Yeah, how you buy your Steam/Uplay/whatever key isn’t the problem here. This person is confusing “retail” with “DRM free”. Yes, DRM free versions would be great but physical vs digital makes no difference.
Already did and it’s glorious! Steam works beautifully and the only final thing that I’m missing is Adobe products.
I recommend, if you want to try Linux, that you try out the ‘Debian’ distribution, and use the ‘KDE Plasma’ desktop environment. It makes for a very Windows-like experience and really assisted me with the transition between OSs.
PopOS (scroll down to the “Pop_OS with Nvidia” link).
It is tailored for Nvidia cards, is Debian(Ubuntu) based, & super friendly for new users.
EDIT: Here’s a link to the 24.04 release that provides only the Cosmic desktop environment (no X11, no gnome or kde). This is what I use, but it’s in alpha so user beware.
Drivers being outdated is not a big deal, unless you use recent hardware, then it might make sense to make a jump to current testing release (trixie), or just stay on testing indefinitely.
Also it being “barebones” is a good thing in my eyes, since I can configure it how I want.
It’s definitely a good thing if you’re interested and knowledgeable enough to build what you want. I was just arguing it’s not the best choice for a casual user because a lot things they’ll want won’t work out of the box.
Even updating to the next stable Debian version requires editing system files and running the command line.
Drivers can matter quite a bit if for example you’re on an Nvidia card and the Debian drivers are 2 years old. It happened to me and caused dlss to not work in some games. And with Nvidia you can’t just move to testing, you need to backport the driversc and that’s quite involved.
I definitely agree with most of the points but I don’t get what do you mean that you can’t move to testing, because that’s what I literally did recently by upgrading from bookworm to trixie with no issues whatsoever and I have Nvidia card, although older one (GTX 1060 3GB).
When I tried it, testing was on the same version of Nvidia drivers as stable so it didn’t solve my problem. It was possible to manually backport them, but it wasn’t straightforward to do.
But for average users, they accomplish 90% identical tasks, but Krita, while less mature, is more intuitively designed (superiorly designed I would argue), and uses better algorithms for things like select & fill.
Also Krita is less ugly. Sorry, I’m notoriously shallow.
So Mint is the ‘distro’, which is actually based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian. In simple terms, a distro is a bundle of programs and configurations assembled for you. Basically, Debian is a stripped down version of Mint.
A ‘desktop environment’ is a separate program(?) that changes what your desktop looks like, and they can be downloaded on any distro. So you can try out KDE Plasma on your Mint installation! The one that you’re likely using right now is called ‘Cinnamon’, which I personally didn’t like and turned me off of Linux my first time trying to switch over years ago.
Something cool about KDE Plasma is that you can download themes and make your desktop environments look really cool. For instance, sometimes I like to rock this Windows 7 theme: www.pling.com/p/2142957/
Oh okay! Thanks, that’s helpful. So EndeavorOS has pretty frequent updates then? I’m ngl since switching I look forward to them, which is funny! It’s like “oh cool my computer got better and also new toys instead of worse and more bloated!”
Ahh I should’ve done this years ago but better late than never
Yeah, it should get updates exactly the same as arch. And I’m the same way, I check for update every time I log in lol. It does feel nice that you’re always up to date
I used to give manjaro to a lot of people because i was an arch user and supported a bunch of linux users, it was a massive mistake, arch is just a strictly better version of manjaro, the things manjaro claims to do it doesn’t do well because it’s just kind of hacked onto arch. Let me give you an example of something stupid that manjaro does:
normally, in linux, all packages are upgraded centrally, however, manjaro has decided to make an exception for the kernel, and now the kernel is versioned, and each version upgrades separately… this can result in you being stuck with an ancient kernel. I had to go into peoples computers, boot into a console, manually swap out the kernel, and put on the latest one, because the updater wouldn’t update due to the newest drivers being incompatible with the old kernel.
This happened enough times, that and the concerns raised in manjarno make me think it really isn’t for anyone. The team is laughably incompetent (they can’t even get their certs sorted out? really?) and you don’t want an incompetent team running your desktop.
