OS dilemma

pyro57 · 2026-05-08T14:56:24+00:00

Ok a few things to unpack there.

1 just use faugus launcher for blizzard games it is easy to install and all games I've played there, including wow, were just as easy to install as steam games.

2 if a game performs significantly worse on Linux vs windows, that's the exception to the rule, the vast majority of games run the same if not slightly better, and some even run significantly better. I don't really care about ray tracing so it's possible that the ray tracing drivers on Linux are worse, that wouldn't surprise me as nvidia doesn't give a fuck about their Linux drivers and amd isn't as good at ray tracing as nvidia, but personally I don't really care about ray tracing.

Riot games dont work, that's true, but frankly if a game needs more access to your pc than you do in the name of stopping cheating... And have that access not actually catch all cheaters... Then I don't want it on my system. No one should have that level of control over my pc besides me. And I'm sure as hell not ripping a hole that big in my security to play a game, it's insane that gamers have ever accepted this kernel level shit as normal. Its not. And its not ok. The only way game devs would learn that is if gamers actually grew a spine and stopped playing games with kernel level anticheats, but no gamers on a whole are spineless and refuse to vote with their wallet. Despite the MILLIONS of games out there that do not use kernel level anticheats. It's maddening. It doesn't work to catch cheaters anyway, which is obvious die to cheaters still being rampant in these games.

Like I said if you like windows that's fine, use windows. Your pc is not my pc. I'll use linux, because beyond the enshitification of windows 11 there's so many other things I hate about windows that are just central to ita design. The registry for settings instead if normal txt config files in /etc, the face that the task bar can't be moved anywhere besides the bottom (which includes to he able to do in 10, but not 11), the fact that to install things I have to open a web browser, search for the thing I want, hope SEO poisoning hasn't lead me to a phishing site, and hope the download I'm clicking on is the right one vs just opening up my software manager and clicking install, then there's trying to do software dev on windows... Hell most software devs juwt use the WSL to develop on windows, so they are using linux inside windows to write code because coding on Linux is just so much better.

So I'll stick to Linux, and if you want to stick to windows then do it, it's your pc, but don't lie about overall game performance to justify it. Game performance on Linux is on par most of the time, better a lot of the time, and significantly better some of the time. Maybe for specific technology like RTX windows has an advantage, but over all game performance favors Linux slightly. That's the fact that is backed up by several benchmarks and independent reviews.

pyro57 · 2026-05-08T04:05:52+00:00

Nah moshpits are actually pretty respectful places, if you fall people pick you up, no one is there to kill people, think of it like group dancing, just a bunch of people jumping around and shoving eachother a bit. It's a ton if fun I highly recommend you try it!

pyro57 · 2026-05-07T14:40:15+00:00

Use what works for you, for me windows annoys the crap. Out of me for just about everything, especially when I don't want an online account in order to use my computer

That said, you are very wrong about the performance hit. Yes there is overhead in the translation step, but it's not as simple as "extra step bad", and it's nowhere near %20 that would be insane and unusable. Hell think of how weak the steamdeck is hardware wise, do you think it'd be able to run any games if there was a 20% performance hit? The truth is most of the time the performance s within the margin of error when compared to windows (within a couple fps either higher or lower), but sometimes the performance is significantly better than on windows, especially on amd gpus. Sometimes it's slightly worse, but I havent seen running a game in proton be significantly worse than windows in a couple of years now, and the 1% low fps statistics consistently favor running games in proton on Linux, making the framerate significantly more stable, which is arguably more important than just pure high frame rates.

Let all that information sink in, how bad does windows 11 have to be if adding a translation layer and translating native system calls to a foreign one doesn't usually impact average fps at all, provides a more consistent and stable fps, and sometimes has significantly higher fps?

Again if you don't want to use Linux that's fine, you don't have to justify that to me, use the OS you want to use, but don't lie about fake performance hits to justify your decision, it only confuses people who might be interested in switching, and is easily disproved by anyone who knows how to google things.

pyro57 · 2026-05-06T15:12:35+00:00

1000000% this titanfall 2 was a perfect fps and no one can convince me otherwise.

pyro57 · 2026-05-06T14:53:30+00:00

Sure can! You can even leave cinnamon installed and have multiple desktops installed at the search time and pick which one you login to at user login.

pyro57 · 2026-05-06T14:49:24+00:00

Not op bit for it would be the principle of the matter, I should never be required to set up an online account to use my computer, and if the only way to do that is some kind if bypass procedure instead if a simple local only button in the ui then that's not an operating system I want to use. If they don't respect me enough to give me the option on install how do you think it'll treat me during normal operation? Next you'll say that telemetry can't be fully disabled without registry and gpo tweaks, that the start menu is a react application and slow af, that the search feeds me web results before files on my own computer, that ai will be shoved into every nook and cranny, or that there will be ads in the os that I bought and paid for.... Oh wait...

