I, a Linux user, agree that there is work to be done, but I disagree with the “this needs to change first” on proprietary software availability. Specifically the “first” bit.

Let me explain why: The problem of software availability is a chicken and egg problem. No users on an OS = no developers make stuff for it = no users because there is no software.

With Wine/Proton, Valve “fixed” this issue for gamers. This “opened the floodgates”, and at least in one group of computer users, made Linux viable as a daily driver. People who play video games are diverse, and have different needs for software outside gaming, so this change grew the userbase of every category of software in Linux, not just games.

With an actual userbase comes both a community of people, who are all potential contributors for FOSS, whether that’s programming, docs, or reporting issues. And a marketshare for businesses to target (and profit off of).

The ball has clearly started rolling, Linux is gaining marketshare at a pace it hasn’t seen before. The bigger the userbase gets, the more software will work overall. The more software, the more people who can switch.

There isn’t a single definable point where software availability suddenly makes a userbase appear, these two grow together.

So yes, there is work to be done, but no, it doesn’t “need to change first”.

A lot of people find out after using Linux that it’s perfect for their daily tasks. A lot of other people never bother, and thus never find out. With Windows 10 EOL coming up, and MS pushing more and more onto users (like recall and copilot), a portion of people forced to switch will look for alternatives, or will try out Linux because they’ve heard of it as an alternative.

As for your other arguments:

too much different distros not always compatible one with another

Which used to be true, but is significantly better than even a couple years ago. “Standardized” packaging like Flatpak makes a ton of software available on all distros, ensuring compatibility. Valve took a shot at this too with Steam Linux Runtime, but this hasn’t seen any use outside Steam.

depending on the distro also often an deficient support and maintance,

For the vast majority of distros, no. Though I agree that we (the community as a whole) should stop accepting terrible resources for finding Linux distros (like “top 10 distros” lists that make no sense to a new user) and push for better ones.

certain driver problems, among others.

Which is being solved too. “driver problems” is exclusively Nvidia, but the issues are (very slowly) being fixed (by nvidia), and distros are offering easy options for getting the Nvidia drivers. Nouveau/NVK is also on the slow cooker, but I trust it’ll come out great. “Among others” is not a valid reason.

Not good if an still minority OS is above to diversified, which cause a lot of problems for the devs of software.

Which fits into the point of Flatpaks for proprietary software, and highlights where FOSS truly shines. Flatpaks standardize the runtime, proprietary software only needs to support this one standard to support all distros. FOSS devs can target whatever they want for their project. If “works on my machine” is good enough for them, so be it. (People will always complain about stuff like this though). If a distro wants to officially provide some open source software to its users, it has to be packaged. With the packaging process for a distro, modifications might need to be made, which can often be contributed back to upstream.

To dethrone Windows as leader of the market does it still need a lot of work in many environments.

It’s a lot closer than you think. It’s already a viable daily driver for many. The biggest blocker is the fact that MS is a global megacorp, with advertising, OEM “support”, and a lot of money to “persuade” people and companies to use Windows.

OEM support also ties into the whole “choosing a distro”. I trust that even the worst OEMs choose at least a supported distro, which takes all pressure away from the user. When Linux marketshare grows enough for OEMs to provide the option, the least technical users going to a brick and mortar store will be presented with “100$ cheaper, but looks different than your current computer”. If Windows UI keeps being as inconsistent as it currently is, it would have similar impact for non-technical users going between Windows N and N+1 as it does going to Linux.

The Steam Deck is a PC. The most console-like PC experience you can get, but still a PC.

If you notice things are missing, feel free to contribute to OpenStreetMap. For example, by using StreetComplete. If you add the map details that are missing, it makes the map more useful for everyone.

Nope, that was an AI “BrandShield” complaining about “fraud & phishing” at Itch.io registrar (iwantmyname), who then ignored their response to those claims.

Similar thing here, but with itch we know it was some lazy ass company trusting on AI, and a shitty domain registrar failing to listen to its customers. Cloudflare provides techdirt with other services (afaik), and didn’t entirely remove the website. Plus, they responded within a reasonable timeframe.

This is not standard for a ton of reasons, just look at TABG. Boneworks/BONELAB are two more games that behave somewhat similar, but they’re both VR titles.

I don’t own one, so I can’t guarantee the following: Compared to other PCVR headsets, the screen is very high quality, the tracking is easy to set up, it’s not a facebook headset, and the price is still very good compared to other non-facebook offerings.

Eye tracking on PC would’ve allowed for “foveated rendering”, a technique where only the part you are directly looking at is rendered in high quality, with peripheral vision rendered at lower resolution. Even very powerful desktop PCs are going to struggle rendering the full resolution of the PSVR2s displays.

