The Switch 2 having already outsold the Steam Deck at a 5:1 ratio shows that, as awesome as the hardware that Valve makes is, they simply aren’t pushing it in a way that will capture the mainstream. They can certainly “win” the console generation by making a device that is better than the PS5, but they have 10+ years of work ahead of them if they want to win any console generation in terms of units sold.

Had my first in-person class with a tutor after getting fed up with iTalki’s prices (and also feeling like online tutors broadly just don’t care as much about their students). It went fantastically. Added a bunch of new vocab to study thanks to that first class. Hoping to focus more on grammar.

Today is day 667 of flashcards.

I had a 1060 for a good few years that I used primarily with Arch and never really had an issue. At the time it didn’t play nicely with Wayland, so I was still using Xorg instead, but I think that’s a solved issue by now. Nvidia just doesn’t support newer features as readily as AMD does it seems. It really should have no bearing on your ability to play games.

I’m so glad I don’t use it anymore

If I do opt for the Steam OS will my GOG Galaxy run on it or will I just have to launch the games directly? Most of the titles I play (other than the Halo games and Forbidden West) are using the Galaxy app.

What GOG support will there be from SteamOS, if any?

You’ll be able to access those games through the Heroic Launcher, it should be able to handle any GOG games you have just as easily as Steam will handle Steam games.

I’ve got a Google Pixel 3a with postmarketOS installed on it right now for testing, and it really is a two-pronged issue with both hardware and software. Because it’s an older phone the battery drains within a few hours, nowhere close to all-day use. Because most of the software is designed for the desktop certain things are just impossible to use (the big pain point for me is Anki, but on the other hand it’s impressive how many GTK apps conform very nicely to the screen). The keyboard still feels pretty rough.

Hopefully the FSF dipping their hat into the ring will help existing projects like this in a rising-tide-raises-all-ships sort of way. Would be a shame for them to put effort into a software stack that goes nowhere (GNU Hurd), and pour $$$ into a hardware project that doesn’t make it to market or doesn’t do its job better than a cracked smartphone from 5+ years ago.

I think it is possible to switch to it now and have things mostly work out for you, but it will make your life harder. I remember switching to Ubuntu around 2010 and it’s almost to that level of experience. You’ll be giving up a lot, apps you “need” won’t work, but it’s at the point where it is a complete usable experience. For those that are willing to suffer for FOSS, I mean.

I wrote something similar about returning to traditional music formats on my own blog https://audiovalentine.com/2025/01/death-to-spotify-a-survey-of-alternatives/

> Vitalik Buterin

Touching grass probably has us beat

My biggest issues were that the world building felt so lazy, in that every faction essentially boiled down to Space America in various aspects. You got the Space American Liberal Authoritarian State, you got the Space American Cowboys, the Space American Technocrats, and the Space American Religious Fundamentalists. I found all of these factions kinda repugnant for one reason or another, and uninspired to boot, and so I never felt a pull to experience the world on a deeper level once I had gotten tired of the regular gameplay.

No love for GNOME these days smh

I’m really keen on one of these displays eventually, as I can set aside the issues with refresh rate and colour accuracy, but the price needs to drop way down. It needs to be competitive with regular LCD monitors.

I look at terminals all day for work, this would make it so much more comfortable.

Excellent read. Makes me wonder of the forgotten or underappreciated place of games that are meant to only take a few hours and then exit your life forever: games like Journey and others that take only a few hours to beat. They’re completely antithetical to this style of design.

I finally switched when I moved from Arch to Fedora and it’s worked fantastically for me. This is where the Linux desktop is heading now for sure.

People Make Games did a much better job on reporting the issues with Roblox.

I think the real issue is how Roblox takes advantage of kids lack of knowledge about microtransactions and FOMO to create a generation of free-to-play dupes while also exploiting anyone that makes content for them, but that’s just my opinion.

I’ve got the exact same problem lol

Doesn’t surprise me at all after seeing the same thing done with Minecraft, but it’s still vaguely nightmarish experiencing gameplay elements morph in and out of existence, the level geometry changing after you look too far one way or another. Like a dream more than a game. A dream where you can die.

Damn the reddit energy is crazy in this thread

The Switch 2 footage of Elden Ring did look better than what I can get out of my Steam Deck. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has a performance advantage (perhaps thanks to native DLSS and frame generation) for the next year or two.