Linux nerd. Music lover. Specialty coffee obsessed. The list goes on; stop using so many gosh darn periods!

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: February 19th, 2024

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  • I don’t think this is accurate. The majority of IRL gamers I know are casual people with crappy Minecraft-level pre-builts (hugely overpriced usually; I know someone who spent 1.1k on a 3060 Ti pre-built) or 10 year-old computers built by their neighbors. A lot of casual gamers exist and the steam machine will be very appealing to them as an easy upgrade.

    In a way, you’re right. A lot of people will be upgrading potatoes. Or replacing thin air next to their TV’s.

    Even I, with a custom built with a 7900 XT running openSUSE TW, am considering this for doing stuff in the living room (or similar, I live in a tiny apartment lol) with friends or just casual-TV gaming and media. I don’t have that right now, and even 900€ sounds appealing for doing that with a Linux-based computer (and gamescope!!!, which I can’t get working on my device) I have full control over, but know will work.

    I don’t know of something equivalently priced, but it there is something, please tell me. I think they have a market here. I personally, at least, have been waiting years for something like this to recommend to friends and to an extent to myself.


  • Research and development is probably very high when you consider Proton, SteamOS, and the semi-custom CPU and GPU. Something between $50 to $100 million would be typical. Silicone is famously expensive in R&D, Proton has continuous costs (and has for quite a while now) that rack up, and SteamOS is literally an operating system. That’s a lot of salaries to pay.

    I reckon they’re taking advantage of being private and playing the long game. Very, very long game. They’re not really in danger as long as Steam is successful, but I can’t blame them for wanting a decent gross margin so they can at least cover hardware costs. Especially with memory prices right now, I wouldn’t be surprised at 1000€ here in Germany, though I wouldn’t be happy about it. I would happily buy at 900€ (≈$1040), and be ecstatic at 800€ (≈$920).



  • The question is rather What is “reality”: the dream (et al.) or the physical world (what you describe as reality). See Descartes first two meditations (and note that he relies fully on the existence of God to prove the existence of reality later). In this case, us experiencing a “dream” just serves to outline the point; Descartes, for example, also suggests that we are being fooled by an evil daemon. If it’s a dream or an evil daemon — doesn’t matter; it would likely be something entirely beyond our comprehension anyway. But genuinely proving the physical world as being reality is very difficult.




  • I have a friend who was born and raised in China, and move to Europe when they were 16 yo. They’re first language was basically Chinese, despite having an American and German parent respectively.

    I was always super curious about what their time in China was like, and asked extensively about it. Of course they were quite biased in favor of China, so things like the crazy surveillance that goes on there never really seemed dubios to them, but one thing they mentioned very frequently: discrimination.

    I should say, this individual did not look Chinese (and couldn’t get a Chinese passport, despite being born there). This — according to them, and I am inclined to believe this, due to the aforementioned bias — caused them to be intensely discriminated against, as a lot of Chinese people apparently don’t like Westerners (well, a lot of Westerners also discriminate against Chinese).

    Your mileage may vary, but that did always surprise me. If you look non-asian, China might not be the best place to move to 🤷.












  • Boot times. I am the kind of person who shuts my computer (may it be a laptop or desktop) down, whenever I’m not using it. With systemD, boot times are generally kind of annoying; runit, however, completely changes this. It really feels amazing to turn a Void Linux system on, and have it boot in seconds, with just one screen of logs. On top of that, if you’re doing a arch-style install (like the Void Linux minimal install), runit is just much nicer and more ergonomic. The main point is really boot time though, which I think is improved due to adhering to the Unix philosophy and having much less bloat. Using a runit system reminds you of how bloated and slow (and kinda convoluted) systemD is.

    I’m also the kinda guy who spends hours optimizing my neovim config (~80 plugins, including LSP) for 20 millisecond start-up times. In the end, I still use Tumbleweed though.


  • I’ve been using openSuSe Tumbleweed on one device or another for quite a while now. Recently I switched my last device, so I’m officially 100% Tumbleweed. NGL, feels pretty good. I would, however, switch under a few circumstances:

    • openSuSe releases Tumbleweed clone with systemD alternative (like runit). I’ve tried Void repeatedly, but unfortunately never really fell in live with it.
    • openSuSe releases NixOS style immutable distro (not the current aeon or kalpa) based on Tumbleweed.

    Honestly, Tumbleweed is nearly perfect for me. It’s just that I’ve tasted what life without systemD can be like, and I goddamn miss it… I’m totally hooked on openSuSe products though.