they are, by in large, too lazy to change to something else to completely avoid it.
It hasn’t ever affected the bottom line enough to matter to them. They will just pull this bug feature and wait for a better day. Or perhaps they will figure out a way to introduce it piecemeal to disguise it better.
The worst part is that Windows can do that, but Microsoft insists on enshittifying it. Like Windows 11 isn’t that terrible if it wasn’t for all of the data collection and advertisements and other shit.
I miss the Windows 7 days where you could download a stripped down ISO that was just the OS. It launched your programs of choice and didn’t suck up your battery running unnecessary junk.
Last week, I went to a friend’s house and asked to use her computer, which is still a core 2 duo with 2gb of ram and an hdd, running win7. I was a bit surprised to see her family having it as their only computer, but more surprised to see how fast it was. I expected to have the most laggish experience of my life, but it was… smooth. I’ve used machines with much modern low end cpus, more ram and ssds that performed much worse than that on win10. The enshittification is real.
Yup. I can say for sure that SSDs were certainly a game changer, but now we have systems with like 10x the processing power that operate at the same speeds because the power has been spent on poorly optimized code and bloatware.
Sigh… I’m going to have to start fucking around with Linux, aren’t I?
I love that the Razer installer pops up during windows intital setup. Seriously, chill out Razer, I don’t want to sign in to you while I’m bypassing the Microsoft forced sign in.
This is an odd comment. I use a Razer keyboard and mouse and I’ve never experienced this. What products are you using?
Edit: Thi said, I HATE how Razer and Nvidia make you sign in to update things. Like, REALLY hate that. They even force two factor on us. Like… Why the fuck do I care about account security for either of those?
You can update Razer by signing in as Guest and not actually logging in. I think it is the same with Nvidia. They just eant you to think you need to log in.
I didn’t looking it that much, but while “continue as guest” is a prominent option in Razer Synapse, I was unable to get GeForce Experience to let me install updates without signing in.
It’s whatever though, you can install and update to relatively recent Nvidia drivers with the CUDA winget package. Now that I think about it, around 95% of my Windows software is installed through winget these days. I’m a big fan.
I run a main box that I still dual-boot between Linux and Windows, and the rest of my boxes are Linux. I’m definitely skeptical of Microsoft’s drive in adding these tools other than to try to unseat Linux dominance in server settings, but for real, some of the stuff they’ve been adding is pretty tits, like winget for example.
I don’t think there are malicious intentions behind winget. Aside from the fact that it’s objectively useless for server configuration, Windows Server lost to Linux in terms of performance per dollar a long time ago. The target use case for winget seems to have been spinning up new employee PCs, but I’m not confident that it would be wise to use it for that.
It’s also shockingly simple for a package manager. Nearly all of the “packages” simply download the software’s installer from the official website and silently execute it. You can see (and add to) all of the package configs here. It’s literally a GitHub monorepo lmao
It is okay to be the person that always recommends Linux, especially if you are a kind person with the patience to explain things to people in approachable terms (and you don’t just scream at people SOMEBODY ALREADY ASKED THIS QUESTION USE SEARCH whenever a newbie walks in the door and asks the obvious questions a newbie would ask).
Now is the time, Linux is pulled up out front waiting to pick us up (with bags packed) and Microsoft is loudly shitting the bed upstairs, NOW is the time to walk straight out the front door, jump in the car with Linux and never look back. We owe it to Microsoft’s long relationship with consumers to leave Microsoft sitting confused on the porcelain throne wondering why they were abandoned and where all the toilet paper is (we are the toilet paper in this metaphor).
But it will die down. People will just accept it. They always do. They always will.
I understand the frustration and cynicism that comes from wanting something to happen and waiting a good stretch of your life for it to do so but I am sorry, this is not reflective of reality.
Don’t mistake your own fatigue for the behavior of people in general.
Support for software on Linux or Wine is now orders of magnitude more complete and functional than it was 5-10 years ago. There are fundamental changes going on, just because we operated in a paradigm that suffocated the possibility of Linux adoption in the past doesn’t mean that paradigm will continue indefinitely.
