Ac> > - Archlinux: A rolling release that feels future-proof. Plus, the AUR g
Ac> > me tons of flexibility.
Ac>
Ac> I swear by this one no matter where you put it. If you want it in a
Ac> container, or in a refrigerator for that matter. I've even used the arm
Ac> version on a few rpi3's in the past. ;)

Well, it looks like I might be switching my containers to Arch. I finished running the Phoronix-Test-Suite benchmarks and unfortunately they were not very conclusive. Many of the tests failed on most of the systems, so there were only a few tests that worked on multiple systems. However, the tests that did work on more than one system had Arch performing better.
Also I am very familiar with Arch, so I don't have to learn new ways of doing things. Also am an interested in using cockpit for remote administration which they the Cockpit crew test on Arch. The only concern I have is if you do not update regularly, you need to go through the process of getting the new keys for the repository.

For those of you interested in seeing the results.
https://openbenchmarking.org/result/2502139-NE-2502130NE27


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Re: Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: neoshock to Accession on Thu Feb 13 2025 07:44 pm

> Ac> I swear by this one no matter where you put it. If you want it in a
> Ac> container, or in a refrigerator for that matter. I've even used the arm
> Ac> version on a few rpi3's in the past. ;)
>
> Well, it looks like I might be switching my containers to Arch. I finished


https://imgur.com/wvtIQTx

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MR> https://imgur.com/wvtIQTx


LOL, BTW

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Ar> Debian has been operating as a political institution since more or less
Ar> the systemd migration. But then I think the systemd migration itself was
Ar> very badly handled. I remember meeting some people from the Debian
Ar> ecosystem back in the day and celebrating they had kicked those
Ar> "fuckers" when some developers and packagers left over it. You'd think
Ar> they were happy they were losing manpower.

The entire Linux and FOSS eco-system is currently just as divided as the U.S. is - I can't count the number of projects I've stopped using in the past year on one hand.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
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Ar> For LXC in particular I tend to favor Devuan because it offers a Debian-li
Ar> base - so third party services you bolt on it are likely to run - without
Ar> carrying the bad babbage Debian has been accumulating as of late.
Thank's for that info, I will look into Devuan. I have never heard of that distro, but looking at their website, seems like worth a try.

Ar> Alpine is good but then it is less compatible with random stuff you might Ar> to deploy on it - it has a minoritary libc, for starters, so lots of
Ar>precompiled solutions simply don't run on Alpine as they are.

Yes, I agree. Originally Alpine seemed like was something I was going to switch all my containers, however it looks with the amount of work needing to get some projects working may not be worth the time. I might however use Alpine for simple services like Samba and ssh. All my other containers would mount those file shares. This allows me only needing to mount to one samba server to transfer files if need, rather than need to mount multiple samba servers on on desktop.

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pa> The entire Linux and FOSS eco-system is currently just as divided as the
pa> U.S. is - I can't count the number of projects I've stopped using in the
pa> past year on one hand.

Yes, its been some year in deciding what projects to support lately. It's one thing to make decisions on the the project itself (aka systemd), but when it starts with things like political views, it been quite ridiculous. These need to stay out of FOSS projects.
I have been seriously thinking of going BSD lately, just not sure if I want to tackle re-learning things.
Or maybe temple OS, LOL
I sure hope I do not need to switch to LFS

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-=> neoshock wrote to paulie420 <=-

pa> The entire Linux and FOSS eco-system is currently just as divided as the
pa> U.S. is - I can't count the number of projects I've stopped using in the
pa> past year on one hand.

ne> Yes, its been some year in deciding what projects to support lately.
ne> It's one thing to make decisions on the the project itself (aka
ne> systemd), but when it starts with things like political views, it been
ne> quite ridiculous. These need to stay out of FOSS projects. I have been
ne> seriously thinking of going BSD lately, just not sure if I want to
ne> tackle re-learning things. Or maybe temple OS, LOL
ne> I sure hope I do not need to switch to LFS

Slackware, for the win.



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ne> Yes, its been some year in deciding what projects to support lately.
ne> It's one thing to make decisions on the the project itself (aka
ne> systemd), but when it starts with things like political views, it been
ne> quite ridiculous. These need to stay out of FOSS projects.
ne> I have been seriously thinking of going BSD lately, just not sure if I
ne> want to tackle re-learning things.

FOSS/Linux should be available and welcoming to ALL. Trans, cis, white, black, Asian, American, Canadian - you get it...

IMO these projects who attempt to cancel ANYONE who won't stand up and hail their ideals are just BS bonfires that don't deserve my support, money or even usage...

nixOS, ElementaryOS (who cares, its always sucked...), Red Hat, Mozilla... I could surely keep going. All BS who go as far as to push out the original devs!??! BTW: I certainly wouldn't license my way out of my own project, but its happening again and again.

