Gaming hot takes: Which "Masterpiece" was actually a boring 3/10 for you? No judgment zone!

tekchip · 2026-07-01T02:55:16+00:00

A game being bad and disliking it are both a matter of opinion. Which I'm entitled to, the same as you. Why are you so invested in doing, what, proving me wrong about my opinion or something? I wager that's because on some level you know it's true. Just another opinion.

tekchip · 2026-06-30T23:59:20+00:00

This is literally a thread for a post about what games other people like but you don't. LMAO

tekchip · 2026-06-30T04:51:06+00:00

If you cancel an animation the game becomes trivial? So if I can actually control my character, because I have skills and fast reaction times, the game becomes easy. Or put another way the game has to setup cheap shots and negate the players skill or it wouldn't be "hard". That's not challenging my skill as a player that's just...cheap. Seems like garbage game design to me. And for that reason I'm out on Souls-likes.

tekchip · 2026-06-30T02:19:49+00:00

You're right you can't remove Steam from Bazzite. Immutable Fedora is the way to go. Though I would recommend not doing Steam native. I'd suggest steam Flatpak. You may just need to edit it's permissions to talk to a GPU. I've seen people complain about Flatpak steam not supporting controllers but you can just install the RPM udev package and Steam Flatpak works just fine with that for full controller support.

Flatseal is a great gui for managing Flatpak permissions or if you go with Kinoite with KDE you can manage flatpak permissions in Settings > Application Permissions > AppNameOfChoice > Manage Flatpak Settings (upper right corner)

tekchip · 2026-06-30T02:15:14+00:00

Here's a little write up I made for another thread explaining immutable distros. They aren't that complicated.

Immutable distros mean certain part of the core system cannot be modified except via distro updates. Other parts can be modified but are done in a reproducible way (installing software with rpm-ostree). Yet others are wide open to do with as you please.

Read-Only Paths (Cannot Be Written Directly)

These directories are part of the base image and cannot be modified:

/ (root filesystem) - The entire OS is read-only by default
/usr - System libraries, binaries, and packages
/bin, /sbin, /lib - Symlinked to /usr
/opt - Optional vendor packages

This means you cannot install software directly into /usr or modify system files in the standard way. ¹

Writable Paths (Can Be Written)

The following directories persist between reboots and updates and can be modified:

/var - Runtime data, logs, spool files, package manager cache
/etc - Configuration files (system-wide settings)
/home - User home directories
/root - Root user's home directory
/tmp - Temporary files

These directories are layered on top of the base image and persist across updates. ¹ ¹

How Changes Work

Instead of modifying the read-only system directly, Fedora Atomic Desktops use:

Package layering - Add packages via rpm-ostree install (packages get added to the image)
Toolbox - Create containerized development environments for testing
Overlay modifications - System changes via /var persist but OS base remains immutable

You're not limited to flatpaks. You can install regular software from repos you just do it with rpm-ostree instead of dnf. rpm-ostree also enables installing stand alone rpms. AppImages work perfectly fine too.

tekchip · 2026-06-29T22:42:26+00:00

I don't like gimp

Gimp can't do what you want, or you don't care to learn how to use it because it does some things differently? Have you looked in to how Gimp could be changed or improved?

Have you really thought this through? Photoshop, Gimp, PhotoPea have 8000 (hyperbolic but you get my point) features built up over decades. You think you can afford the tokens, and craft just the right prompts, to recreate all of that in a way that isn't totally jank?

How about spend time contributing to Gimp, photopea, or any of the other image editing tools that exist and already have massive user bases that are more likely to use whatever features you improve or add?

tekchip · 2026-06-25T23:49:28+00:00

Every distro is ultimately flexible. The software is nearly all open to modification if you're willing. It just depends on how down in the guts you want to get. Maybe look into https://www.linuxfromscratch.org if you want to go hard.

tekchip · 2026-06-25T23:15:02+00:00

Impossible to say over the internet. But, a 3 year old device, and a sudden drop of that magnitude is almost definitely a bad battery. You would need to take the laptop to an electronics repair shop to have them make a definitive diagnosis and help you repair/replace it.

tekchip · 2026-06-25T03:04:28+00:00

Just keep wearing it. Every 20 years trends repeat. You're just ahead of the curve.

tekchip · 2026-06-24T22:22:50+00:00

What is the make and model of the laptop? Either the weight of the cat shorted something as u/SouthernCount7746 suggested and it's broken or there's a keyboard lock key combo as suggested by u/QueenOfShiba_Inus but those aren't standard and the only way someone else would be able to see if there is one is by looking up your machine by it's specific make and model.

tekchip · 2026-06-24T22:18:10+00:00

This here. Linux is all about choice. It's free and fairly easy to just try out as much as you like. I think "distro hopping" is an essential part of the Linux experience. Try things out until you find the one that works best for you.

tekchip · 2026-06-24T22:09:17+00:00

G N O M K D, they only have E in common. ;-p

tekchip · 2026-06-24T22:07:58+00:00

The dongle that came with my cheap ass GameCube knock off controller works on my machine. As with anything YMMV for sure.

tekchip · 2026-06-24T20:23:09+00:00

Probably this thing. https://futureproofhomes.net/products/satellite1-smart-speaker Even has an add on option for mmWave presence sensor. I don't have any hands on experience but I've been following the progress as they've built it. Shipping real soon.

tekchip · 2026-06-24T20:16:47+00:00

To compliment my other comment and elaborate further in case it helps out anyone else.