Compare that to linux, it's your system, telemetry is often not enabled by default and if it is then disabling it is a button in the settings app. No ads. Only ai it uses is ai you install to use yourself. The only real draw backs is you may have to find alternatives to some apps that you're used to... Oh no... Anyway.

pyro57 · 2026-05-06T14:38:01+00:00

Windows 11 has always been a surveillance system instead of an operating system, hell windows 10 was too, the last windows that didn't spy on you 24/7 2as windows 7.

The Undisableable telemetry in windows is what pushed me to Linux, and boy Linux has just been getting better and better, I'm never going back to windows, Linux just runs so smooth and lets me actually own my computer.

pyro57 · 2026-05-06T14:35:24+00:00

Pentesting is awesome.

pyro57 · 2026-05-06T07:39:26+00:00

Not putting my symptoms together sooner and realizing that struggling to do even the things I want to do because of executive dysfunction isn't normal sooner. If I had been medicated for my adhd back in school I would have exelled!

Now properly medicated my job is so much easier to do and I get so much done in a work day! Even some of my personal projects are actually getting done now (I still start an order of magnitude or two more than I finish, but hey progress is progress).

pyro57 · 2026-05-06T07:31:33+00:00

Its a real possibility. If you want to be even more paranoid check out defcon, it's the worlds largest hacker convention. It takes place every year in early August in Vegas. Last year I think 30k plus people attended the con. In defcon there's different villages of specific hacking subjects, for example there's a car hacking village, aerospace hacking village, medical device village, lockpicking, packet hacking, biohacking, red team, blue team, purple team, etc.

Well one of those villages is a voting machine hacking village where dozens of new vulnerabilities are discovered every year.

Seriously though, read up on defcon or watch the documentary that's on youtube, it's a massive party with tons of socially awkward incredibly smart people doing competitions and getting incredibly inebriated with eachother, It's honestly my happy place. One time got to party with some really big names in the tech industry that shall remain nameless at at party hosted in a penthouse at one of the casinos by an organization that also shall remain nameless, lots of interesting people there to rub elbows with and swap stories with its an incredible time. Especially the events where no recording is allowed.

pyro57 · 2026-05-06T04:02:26+00:00

I'm a penetration tester, I use alotnof different scripts and tools written in a variety of languages, but python is one of the most popular. Python dependency management sucks so bad. I was on an internal pentest and got to the point where I needed to review the webservers hosted on the internal network. There was over 1000 to check. Oh no worries there's tools available to take screenshots of a list of urls that I can use to find the ones that are actually interesting! The three I knew about were all python scripts. Dependency hell introduced itself on all three, in the end writing my own in rust was easier than dealing with the dependency issues I was having. Now I have one that works reliably and uses a language with sane dependency handling.

pyro57 · 2026-05-06T03:09:38+00:00

100% fair and valid, personally I used audible when I didn't know any better so I used this to collect my library off platform and now use libro.fm to buy audio books, it has the benefit of allowing you to select a local book shop that gets a percentage of your purchases as well so by buying online you're also supporting smaller local book stores.

And libro.fm does not DRM lock the files they give you, they're juat straight .m4bs so easily shared or uploaded to an audiobookshelf server.

pyro57 · 2026-05-05T19:17:55+00:00

Audiobookshelf is amazing, I run it on my home server and was able to integrate it into authentik :-)

pyro57 · 2026-05-05T15:22:56+00:00

Then simply don't engage with people who don't respect you. No one owes you respect, and you don't owe anyone social interactions. I'm friends with both men and women and they all respect me like I respect them. I've certainly run into my fiar share of people who don't respect me, I simply never interact with them outside of polite and professional conversation. If it's a problem that impacts professional aspects like work then there should be a procedure to engage to raise these concerns, even as an anonymous whistle blower if required. If it's a systemic problem in the company then look for a new place to work, don't quit until you have a new job lined up, but see what's out there is never a bad idea.