There is a difference between being permanently powerless and being powerless under a certain arrangement of forces and actors.
We are entering a period of the status quo being smashed for better or worse in almost every dimension of our lives, what was likely to happen in the past 20 years does not reliably predict what is likely to happen in the next 20 years.
There is actually a true opening for Linux here in a way there never has been.
I mean… how big really is the category of software tasks that you can’t properly do on Linux in 2024? I feel like it is getting to the point where you do genuinely have to be specific about what Linux can’t do that is a dealbreaker for you rather than just falling back on “Linux can’t do what people need to do” as a general criticism of it.
Windows can’t do what people need it to do, and it fails to do so while sucking up your private data (which if you work at a business with confidential information IS a dealbreaker). At least when Linux fails it usually isn’t simultaneously violating the IT security structure of your organization….
The funny thing is businesses and government entities can’t even claim with a straight face that they can trust Microsoft to adhere to the meager insufficient data privacy laws that do exist when there is zero evidence Microsoft would behave that way based on the track record even if the financial penalties for failing to do so were actually real to the ruling class and not just theoretical thought experiments that involve a slap on the wrist or more like a light tickling with a feather on the nose.
Oh i totally agree with you. I have a feeling that the only real obstacle on the way out from windows is proprietary software, especially adobe and some custom apps for specific hardware.
It’s still perfectly functional and easy to use, just say no if they ask you to sign up to a service, if you come from windows you’ll ve surprised of how easy it is to dismiss those offers
MS’s frequent missteps - win11, total recall, ai inescapable etc., - may just finally catch up with them. While they continue to devour game studios and shut them down for irrational reasons, who knows?
Stop being so negative and open your mind. Hell, MS did, you can use bash on the command line now. Times do change.
Gradual shifts can snowball into huge shifts. a few years ago Linux gaming only existed for the dedicated crowd, that somehow managed to make it work. Now for many it is no different from their Windows experience for most games, sometimes even better.
Think of it like bubbles pressing against each other. It matters not only how much pressure your own bubble has, but also how much pressure the other bubbles have in finding the equilibrium. The Windows bubble isn’t only weakening itself, the Linux bubble is getting stronger and stronger
For me, gaming was the one thing holding me back from really adopting Linux. When I got a PS5, I felt the time was right to make the switch, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find pretty much my whole Steam library works fine on Linux. VR still doesn’t work for me, but it seems to be getting there.
There is still a lot of googling and frustration involved in using and maintaining it, but I’m slowly learning through exposure. There is nothing I want to do on a PC any more that I need windows for. If the auto update stuff worked better, I’d probably recommend it to everyone. But I’ve tried both Mint and Ubuntu and the software updater constantly runs into issues very quickly after install. I’m guessing because of all the different ways to install software, but I can’t understand why it doesn’t just apt update/upgrade behind the scenes because that seems to work just fine.
But I’ve tried both Mint and Ubuntu and the software updater constantly runs into issues very quickly after install.
I have a Blue-Build based custom distro (not many customisations tbh), that I’m planning to ship for my sister as well as me. So far, updates have been painless because it’s just one base image overwriting the other. I have a feeling that that’s where Linux distros in general is headed. I can imagine Bazzite being just right for you if you’re into gaming.
Primarily I use my Linux box for development, but I do like to game on the PC from time to time. And then also I like to connect to oculus for SteamVR. I haven’t been able to do that since I got off windows. Yeah, I could dual boot or whatever, but I just don’t want to.
I’ll look into Bazzite because maybe I can move my kids’ computer to Linux as well. They do nothing but game/discord on theirs.
This is status quo for every large corporation. Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, EVERY SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM, Roku… They all, ALL, push boundaries to see what they can get away with to not only sell you something, but also make you the thing they sell. Sometimes they’re bold enough to make it public what they’re doing, sometimes, it’s a leak that happens when people find out how little the company actually cares about it’s users (Apple, so many user data leaks).
