TheHarpyEagle

Ah sorry, I meant using Vim in a GUI program. I wanted something with the flexibility of a mouse (quick navigation, context menu actions, etc.) without using a mouse. Using just the arrow keys, shift highlighting, etc. is just too slow when writing lots of text, and it doesn’t follow the natural position of typing.

I actually use VIM bindings in PyCharm, slightly cursed but actually works really well and meshes fairly nicely with the other IDE shortcuts. Being able to use it in any terminal is a nice bonus.

I honestly learned it just because I hated having to change hand position to use a mouse.

I avoided it for a while because it felt so clunky, but it has really improved in the last decade.

For me it’s definitely Viscera Cleanup Detail. Super chill and satisfying cleaning game that I often boot up when I just want to shoot the shit with someone. There’s also quite a few custom maps after you get through the official ones.

Also Cities Skylines (the first one). Sometimes I just spend a couple hours watching my trains go around with a first person vehicle mod while I watch videos.

I think the rub here is that most developers aren’t developing/publishing their own software, but honing their skills on writing proprietary code while also putting food on the table. To that end, a permissively licensed library is better because the company will actually use it and the developer will gain experience with it that they can then use outside of the proprietary environment to contribute to FOSS projects (some of which may well use GPL). If a GPL end user product gets popular enough, it will eventually be able to use all of that gained experience to compete with the propriety alternatives, so I do think the two can work in tandem.

Indeed, I think it’s just two philosophies that don’t necessarily need to be at odds. Permissive licenses help speed the adoption of languages and libraries, which ultimately feeds into the slowly building momentum of the copyleft projects that use them.

Use my desktop for gaming, use my laptop for development and travel. It’s nice to be able to sit in the living room while someone is playing a game, or sit out on the patio while I work on something.

Windows into I went to college for development and decided to check out this Linux thing. At the time, I wanted something as different from Windows as possible, so I went with Ubuntu with Gnome 3 (I know) for about a year. Tried out Fedora, couldn’t get my sound to work and accidentally uninstalled the desktop environment trying to fix it, slunk back to Ubuntu, tried out a Debian briefly, and eventually ended up on Linux Mint with Cinnamon and KDE.

At one time I really wanted to try a bunch of stuff and probably would’ve hopped a lot more if Fedora didn’t shatter my confidence, but nowadays I want as little disruption between machines as possible. I have to use Windows for work, so I keep my Linux setup pretty vanilla so I don’t miss features between the two very much. I’ll probably still play with other distros every now and then on old laptops, but I’ve fallen into a “if it ain’t broke” mindset with my daily machines.

The problem is that a lot of users aren’t building a new machine for Linux, but converting an existing Windows laptop or desktop. In my case, I’d already bought an Nvidia card about a year before I decided to switch to Linux for gaming. Not ideal, of course, but it work a good 95% of the time and I can’t really afford to get a different card right now. I’ll definitely keep it in mind for my next pc upgrade, though.

I know this is just adding to your problem, but I wanna add to the majority and say go with Mint. It’s based on Ubuntu, which in turn is based on Debian, so most anything you can do on Debian, you can do on Mint. This is handy to know whenever you see a “.deb” file.

One of the things that makes it an easier transition from windows is that it’s a lot less strict about including proprietary drivers and codecs (though apparently Debian now includes a few by default). It also includes a few more GUI tools by default, like the package update manager.

I also have found Mint’s Cinnamon desktop environment to be the easiest transition from a Windows environment. KDE is also a good choice in that regard and it’s what I use now, but its plethora of options can be overwhelming for new users.

The distro wars can be pretty overwhelming, but I’d say pick whatever appeals most and go with it. If you get to a point where you can’t do something that you want to do, you can always come back and ask for advice and maybe switch up a different OS.

You might still try using Proton or Lutris to run it. It may be a pain to get working, but hopefully someone out there has a guide for the mod manager you’re using.

Honestly I still struggle a lot with this. I can click around a UI and feel what might confuse a user, but building a UI from scratch feels like such a shot in the dark.

I mean, there’s something to be said about adhering to an industry standard. Of course no project has to do so if they don’t want to, but people trying to get on with their work don’t want to spend a bunch of time relearning everything. I think Blender really thrived when they loosened up a little on their ideas of what a workflow should be and gave people industry standard options out of the gate.

Whether we like it or not, GIMP isn’t going to be most people’s first experience with image manipulation. Whether they had a free PS license through school/work, had a subscription at some point, or once got it through ahem alternative means, people will be coming into GIMP with certain expectation of what the workflow should look like and will get frustrated pretty quickly.

Just seems odd if this is supposed to be a gaming device. How much typing do you really do on a steam deck?

The inclusion of the keyboard is a little perplexing. On paper it makes sense that a lot of PC games are built for or work best with a keyboard, but that’s because you’re using stuff as hotkeys, not because you’re typing. How do you comfortably do that with this form factor? I feel like a panel of fewer programmable buttons would’ve made more sense.

Proton is a godsend. Some games can be a little unstable, but I’ve yet to find one that doesn’t work at all. Even was able to install and mod a game from 2000. For what doesn’t work on Proton, Lutris can hopefully handle. Takes a little doing sometimes but I got Battlenet/WoW working almost prefectly with CurseForge.

Nvidia drivers are a huge pain in the ass, though, and haven’t played nice with Wayland in my experience.

It’s wild to me that there are wild macaws in northern South America. Granted I haven’t seen them in person, but even videos of them look so weird, like a hundred people let their pets out on accident.

I… what? What does Ubuntu have to do with misogyny?