I just use whatever is included with the desktop environment. On KDE and GNOME launching an application involves pressing the Super (“Windows”) key, typing the first couple of letters of the application I want to launch and pressing the return key.

I might be missing something here but I don’t know how other launchers could possibly make this a simpler process.

Let’s see if this really affects all Linux systems or if the stars need to align for this to actually be exploitable.

Whether free will exists or not would add a whole new layer to this discussion that you could easily add to almost any discussion as a wildcard. If we assume that using Windows vs Linux is predetermined as opposed to being a choice, this whole comment tree doesn’t make any sense. So let’s not go there.

In my opinion, if quitting playing a couple of games really is life changing to you, you have deeper problems. If your so-called friends can’t understand why you quit a game over something that’s more important (to you), then find different people who do. That’s almost as stupid as American kids excluding other kids for not using iMessage/iPhone. Doesn’t mean your friends have to stop playing these games, but you can share other moments with them. Other games, conversations, other activities altogether.

Downvote all you want, but that’s how it is. People prioritize certain things over others - and that’s completely fine - but don’t pretend like they don’t have a choice. On the contrary, more people switching to a Linux distribution despite incompatible games would lead to these games more likely adopting Linux compatibility.

Unfortunately, a lot of those are super popular and there are still gamers that don’t want to switch to Linux but can’t because of those games.

FTFY because of course most of these people could switch and just stop playing these couple of games, that’s hardly life changing.

Yes, it’s a bug in KDE Plasma that might be fixed with 6.2: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=487780

Yeah, duplicate flags should just be ignored.

Catppuccin Latte works well too!

To be fair, a big portion of the work that goes into Linux (at least the kernel) is done by paid developers working for big corporations.

I think it’s mostly supply/demand.

Most people are satisfied with how games are acquired commercially. Steam’s DRM system is usually received well. There are outliers using different launchers (sometimes on top of Steam) or games using Denuvo, but most customers are satisfied with how Steam handles it, and it also adds valuable features like cloud saves (so for example when you have a desktop PC and a Steam Deck resuming where you left off is pretty seamless) and Valve didn’t have any major fuckups yet (not that I remember anyway). It works, it’s convenient and most people can afford it.

Similar thing with music: streaming services work well for the most part and have almost all the music most people would want. They’re pretty affordable and convenient.

With movies and TV shows most people were satisfied when Netflix got rolling as it was pretty much the only streaming service you “needed”. Nowadays more and more services emerge with their own exclusive content and pricing is increased on a regular basis, sometimes multiple times per year. That’s why (from my perspective at least) piracy increases in that sector. It’s no longer affordable and no longer convenient.

As for software, I think most people exclusively use free-to-use software anyway. Software from the Adobe suite still gets pirated a lot, I know no one who paid for Adobe software for personal use.

The difference between H.265 and AV1 at the same bitrate (assuming both files were encoded with a good encoder) usually isn’t huge.

AV1 is great, but the “hype” surrounding it is mostly comparing it to lowish-bitrate H.264 (live) streams.

I still think if I was strictly anti Google that would imply giving them not a single dime.

It is quite ironic. “I don’t like Google, let me free myself from all of Google. But to do that first let me buy that $500-$1,000 phone made by Google to then get rid of all the Google software on it”.

See if you can find a (used) GPD Win (Max).

Otherwise maybe a used (~2016) 12" MacBook.

Other than that maybe some DIY solutions.

It’ll be cheaper if the device can be a little bigger, plenty of dirt cheap used 13" laptops out there.

Many (most?) captchas I stumbled upon weren’t case sensitive.

I agree, once you factor in a power supply (or PoE hat), case and storage a Raspberry Pi really isn’t all that cheap anymore nowadays. Unless you have a project that specifically benefits from the GPIO pins or the form factor, just get a cheap barebones mini PC or a used one with RAM and SSD already included.

This will get you a system that’s way more powerful even if it’s a couple of years old (the Pi’s SoC is fairly weak) and I/O throughput is no contest, normally with at least a dozen PCIe lanes to use for NVMe storage or 10 gigabit network cards, if you so desire.

Around 15 TB migrating to a new NAS.

Yes, but even then the Phoronix results seem to suggest a larger gap in performance.

Something is wrong with the Windows scheduler and these new chips. The Linux results aren’t revolutionary, but they’re about what you’d expect from what AMD marketed in terms of IPC uplift.

More reviewers should benchmark hardware on multiple operating systems.

Regarding 2.): Disable “Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views (requires restart)” under Settings > Interface in Steam. This should fix the hangs.