Ferk

I think it was Mandrake Linux for me.
It no longer exists though. …I guess I’m old.

The packager always should “explicitly require” what are the dependencies in a Nix package… it’s not like it’s a choice, if there are missing dependencies then that’d be a bug.

If the package is not declaring its dependencies properly then it might not run properly in NixOS, since there are no “system libraries” in that OS other than the ones that were installed from Nix packages.

And one of its advantages over AppImages is that instead of bundling everything together causing redundancies and inefficient use of resources, you actually have shared libraries with Nix (not the system ones, but Nix dependencies). If you have multiple AppImages that bundle the same libraries you can end up having the exact same version of the library installed multiple times (or loaded in memory, when running). Appimages do not scale, you would be wasting a lot of resources if you were to make heavy use of them, whereas with Nix you can run an entire OS built with Nix packages.

Huh? as far as I know it has its own libraries and dependency system. What do you mean?

The nice thing about Nix/Guix is that each version of a library only needs to be installed once and it wont really be “bundled” with the app itself. So it would be a lot easier to hunt down the packages that are depending on a bad library.

Flatpak still depends on runtimes though, I have a few different runtimes I had to install just because of one or two flatpaks that required them (like for example I have both the gnome and kde flatpak runtimes, despite not running either of those desktop environments)… and they can depend on specific versions of runtimes too! I remember one time flatpak recommended me to uninstall one flatpak program I had because it depended on a deprecated runtime that was no longer supported.

Also, some flatpaks can depend on another flatpak, like how for Godot they are preparing a “parent” flatpak (I don’t remember the terminology) that godot games can depend on in order to reduce redundancies when having multiple godot games installed.

Because of those things, you are still likely to require a flatpak remote configured and an internet connection when you install a flatpak. It’s not really a fully self contained thing.

Appimages are more self contained… but even those might make assumptions on what libraries the system might have, which makes them not as universal as they might seem. That or the file needs to be really big, unnecessarily so. Usually, a combination or compromise between both problems, at the discretion of the dev doing the packaging.

The advantage with Nix is that it’s more efficient with the users space (because it makes sure you don’t get the exact same version of a library installed twice), while making it impossible to have a dependency conflict regardless of how old or new is what you wanna install (which is something the package manager from your typical distro can’t do).

Ideally, it would be a P2P protocol where the main seeder is either the content creator directly, or a service paid by the content creator (who is funded by their audience and/or sponsors).

I believe there are many podcasts that work somewhat like that (minus the P2P part, they just simply use RSS). Some hosting services have features to insert ads into the audio podcast being hosted… so the content creators still can choose to do that if they want, but the advantage is that there’s isn’t a monopoly for a single hosting provider and you can access the podcasts from many different podcast apps without needing to rely on a specific website and company that decides how you can watch it.

Deck Verified Games

▸ verified: 3,886

For contrast, currently the number of PS4 games in existence is around 3,325.
Sure, it does not reach yet the 4,527 from the Switch. But it’s a matter of time… specially given that ProtonDB seems to be close to a 8,106 and Valve has still a huge (and ever growing) amount of games left to put a rating to.

How would you define “Linux distro” though?

Most definitions I’ve seen would make things like Chrome OS or even Android qualify as distros, so they wouldn’t really be wrong, even if they might not be a very “traditional” form of it.

Maybe Stallman wasn’t wrong to prefer the term “GNU/Linux” after all?

Honestly, I think that’s a good thing, the current one is plenty of powerful for what it is. Specially considering it’s a portable device where power consumption and thermals are key.
If anything, it’s the games the ones that should try and adapt to more humble hardware. These days it makes no sense to increase so much the requirements for such marginal graphical difference.

A new Steam Controller on the other hand, to match the deck controls, is something that is missing.

They already took so much care to handle the suspend feature (they even support save syncing mid-game!). Solving the point you mentioned is the one thing that, in my view, would make it perfect.

The thing is that it’s technically possible to handle this use case… they could have programmed it so it goes into hibernation after X hours of being asleep (which could have been done by setting a wake up timer before the sleep state, the Linux kernel already allows it).

I wish some of the unofficial extensions implemented something like this, but I bet it’s not so simple to hook into the pre-sleeping / post-sleeping codepath without messing up too much with the system… plus the risk of potentially causing the device to enter some inescapable loop.

games like Against the Storm, Anno, Civilization, Dwarf Fortress, Factorio, Homeworld, Northgard, OpenTTD, Stellaris, etc

Note that none of those games are “Steam Deck Verified”. They are at most “Playable”, and often the controls is not the only issue Valve warns about (many also have small text that’s hard to read). So playing them, while technically possible, is not really that great of an experience.

The issue is that not everyone wants to fiddle with controller settings, and sadly there’s very few games that do take advantage of the trackpad and actually have proper first-class support for the Deck, with seamless idiot-proof integration.

And I say that despite being a Steam Controller owner (and I’d love a SC 2). The experience with “Verified” titles is much more seamless than having to check your controller mappings to understand what you need to press (or having convoluted layers / combinations for the more keyboard heavy ones… like say, ToME).