My bigger concern is that almost every company now has it in their contracts/terms of services, that all users are not allowed to participate in a lawsuit, be it class action, or court case against them Most of them even have a maximum sue limit too! There’s a lot that have a rule that initial arbitration cannot have a lawyer, but that won’t be enforced.
Sorry, this may be unpopular, but software license click-through agreements are enforceable.
Source: I’m not a lawyer, but worked in a software contracts office with lawyers, so some of it ruined off. Essentially your legal options are, use the software according to the license agreement, or don’t use the software.
A third option would be, I guess, use open source software so you don’t deal with that bullshit.
Edit: Part of it is wrapped up in the Uniform Commercial Code, which is a whole bundle of standard laws which is quite complex. Basically you pays your money, and you get a thing, but there are all sports of knobs and levers to handle every contingency. You can nope out of the transaction, but you don’t get the thing.
Again, I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve read a lot of EULAs.
However, to challenge that, your have to sue Microsoft, against their team of super-lawyers, the best that Microsoft could buy. And you’d have to do it in the jurisdiction started in the license agreement, which is undoubtedly friendly to Microsoft. And you’d have to have some sort of standing, meaning you have suffered some actual damage from the thing you arguing against, and that you want remedied. So you sue for damages, but it can only be for the amount that you were actually damaged, which is problematic - especially for free Microsoft software. But for paid software, I’m sure there’s a return/refund clause which would make you whole.
And you are paying your own lawyer to Microsoft, right? How long do you plan to sue Microsoft? I guarantee they have deeper pockets than you, and can outlast you in court. And remember if you lose the lawsuit, you will probably be countersued for the cost of their lawyers.
Basically the EULAs are written by Microsoft’s very expensive lawyers. Other corporations cower in fear of Microsoft’s lawyers; I know the ones in my office did. And the rewards you’d get would be a Pyrrhic victory at best. “Do you feel lucky, punk?”
I love it when Apple pushes advertising that touts their focus on privacy… when in reality, they’re breaching user privacy in all the ways that every other company does.
A big reason Apple focuses on privacy and apps not being able to track the user is because they want to keep all that data for themselves. None of the restrictions they’ve introduced apply to first-party apps. It gives them ad targeting data that no other company can collect. They do have their own ad network (for things like ads in the App Store), and last I heard, they wanted to expand it.
I like the idea of these companies dumping all this money into a technology to replace people, only for people to not buy the product that tried to replace people.
Yes and when real AI is developed, they won’t like what it has to say about your current economic system, so they’ll pull the plug. If this situation hasn’t already happened unbeknownst to us.
I like to think writers pour their souls into their work. LLMs are an amalgamation of other people’s work not the work of a person creating a character. Your argument is NPCs don’t have souls, obviously that’s an objective truth. I’m just saying give me the SOUL.
Again, the character would still be written and defined by a human writer, pouring their soul into it just like they would a “dumb” NPC. I don’t see how that “soul” is lost by giving that human-written character the capability to naturally respond to language.
This is exhausting. I don’t think LLMs are capable of making a captivating enough character. Nothing I’ve seen thus far has led me to believe they have the capacity for creativity. That is what I consider soul.
Which I believe people and only people can achieve at this moment in time.
At last. This is actually good news for Windows itself because people will be more inclined to use it again if they don’t see ads, aren’t tracked, can set any default browser etc.
So it’s good for both users and Microsoft.
Sometimes these corporations just can’t help themselves by adding trash and they need a mommy figure to force them to stop doing that which ultimately benefits themselves.
Thing is for me windows opened a pandora’s box that goes further than just ad-free, once I started getting into open software thanks to switching to linux, I realized it’s not just the them saying there’s no tracking, it’s the being able to see it for yourself, it’s the there being a 1000 eyes on a project that don’t have a motivation to lie to you, checking making sure that there are no trackers.
It’s no longer just sbout them saying “it’s all good we ain’t spying” it’s about a project with a thousand eyes on them making sure this is actually the case, plus the nature of most open licenses where every fork also needs to follow such license.
It’s starting to become a sort of change in how I see society working with each other and I whish there were other aspects of life where such a philosophy vould be applied.
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