The Epic Games Launcher is so far behind on features compared to Steam it’s not even funny. Epic chose not to try and compete with Steam on that front and to try and force users onto the platform with exclusivity deals and sweeten the deal with free games.

The one user-centric killer feature Epic has in their stack IMHO is the built-in multiplayer crossplay. Except it’s not even exclusive to their store ironically (you do need an Epic account for it though).

Probably referring to the 6-month timed exclusivity on PC for EGS that Borderlands 3 went through.

Code::Blocks is still chugging along, albeit at a glacial pace.

The rise of Docker has made containers very popular in the last 10 years or so. Nowadays you can run a single WSL2 VM on Windows with a Linux distro, and run any number of containers inside it. Vagrant is useful if you need full-fledged VMs for your environments.

I do. I used to juggle between Code::Blocks, PyDev, NetBeans and others, depending on projects. I find VS Code kind of fulfills the promise of Eclipse of being an all-purpose IDE, without the bloat Eclipse became synonymous with. It really clicked for me when I started using devcontainers. I am now a big fan of the whole development containers concept and use it in VS Code daily…

It is quite delightful, which is a nice change of pace from Limbo and the others. I played it last year with game pass and really enjoyed my short time with it.

Because Google is eating the monumental costs of hosting and delivering video content. The cost of maintaining client apps is negligible in comparison. YouTube is not going anywhere unless Google deems it so, or enshittifies it enough to drive users away.

Well they are still missing the self replicating part… But you know, give it some time.

You could buy the game on Steam, get the source code archive and then refund I guess. Or keep it anyway to play, I understand it’s quite good.

I have noticed that trying to return to gaming mode after a long period in desktop mode triggered a reboot more often than not. My impression was that Steam updates that occur in desktop mode would trigger a restart, when attempting to return to gaming mode. That made the SD feel janky, with long restart times.

Don’t get me wrong, I found the SD to be a very versatile device, priced very competitively (compared to low-end gaming laptops for example). I will likely buy its successor if and when it comes out. As a portable gaming device, it’s the best deal around. As a daily driver PC, it’s okay but not great.

I’d say there is nothing too wild about my peripherals: 1080p60 display, USB mouse and keyboard and the occasional PS4 controller. Everything is indeed pretty much plug n play. However in my experience things go south after a while (sometimes days, sometimes weeks) and get fixed after a full restart cycle. Hard to say where it comes from exactly but the dock is a prime suspect.

Bought these to make the most out of those shipping costs. I do not tinker all that much, but having adequate tools like those certainly is a big help.

I also used them to replace the sticks of a Nintendo Switch joy cons with hall effects ones. I saw that similar components are available for the SD, but I currently have no drift problem, so …

I am not aware of better options than the Huaying fan for an OG Steam Deck LCD. Did you have something specific in mind ?

It was OK but not great. I used the official dock and had frequent peripherals issues which could were only solved by rebooting both the SD and the dock. Turning it off and on again is more a Windows that a Linux thing usually, so that was disappointing.

On the software side, the “flatpak” way of applications delivery usually works well, except when the Discover “store” randomly chooses to offer downgrades instead of upgrades. I used software such as Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, OpenShot, OpenRGB, LosslessCut, LocalSend with no hassle.

As expected, gaming performance on a 1080p screen was not as smooth as the native SD screen resolution. I would not recommend it for games needing a bit of oomph unless you are fine with sub 30fps.

Not sure what you mean. I got this one: https://www.ifixit.com/products/steam-deck-original-model-fan?variant=39723201658983

It was setup as a desktop PC for my kid, (official dock, 1080p display, kb+m) for the last year and a half. Bit of an experiment on my part here, because I was curious to know if it was really viable.

The short answer is: yeah, kinda, but with big caveats.

The long answer is:

• It’s alright to watch youtube, browse the web and such.
• It’s perfectly fine for creative tools (GIMP, OpenShot, Libreoffice, etc).
• It’s unsuited for games kids actually want to play (no Fortnite, no more Roblox as of this year, no Valorant, etc).
• It’s surprisingly unreliable. We have had frequent issues (once every two weeks or so), with peripherals suddenly stopping to work for no apparent reason, or the system being slowed waaaay down. Turning it off and on again worked most of the time, but that is not something I expected from a Linux-based machine.

We have hundred of individual repos and use git flow: short lived feature branches but also long lived develop, master and support branches (for LTS releases).

I will admit that Outward is something of an acquired taste. It’s not a looker for sure, and starts a bit harsh, difficulty-wise. However it has surprising depth and a true sense of discovery. It is very rewarding once you really get into it.

Plus it really shines in co-op play. It is the closest thing I know of, that can be compared to “Skyrim, but co-op”.

I stand by my recommendation as it is very much a “B game” and pretty unique.

Here are a few picks off the top of my head:

• Control: TPS, open-ish world, present day setting, solo only
• Deep Rock Galactic: FPS, mission-centric, sci-fi setting, solo & co-op
• Generation Zero: FPS, open world, sci-fi setting, solo & co-op
• Kena: Bridge of Spirits: Action-Adventure, open-ish world, fantasy setting, solo only
• Outward: RPG, open world, fantasy setting, solo & co-op
• Remnant: From the Ashes / Remnant 2: TPS, open-ish world, sci-fi & fantasy setting, solo & co-op

That is not dead which can eternal lie.

Just in case there is any misconception: this particular post does not emanate from anyone at Roblox. This is the Vinegar team closing shop and giving context. Vinegar was an open source project which made it easy to run Roblox on Linux.

Roblox Corporation is the one telling a (likely very small) portion of their paying userbase to fuck off.