I randomly think about something I want, and then usually find it here. Used to be a GitHub repo, but it got so popular and useful they got a nice site with search and all, now.

https://awesome-selfhosted.net/

I don’t have as much running anymore outside media/games, but I do still run Stirling PDF as an Acrobat Pro alternative.

Yup, looks like you beat me to it. As you can see, problematic.

Besides, their entire ecosystem at Proton is proprietary and closed-off, just like Google and everybody else that wants to harvest your life. That should be red flag number one, besides the CEO bits.

Everybody expects Google to become Skynet. I guess SpaceX are going to be the ones to create HAL9000.

If your name is Dave Bowman or Frank Poole, don’t become an astronaut.

I would recommend Mullvad over Proton. Proton’s CEO is problematic and a bit of a wild card. They also have proven that they care more about money than privacy. They want to be a Google ecosystem and constantly push more product on you. Someone else mentioned this and it’s a good thing to live by: if a company’s service is free, you are the product. When it comes to being an application that has full control and insight into your network traffic, no thanks.

Mullvad is disgustingly cheap, costing only $5/month. I’ve been using Mullvad for 15 years now, and it’s always been $5/month. You get DAITA plus a whole host of other necessary sailing accoutrements. They have one of the best track records in terms of not shoving marketing bullshit down your throat and being true to what their website and documentation says. The only limitation in terms of network usage is that you can only have 5 devices tied to a single account. It’s mega easy to remove a device to free up a slot, though.

Some games do, some games don’t. It’s a design choice.

Also, Oblivion was released originally in 2007, and Morrowind in 2002. The consoles, game logic, and gfx were a fraction of what modern games can do, a lot of games (most, in fact) back then didn’t have the fancy animations for all directions. There were likely other backend/engine limitations at the time that don’t exist today, because CPU/GPU power.

ETA: as someone who has coded a 3rd person camera and animations in 3D to work in all directions, it really fucking sucks to do in a well-known engine with online search available from others that have done it before. Now imagine having to code everything like that from scratch into a custom game engine, being one of the firsts to figure it out. I’m also gonna guess other bugs were far more important than which direction the character is walking in TPV, being a Bethesda game and all.

Vermin Supreme has your back

Drugs 'N Chugs, bby

Meshuggah & L’Impératrice

(live performance quality is a huge reason why they’re in my tops)

Nice. Two of my tops! Despite the tonal difference, they get shuffled together a lot.

Zero consideration for anything but promoting their “clever name and aesthetic.” Feels like this is close to what a legal document from Idiocracy would look like, might be an unfortunate step in that direction.

If anything, this article is a warning to never contact Dragon Lawyers. If they can’t see how a full color watermark causes issues on a legal document that might be copied or faxed, well I don’t trust them to see the details they need to see in my case.

Admittedly, I don’t use game mode as often as most. I do gamedev on this, so it’s almost always in Desktop mode, even when I’m actually playing games.

Having said that, the handful of times I have used it on Cachy felt no different at all to SteamOS. The UI is identical. They did a great job recreating the Valve-specific parts of SteamOS that aren’t just part of KDE or Arch.

The only downside, and it’s just a minor inconvenience for me, is that Cachy doesn’t have the option to boot into Desktop mode by default (yet). It always boots up into game mode first.

EDIT: I was wrong, the game mode on CachyOS is actually one in the same as SteamOS game mode. That is something built into a special release of the Steam client for Steam Decks, and Cachy just uses that instead of reinventing the wheel. It should be a direct 1:1 experience when it comes to game mode.

To add to that, and to make it easier for some, you can use Kiwix!

Indeed, I got myself a mid-grade Netgear USB antenna. It works much better than on-board, but like you said it’s an extra thing with a wire. Doesn’t help with BT, but at least my mouse has an RF dongle for that.

It’s just a bit of a bummer that the price is what it is and the BT/WiFi is one of the cheap components.

I got a client to buy me a System76 (Pangolin), never would have bought one otherwise. Everything is great about it, very powerful and as expected, except for the BT/WiFi module. It’s kinda dogshit.

Besides that, IO is plentiful, it’s a good size/weight, user upgradable/serviceable, has a hardware camera killswitch, and a built-in RJ45 to fix the WiFi issue. When I got mine, they were doing a special, and I also got a neat backpack with it for free!

If you get into Linux more, you will start using something like pacman (short for Package Manager), which is where you install libraries and apps natively. Then with Arch, there’s also the AURs (community repository).

The way you do it on SteamOS is usually through Discover Store (aka flatpak). That’s all fine and good, but there are nuances to how it sandboxes the apps that may not be desirable for everything you install and do. Secondly, when you update to a new SteamOS version, anything installed via pacman or AUR gets wiped. Only your home directory remains untouched (i.e., game installs and saves, Discover apps). Some tools just aren’t offered on flatpak, and some times what is there is behind a version or two.

For the average user, no real advantage. For developers and tinkerers, it opens all the doors. If you just want to have the same Steam Deck experience, but make sure everything that phones home is gone, then CachyOS also has something for you.

And I haven’t felt ‘controlled’ by Valve

That’s not what I mean. What I mean is that Valve controls and makes all the decisions on how the OS is designed. Some of it open source, some is not at all (telemetry stuffs, for example). Again, depends on how you use it whether or not it’s an issue for you.

Are their proton versions just proton GE? To what extent does it actually run better?

No, they are separately maintained Cachy Proton versions, based on GE. I haven’t looked deep into it, but I gather they run better because they are tweaked to fit into how Cachy has things setup. And again, only marginally better. I just notice less stutters in some heftier games where I would see a bunch before, that kind of thing.

ETA: there was one game, don’t remember which, that I couldn’t get to run in Proton, GE or otherwise. It does run in Cachy’s Proton, though

Sorta. I work from home, so while here it’s docked on a desk.

When I travel, I’m usually in National Forests, so I don’t really get on the computer much. If I do need to, though, I have one of those Logitech keyboard+trackpad that I use. Otherwise it’s just a game/media machine when I’m traveling if I even pull it out.

Dear god, yes. One more USB C would solve a lot of problems.

They give you a lot more control over the system in terms of the filesystem, its structure and format, use of pacman without being wiped on update, etc. It’s more of a true Arch Linux experience, plus it isn’t controlled by Valve.

Cachy also has their own Proton versions that seem to run a couple of games marginally better so far. Still, you have all the options when it comes to how you want to install and run games or anything else.

ETA: I think BazziteOS also has a handheld version that is tailored for the Deck’s hardware that gives a similar experience

Exactly, that’s my point. New Linux people don’t have to think about installing a new OS or even using a live USB, just flip to Desktop mode to demo it.

For new users that were otherwise scared of changing their daily driver, it does provide a nice little path for them.

Flip it into Desktop mode some times to get a feel for how different the DE is, play around with some command line stuff. Easy to factory reset, so mess it up if you want.

Then install something like CachyOS Handheld edition after a while to get a less restricted Linux experience, while maintaining game mode et all.

Hell, for the price, it’s a great device to use as a dev machine if you do Cachy or similar. I use mine as my daily use “laptop” since my other laptop died, and was less powerful any way.