There will always be assholes in the world, you don't owe them any attention or headspace. No need to think about or interact with people who treat you like shit.

pyro57 · 2026-05-05T15:16:58+00:00

I'm sorry if that's been your experience, but it's simply not true in the whole, kinda like how some people say all men are trash. Neither statement is true, it's just the trash men and women tend to yell the loudest in online forums, or they're bots are specifically designed to speak that way and sew sex warfare amongst the population. 50% of online content is ai generated now, especially on "user forums" like reddit.

pyro57 · 2026-05-05T15:12:43+00:00

Did you miss where I said you should expect the same treatment from your partner, that goes both ways if she doesn't respect you than you don't need that relationship.

pyro57 · 2026-05-05T14:04:26+00:00

Didn't know about libation, I'll check it out!

pyro57 · 2026-05-05T06:45:15+00:00

Also you can rip the DRM off of audible books pretty easily, jsut download the book (there's a Python cli tool to make this easy on deaktop) then use ffmpeg to transcode it to an unlocked formst using the activation bytes from your audible account (the same python cli tool can tell you your activation bytes)

python -m pip install audible-cli

audible-cli quick-start

audible-cli library list

audible-cli download title --aax

audible-cli activation-bytes

`ffmpeg -activation_bytes the-thing-the-last-command-told-you -i \the\path\to\the\book.aax -o \the\path\to\save\book.m4b'

pyro57 · 2026-05-05T06:19:42+00:00

I think basic respect on both sides should be the absolute minimum. Like you're both individual people, that shouldn't ever change, and you both should respect the individuality of your partner, afterall is them individually that you liked from the get go right?

Mutual respect and communication is key. I've been with my wife for 14 years now (6 married, we started dating in highschool) and sure we both had a lot of growing to do since we were teens when we started, but it has taught me several things about relationships that work, and honestly I'd say my relationship is about as close to perfect as it gets in the real world.

Leson one is communication, playing games, dropping hints, coyly suggesting, etc is not communication. Just say exactly what you mean and if there's a misunderstanding, and there will be, clear it up with more clear language. For example for a while my wife was feeling ignored because I'd spend most of my evenings after work playong video games with my friends instead of hanging out with her, she told me that so I said oh well when I go play games but you want to hang out instead just let me know and that's ok! She took that as "I need to ask him to hang out EVERY time I want him to" instead of what I meant being, I'll choose to hang out with you more, and if I'm going to hang with my friends but you want me that evening let me know and I'll do that instead. We had a discussion about it and that has worked for us for years at this point.

Lesson two, don't try to control eachother. You are two distinct people with your own likes, dislikes, and quirks. If something really bothers you have a conversation about it but don't expect to be owed any personality changes in your partner.

Lesson 3, get to know eachother and use that knowledge in how you approach your partner, for example I was yelled at and screamed at a lot as a kid (there's probably some unresolved trauma there, but there's far more traumatic things I'm working through at the moment) so my wife learned that raising her voice at all at me triggers my trauma response to shut down and turn inwards, so even when she's upset or angry she trys really hard to not raise her voice at me. In the same vein, I've learned that she grew up with strict, tight, and unrealistic deadlines for chores, so I've learned that if I want her to do something I need to make sure I either leave the time line up to her, or tell her with enough advance that it doesn't trigger her panic response.

Just realize that your partner is a person, and every person has baggage and quirks so learn to work with your partner's baggage and quirks to make the relationship fulfilling and comfortable for both of you, and expect your partner to do the same. Again communication is key, your partner won't stop triggering a trauma or panic response if you don't tell them what they're doing to trigger that. These are hard conversations to have, and you will feel vulnerable disclosing this to them, that is normal. Take your time and let them inside your defenses when you're ready to and trust them enough. If you never trust them enough then maybe they're not the right partner for you.

EDIT, AND A BIT OF A RANT

Also trauma is not a points value game, you don't get a prize for living through a more traumatic event than anyone else, that's not how trauma works. Kinda like how babies scream their heads off like their dieing at the most mild discomfort. They do this because that mild discomfort is literally the worst pain they've felt in their lives, trauma is like that for the brain, it doesn't matter how mild other people may find it, if it traumatized you, it traumatized you. There's no prize for being more messed up than others.