DEI is the same racism they were fighting 10 years ago. God - I've become so political, but its not because *I* don't accept everyone... come join 2oFB, EVERYONE. Just don't flip out when I discuss whats important to me.

Sheesh... FOSS sucks, 2025.



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Re: Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: neoshock to Arelor on Sun Feb 16 2025 01:34 pm

> Yes, I agree. Originally Alpine seemed like was something I was going to
> switch all my containers, however it looks with the amount of work needing
> to get some projects working may not be worth the time. I might however use
> Alpine for simple services like Samba and ssh. All my other containers would
> mount those file shares. This allows me only needing to mount to one samba
> server to transfer files if need, rather than need to mount multiple samba
> servers on on desktop.

Depending on what you are doing, I find maintaining a multi-stack network sucks balls.

Say you are operating a server farm. Screw that, let's say you are operating a big homelab (with 20 machines or so). If you are serious you might be using some configuration management scheme so you can manage your farm semi-automatically instead of having to go through every one of your machines everytime you need to push an upgrade or whatever.

If you are using something such as Sake you need to define which tasks you want your configuration management solution to do. Stuff like defining an upgrade task that does apt update and apt upgrade on all your Debian-like machines. Usually that is easy enough.

Then you realize you have an Alma Linux machine, and an Alpine machine, and this NetBSD over there, and a virtual router with some goddamn proprietary firmware. This means your instruction starts looking like (pseudocode follows:)

upgrade () {
if system is debian then do apt-get stuff
else if system is alma linux then do dnf stuff
if system is OpenBSD then do syspach and pkg_add stuff
........
}

This gets out of hand very quickly. Some automation solutions suffer this less than others, but still...

So, in practice, I tend to recommend using as few platforms as possible just because it makes management suck much less. This means I tend to use a small number of operating systems for my VMs and containers (usually Devuan when I need Linux, OpenBSD when I don't) and exceptions exist only when there is no way arround it.

Just saying because if you have more than 5 machines then you might consider thinning your stack rather than adding more Linux distributions to the mix.



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Re: Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: neoshock to paulie420 on Sun Feb 16 2025 01:59 pm

> Yes, its been some year in deciding what projects to support lately. It's
> one thing to make decisions on the the project itself (aka systemd), but
> when it starts with things like political views, it been quite ridiculous.
> These need to stay out of FOSS projects.
> I have been seriously thinking of going BSD lately, just not sure if I want
> to tackle re-learning things.
> Or maybe temple OS, LOL
> I sure hope I do not need to switch to LFS

Linux still has lots of fun projects to play with, but most often they are toy projects (such as KISS Linux and their clones) or laser-focused (such as Tiny Core Linux, which also has toy vibes).

The BSDs don't require you to relearn that many things. Most of the userland is similar and I think if you are a poweruser in Linux land you will be up to speed with any BSD in a couple of weeks. The differences surface when you start doing intensive work (such as creating a package for a BSD) or trying to coherce Linux-centric software into running on your BSD of choice.


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Re: Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Gamgee to neoshock on Sun Feb 16 2025 07:09 pm

> Slackware, for the win.

Slackware is cool because it is one of the few Linux distributions that works as a general purpose solution without having all its management tools be utter bullshit :-)

I wish their release engineering was better. I think if it was, I would not have jumped to the BSDs myself.


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Hey Arelor!

On Tue, Feb 18 2025 15:18:14 -0600, you wrote:

> The BSDs don't require you to relearn that many things. Most of the
> userland is similar and I think if you are a poweruser in Linux land
> you will be up to speed with any BSD in a couple of weeks. The
> differences surface when you start doing intensive work (such as
> creating a package for a BSD) or trying to coherce Linux-centric
> software into running on your BSD of choice.

I must say, the last time I installed FreeBSD (was within the past 6 months or so), I decided to try the 'all-binary' route using 'pkg', and was pretty impressed with the ease of use, and no worrying about dependencies, much like I'm used to with Archlinux. It was a much better experience than I've had in the past.

Regards,
Nick

... He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
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MR> my problem with linux is not the OSes, it's development done on programs
MR> that i use with linux. some of these guys are screwballs, still
MR> developing older versions of things while also newer versions are coming
MR> out. that's chaos.
MR>
MR> I'm not a fan of a gui in linux; i prefer cli.

While I do have a couple GUI Linux laptops, I mostly agree with you here... I use a MacOS station as my main system for the 'pretty' stuff - consuming media, creating media and local AI. Linux runs my servers, my VMs, my containers, my backups, etc.

Linux is, and always will be, the king of the datacenter, internet and consumer products.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
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-=> Arelor wrote to Gamgee <=-

Ar> Re: Re: What's Your Go-to OS
Ar> By: Gamgee to neoshock on Sun Feb 16 2025 07:09 pm

> Slackware, for the win.

