the16bitgamer

If you live in the UK and haven't signed the link for it is here: https://stopkillinggames.com/

Especially since one of the best features is basically unmentioned. Turn on your steam deck and before you sign in for the first time, you can boot straight to the desktop. Just wish there was a toggle in Plasma to boot to desktop by default.

For all intents and purposes, you don’t need to log into steam to play games on the steam deck which is honestly shocking where most new hardware basically requires you to agree to sign in to begin using your device.

Looking at you Windows 11

Just saw this while watching a random video on my feed. Don't know when it was added, but it's so so dumb.

Love me the original games, just nice to have a stable way to play them. Added bonus both games works well on Linux via Proton. Available on both Origin, and Steam.

TL:DR Went back to Windows, crawled back to Linux begging it for forgiveness.

So for context. This year, I made my transition on my main rig from Windows 10 to Linux. At the time I had a Ryzen 5 1600 with a Gigabyte motherboard. I got a new boot SSD for it, and the transition was smooth.

From time to time I swapped between Windows and Linux for some use cases, finishing projects started in Windows only software, and the like. But by the spring I switched over to Linux full time.

Now how I swapped wasn't dual booting with GRUB, but instead booting off of the two different SSD's. Where Linux boot drive can see my Windows 10 boot drive. And Windows can't see my Linux one. Can't corrupt anything if you can't access it.

By the end of my transition I had saved up enough money and I was able to upgrade my hardware. I moved to an Intel i3 12100F for it's single core performance (huzzah FreeCAD and it's single core dependence).

Now at some point during this process I lost access to boot from my Windows 10 boot drive. It eventually turned out to be a Motherboard configuration. But at the time I didn't know and honestly didn't care. Linux Mint + Windows 10 VM (for iOS backups) handled everything I needed to do with my machine and more. And so I kept using it... until today.

Today I updated my Motherboard, x-mas sales means potential deals on 13th and 14th gen Intel. And a Motherboard BIOS update to stop it from frying a potential new chip was a good idea in my head.

That was until the flash was done, and my machine wouldn't boot. Turned out to be Secure Boot re-enabling itself, which I disabled. But while I was messing around I accidentally fixed my Windows 10 boot fixed. So I booted it to see if it worked.

When I turned it on... it was fine and worked well. But then an MSI Utility popped up for no reason (didn't even prompt it thanks windows update). Then I decided to clean shop, and started uninstalling stuff that wasn't necessary for my Windows boot drive. Since there's no point in having steam if Linux works. And I can save space.

As I am doing this I noticed that my copy of Windows 10 de-activated itself since my hardware changed. No problem I said, let me get my old Key and try again... nope. Didn't work.

I tried the troubleshooter utility... again no, and required a microsoft account to use.

Ugh, fine. Sign in with and it takes over my PC... and still won't activate my Windows.

At this point I say screw it. Returned my account to a local one, and stopped since my Windows 10 machine doesn't need activation. It just needs to play games. But even then the Xbox app won't let me log in since it was "offline" despite connecting and downloading from the internet.

I was off of Windows for 7 months (according to the newest installed app), and I wanted to go back to Linux. It's not that Windows is a bad OS, but that it's so bloated with tamper protection and account authentications that it makes using it a chore.

An OS is suppose to just be a tool. The bridge between the Hardware and Software so that the user can focus and do what they want to do on their machine. And Linux (for those who understand computers) is beyond good enough to replace Windows. It just sucks that many pieces of software is locked down to the platform. SteamOS can't come out soon enough to force these companies to move away from Microsoft.

For me I'll testing to see if there is any real benefits of using Windows on my machine (games only). If there isn't I'll probably wipe the drive and use it as my game cache.

Got spammed by google today saying my apps are being brought over.

So this week I got myself a Framework 13. I am so far liking it, especially with Linux Mint. But I feel the push for high resolutions is pushing the poor iGPU a bit too hard in games.

But since I got the 2880x1920 display, it can be downscaled to 1440x960 without too much loss of quality. However the closest resolution I can find to it is 1440x900, which breaks my desktop icons, and other applications which wants to use the full screen.

I've tried xrandr and cvt as described in this ask ubuntu post but all I got out of it was a black screen.

Am I just stuck with the default or am I just missing something?

EDIT: Attempt #1: Tried Gamescope, wasn't apart of the included packages on Mint. Tried to build, failed, tried to cleanup, borked my install, had to restore from previous day's backup. Not doing that again.

Just wanted to share this, especially with how well it turned out.

It is 3 layers of Vinyl stickers, cut on my cutting machine, and carefully removed (with a few mistakes).

Got the SVG from Pottermore, and modified it to her taste in Inkscape.

So I got this case for my iPhone 15 Pro since it allowed it to lay flat. However the Volume and Notification buttons have no texture to them, making it difficult to tell which button is which when it's in a pocket.

So I had an idea. What if I heated a file with a heat gun. Then pressed it into the Notification button.

This was the result and I am very impressed. No way I will mistaken it with the volume rocker going forward.

I love the idea of it, and I love how tiny it is. Will probably get one when money isn’t so tight.

But I was curious if the power button was accessible without lifting it. And it genuinely isn’t. Why does Apple like shoving important IO and buttons underneath the device. Good thing it’s light?

Oh and a funny thing was the staff had to loosen its mount on the table so you could turn it on.

Got this in an email today… oh my

It’s a slight modification to my existing design which can be found here: https://www.printables.com/model/261466-apple-pencil-gen-1-case-mkii

The two tone was originally created by accident as we were running out of light blue and I decided to go all out on the top side.

She is very happy with the results.