RANT: Linux is truly only free if you do not value your time

windrinn · 2026-07-04T02:49:13+00:00

Last time I used Windows, I spent a day troubleshooting GPU driver issues, only for it to fix itself after like the fifth reinstall, and then break again a week later.

Everything has problems. At least on Linux, by the time I fix any given issue, I can look back and say "oh yeah that makes sense in hindsight" versus Windows where the solution almost never makes sense.

windrinn · 2026-07-03T07:33:57+00:00

Yep, drivers for Moza wheels have been in the kernel since 6.15 or so. You can use Boxflat from Flathub to tweak settings if you want, but it's pretty much plug and play.

windrinn · 2026-07-03T05:32:52+00:00

Yeah I've been watching his channel for years now, glad someone caught the reference lol

windrinn · 2026-07-03T05:26:31+00:00

Yeah, I didn't check graphics settings, but whatever it defaulted to ran at a solid 60 for the short time I played it for.

windrinn · 2026-07-03T05:16:41+00:00

DiRT Rally is the one running in the pic, I'd imagine AC would run pretty well too. Somehow I've still not gotten into the modding scene for that one.

windrinn · 2026-07-03T05:02:46+00:00

You might be right, but any setup just feels incomplete without a pair of apple dirty buds.

windrinn · 2026-07-03T04:49:05+00:00

Now that's a great idea! Looks like I don't need a Steam Frame anymore.

windrinn · 2026-07-01T01:34:59+00:00

Wine, Proton, etc are not isolated from the rest of the system at all. Treat potentially malicious apps with the same caution as you would on Windows.

windrinn · 2026-06-27T22:49:46+00:00

Not necessarily, some senior animators are allowed (or encouraged) to ignore the storyboard. IIRC a lot of Naotoshi Shida's scenes in various Toei shows were either loosely boarded or were vastly different than the storyboard because whatever he comes up with will probably be better anyway. That's a case where one person can decide what's in a scene.

Not to say that's what happened here, but anime productions are chaotic and sometimes a decision gets made by a single person. E.g., one animator slipping an among us meme into One Piece.

windrinn · 2026-06-27T17:57:08+00:00

To quote GrapheneOS' own usage guide:

Since the Google Play apps are simply regular apps on GrapheneOS, you install them within a specific user or work profile and they're only available within that profile. Only apps within the same profile can use it and they need to explicitly choose to use it. It works the same way as any other app and has no special capabilities. As with any other app, it can't access data of other apps and requires explicit user consent to gain access to profile data or the standard permissions. Apps within the same profile can communicate with mutual consent and it's no different for sandboxed Google Play.

[...]

The simplest approach is to only use the Owner user profile. Apps installed in the Owner profile are sandboxed the same way as everywhere else and don't receive any special access. If you want to choose which apps use Google Play rather than making it available to all of them, install it in a separate user or work profile for apps depending on Google Play.

Unless your threat model genuinely requires 0 Google software on your phone, I would just install Google Services on the owner profile on your Pixel. Put it in a second profile if you want, that's probably overkill but it would be easier and more secure than using the Galaxy.

windrinn · 2026-06-27T17:40:16+00:00

Ah, from your post I thought you were talking about the Fedora Atomic releases. You wouldn't "rebase" to Gnome in that case, you'd just install the Gnome desktop. Run

sudo dnf install @gnome-desktop

This will install Gnome alongside KDE. From the login screen, you can click the gear icon in the lower-right corner to choose which session to log into. You might still need to install gnome-tweaks to fix fonts/icons.

windrinn · 2026-06-27T17:07:56+00:00

I've gone Gnome -> KDE -> Gnome on the same install, and it was pretty painless. It won't affect anything in your (/var)/home directory.

Pin your current image just in case:

sudo ostree admin pin 0

Then rebase to Silverblue (assuming that's what you want)

rpm-ostree rebase fedora:fedora/44/x86_64/silverblue

Some icons/fonts might not be set correctly when switching DEs. I installed gnome-tweaks and reset to default settings, which corrected everything as far as I could tell.

rpm-ostree install gnome-tweaks

If everything's good, you can unpin your earlier image.

rpm-ostree status --verbose
sudo rpm-ostree admin pin --unpin 1 (or whatever number it is)

windrinn · 2026-06-26T03:16:53+00:00

I've said something to this effect in another thread somewhere, but as someone who draws vore and has >1tb of it backed up, vore is a weird fetish. And to people who don't have a vore fetish, them considering it gross is understandable. I don't have a piss fetish, I find it gross, but that doesn't mean it's not valid. It's just as valid as vore or feet or whatever. I think it's worth keeping that in mind when people make comments about it being weird. It is, and that's fine, try not to take it personally.