Ar> Slackware is cool because it is one of the few Linux distributions that
Ar> works as a general purpose solution without having all its management
Ar> tools be utter bullshit :-)

Agreed!

Ar> I wish their release engineering was better. I think if it was, I would
Ar> not have jumped to the BSDs myself.

Probably my biggest dislike of Slackware, right there. A real world
example of how it sucks - I recently moved the BBS from an older machine
to a new "mini-computer" with modern hardware/UEFI "bios". Installed
Slackware 15.0 on it and it would not start Xwindows. Eventually I
learned that the built-in video (Intel N100 CPU) was not supported by
the 3-year-old kernel (ver 5.x.x). So I installed Slackware-current and
that kernel (ver 6.12.6) worked fine. Yes, I know there are ways to
leverage a 6.x kernel into an old 15.0 system, but that can break all
sorts of other stuff. The BBS is operating fine on -current now and
I'll leave it like that until 15.1 comes out. Hopefully in the next 6
months or so. Anyway...



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On 18 Feb 2025, Gamgee said the following...

Ga> Probably my biggest dislike of Slackware, right there. A real world

mine is the .new and .orig files that get scattered around when software is updated lol

before that it was kernel updates back when i had an nvidia card.. the instructions basically had you running some swap commands because parts of xorg had to be replaced, rebuilding the kernel driver (hopefully not accidentally to the old kernel version instead of the new one), and then swapping the new files back into xorg.. not really hard but was a nuisance when you accidentally miss a step and your desktop comes up @ 800x600..

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Re: Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Gamgee to Arelor on Tue Feb 18 2025 07:54 pm

> Probably my biggest dislike of Slackware, right there. A real world
> example of how it sucks - I recently moved the BBS from an older machine
> to a new "mini-computer" with modern hardware/UEFI "bios". Installed
> Slackware 15.0 on it and it would not start Xwindows. Eventually I
> learned that the built-in video (Intel N100 CPU) was not supported by
> the 3-year-old kernel (ver 5.x.x). So I installed Slackware-current and

Yeah, if you are running on a desktop you may just as well install Slackware -current and treat it as a rolling distribution these days. Probably not a big deal since -current is very well maintained, but I personally like predictable release cycles.


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> Absolutely. I use ONLY Linux, and use a GUI for many things. I am also
> quite "fluent" at a command line, and use that for a LOT of things.
> They both have their purposes and it would be silly to not use both.

Agreed. I have a couple of boxes (servers) I don't need the GUI on so I don't
use it. Otherwise, I do. I prefer a simpler GUI (IceWM) to some of the
other, "prettier" ones.


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-=> fusion wrote to Gamgee <=-

Ga> Probably my biggest dislike of Slackware, right there. A real world

fu> mine is the .new and .orig files that get scattered around when
fu> software is updated lol

I usually just ignore those... :-)

fu> before that it was kernel updates back when i had an nvidia card.. the
fu> instructions basically had you running some swap commands because parts
fu> of xorg had to be replaced, rebuilding the kernel driver (hopefully not
fu> accidentally to the old kernel version instead of the new one), and
fu> then swapping the new files back into xorg.. not really hard but was a
fu> nuisance when you accidentally miss a step and your desktop comes up @
fu> 800x600..

Oh yes, I remember that too. In fact I remember having to manually edit
xorg.conf files and fiddle with resolutions, etc... "modeline"... UGH.

Things have improved in that area, at least.



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-=> Dumas Walker wrote to GAMGEE <=-

> Absolutely. I use ONLY Linux, and use a GUI for many things. I am also
> quite "fluent" at a command line, and use that for a LOT of things.
> They both have their purposes and it would be silly to not use both.

DW> Agreed. I have a couple of boxes (servers) I don't need the GUI on so
DW> I don't use it. Otherwise, I do. I prefer a simpler GUI (IceWM) to
DW> some of the other, "prettier" ones.

I like a little bit of "eye candy", and have been using XFCE for years.
Cleaner and lighter than Gnome/KDE at least.



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Re: Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Gamgee to Dumas Walker on Wed Feb 19 2025 12:57 pm

Ga> I like a little bit of "eye candy", and have been using XFCE for years.
Ga> Cleaner and lighter than Gnome/KDE at least.

I have my main PC at home set up to dual-boot between Windows 11 and Linux Mint. For Linux Mint, I'm using its Cinnamon GUI environment, but I'm actually considering switching it to XFCE for the themes support. I use exclusively Linux Mint for my BBS PC, and although it's technically set up to be a server, I use the XFCE UI on it, as I tend to like to use some UI-based software on it, and I'd heard XFCE is lighter than Cinnamon. I've had a look around and have been able to find several XFCE themes that I like (mostly, themes based on other operating systems such as BeOS, OS/2, Mac OS X (Aqua) or even classic Mac OS), and it seems harder to find such UI themes for Cinnamon (though at some point I thought I remembered being able to find some for Cinnamon that I liked).