Please look up reviews, and check if the headset is compatible with the games you want to play, before purchasing one.

Of course it would be less than on PlayStation. Game developers on PC don’t have features like headset feedback and adaptive triggers built into their games, and the standard VR protocols (afaik) do not support stuff like that.

The main thing that’s disappointing is eye tracking being unavailable. There’s no technical reason for them to not expose that, and would’ve made the PSVR2 one of the best PCVR headsets.

It really depends how the release turns out. Eye tracking is often used in social VR games like VRChat, and it can help increase peformance, but that often requires setup. The other “features” are not standard or completely lacking in PC VR, like “headset feedback” or adaptive triggers. These wouldn’t be used in any games even if the hardware/software was capable of it.

Compared to the Valve Index, the PSVR2 has a higher screen resolution, OLED, no finger tracking (different controllers), and inside-out tracking instead of base station tracking. It looks like a really good option, at a really good price (compared to other “consumer” PC VR headets like the Index). From what I can tell, you’re not really “missing” any major hardware features when using PSVR2 on a PC compared to an Index (depends on implementation, will be obvious at release). Although the lack of eye tracking when the hardware is capable is kind of a bummer.

Wait this one out for initial reviews, but if those are good, the PSVR2 seems like a very good option for PC VR (Although only “casual”, like playing games, social vr, etc. compared to “competitive” like very high level play at Beat Saber, shooters, etc).

Do note that this is just looking at PC VR exclusive headsets. “Standalone” headsets like the Meta Quest lineup offer similar VR hardware specs at a similar or lower cost. These come with the downside of having to “stream” from a PC rather than using raw display output (for games not natively supported on the headset). The privacy aspect of standalone headsets needs to be considered too. Most run a version of Android, which comes with just as much (or more) telemetry as an average Android smartphone.

As for being tethered, you get used to it pretty quickly. The main problem is that the cable is being used, and will break after some time. They are often expensive to replace, like on the Index. With standalone headsets, the cable is often USB-C and a lot cheaper to replace. I don’t know how replacement cables for the PSVR2 are handled.

I thought you were referring to Lemmy as a whole. I haven’t visited the linked site, but judging by the post it’s probably AI.

Not the entire site, but definitely some accounts and communities.

I did buy an index and I wouldn’t be able to go back to full “inside-out” camera tracking. Just doesn’t work for some games.

This is a very rushed update. SteamVR on Windows will be lacking some features a lot of people got used to, but it runs. (Main one I ran into so far is screenshot management, but a lot of the big picture mode UI is not accessible due to a controller being required to push buttons)

SteamVR on Linux however, is a complete mess. It was also a mess on SteamVR 1.x, but 2.0 broke so many things. Launching any of the included apps such as room setup, changing settings, taking screenshots. I really hope they add the last 1.x version as an update branch for compatibility reasons, 2.0 is simply not ready on Linux.

Also, good luck everyone on the keyboard. It’s supposed to have support for using multiple controllers, but it has been dropping and duplicating keypresses for me.

Crackers often only patch out the DRM to redistribute a pirated copy of a game. If it is a game from a small studio, something like Goldberg is enough to “crack” the game, and it wouldn’t remove any of the Unity telemetry.

Ah yes, because it’s that difficult to spoof a new PC. You can run a tool similar to a kernel level anti cheat “ban bypass”, run the game, and cost the developer up to 20 cents. With a relatively simple script, this can be done many times per hour on a single PC, easily racking up cost for the developers.

This is a bad idea, no matter how you implement it. If it goes through, it will be abused.

What would stop that from repeating? Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.

The whole point of EEE is to leave the original project in a messy state. With most of the fediverse userbase being “Meta Threads” users, developing anything for other fediverse software or making it somehow incompatible with Threads is not a (good) option. With a decent chunk of software and side projects being only compatible with the Threads “extended” (and likely undocumented) version of ActivityPub, Meta still has the ability to pull the plug on all of those. A lot of Mastodon users will become used to having interactions with friends on Threads, and will be forced to switch over by the time Meta kills federation.

It’s not just “a doom and gloom post”, it’s a valid concern that the communities and environments built up over years will get killed off, with a known strategy for doing so. Why else would Meta (Facebook) suddenly play nice with federated platforms, when their history is to buy out or kill off competitors?

Is everyone here forgetting that Embrace Extend Extinguish is a thing? “Having the option to follow friends on Threads from Mastodon” will lead to the downfall and eventual death of the rest of the fediverse.

https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html