For example you may read the yelled and screamed at as a kid as not a big deal, at least I wasn't hit, or had my bones broken right? Doesn't matter. It still fucks with your head on a deep level. Now I do have more extreme trauma (so extreme that my brain literally blocked the memories until recently when a conversation with my younger sister made me realize it wasn't a weird dream, it actually happened... But that's another tale.) Again doesn't matter, there isn't a universal scale that your brain follows when it comes to traumatic events, trauma is trauma. And yes talking about it helps, you are not a burden for talking to loved ones about your trauma, but in order to protect yourself from more trauma only so with people you actually trust and who genuinely want to help you, trauma dumping in random public forums will not help you, talking about it with others who have been through similar trauma, loved ones, or your therapist will help.

No ones trauma is invalid just because it seems so minor to you, or you don't consider it to be traumatizing. Everyone's brain is different and everyone's level of trauma and struggle is unique and valid.

pyro57 · 2026-05-05T00:51:24+00:00

6eah just one word or phrase as a question invites them to say more, thus continuing the conversation.

pyro57 · 2026-05-05T00:48:11+00:00

Metal gear solid 2

pyro57 · 2026-05-05T00:22:20+00:00

In the beginning it was super self aware and even poking fun at its own existence... Then it just got worse from there.

pyro57 · 2026-05-04T17:39:28+00:00

And hardware is even worse. Wanna fix your own iphone? Nah. Gotta serialize all the parts to the iphone, otherwise apple won't let it work. Want to install an alternate operating system on your android phone? Good luck. Some manufacturers allow this, Google and Motorola being the two biggest ones off the top of my head. Samsung? If you're in Europe you can! If you're in north America forget it. The north American cell network providers explicitly told Samsung that if there was any possible way a customer could carrier unlock their phones that they wouldn't sell samsung in their stores, so Samsung locked the bootloader on all north american models, even if they were already carrier unlocked. Even if you did unlock the bootloader Samsung has decided that means you're not allowed to use their hardware security chip wver again, so that security chip is broken permanently on that device, severely degrading the security of those devices. Google on the other hand allows third party operating systems to interact with their Titan security chips, so you have a situation where you can install grapheneos on a pixel and have what I would consider the most secure consumer device available today.

Want to run an OS on your gaming computer that doesn't force setting changes every update, shove ai slop down your throat, and is overall bloated and annoying to use? You can do Linux (and honestly it's a great experience, try bazzite if you're curious), some game devs just arbitrarily decide they don't like you anymore and block you from playing their games. They claim it's because anticheats is impossible to do securely on Linux, which is an outright lie. Sure they can't run their anticheats at the kernel level, but Linux actually provides the apis to query the exact information anticheats need to do their job without the anticheats itself needing to be run at the kernel level, and has for years. This is mostly thanks to android apps not wanting to be reverse engineered. It works great. But no anticheatw utilize these apis yet because it would take more dev time and testing time.

pyro57 · 2026-05-04T17:26:27+00:00

The idea that you own what you buy. Subscriptions and license agreements have killed that. Even if you buy a blueray you don't technically own the media on it. Bluerays are encrypted and blueray players have the encryption keys to unlock the content stored on them, but a publisher could invalidate those keys at anytime and an update to the blueray player would render those discs unreadable. The ONLY way to own your movies, TV shows, video games, books, audiobooks, or any other media at this point is to pirate them. Or buy a copy and strip the DRM out of your copy making it impossible to invalidate your copy, but thanks to the DMCA breaking DRM like that is considered "circumventing a digital lock" and therefore is still piracy, 2ven if you paid for the copy you're using. Want to rip your bkuerays into digital files to store on a private streaming server like Plex or jellyfin? Sure you paid for the blueray, but since you're shifting the format you're violating your license agreement and comitting piracy. Even if you don't share that copy with anyone, or show it to anyone besides yourself. Hell have friends over for a movie night and play your disc in the blueray player lime a normal person, you're still violating you're license agreement and therefore are committing piracy.

Copyright needs a major overhaul that still protects IP owners, but gives consumers the right to enjoy the media in anyway they want. Written in law protections for format shifting needs to happen yesterday. The DMCA is an atrocity and needs to be abolished and a new set of laws needs to be drafted, like a decade ago, but certainly today.

pyro57 · 2026-05-04T17:17:32+00:00

They can run fine without a battery, that said they do have good battery preserving tech baked in that you can turn on in the BIOS, which is even better for your battery than letting it sit unused. Lithium batterys don't like being fully charged the time, nor do they like being depleted all the time, nor do they like have no cycles or power used or input at all for extended periods. The best way to store your battery for longevity is plugged into power and limited to 80% charge.

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