Nightfox

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-=> Nightfox wrote to Gamgee <=-

Ga> I like a little bit of "eye candy", and have been using XFCE for years.
Ga> Cleaner and lighter than Gnome/KDE at least.

Ni> I have my main PC at home set up to dual-boot between Windows 11 and
Ni> Linux Mint. For Linux Mint, I'm using its Cinnamon GUI environment, but
Ni> I'm actually considering switching it to XFCE for the themes support.
Ni> I use exclusively Linux Mint for my BBS PC, and although it's
Ni> technically set up to be a server, I use the XFCE UI on it, as I tend
Ni> to like to use some UI-based software on it, and I'd heard XFCE is
Ni> lighter than Cinnamon. I've had a look around and have been able to
Ni> find several XFCE themes that I like (mostly, themes based on other
Ni> operating systems such as BeOS, OS/2, Mac OS X (Aqua) or even classic
Ni> Mac OS), and it seems harder to find such UI themes for Cinnamon
Ni> (though at some point I thought I remembered being able to find some
Ni> for Cinnamon that I liked).

I think you'll like it, especially if you're already seeing/using it on
the BBS machine. Cinammon is based on / forked from one of the Gnome
versions, and I do like it best among the various Gnome offshoots
(better than Mate for example), but for me XFCE is better and is what
I'm used to at this point. In the end it's all a matter of personal
preference, and on strong hardware it doesn't matter much. The
"lighter" desktops are much better on older/marginal hardware. I'd say
XFCE is a "middle-weight". :-)



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> > Absolutely. I use ONLY Linux, and use a GUI for many things. I am also
> > quite "fluent" at a command line, and use that for a LOT of things.
> > They both have their purposes and it would be silly to not use both.

> DW> Agreed. I have a couple of boxes (servers) I don't need the GUI on so
> DW> I don't use it. Otherwise, I do. I prefer a simpler GUI (IceWM) to
> DW> some of the other, "prettier" ones.

> I like a little bit of "eye candy", and have been using XFCE for years.
> Cleaner and lighter than Gnome/KDE at least.

I have a laptop that I use Gnome on. It came with that as the default over
10 years ago, before the big Gnome "upgrade" that made it real horrible.
Because I have not done a fresh install since -- upgrading via apt instead
-- I think I have a version of Gnome on that machine that can no longer
be installed on new machines via apt. I recently got a new system and
tried to put Gnome on it, but the "classic/lite" version it installed isn't
what the laptop has. It was something newer, so I went with a mix of LxQT
and IceWM instead.


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On 20 Feb 2025, Dumas Walker said the following...

DW> it installed isn't what the laptop has. It was something newer, so I
DW> went with a mix of LxQT and IceWM instead.

you mentioned icewm before, and os/2 as well.. afaik it only ever came with a pseudo-warp3/CDE looking theme so i made one that's pretty much a pixel-perfect copy of warp4 if you want a copy:

https://kirin.dcclost.com/~alex/warpalex.zip


unzip in ~/.icewm/themes/

you're stuck with a teeny-tiny picture of my cat's face as a start menu icon though.. i don't feel like swapping it out :)

interestingly the original author of icewm also created "FTE" .. a quite popular os/2 text editor in it's time.

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-=> Dumas Walker wrote to GAMGEE <=-

> > Absolutely. I use ONLY Linux, and use a GUI for many things. I am also
> > quite "fluent" at a command line, and use that for a LOT of things.
> > They both have their purposes and it would be silly to not use both.

> DW> Agreed. I have a couple of boxes (servers) I don't need the GUI on so
> DW> I don't use it. Otherwise, I do. I prefer a simpler GUI (IceWM) to
> DW> some of the other, "prettier" ones.

> I like a little bit of "eye candy", and have been using XFCE for years.
> Cleaner and lighter than Gnome/KDE at least.

DW> I have a laptop that I use Gnome on. It came with that as the default
DW> over 10 years ago, before the big Gnome "upgrade" that made it real
DW> horrible. Because I have not done a fresh install since -- upgrading
DW> via apt instead -- I think I have a version of Gnome on that machine
DW> that can no longer be installed on new machines via apt. I recently
DW> got a new system and tried to put Gnome on it, but the "classic/lite"
DW> version it installed isn't what the laptop has. It was something
DW> newer, so I went with a mix of LxQT and IceWM instead.

