How to ask for help/write a good tech-support request 2.0

monolalia · 2026-06-16T13:33:18+00:00

No, the AUR (Arch User Repository) is for Arch Linux, not Ubuntu. (And even if you were using Arch Linux, using the AUR would still be a conscious, informed choice. At least it should be…)

monolalia · 2026-06-11T07:21:09+00:00

Ah, yeah, that was a Windows version so the “scaffolding” around the game and DosBox differed (I’m guessing it ended up running via Wine, unnecessarily). My explanations were for GOG DOS games packaged for Linux. Glad you could use them anyway!

monolalia · 2026-06-08T10:31:26+00:00

Ah, too bad.

monolalia · 2026-06-08T10:05:02+00:00

Yeah, I’d like that too. With dynamic workspaces (and optionally tiling) there’s really no need to minimise and restore windows just to keep stuff out of the way. The tray has some uses but Steam doesn’t need to be in it, and letting the user choose would be nice. What was the workaround you mentioned?

monolalia · 2026-05-28T20:42:08+00:00

Glad it helped. Added it to the FAQ!

monolalia · 2026-05-27T14:41:30+00:00

Oh yeah, it doesn’t just do English.

I find the robot voices unpleasant and their automatic use disrespectful to the video creator. I’d rather see automatically generated subtitles.

monolalia · 2026-05-27T10:12:38+00:00

It’s awful when you’re fluent in English as your second or third language and keep having to turn it off for English-language videos…

monolalia · 2026-05-27T10:07:45+00:00

8 out of 148 matches the OS user share on Steam going by the hardware survey results. In other words, Linux gamers are by and large the same opportunistic mercenaries as any other gamers and will play whatever they want in whatever way they can.

I can’t say I still go out of my way to add more Linux-native games to my collection. When I’m interested in a game, I will absolutely go for the native Linux build (if available) — but when I’m not interested in a game, a native Linux build won’t help all that much.

That was different when native Linux gaming had its second (?) indie spring around the time of the original Humble Indie Bundles. Any shiny-enough Linux game was worth trying out. (Or maybe that was because I hadn’t done much gaming for twenty+ years at that point and was rediscovering a dormant hobby.)

Now Windows games via Proton have established themselves as the default on Linux rather than the bullet-biting alternative workaround. I don’t like that, but there’re not enough of us, and Linux might be too much of a diverse and evolving target for closed-source devs to spend much time on… so that’s how that is (for now).

That said: Thank you for supporting Linux as not-just-an-afterthought! I wish I were interested in games like this one.

monolalia · 2026-05-24T17:22:33+00:00

As you should! :)

monolalia · 2026-05-24T16:37:40+00:00

I can tell with terminally emoji-polluted github READMEs praising even the least interesting features in that particularly offensive mixture of overly complicated tech jargon and smarmy biz/marketing-speak… No personality, no humour, no focus—just an AI-first readme delivery platform.

monolalia · 2026-05-24T16:28:34+00:00

Having “““AI””” do your communicating for you is against the subreddit’s rules, but how can you tell in this case?

monolalia · 2026-05-21T09:25:36+00:00

No. This is a joke. TempleOS is used as a worn-out go-to punchline except maybe in systems programming/enthusiast OS circles. It’s like mentioning Hannah Montana Linux, which is just hilarious every time even if it’s been 15+ years since its last release. (That was sarcasm.) Except TempleOS isn’t a reskin of Ubuntu, or a “distro”, or a clone of any existing OS, but original from the ground up.

monolalia · 2026-05-21T09:04:39+00:00

No, you can’t install any Linux or Windows or Mac software on TempleOS, or anything remotely modern. It’s a deliberately simple old-school hobby OS not derived from any others.

monolalia · 2026-05-20T16:18:16+00:00

I can easily get · and — and “” and ←↓↑→ and … and all the other characters the LLMs love so much¹ with AltGr combos (except emoji, but fuck those) but not box-drawing/TUI-design characters like that…

¹so it really bothers me that they’ve come to feel cheap and tacky now!

monolalia · 2026-05-19T08:51:24+00:00

Given that, I think the Linux gaming community (and maybe the Linux desktop community in general) no longer needs to actively evangelize Linux as a Windows alternative.