If you’re enough of an expert to fix these things… just use arch, it’s strictly better. If you don’t know what you’re doing, an arch based distro is a terrible choice and you should go with bazzite.
I’m willing to troubleshoot infinitely over matrix for free and have 15 years of experience, feel free to message me!
If it works for you, that’s great, but you’re lucky so far and it’s a ticking timebomb.
I used to give manjaro to a lot of people because i was an arch user and supported a bunch of linux users, it was a massive mistake, arch is just a strictly better version of manjaro, the things manjaro claims to do it doesn’t do well because it’s just kind of hacked onto arch. Let me give you an example of something stupid that manjaro does:
normally, in linux, all packages are upgraded centrally, however, manjaro has decided to make an exception for the kernel, and now the kernel is versioned, and each version upgrades separately… this can result in you being stuck with an ancient kernel. I had to go into peoples computers, boot into a console, manually swap out the kernel, and put on the latest one, because the updater wouldn’t update due to the newest drivers being incompatible with the old kernel.
This happened enough times, that and the concerns raised in manjarno make me think it really isn’t for anyone. The team is laughably incompetent (they can’t even get their certs sorted out? really?) and you don’t want an incompetent team running your desktop.
If you’re enough of an expert to fix these things… just use arch, it’s strictly better. If you don’t know what you’re doing, an arch based distro is a terrible choice and you should go with bazzite.
I honestly think mint is an outdated suggestion for beginners, I think immutability is extremely important for someone who is just starting out, as well as starting on KDE since it’s by far the most developed DE that isn’t gnome and their… design decisions are unfortunate for people coming from windows.
I don’t think we should be recommending mint to beginners anymore, if mint makes an immutable, up to date KDE distro, that’ll change, but until then, I think bazzite is objectively a better starting place for beginners.
The mere fact that it generates a new system for you on update and lets you switch between and rollback automatically is enough for me to say it’s better, but it also has more up to date software, and tons of guides (fedora is one of the most popular distros, and bazzite is essentially identical except with some QoL upgrades).
How common is the story of “I was new to linux and completely broke it”? that’s not a good user experience for someone who’s just starting, it’s intimidating, scary, and I just don’t think it’s the best in the modern era. There’s something to be said about learning from these mistakes, but bazzite essentially makes these mistakes impossible.
Furthermore because of the way bazzite works, package management is completely graphical and requires essentially no intervention on the users part, flathub and immutability pair excellently for this reason.
Cinnamon (the default mint environment) doesn’t and won’t support HDR, the security/performance improvements from wayland, mixed refresh rate displays, mixed DPI displays, fractional scaling, and many other things for a very very long time if at all. I don’t understand the usecase for cinnamon tbh, xfce is great if you need performance but don’t want to make major sacrifices, lmde is great if you need A LOT of performance, cinnamon isn’t particularly performant and just a strictly worse version of kde in my eyes from the perspective of a beginner, anyway.
I have 15 years of linux experience and am willing to infinitely troubleshoot if you add me on matrix.
I completely disagree. Debian is not beginner-friendly. Go with Bazzite if your focus is gaming.
It is a gaming-focused distribution. It’s also an “atomic” distribution, which basically means it’s really hard to break it. It’s more like Android or IOS where the OS and base system are managed by someone else. They’re read-only so you can’t accidentally break them.
For example, instead of trying to manage your own video card drivers, they come packaged with the base system image, and they’re tested to make sure they work with all the other base components.
I’ve been using Linux since the 1990s, so I’ve run my share of distributions: Slackware, RedHat, Gentoo, Debian, Ubuntu, etc. Even for someone experienced, atomic distributions are great. But, for a newcomer they’re so much better.
I find this interesting as I’m a beginner with only about 3 months of Linux use under my belt, whereas Ive used Windows since I was like 5 years old, and I found Debian to be a really good introduction to Linux. I was originally recommended Mint, like many are, and I found the experience to be a negative one as opposed to my later experience with Debian. (Note I have no experience with Bazzite or any other distros).