It’s a bit sad that the trackpad is not getting much love from game devs. I’d have hoped that at least some games started allowing simultaneous input for gamepad and mouse, just so that they can earn a “Verified” badge. But that’s still a problem, though some engines handle it better than others.

The fact that they just recently announced more fine-grained categorization on what kind of controllers a game supports makes me think you are probably right.

If you can only have one joystick it makes more sense to use it for joystick movement… it’s pretty much the one thing joysticks are really good at. The touchpad works much worse as an analog movement control than as a way to control the camera angle.

In fact, the touchpad is superior to the joystick at controlling the camera when games are designed for it and allow simultaneous mouse and gamepad input. The issue is that most games don’t, which means you either have to remap everything to keyboard and mouse (which is less user friendly and requires mental training) or you have to use some emulated joystick configuration that makes the touchpad feel janky, since joysticks have such a bad sensitivity when compared to a mouse/touchpad.

However, even with that issue that many games cause, it still feels more janky to use the touchpad for movement.

I mean, it would technically be possible to build a computer out or organic and biological live tissue. It wouldn’t be very practical but it’s technically possible.

I just don’t think it would be very reasonable to consider that the one thing making it intelligent is that they are made of proteins and living cells instead of silicates and diodes. I’d argue that such a claim would, on itself, be a strong claim too.

Note that “real world truth” is something you can never accurately map with just your senses.

No model of the “real world” is accurate, and not everyone maps the “real world truth” they personally experience through their senses in the same way… or even necessarily in a way that’s really truly “correct”, since the senses are often deceiving.

A person who is blind experiences the “real world truth” by mapping it to a different set of models than someone who has additional visual information to mix into that model.

However, that doesn’t mean that the blind person can “never understand” the “real world truth” …it just means that the extent at which they experience that truth is different, since they need to rely in other senses to form their model.

Of course, the more different the senses and experiences between two intelligent beings, the harder it will be for them to communicate with each other in a way they can truly empathize. At the end of the day, when we say we “understand” someone, what we mean is that we have found enough evidence to hold the belief that some aspects of our models are similar enough. It doesn’t really mean that what we modeled is truly accurate, nor that if we didn’t understand them then our model (or theirs) is somehow invalid. Sometimes people are both technically referring to the same “real world truth”, they simply don’t understand each other and focus on different aspects/perceptions of it.

Someone (or something) not understanding an idea you hold doesn’t mean that they (or you) aren’t intelligent. It just means you both perceive/model reality in different ways.

Step 1. Analize what’s the possible consequence / event that you find undesirable

Step 2. Determine whether there’s something you can do to prevent it: if there is, go to step 3, if there’s not go to step 4

Step 3. Do it, do that thing that you believe can prevent it. And after you’ve done it, go back to step 2 and reevaluate if there’s something else.

Step 4. Since there’s nothing else you can do to prevent it, accept the fact that this consequence might happen and adapt to it… you already did all you could do given the circumstances and your current state/ability, you can’t do anything about it anymore, so why worry? just accept it. Try and make it less “undesirable”.

Step 5. Wait. Entertain yourself some other way… you did your part.

Step 6. Either the event doesn’t happen, or it happens but you already prepared to accept the consequences.

Step 7. Analyze what (not) happened and how it happened (or didn’t). Try to understand it better so in the future you can better predict / adapt under similar circumstances, and go back to step 1.

:x? Real Programmers use ZZ.

This.
Also, honestly I don’t think the screen is a problem with the current deck. No matter how good the screen is, higher resolution image is gonna both burn more battery and have a performance hit, I’d rather see an upgrade in terms of battery (and a proper system to attach it so it’s not just glued, maybe also some smarter chipset/bios that allows customizing the power margin to automatically disconnect the battery when docked, so it’s not periodically charging it to keep it full and degrading it in the long run).

Looks are also subjective, I don’t really think changing a bit the colors is worth it (and it would likely be distorted anyway when using the night filter the software offers anyway), specially considering the price, effort, and the risk of messing things up in the installation. I guess for some people it might be an upgrade, but it’s definitely not for me.

The deck runs at 800p maximum and has an FPS slider to cap the framerate so you can get more juice out of the battery.
Capping it to 40 FPS on Steam Deck would actually be an Ok thing to do if it means you can run the device longer while playing portably.

So under those standards you wont notice it running bad at all. Its funny how it works, but for some games the experience feels better on the Deck because of how good it is at scaling down everything. Also sometimes the lower native resolution makes things work smoother than they would have otherwise.

Just like building up your muscle, it takes time. Which is why you don’t see memes/people saying: “So weak that you can’t lift 100kg? just say no, raise your arms while holding a 100kg weight. It can’t legally fall if you don’t drop it.”

I mean, logically stopping depressive thoughts is the only way to stop depression, the same way as how lowering the caloric intake is how you get rid of obesity, or lowering the resistance to insulin is how you stop being diabetic type 2. Or how the only way to be someone who lifts 100kg is to actually lift a 100kg weight.

But that’s so obvious that it’s not helpful. It’s not like people don’t know what makes them depressed… or obese… or weak… what they want is advice in how to train themselves, not someone telling them they should “just” stop being the way they are (which is probably something they already keep reminding themselves about! …most of the time, that’s the one thing they don’t need help with).