Yup, I was a Gnome user LONG ago, in the Mandrake Linux days, if your
memory goes that far back. Early 2000's. Loved it then. You're right
though, it went through (I think) 2 version upgrades and became
something I could no longer use. Reminded me of a Fisher-Price baby
toy. ;-)



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> DW> that can no longer be installed on new machines via apt. I recently
> DW> got a new system and tried to put Gnome on it, but the "classic/lite"
> DW> version it installed isn't what the laptop has. It was something
> DW> newer, so I went with a mix of LxQT and IceWM instead.

> Yup, I was a Gnome user LONG ago, in the Mandrake Linux days, if your
> memory goes that far back. Early 2000's. Loved it then.

I do. Mandrake was one of the first distros I tried and I found its installer
frustrating. It was the only graphic installer that would *perfectly* set
up my video settings during installation. It looked so good I was very,
very disappointed that the installer didn't set the desktop video settings
correctly. It always came out an unusable mess. :(

I wound up using Corel for a brief while (a debian fork, IIRC) before
moving to Libranet, another debian distro. The maintainer of that one
passed away, so I migrated to debian proper.

Before all that, I used a CLI only Slackware distro called, IIRC, Zipslack.
It ran "on top of" the DOS file system so you could play with it on a DOS
machine. It was more of a command-line learning experience but it was enough
to let me know I could handle migrating once the time came.

Regarding Gnome:

> You're right
> though, it went through (I think) 2 version upgrades and became
> something I could no longer use. Reminded me of a Fisher-Price baby
> toy. ;-)

YES! Honestly, to me, it looked like it was created for use on a touch
screen system which, since I don't use one, made it real frustrating to try
to use.


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> you mentioned icewm before, and os/2 as well.. afaik it only ever came with a
> pseudo-warp3/CDE looking theme so i made one that's pretty much a
ixel-perfec
> copy of warp4 if you want a copy:

> https://kirin.dcclost.com/~alex/warpalex.zip


Oh wow thanks. I will need to check that out!


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Re: Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Dumas Walker to GAMGEE on Fri Feb 21 2025 10:24 am

DW> I do. Mandrake was one of the first distros I tried and I found its
DW> installer frustrating. It was the only graphic installer that would
DW> *perfectly* set up my video settings during installation. It looked so
DW> good I was very, very disappointed that the installer didn't set the
DW> desktop video settings correctly. It always came out an unusable mess.

I had tried Mandrake years ago, and the first version I tried was able to automatically detect my video hardware and was able to perfectly set up the video settings for me as well, but then the next version failed to do so, and the UI didn't work out of the box like it did with the previous version. I haven't used Mandrake since then.. I had seen a few Linux distros like that too, not just Mandrake. However, it seems that Linux distros are better overall these days.

Nightfox

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Hey Dumas!

On Fri, Feb 21 2025 15:24:00 -0600, you wrote:

> YES! Honestly, to me, it looked like it was created for use on a
> touch screen system which, since I don't use one, made it real
> frustrating to try to use.

This was at the same time Windows 8 did the exact same thing. People with desktops were furious, so Windows 8.1 was released very soon after that addressed it. By the looks of it, Gnome has also addressed it, somewhat.

Regards,
Nick

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-=> Accession wrote to Dumas Walker <=-

Ac> This was at the same time Windows 8 did the exact same thing. People
Ac> with desktops were furious, so Windows 8.1 was released very soon after
Ac> that addressed it. By the looks of it, Gnome has also addressed it,
Ac> somewhat.

It didn't help that when Windows 8 rolled out, and I was working at
a large tech company that the supply chain for touch screens took a
dump. Dell's lead times went from a contracted 5 business days to 35+,
and we'd just standardized on a touch model. I ended up having to back
up stock with non-touch screens, which were matte (and therefore not as
cool), so when things corrected themselves, I had people wanting to
trade-in 6 month old laptops for the touch-screen models.



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Ni> I had tried Mandrake years ago, and the first version I tried was able to
Ni> automatically detect my video hardware and was able to perfectly set up
Ni> the video settings for me as well, but then the next version failed to
Ni> do so, and the UI didn't work out of the box like it did with the
Ni> previous version. I haven't used Mandrake since then.. I had seen a
Ni> few Linux distros like that too, not just Mandrake. However, it seems
Ni> that Linux distros are better overall these days.

OpenMandriva, the Mandrake project today, is really polished. I also love their code of conduct and its come a long way. I recently gave it an install and was really impressed with how stable it is - worth a look if interested.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Accession to Dumas Walker on Fri Feb 21 2025 06:49 pm

>
> This was at the same time Windows 8 did the exact same thing. People with
> desktops were furious, so Windows 8.1 was released very soon after that
> addressed it. By the looks of it, Gnome has also addressed it, somewhat.
>
> Regards,
> Nick
>
> ... He who laughs last, thinks slowest.


well it was easy to change around with a 3rd party.
i think i just rigged mine to auto login
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Hey MRO!

On Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:20:00 -0600, you wrote:

> well it was easy to change around with a 3rd party. i think i just
> rigged mine to auto login

Sure, but 3rd party stuff shouldn't be necessary for any desktop environment in order to make it work comfortably with a desktop PC. They all thought tablets were going to take over the world, and they didn't.

At that time, I remember Gnome had all icons (like a tablet would) and no "start" menu. I think at first, they brought the start menu back, and then they eventually turned all the large icons into regular icons that could be placed in a taskbar/docker thing again.

Windows did something similar around the Windows 8 release, and then went backpeddled in 8.1 to at least offer an option for a normal non-touchscreen desktop style again.

I remember that time quite well, as I was dabbling with Linux for awhile before that just as a fun hobby, but right around that time was when I ended up shifting all of my BBS/FTN, plex and other server related stuff over to CLI Linux, for good.

Now I just keep Windows for gaming. While Linux is catching up (slowly), it still has a ways to go when it comes to high-end gaming.

Regards,
Nick

... He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
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Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Accession to MRO on Sat Feb 22 2025 05:22 pm

Ac> Now I just keep Windows for gaming. While Linux is catching up (slowly),
Ac> it still has a ways to go when it comes to high-end gaming.

I'd like to see more Linux support for gaming too. It sounds like it has come a little ways though. I've heard of Proton for Linux, allowing more Windows games to run on Linux, but I think it still has a bit of a ways to go. Native Linux versions of games would be ideal too - but I've been seeing more of that too. Several months ago, I heard of a 2018 sequel to the old PC Descent games, called Overload, and it's available for Linux, as well as Windows and Mac. And if you like flight simulators, X-Plane is available for Linux - I've tried it, and I actually think it's quite good. There's also an open-source arena shooter game called Xonotic that's pretty good (it's somewhat similar to Unreal Tournament).

And the Java version of Minecraft should naturally run on Linux too.

Nightfox

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Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Accession to MRO on Sat Feb 22 2025 05:22 pm

> Sure, but 3rd party stuff shouldn't be necessary for any desktop environment
> in order to make it work comfortably with a desktop PC. They all thought
> tablets were going to take over the world, and they didn't.
>
> At that time, I remember Gnome had all icons (like a tablet would) and no
> "start" menu. I think at first, they brought the start menu back, and then
> they eventually turned all the large icons into regular icons that could be
> placed in a taskbar/docker thing again.
>
> Windows did something similar around the Windows 8 release, and then went
> backpeddled in 8.1 to at least offer an option for a normal non-touchscreen
> desktop style again.
>
> I remember that time quite well, as I was dabbling with Linux for awhile
> before that just as a fun hobby, but right around that time was when I ended
> up shifting all of my BBS/FTN, plex and other server related stuff over to
> CLI Linux, for good.

i just think it was a poor decision to make it LOOK like a mobile device and there was backlash so they change it to make people happy. you cant fault them for trying, though.

I still use windows for my home system because i am no longer a power user. i of course use linux for my servers because that's the best way to do things.

i'm not a big gamer, i just can't stand the repetition. i will mess around with a sandbox game but i dont think i can ever play a game until completion ever again.
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Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Accession to Nightfox on Sun Feb 23 2025 06:29 am

>> And the Java version of Minecraft should naturally run on Linux too.

Ac> I've never played Minecraft, but have watched my kids play it over the
Ac> years. From what I've seen of it (as well as anything from 'Roblox'), I'm
Ac> not interested in any of that stuff where the graphics seem to be straight
Ac> out of the 90s.

I've never played Roblox, but for Minecraft, it's more about the gameplay than the graphics. And there are mods for it too (at least, the Java version) that can change the graphics too.

Nightfox

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Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Nightfox to Accession on Sun Feb 23 2025 02:10 pm

> >> And the Java version of Minecraft should naturally run on Linux too.
>
> Ac> I've never played Minecraft, but have watched my kids play it over the
> Ac> years. From what I've seen of it (as well as anything from 'Roblox'),
> Ac> I'm not interested in any of that stuff where the graphics seem to be
> Ac> straight out of the 90s.
>
> I've never played Roblox, but for Minecraft, it's more about the gameplay
> than the graphics. And there are mods for it too (at least, the Java
> version) that can change the graphics too.

I got into Minecraft when my daughter expressed an interest, she picks it up from time to time, she built a world with just horse stuff and modded it herself. I moved her world to a server so she can pop on whenever she feels like it. I just figured out how to make it easy for her friends to play with her too.

I agree with NF, the gameplay is amazing. It's not about the graphics, but the graphics are next level beautiful, and anyone that says otherwise has never taken the time to play it.

Action, Exploration, Discovery, and truely free to do whatever you want. It's such an amazing game/program/tool. Buy the client once, server software is free. For like $30 it's a no brainer purchase.