The additional ‘bloat’ in Mint obfuscated from me various aspects of Linux. It insulated me from learning how Linux is different from Windows, and that actually hindered me from understanding the OS. By starting with Debian I got a feel for using the CLI, setting up my drivers, package installer, and desktop environment. And, while those aspects can be complicated for new users, i think its somewhat necessary that they get a feel for them if Linux is going to be recommended as their OS.
Debian is fine as an introduction to Linux, if that’s what you want. But, as a beginner, you’re going to screw up, and Debian doesn’t do anything to protect you from that.
Atomic distributions let you use Linux but make it harder to shoot yourself in the foot. It’s much harder to break the system in a way you can’t just reboot to fix it.
It all depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to learn Linux by using it, then by all means, go for a traditional distribution. Debian is nice, but I’d go for Ubuntu. But, if your goal is to have a stable system that you can’t screw up as a beginner I’d go with an atomic distribution. If your goal is to play games, Bazzite is hard to beat.
You can still learn Linux if you use an atomic distribution. Configuring and using the desktop environment is basically the same. But, you don’t need to worry about your drivers, and you don’t install packages the traditional way. If you want to learn those things, you can run a VM or a distrobox.
Has your fiancé had to update drivers? Has he had to upgrade to a new release? Has he had to figure out how to install a version of something that isn’t in the Debian stable repositories?
If the only application your fiancé uses is Firefox, then he might go a long time before having any kind of problem. It all depends on how he uses it.
If it’s a her, you mean fiancée, fiancé is used only for men. And, it’s basically a chromebook in how she uses it. But, chromebooks are designed so that you never have to do any system administration. You never have to upgrade drivers or figure out how to get to the next release.
She probably hasn’t had to deal with that yet, but eventually the system will have to be updated. Over time, cruft piles up and makes it harder and harder to upgrade and manage. Atomic distributions are designed to be much more like chromebooks. Someone else manages the upgrades and the tricky choices, and then you just install their base image.
Autocorrect on my phone always chooses fiancé for some damn reason but I showed her how to update when I set it up for her and she’s been keeping up with it checking once a week and she’s had a couple questions I’ve had to answer but less then when she was just trying to do basic things on windows so it’s been great for me
How does Bazzite fare when I want to do something a bit different. Install docker, Python, PHP, sqlite, etc. I’d normally just install them, but does this work for Bazzite and other atomic/immutable distros?
So, there are multiple ways of installing things. For GUI apps the standard way is flatpaks. Some non-GUI things are installed that way, but it’s less common.
The method I like for apps that have a lot of interdependencies is to use a distrobox. If you want a development environment where multiple apps all talk to each-other, you can isolate them on their own distrobox and install them however you like there.
I currently have a distrobox running ubuntu that I use for a kubernetes project. In that distrobox I install anything I need with apt, or sometimes from source. Within that kubernetes project I use mise-en-place to manage tools just for that particular sub-project. What I like about doing things this way is that when I’m working on that project I have all the tools I need, and don’t have to worry about the tools for other projects. My base bazzite image is basically unchanged, but my k8s project is highly customized.
If you really want to, you can still install RPMs as overlays to the base system, it’s just not recommended because that slows down upgrades.
Awesome, thanks for the explanation! I’d been put off Bazzite and other immutable distros because I had seen threads saying you basically needed flatpak for everything, but it sounds like that’s not true.
I don’t need a project at the moment but I will give this a go once I am ready for one!
Yeah, I only use flatpak for GUI apps that don’t need any special handling. To be fair, that’s a decent number of the things I use most often: Firefox, Thunderbird, Signal, Kodi, Discord, Gimp, VLC. I think it’s also how I installed some themes for KDE / Plasma.
Console stuff I’ve either done in a distrobox using the conventions of that OS (apt for the Ubuntu one, DNF for the Fedora one), or I’ve used homebrew. But, I haven’t used too much homebrew because I want my “normal” console to be as unchanged as possible.
There are a few things I’ve used distrobox-export to make available outside the distrobox.