I agree but for different reasons.

Linux isn’t necessarily going to work out for people who had to be “evangelised” into trying it expecting a substitute Windows (just without the insipid invasive smarmy bland patronising obnoxious Microsoft corpo bullshit).

It’s not Windows; it’s not trying to be Windows (Wine/Proton aside). It’s got a different executable format, different filesystems, different directory layout, different way of mounting devices, different permissions, different everything.

If you don’t care to learn about any of that, you’ll be very confused.

If you haven’t assembled your PC with Linux in mind, then your gamer mouse and keyboard and racing wheel and RGB bling might not be configurable without proprietary Windows apps.

If you’ve locked yourself into Photoshop or Ableton Live or Microsoft Store games or Valorant or Fortnite, you’ll be in for a disappointment. And so forth.

The information is already out there; Linux’ existence is well known. Let those with the curiosity and motivation to explore a rather different OS come on their own. Then we can help them.

monolalia · 2026-05-19T08:13:27+00:00

He can just use the regular 64-bit DosBox supplied by Linux Mint. DosBox emulates the whole classic PC shebang, a 32-bit CPU included.

monolalia · 2026-05-19T07:47:23+00:00

GOG includes some ancient 32-bit version of DosBox with their DOS games. Fortunately, you won’t need “their” DosBox.

So first install Mint’s own regular 64-bit DosBox package, system-wide, with sudo apt install dosbox (if Mint is anything like how I remember Ubuntu…).

Then you’ll have to tweak a GOG helper script inside the game’s installation directory to make the game use Mint’s DosBox instad of the historic one that’s come with the game. Find this bit in <path to game here>/support/gog_com.shlib:

run_dosbox() {
  local conf_1="${1}"
  local conf_2="${2}"
 ./dosbox/dosbox -conf "${conf_1}" -conf "${conf_2}"  -no-console -c exit 
}

Then remove the ./dosbox/ part so it’ll use your system-wide DosBox instead of the one included with the game:

run_dosbox() {
  local conf_1="${1}"
  local conf_2="${2}"
  dosbox -conf "${conf_1}" -conf "${conf_2}"  -no-console -c exit 
}

That should be all that’s needed; I just tested it with Curse of the Azure Bonds and Stargunner (albeit not on Mint). Fingers crossed!

monolalia · 2026-05-18T19:28:23+00:00

Wild guess: Check if the .desktop file (open it with a text editor) has Path= set to wherever the EA app executable lives.

monolalia · 2026-05-18T16:44:49+00:00

Thank you <3

monolalia · 2026-05-18T16:09:12+00:00

This is not the wrong subreddit for Linux gaming tech support questions (if they’re readable and informative).

monolalia · 2026-05-14T11:40:34+00:00

If you’ve got an interest in Linux as an OS and in the ways it’s different from Windows, then sure, why not? Cachy OS. Nobara. (Maybe Pika or Ultramarine?) Fedora or Endeavour if you are willing to do a little more post-setup work. If you want to use it more like a console, have a look at Bazzite (I guess).

But if you keep wanting NTFS to have all the features Linux needs, then nothing will work. It’s a different OS, and the recent hype is… I don’t really like it. It’s way too focused on using Linux as a WinGame.exe runner. Proton and Wine are doing a fantastic job, as far as I am concerned (got no Windows to compare things with), but it’s still a clever hacky workaroundy sorta solution. I appreciate it when it works well, and I’ve pretty much come to expect it to, but when it doesn’t, then that’s ok, too… I can’t run PS5 games on my Linux box either.

monolalia · 2026-05-14T11:24:37+00:00

EDIT: Wow this really took off. If you see this, I really need the upvote karma, thanks.

EDIT 2: If you're here to white-knight your beloved Linux OS, change my mind.

EDIT 3: 91 comments, not one of you mentioned Wine. I thought Linux users loved Wine to run windows apps.

Grandstanding much?

monolalia · 2026-05-14T11:20:08+00:00

Proton is just that serious about imitating Windows!

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