Other games like Stardew Valley, while a little silly have some serious deep gameplay, and that one develper has been updating that game for more than 10 years at no charge. Buy the game once, and that's it. Game has always been $30. Worth every penny. (when it goes on sale)

Some of my new favorites, Dredge, Hades, Dave the Diver. I even spent money on Dwarf Fortress when it went retail (those guys deserved it).

---
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On 28 Feb 2025, Android8675 said the following...

An> I got into Minecraft when my daughter expressed an interest, she picks
An> it up from time to time, she built a world with just horse stuff and
An> modded it herself. I moved her world to a server so she can pop on
An> whenever she feels like it. I just figured out how to make it easy for
An> her friends to play with her too.

i've always enjoyed minecraft as well. me and my brother usually end up playing it after enough random new things have ended up in the game. that and there are some incredible mods if you're into that.

i duno if it's still maintained but there was one that added guns, gunsmithing, crafting ammo, grenades, etc etc.. and then another that added all the doom enemies to the nether. made for a pretty great combo heheh

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
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-=> Android8675 wrote to Nightfox <=-

An> I got into Minecraft when my daughter expressed an interest, she picks
An> it up from time to time, she built a world with just horse stuff and
An> modded it herself. I moved her world to a server so she can pop on
An> whenever she feels like it. I just figured out how to make it easy for
An> her friends to play with her too.

An> I agree with NF, the gameplay is amazing. It's not about the graphics,
An> but the graphics are next level beautiful, and anyone that says
An> otherwise has never taken the time to play it.


I see they're making a minecraft movie, and it's going to be in 3d. I'd
see that.

I played with the early versions of Minecraft, and was amazed at
building when you don't have to worry about gravity. I mostly tried to
see how high I could go.

I really got into C418, the musician who wrote the piano pieces that
would play during the game. He's got a bunch of music online.




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Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Arelor to Nightfox on Sun Mar 02 2025 07:30 am

>> I'd like to see more Linux support for gaming too. It sounds like it has

Ar> You have plenty of commercial support nowadays. It is brutal. There is an
Ar> incoming Linux Magazine article about that, by the way.

Ar> See, Steam has devoted a whole lot of money into designing a handheld
Ar> computer and a Linux distribution to slap on it, designed specifically for
Ar> playing commercial games on Linux, as a strategic moove to cease depending
Ar> on Windows.

I'm aware of that. Have you tried it though? Many people have said many Windows games still have trouble running in Linux or won't run at all. I've tried it myself and have been unable to run a few of the games I like to play. Also, there are some demanding Windows games that I like (such as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024) that I just don't think would run in Linux.

Also, native Linux versions would be even more ideal than having a compatibility layer to run Windows games in Linux.

Nightfox

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Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Nightfox to Arelor on Sun Mar 02 2025 01:20 pm

> I'm aware of that. Have you tried it though? Many people have said many
> Windows games still have trouble running in Linux or won't run at all. I've
> tried it myself and have been unable to run a few of the games I like to
> play. Also, there are some demanding Windows games that I like (such as
> Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024) that I just don't think would run in Linux.

I ran Bazzite for a couple of months, then wrote an article about it. The results were sound enough that I bought a SteamDeck for personal use.

Compatibility is not perfect but a significant percentage of the games I want to run work GreatTM and the overwhelmingly most works well enough. The real trick is using some means of automation in order to install the games, so you don't have to do it all manually yourself. Stuff like Lutris is great because it installs your games for you with known good configurations using community scripts.

Also, lots of games made with Unity get Linux native versions.

I don't play particularly new stuff, but I have found you can run most of the games most of the time. If you want 100% compatibility you are out of luck, but at this point of Computer History you are screwed with Windows there too.


--
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Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: MRO to Accession on Sun Feb 23 2025 01:56 am

> i'm not a big gamer, i just can't stand the repetition. i will mess around
> with a sandbox game but i dont think i can ever play a game until
> completion ever again.

I've never been a gamer... never played any game to completion. And I came from the Atari 8-bit computer world. When people used to upload games to my Atari BBS in the 80's, I would load them up and test them and then never run them again. I still have a few games on my BBS now, but nobody ever downloads them. They aren't pirated games... just stuff from mags and a few new ones.

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Hey Nightfox!

On Sat, 22 Feb 2025 21:20:46 -0800, you wrote:

> I'd like to see more Linux support for gaming too. It sounds like it
> has come a little ways though. I've heard of Proton for Linux,
> allowing more Windows games to run on Linux, but I think it still has
> a bit of a ways to go.

The last bit of news on their website is from November 2023. Has it been abandoned already? Their site also says 10% of games have been verified, 60% are 'playable' (whatever that means, still somewhat broken possibly?), and 30% is unsupported. I'd definitely agree that's a little ways, and not making strides by any means.

That said, after looking a bit, I also found a github page for ValveSoftware/Proton that was updated last month, so maybe they just abandoned the actual website and moved to github around that time.

