BananaTrifleViolin

Yeah it can be confusing; Flatseal makes it easier as it’s a GUI way of doing what is otherwise command line with flatpak itself but it still assumes some knowledge about what you’re doing and can be a bit of trial and error. The more you expose to the sandbox, the more “native” performance you can achieve but it’s at the expense of security.

In Flatseal you can set global options for all apps, or individual apps. For graphics, in the Device section, toggling the option to make the GPU available to the sandboxes may be needed - “GPU Acceleration” in the Device section. That one option can be pretty effective as GPU hardware acceleration is often important, if not essential, for programs like Handbrake (which are video transcoding).

This is equivalent to “device=dri” when launching the flatpak via the commandline.

I support KDE, Mozilla and a fediverse instance currently. A small amount to each, each month, but it is worth it to me. I pay for VPN, email, and password manager, so contributing to KDE, Mozilla and the fediverse feels just like another small set of subscriptions.

I’m lucky I can afford to do this; I think any financial contribution of any size is appreciated by the FOSS world.

EDIT: In terms of things I’m thinking of - Jellyfin and maybe Piefed. Mozilla is a bit of a question mark for me with the AI stuff; but I still value Firefox immensely.

Well the good news is it’s damaged Salesforce’ reputation, and their business.

This is fascinating research and does offer some hope for future research but is far from being applicable in humans. This is based on mouse models - mice don’t get Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) as the article says, so we’re inducing a similar illness in them via genetic engineering by messing with genes that are associated with AD in humans. It does not follow that this is the same condition that we see in humans. So reversing the articifically created AD-like disease in Mice does not mean that it has any relevance to humans.

Also while the mice saw “full recovery”, even those who were treated after disease onset, that also does not necessairly apply to human AD. This kinds of experiments will have been run for weeks or months, while AD in humans has years of onset. The mice may not have had the same kind of fundamental damage seen in human AD. Mouse cognitive function is also quite different from human cognitive function - we are significantly more intelligent and complex beings.

The research does have value, and does add further evidence to the role NAD+ might play in the disease or treatin the disease. But unfortunately this is a long way from relevance to treating people with AD now. This could be a useful finding or it could end up being an irrelevant curiosity - such is the nature of research. It should also be noted that this is a news article, not a peer reviewed article and is more of a “PR” piece; this research is being commercialised by those involved so the motivation is to talk up their findings. A dose of healthy scepticism is needed on the coverage for this. Fingers crossed this comes to something meaningful in the fight against Alzheimer’s Disease.

Yes but I wouldn’t recommend a Deck for streaming. The interface is geared for “on the go”. It’s great for gaming on the TV but it is a little clunky for streaming. You can open a browser and use that for streaming but it’s best done in Desktop mode. You can actually add Chrome as a custom “game” in Gamescope mode and set it up to launch a website like Netflix but I find it a little unreliable on filling the screen in that mode.

I do have a mini PC that I use for both gaming and streaming, and it works well. You can get something more powerful than the SteamDeck (as it doesn’t need a screen nor to be mobile), and put pretty much any desktop on there. I personally use KDE with a remote keyboard and mouse, but if you want prefer a full screen interface, then probably Kodi is your best bet. For streaming you can add a Browser Launcher plugin to launch Firefox or Chrome, so you can run Netflix etc. But a mouse & keyboard is still probably needed as an interface.

HDR viewing is an issue on Linux devices currently though. It’s improving but can be hit and miss depending on hardware and software.

There are also other TV interfaces coming - like KDE Plasma’s Bigscreen; but it’s got a way to go as it’s only recently been resurrected.

I’m not aware of general Linux specific tools for this (game specific ones do exist). However:

• Vortex does work on Linux: https://linuxvox.com/blog/vortex-mod-manager-linux/
• So does Curseforge: https://linuxvox.com/blog/how-to-install-curseforge-on-linux/

They both work by you running them in wine and pointing them to the game files created by Steam (or Gog or any windows game installed via Wine or Proton) in the Linux filesystem (e.g. /home/yourname/.steam/steamapps/common/game) instead of windows filesystem (e.g. C:\program files\game)

Modloaders with “bootstrap” fixes will also work; they just have to be installed and run in the same proton/wine prefix as the game. I.e. if you install Cyberpunk 2077 via steam, the bootstrap type mods need to be installed into the game folder or fake-windows file system that Proton makes for the game. It even has it’s own “drive C” folder for the rare times you need 3rd party tools. You also put tools into the game folder as you would on windows. If it has it’s own custom exe you can tell wine/proton to run that instead of the game or even before the game in the same prefix.

I mod games extensively on Linux; they work just as they do in Windows. I’ve played heavily modded Cyperpunk 2077 to completion (all the mod tools work via proton - that takes a little tweaking to get working but is doable - and many mods you just drop into specific sub folders; I played with about 50 mods and I didn’t find a single one that didn’t work on Linux specifically), Stardew Valley, Rimworld and Minecraft for example of bredth. Stardew, Rimworld and Minecraft even have linux specific tools to help.

This is less a case of games run via Linux not being moddable, and more that it has it’s own learning curve (in the same way modding on Windows has a learning curve). Once you understand how the linux filesystem and how proton/wine work, the world is your oyster. Protontricks and Winetricks are not just useful for getting games running or tweaking them, they’re a modders best friend.