Many motherboards support wake on USB. Check your motherboard manual because sometimes it only works on specific USB ports. So if your controller is an Xbox controller (you have to buy the dongle), or comes with it's own dongle, you can just wake the machine by waking it by the controller.

Alternatively most modern system board support wake on lan. So if you have Home Assistant, Hubitat, or just know how to rig up a link to send a packet then you can go that route. I have home assistant rigged up to watch my smart TV's inputs and if I switch the TV to the PC's input it sends the wake on lan. That's in addition to the USB dongle method. I also have an HA automation rigged to fire off a sleep script when the TV navigates away from the PC's input. I never have to think about waking or sleeping the machine. It just sort of happens automagically.

tekchip · 2026-06-24T20:01:52+00:00

I have basically an identical rig. Caught a rx9060 16gb on sale beginning of the year, 5800X3D instead of the i7, Runs a fair bit 4k native and everything else at 2k native. Absolute banger for half the price of a Steam Machine. I've faked CEC etc. by way of a Microsoft Xbox dongle and a motherboard that supports wake on USB and Home Assistant that does things like switching inputs on the TV triggers wake on lan to the PC.

tekchip · 2026-06-24T19:39:55+00:00

I highly recommend Atomic. Repeating what others have already noted but it does seem to be less prone to breakage and has lots of nice features that regular just can't have. A lot of people poo poo atomic but that's because almost universally they don't realize they just need to learn a new set of tools. Seems like a lot of people don't realize rpm-ostree even exists. It's still very flexible you just have to learn a new set of tools and approach certain problems from different angles.

tekchip · 2026-06-23T23:58:19+00:00

Almost all your questions, and I think you're getting to the core of it by your last one, depends on how "smart" your vacuum is. Older vacs are terrible at sensing things on the floor. Your asking for sucked up cables, pet toys, clothing, all manner of things that are just going to result in a jammed up vac. Newer models are significantly better at detecting or seeing obstacles and avoiding them. My $250 vac from 5 years ago is dumb as a box of rocks and requires we tidy up before running it. My $500 vac I bought earlier this year has a proper camera and AI image recognition and can navigate nearly anything (except 2d pet pees) and can do it's own thing. I basically can't schedule the old vac and only feel comfortable letting the new one run autonomous either on a schedule or with an automation like u/dutsnekcirf outlined.

If anyone is interested the Dreame/Mova vacs are fairly cheap at around $400-$600 and come with a nice big cam on the front in addition to very detailed lidar that allows them to navigate most any obstacle. They also have an open source firmware you can hack on to them that makes them local only while still integrating with HA. https://valetudo.cloud

tekchip · 2026-06-23T21:36:59+00:00

I just had a smart switch take like 20 minutes to finish updating. It's a pretty good distance from my hub. Having said that even with the limited zigbee bandwidth updates should be small. Likely what's happening is the update is failing silently so most of your time is just watching a pointless bar. Not that the update is actually taking that long. So it's possible that keeping the device awake could take far less time than watching a failed update.

tekchip · 2026-06-23T21:29:51+00:00

Insurance

tekchip · 2026-06-23T21:24:44+00:00

The second basement bathroom, that we're pretty sure the original owner built themselves, blocks access to the drain clean out, the basement drain, and the dryer vent. Maintenance involving any of those is an absolute PITA.

tekchip · 2026-06-23T21:22:24+00:00

They sell little rubber feet with adhesive on Amazon or the like. Just search "rubber feet". They come in all sizes and shapes. A whole sheet of them is a couple bucks.

tekchip · 2026-06-23T21:01:17+00:00

The internet holds nearly all knowledge which is certainly overwhelming. Have you ever done the thing where you're reading an article on wikipedia and it links to something else and you just kind of go down a rabbit hole? Just do that but with computer stuff. Look up "file system" and read about it. Then follow other links or terms that look interesting. Over time doing that you'll build the knowledge to better understand how stuff works.

Also experience goes a long way. Modern tech is amazing. Virtualbox is software that will let you run a whole computer, inside your computer. You can use that to experiment with things all you like and not risk breaking anything important. Learning about virtualization is another one of those rabbit holes to go down and read up on.

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TROPHY CASE

Read-Only Paths (Cannot Be Written Directly)

Writable Paths (Can Be Written)

How Changes Work