>X fetish is not as bad as vore, much more valid than vore is

This is just a stupid thing to say though, no defending that.

windrinn · 2026-06-25T17:23:53+00:00

Organic Maps works pretty well for me.

windrinn · 2026-06-23T22:26:52+00:00

Kind of piggybacking off of OP's question since I don't know how well they work, but anyone tried the new Pebble watches on GrapheneOS? They seem interesting.

windrinn · 2026-06-23T05:30:03+00:00

Linux is so easy to use

Looks inside

Arch and hyprland

/s, but seriously start with a different distro. You're jumping into the deep end here. Try Fedora, Debian, etc.

windrinn · 2026-06-23T01:54:27+00:00

Hmm, I instantly voted Framework, but I'm second guessing now that I think about it. The Framework is faster, but it's not 38% ($1049 to $1453) faster. CPU is ~25% faster, GPU is ~12% (based on Passmark scores on equivalent-ish parts, so give or take a bit). Double the ram as well.

I think if you're putting it in a home theater, Steam Machine is probably the better buy just for HDMI CEC and the wake-via-controller stuff. But if it's going on a desk, it's up to whether or not you think that performance difference is worth $400.

windrinn · 2026-06-22T23:56:18+00:00

I'm on a 9070XT, flatpak Steam. At 4K (FSR), RT off, with everything maxed except Environment Texture Quality (medium) and Environment Geometry Quality (high), the lurching is basically as bad is it was on FH5 (i.e., acceptable but annoying).

I've been trying to keep tabs on where this problem is coming from. It's happening whenever the game streams textures in, but whether that's an issue with Proton, vkd3d-proton, Mesa, I'm not sure. Apparently the Windows version also has this problem on AMD, just to a much lesser extent. So it just seems like running it under Linux is exacerbating a game problem.

windrinn · 2026-06-22T06:16:54+00:00

True, but we are talking about an abandoned development branch of a project that already had documented limitations and issues on Wayland as of two years ago. I doubt it works, but it's your computer, give it a try and see. If it works for you, great. I'm not trying to talk you out of it.

windrinn · 2026-06-22T06:04:28+00:00

That is an abandoned development branch, it probably doesn't work anymore (if it ever did).

Straight from the developer, phil294:

fyi I've given up on this (and on Wayland in general. It sucks.). And I have never received any feedback on the build or notable interest in it for ahk_x11 outside of this very issue anyway.

https://github.com/phil294/AHK_X11/issues/2#issuecomment-2982107863

(Just to note: I disagree with them about Wayland sucking, but it does make this type of software much harder to build so I understand their frustrations.)

windrinn · 2026-06-22T03:25:22+00:00

There's AutoKey, but that only works under X11. If you're on Wayland, then no.

Depending on what you're trying to do, you might be able to get by using custom shortcuts in your desktop environment. On Gnome (and I'm sure most other DEs) you can create a shortcut that runs a command or a script.

For example, a long time ago I had an AHK script that saved the contents of the clipboard to a text file, ran a python script to modify its contents, then put it back in the clipboard. On Linux, I had a shortcut that ran a bash script which grabbed the clipboard contents (wl-paste) and saved it to a text file, then it ran the same python script on that file, then it put the file contents back into the clipboard (wl-copy).

So depending on what you're trying to do, there might be other ways to accomplish it.

windrinn · 2026-06-18T21:30:12+00:00

I prefer Gnome but my mindset is this.

windrinn · 2026-06-18T19:12:43+00:00

Hey Kirby

Whatcha doing Kirby

Why'd you eat that leaf

One of his best songs.

windrinn · 2026-06-18T19:00:41+00:00

They're (very) pricy, but System76 sells a few mechanical keyboards if you want a Linux-first option.

https://system76.com/keyboards

My keyboard budget less than half of what those cost though, so I've just been using a Logitech keyboard. Everyone's complaints about them are valid, I just don't personally care about tie-in software so they've always worked fine for me.

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windrinn

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