It took me a little while to understand how you’re supposed to think about the system, but now that I think I get it, I really like it. My one frustration is that there’s an nVidia driver bug that’s affecting me, and nVidia has been unable to fix it for a few months. I think I’d be in exactly the same situation with a traditional distro. The difference is that if they ever fix it, I’ll have to wait a couple of weeks until the fix makes it to the Bazzite stable build. I suppose I could switch to Bazzite testing and get it within days of it being fixed instead of weeks. Apparently just use a “rebase” command and reboot. But, I’m hesitant to do that because other than the nVidia driver, everything’s so stable.
I moved to endeavouros. First time using a rolling release, and I was struggling with some webdev stuff cause node was on a recent non-lts build and a few other things.
Not a problem for building, cause I already have that containerised. But things like installing packages was refusing, and obviously couldn’t run dev workflows.
Until I realised I should just work inside a container.
I know vscode is still Microsoft (and I’m sure I could get it to work with vscodium), but the dev container workflow is fantastic.
Absolute game changer.
And I know I can easily work on a different platform, os whatever. And still have the same dev environment.
Until I realised I should just work inside a container.
Yeah, it’s a game changer. Especially if you have different projects on the go. I’m used to having to deal with an ugly path with all kind of random things in it because I need them for one project. But, with containers / distroboxes / toolbx you can keep those changes isolated.
As long as you’re running KDE, it will feel familiar to a Windows user. I started with Kubuntu which was great until I had a system update, and it completely shat itself. Wanted to try Bazzite next, but the installer wouldn’t work properly, so I installed OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, and I’ve seen no reason to switch since.
If you’re into primarily gaming, try PikaOS. It’s Debian based and uses the same tooling, but it’s on an optimized kernel. Is generally geared toward gaming.
There are other gaming specific distros of course, this is just the “Debian”-related one. I would not recommend the real debian if you’re mainly into gaming. It’ll need manual intervention and/or optimization to get games running, or at least get them running well. It’s not impossible (it even hard if you’ve got but is Linux experience), but just harder than necessary.
Outside of Steam, how have you found gaming compatibility? I know Xbox Gamepass doesn’t work as that’s very specifically a Windows app, but how about other standalone games/platforms?
So do I go back to end of now or never and change the answer? Do I go back further and leave novigrad when it was in chaos? Even further before the questline began?
If you think that you’d like to play The Witcher 3 more than once, one suggestion:
The first pass through a game is the only time that you can play the game without foreknowledge. You can never experience that again. If you’re going to play without guidance from a wiki or anything like that, really sit in the main character’s shoes, I’d do it that time. Just don’t worry that much about getting your ideal outcome, because you can do another run. Maybe it’ll give some interesting variety, have you experience something you wouldn’t normally have done, with foreknowledge of the consequences of decisions.
Then in subsequent runs, you’ve already experienced a number of “spoilers” from your prior runs, and you can try to use that knowledge (as well as knowledge from wikis or forums or whatever) to guide the plot to your desired outcome.
I would like to experience the different paths the game has to offer but I don’t think life’s long eough to play a 300 hr game twice when i could play 10 others I’ve never experienced before
I think this criticism is fair to be honest and is one of the things that’s sort of swept under the rug a bit in discourse about Witcher 3. I definitely think the pacing is off just as you mentioned. I’ve heard other people regret their choice of Triss because they had basically locked in her romance already by the time you start doing stuff in Skellige with Yen and start seeing what she’s like.
Personally I think the Yen/Geralt dynamic is a lot better than with Triss, although it’s got its own troubles (nobody is perfect). I like the banter between them and they feel more like a proper couple.
The game as a whole also flows better with Yen as your romance choice in my opinion and to me it feels more like the Triss romance is an afterthought yes. A bone thrown at those who desperately can’t stand Yen.
Geralt (in the books) is deeply in love with Yen and is also bound to her by literal Djinn magic, so it makes sense that he’s always hot for her in the game and I think the attention paid to the Yen side of things is a desire by CDPR to anchor their game in the preexisting lore.
If you’re not dead set on Triss or wildly opposed to Yen I’d say go with it and do the Yen romance. It’s very suitable for a first time playthrough imo.
I really do think they should have flipped the timeline for the two in W3. Even players of the first two games don’t really know Yennefer that well, so her proper introduction to the player comes very late, all things considered.