There's a huge difference between 'being able to run Windows games on Linux' and the games running natively. The former (even with Proton) still utilizes Wine and whatever else to get them to run, which probably takes quite a bit away from performance. But the fact that at least they can run is better than nothing, I suppose.

> Native Linux versions of games would be ideal too - but I've been
> seeing more of that too. Several months ago, I heard of a 2018
> sequel to the old PC Descent games, called Overload, and it's
> available for Linux, as well as Windows and Mac. And if you like
> flight simulators, X-Plane is available for Linux - I've tried it,
> and I actually think it's quite good. There's also an open-source
> arena shooter game called Xonotic that's pretty good (it's somewhat
> similar to Unreal Tournament).

These aren't AAA games, though. Not really a driving force in gaming or anything that would attract gamers to possibly make the move to Linux, at all. It seems a lot of these bigger games have shitty anti-cheat measures that while trying to run these games on Linux will set off, probably getting you banned from the game(s). That would definitely have to be addressed at some point.

> And the Java version of Minecraft should naturally run on Linux too.

I've never played Minecraft, but have watched my kids play it over the years. From what I've seen of it (as well as anything from 'Roblox'), I'm not interested in any of that stuff where the graphics seem to be straight out of the 90s.

Regards,
Nick

... He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20240309
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Hey MRO!

On Sun, 23 Feb 2025 01:56:14 -0600, you wrote:

> i just think it was a poor decision to make it LOOK like a mobile
> device and there was backlash so they change it to make people happy.
> you cant fault them for trying, though.

Agreed that it was a poor decision, and I definitely don't fault them. It just turned me away and made me dive into other options, is all.

> I still use windows for my home system because i am no longer a power
> user. i of course use linux for my servers because that's the best
> way to do things.

My current PC is a gaming rig. I built it from the ground up for exactly that purpose, so Windows is really the only smart choice for this system until if/when this system won't be able to handle newer game releases any more. That could still be up to 5 years from now, though.

I'm going to do a lot more pre-planning for my next build, though. No need for all this RGB crap in full glass cases any more. It was a fun build, but definitely not needed and probably paid more for each piece of hardware because of it.

> i'm not a big gamer, i just can't stand the repetition. i will mess
> around with a sandbox game but i dont think i can ever play a game
> until completion ever again.

While I don't play nearly as much as I used to, I've still enjoyed some of the recent releases like 'The Last of Us, part 1' and the Resident Evil series and remakes. I'd rather jump into one of those stories than watch TV, if that makes sense.

I think I'm over the repetitive, sweaty, 'skill-based matchmaking' games like COD and the like, though. Had a lot of fun playing them over the years, but I can't really stand the repetition, either.

Regards,
Nick

... He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
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Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Nightfox to Accession on Sat Feb 22 2025 09:20 pm

> I'd like to see more Linux support for gaming too. It sounds like it has

You have plenty of commercial support nowadays. It is brutal. There is an incoming Linux Magazine article about that, by the way.

See, Steam has devoted a whole lot of money into designing a handheld computer and a Linux distribution to slap on it, designed specifically for playing commercial games on Linux, as a strategic moove to cease depending on Windows.

Nowadays, you can just install a game manager such as Lutris or Heroic Launcher and link it to a commercial games provider (such as Steam, GOG or Epic). You can download and install any games you have licensed under those platforms automatically because these launchers come with pre-configured install scripts. Installing a GOG game in Lutris is about as hard as installing a regular Steam game using the Steam client, which is to say it isn't. Now a game being Windows-only is no longer an issue.

Nowadays you are only really pressed when you want to play Windows 95 stuff, because those games don't run well on Wine nor Proton, but you can't run them directly on Dosbox. I find you can solve the issue for most of those titles by installing Windows 95 in Dosbox-x and running the games from there.
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Re: What's Your Go-to OS
By: Accession to Nightfox on Sun Feb 23 2025 06:29 am

> The last bit of news on their website is from November 2023. Has it been
> abandoned already? Their site also says 10% of games have been verified, 60%
> are 'playable' (whatever that means, still somewhat broken possibly?), and
> 30% is unsupported. I'd definitely agree that's a little ways, and not
> making strides by any means.

"Playable" usually means the game is perfectly fine, but has some issue that prevents it from being considered perfect. Usually it is something stupid like the fonts of some menu not being the proper size. If a game is deemed "Playable" then it is most often possible to play the game from start to finish.

Wine and the like are actually quite performant. They are native grade, I dare say. What they do for the most part is to hijack library calls from the game and direct them to Windowesque libraries. It is not like you are running a Windows kernel in the background.

These projects are going nowhere. Steam is just making so much money from selling SteamDecks. Besides, they have a strategic interest in not being dependant on Microsoft.


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