This makes sense but would be good to have more concrete timings. They’ve said 2027 but haven’t firmed up an exact date yet; they’ve attibuted that to potential extra bug fix releases for 6.7 which would push 6.8 back a bit.

Looking back, 6.3 released Feb 2025, 6.4 in June 2025, and 6.5 in Oct 2025. KDE is planning to move to a semi-annual instead of tri-annual schedule, so 2027 does make sense if 6.6 and 6.7 are in 2026, with 6.8 in 2027.

It’s historically interesting to maybe understand who he was as a human being. He’s often painted as a monster but he was a human, and is a warning to all of us what evil human’s can achieve.

For example, they’re revealed he had Kallmann Syndrome (which can cause a micropenis and undescended testes) - he may have essentially been essentially asexual which may explain some of his life choices and why he was so dedicated to politics and gaining power. They’ve also shown he had high genetic risks for psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, as well as ADHD, autism.

Sensationalist reporting aside, these findings do add something to our understanding of a historical figure who had massive influence on human history.

Yes; it makes no sense to have multiple communities when the Steam Machine and Steam Frame are so similar to the Steam Deck. It may be that in the future it makes sense to split out topics if their isn’t overlap, but I’d say the community isn’t flooded with content and there is a lot of overlap between these topics that will benefit everyone.

Did you set your Mint to autologin to desktop? If so then your Keyring is then locked and you get prompts to unlock it when you want to use anything that needs it - websites, software like email etc. The keyring holds your passwords and credentials to pass to on as needed and keeps your system secure. If you set your desktop to not autologin - i.e. have a login screen - your keyring is unlocked automatically as you log on to the PC and you don’t keep getting prompts to unlock the keyring. You can disable the keyring entirely or give it a blank password, but it’s better to use the login screen to keep your device secure, and let the keyring do it’s thing in the background even though “login automatically” is so easy to tick and use. The wallet is the same concept on KDE desktops.

Otherwise the only password prompts you should get are similar to windows - when you want to make system level changes.

I’d recommend OpenSuSE Leap with KDE. User friendly, stable, with a good GUI for making all system changes. Fedora KDE is also a good popular distro; I’m not sure how good it’s GUI is but I’d be surprised if you need to use the terminal. People often recommend the terminal (because it IS quicker - often one step instead of “go here, click here, click here”) but there is usually a GUI way of doing everything.

The text here on the fediverse is the prologue; bit confusing but click through the link and it makes sense.

Interesting read, thank you. Also I recognise this type of procrastination: sit down to do one thing, end up installing a whole different OS :D

KDE is genuinely incredibly flexible - you can make it into pretty much any GUI that exists. The default windows like set up is fine, but there are so many easy tweaks and changes you can make to get it however you want. I have a floating dock-like set up instead of a window-like taskbar, with application launcher, icon-only view, system tray, clock and power button.

For simple tweaks yoy can right click on most component of your KDE panels and select “Show alternatives…” to see different official versions of the same component. For example, the Application Launcher offers an alternative Application Menu with cascading menus like an old-school windows start menu, or a full screen gnome-like Application Dashboard. And there are also loads more user made tools if you right click and select “Add or Manage widgets”. Every component of the desktop is a widget and can be moved, swapped out, duplicated or replaced.

It’s really not that difficult with a Global Theme; anyone can do it. There are step by step tutorials on line (such as this one from howtogeek) for people who want to do it manually. The benefit of manual is if there is a major KDE update it is more likely to be completely unaffected; very rarely Global Themes can break and need their own updates.

The Mac ones are the 2nd most popular in the Global Theme store and well maintained though.

Yeah KDE is incredibly flexible. You can get most of the way there downloading a Global Theme from KDE’s settings menu (such as MacOS Big Sur) - that lays out all the panels, including the top bar context menu, power menu, dock, left sided window buttons. There are then some extra visual themes such as cursors, icons that people can get separately if they really want to completely mimic a Mac.

No one is born knowing this stuff; everyone learns it somewhere. But omg it’s still frustrating after you spend days taking the difficult route and someone says “oh you could have just done this in 2 mins”. My sympathy to you! :D But GG on getting your parents onto Linux and saving them from wasting money on a new laptop!

I’d go with Fedora. If you will be their source of help, then it makes sense you know it. It’s also a widely known, stable distro with good and reliable packaging.

Mint is a good distro but there is a huge load of outdated advice out there, and I think it’s getting risky as a result. Like I still keep seeing tips to add 3rd party repos to install software, rather than pointing to things like Flatpak. However it remains very userfriendly and there is loads of support out there, so it’s still a great choice.

Another consideration is Fedora offers a better selection of DEs to use “officially”. Personally I like KDE, but also having Gnome available as a default option is good. Mint is somewhat limited in that respect by focusing on Cinnamon, Mate and XFCE as the official spins. They’re all decent but I feel like people coming into Linux should be introduced to the big 2. When I mained Mint a few years ago, I moved to KDE and it was actually a little frustrating how bloated it got to have lots of unneeded Cinnamon tools left behind, and some essential to the system.

I’d avoid Ubuntu. It’s big but it’s increasingly compromised by Cannonical’s behaviour, and personally I object to Snap. Snap as a technology is fine but the Snap store is closed source and controlled by Cannonical. And in Ubuntu so many apps are forced onto users as Snaps now - for example web browsers which are slow to start up. This is not a good experience for users.