Not being immersed in their backstory also doesn’t really convey how messed up it is that Triss got together with a man who lost the memories of the woman he was in love with (a woman she knew).
Two come to mind. Hardware Rivals which I got for free on PSN ages ago. The other is Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. I think I was in top 100 N7 rank percentile at one point. I’ve never been good at a multiplayer game since.
I’m always pro to retail in arts, people should care more about digitalization into other fields. As a PC gamer I’m starting to collect some used console and blurays, they costs mostly the same as digital but you own something. Also don’t forget the preservation issue.
It’d be nice but would hurt indies because indies thrive due to not needing a physical port, and only releasing one once they are popular and successful enough to afford it.
I guess you could include some verbiage that would target AAA studios, but they’ll find a way around it like they do everything else.
And at this point, I’m not really fond of most AAA titles anyway so this won’t do much for people like myself to care anymore. Physical releases are something I care about less since other issues have arisen over the years, specifically in the quality of the game, itself.
Earlier this year, I was in a similar predicament. I actually told Triss that I loved her. However, that only works if you take advantage of her while she’s drunk at the party. (She falls down while drunk and after you catch her, you can randomly kiss her.) I didn’t and locked myself out of romancing her early.
I would have lost many hours of progress by going back and frankly, I didn’t want to go for that choice. I cut my losses and went with Yen. Since then, I finished the whole game, DLCs included, and I don’t regret my choice. She gets a lot better later on and I came to appreciate her. Her quests are good. I just think the game does a poor job introducing her. I don’t care for either the books or the show and I’ve only played Witcher 2 once on release. With my first playthrough of Witcher 3 only starting last year, I knew literally nothing going in. Up until I could romance Triss, Yen was annoying and arrogant.
Blue Prince is monopolising a majority of my mental bandwidth currently as I’m growing increasingly obsessed with it. I’ve spent about 11 hours on it so far and have taken probably a dozen pages of notes in my little notebook next the to the PC.
I think this game could go down as a modern classic, and if it sticks the landing it will likely be my GOTY. It’s cheap too, and even 10% off right now as a release week sale.
I can’t really say anything more because, much like Outer Wilds, the less you know about it going in the better. If you even remotely enjoy mysteries and puzzles do yourself a favour and go play it like… right now.
I’m loving it, but definitely also constantly second guessing whether I’m smart enough for this game haha. Especially when you come across a problem and can’t work out whether you’re supposed to wait for the clue/solution to turn up later or whether it’s something you’re supposed to be able to solve but are being too stupid to notice/connect.
How far in are you in terms of Days/time played. I’m at about 12 hours and 12 days played.
I could probably have made the antechamber last night if I had picked up a pair of dice I missed and found on the way back. But I’m kind of glad I didn’t as there is so much unexplored and unexplained still.
and I’m shocked at how much there is. I thought I was going to get somewhere this run.
spoilerI look like I’m stuck, I assume the gear puzzle can’t be solved first time? I can’t figure out how to move the mine cart. And maybe drain the reservoir? Is this supposed to happen? It looks like there is another entrance from the Tomb (though I’ve never even seen a tomb when drafting!). Am I on to something? Am I not supposed to be able to get further this run?
spoilerThe Fountain right? I assume it’s on the east side lawn, but I haven’t found any way to open a door to the outside on the east side. I’ve been through the Garage on the west side. I have found the pump room and drained as much of the reservoir as I could, but there is still a touch of water at the bottom preventing me from going down there and both tanks are full, as are all rooms. No idea how to empty the last bit. I thought it was opening the tap in the kitchen to drain the water, but that doesn’t seem to affect the water level…
another small fountain hintThe fountain isn’t where you think. And is much more accessible. Calling it a fountain is a bit much to be frank. If you were to drain it I think you would see what it’s referring to
spoilerDrained the fountain, now I need the basement key again. Still don’t know how to get the chests at the bottom of the reservoir as I don’t know how to drain the final bit. Maybe pump room needs to be next to boiler room to get the last tank in play? I’m starting to see I’m going to need to get through insane amounts of RNG to finish. I already basically concluded I probably need the boiler room adjacent to the lab to get the lever machine working.
I also am tearing my hair out about the
spoilerdrawing room safe code. The other safes had the clue in the same room but for the life of me I can’t figure out the paintings with the steps.
spoilerOh damn I haven’t unlocked any of the safes yet. I need to work on that. Also for the boiler it doesn’t have to be immediately next to what you’re trying to power. They just need to be connected by rooms that also have vents going through them. The passageway and the security room for instance are 2 I know that have them. Look out for rooms that have vents going through the top to each door
spoilerWait didn’t you roll credits? That’s very interesting that you did that without opening any safe…
Anyway thank you so much for your responses, they’ve been perfect hints without being too spoily, which is a hard thing to pull off! I might bug you again at some point, we’ll see what I accomplish today.
Just rolled credits. Really strange actually haha. There are so many unsolved mysteries! I feel like I’m close to piecing together the narrative but I’m still missing crucial pieces.
Congrats! Yeah there’s sooooo much left to discover. Definitely try and make it back to room 46 again. There’s a lot in there to point you in new directions :)
Good lord there is so much still to do haha! Every time I think I’ve seen most of the puzzles a new secret bottom opens up to an entirely new layer. I’m loving putting together the narrative but my god some of the puzzles didn’t work for me (I had to look up a couple of hints - would never have organically gotten them). How have you been progressing with the safes?
Doing well! I got the clue written out that tells you how to solve the safes. Have opened 3 now I think. Also have two of the sanctum keys. I’ve been continually coat checking the gear wrench so I can someday make the boiler room common… But I’ve yet to find it again lol. I’m trying to hook up the pump room so I can drain the reservoir.
One of the safe solutions really pissed me off. Which ones do you have? I have six, no clue where the last one is supposed to be.
Are you looking to fully drain the reservoir? That’s the only thing you need boiler power connected for I think, provided you have the Tomb open.
The sanctum thing is so frustrating too, still haven’t solved my first sigil though I know what to look for now I guess. Still haven’t made it back to room 46 a second time either, RNG has been hitting badly. Maybe that will help.
I think I only have 2 actually thinking about it. I have the boudoir safe and time release safe from the shelter. I think I know how to open the office safe though. Yes I want to fully drain the reservoir and getting the boiler again had been a pain. I also got the tomb for the first time yesterday and opened that entrance to the basement too. The sanctum things, yeah I know generally what is needed but the clues needed are eluding me. Though I think I found one at the top of the clock tower. The main thing in room 46 is a list of where all the sanctum keys are. There is another puzzle in there involving a map but I haven’t figured that out yet.
Also really want to get to classroom 8. I’ve only been able to make it to 5 so far
I’ve only gotten 3 classrooms I think, taking notes on the subjects though! I also think the first classroom helps with the sigil puzzle. Have you lit all the braziers?
Btw I just had to call it a day with 2 sanctum keys in my inventory. Had to take Weight Room twice.
Oh my god that sucksssss. Yeah the first one does help with the sigils I think. Grade 4 does too. I also started getting a bunch of letters delivered to the mail room but they’re like basically just solutions to early puzzles I already figured out
It was even 2 RNG heavy ones but I was forced to take Weight Room twice (thanks Hall of Mirrors!) so I couldn’t make it downstairs. Worst feeling I’ve had in a game in a long time actually. I honestly think sanctum keys could be permanent without the game being too easy.
DRM-free is one thing, and it’s something that GOG offers universally, with an asterisk for some multiplayer games, and I wish that asterisk was handled better. You want DRM-free. Your physical copy quickly becomes out of date when new patches come out, and patch cycles are frequent for modern games, even when they ship relatively bug-free out of the gate. Speaking for myself, I have no desire to have physical games anymore. I have a bunch of old PC game boxes that I just put up on my shelves yet again after moving for the fifth time in 14 years. Many of them have GOG versions, and I’m looking to replace those games with the GOG equivalent during the summer sale so I can finally eBay my physical versions away and be done with them.
A mandatory physical version is a cost for a market that hardly exists anymore, but we could all benefit from DRM-free games.
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