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Steam survey for June 2024, Linux still above 2%
  • Most as in SteamOS + Arch = 49.25%.

    It's interesting how fragmented the Linux user base is in the survey. Excluding steam deck from the equation, the visible versions of Ubuntu are getting roughly 18.6%, Arch is getting like 14% of the desktop and Mint 21.3 getting 8.5%. The Flatpak version does put confusion into the data (hiding 11% of desktop versions) and the missing "other" 22.94% group accounts for 39% of the desktops so there may be lots of other version fragments hidden away, but regardless no single distro version seem to dominate.

    It'd be nice to see the whole list.

  • Nvidia 555 drivers causing no display on secondary monitor
  • Have you tried connecting both via display port or both via HDMI?

    Not that that should matter normally, but good starting point in trying to get around what may be a bug?

    Edit: just remembered I've been having intermitten problems with my 2nd display since last nvidia driver if I have my vr head set plugged in to the 3rd port (even off). When i unplugged it and restarted I got my desktop loading as normal.

  • Am I overthinking it?
  • Atomic systems or rpm-ostree is an interesting concept and may well be the future of distributing linux, but it has a lot of compromises. It may not be the first place to start when leaving windows.

    The problem is all the apps and things you may wish to do with your OS. Flatpak is the preferred method of installing apps as it doesn't interfere with the OS, but that is a compromise that means more overhead for running apps including memory and disk space, and less integration with the host OS than traditional apps.

    You can overlay native apps but the more you overlay onto the immutable os, the more complex upgrading gets and the risks of breaking stuff.

    I'm not sure I would be starting with an immutable OS when switching away from windows. While it has a lot of theoretical benefits, its a work in progress and with significant compromises at the moment. Your VPN may just be the first of many programmes you find you need to overlay.

    I personally would look at a more traditional install, get it working how you like and if you find Linux works as a permanent home then think about how you might recreate that with an immutable OS base. If your needs a re very simple then maybe it'll be easy, but if you're using lots of software and tools (particularly if its not available Flatpak) or custom OS config you may find atomic desktops are not yet quite ready for you.

    It could be frustrating and off putting if you try linux immutable, find loads of problems and attribute that to linux when its actually the immutable OS that's the cause.

  • America’s big problem is not Joe Biden, it’s the menace to democracy posed by Donald Trump
  • Interesting headline - its disconnected from the content of the article. Most of it is about how broken the US electoral system is.

    The important point is that an electoral and political system that was designed to protect from the "tyranny of the majority" has instead created a system perpetuating the tyranny of the minority.

    Americans are indoctrinated to think theirs in the greatest country on earth from a very young age. But the political system is an absolute mess - the electoral college, the senate (which is totally skewed in favour of small states), the supreme court and politicised legal system, and the embedded 2 party system.

    Trump isn't a threat to democracy. Democracy in the US has been dead for a long while now. It vaguely worked when there was a post war consensus but now it's completely log jammed. And nobody has a plan to fix it because they can't.

  • OpenLoco: Modern, open source version of the classic transport simulation game
  • This is great, Locomotion was a good game in its own right. Hopefully this will be an opportunity to change and fix the game a little going forward - its a game that never quite reached its full potential although already a good game.

    Thanks for sharing! I'm going to download it and try it with my gog version. Its 80% off now on fog now BTW.

  • We Need to Talk About the State of Calendar Software on Desktop
  • I disagree - Outlook is a walled garden of closed standards, and it makes users vulnerable to the whims of Microsoft or dependent entirely on their office ecosystem.

    The recent outlook hack with senior accounts hacked and only being informed by Microsoft of the hack 1 year later is a good example.

    Outlook is superficially good but essentially big businesses and organisations are locked in to a proprietary system for email and calendars and entirely reliant on Microsoft to keep their data secure.

    I'm actually surprised Antitrust laws aren't used to break up the Office 365 monopoly. Only the teams integration is being challenged but the tight integration between Outlook, Office and OneDrive is monopolistic. Other services could integrate in the same way if Microsoft was forced to open up its APIs, which would be good for competition and customers.

    At the moment you pretty much have to go all in with Office or forgo major integration benefits if you want to use different cloud or mail services. Why do you need 1 single provider for office software, mail and cloud storage?

  • We Need to Talk About the State of Calendar Software on Desktop
  • Well they said themselves why there is not a focus on desktop apps: web apps work well. I use proton calendar for my personal calendar. For work I use outlook. For both I access via phone apps or web browser on my desktop.

    The big problem with calendar desktop apps is not the apps, it's how they sync and share. You have either ICS or caldav.

    The biggest problem is Microsoft Office. It partially supports ICS and is a nightmare to work with Exchange calendars. Most Microsoft clients (84% apparently) are hosted in Microsoft cloud services, and Microsoft is removing EWS support in 2026 (which Thunderbird is working to support). Microsoft's own Graph api for cloud access is limited preventing some basic desktop features.

    So existing calendar software is fine if you use good services that support standards. Its bad if you're locked into the proprietary Microsoft ecosystem. Mac calendar tools will hit the same problems in 2026 when EWS support is dropped.

    There is basically no incentive to work on these tools with Exchange because its a deliberately walled garden. But Thunderbird and other desktop calendar apps are decent, they just don't support Outlook/Exchange.

    Its on businesses to challenge why Microsoft keeps their data walled within a proprietary system. Security may be an argument but that's a little flimsy when you see how very senior outlook accounts have been accessed by hackers and Microsoft has been keeping it quiet. Theyve only started contacting people now to tell them their emails maybhave been accessed after a major hack last year. And were talking CEO level account access.

  • A private call of top Democrats fuels more insider anger about Biden's debate performance
  • And there is the problem laid bare - there are too many people associated with the campaign who have a vested interest in it continuing, and are unable or unwilling to step back and listen.

    Its been blindingly obvious for the last 18 months that Biden is a very bad choice for the democratic nomination. But the entire discourse has been dominated by an attitude that if you don't support biden, you're basically support trump.

    It is the Biden supporters who are going to hand the presidency on a silver platter to Trump.

    They need to step back and look at the bigger picture. This is not just some Republican talking point to reflexively ignore and fight against. Biden IS too old, and he DOES come across as confused. And he is making trump look better by comparison - he is lowering the bar of expectation and scrutiny of trump because the focus is on Bidens age and mental capacity.

    The democrats have to ditch biden right now and begin the urgebt search for a better, younger candidate to unite behind. Its already very late in the day but every day they continue with Biden is another wasted.

  • Are there any better apps for viewing Google Sheets on mobile?
  • In this situation I'd save a copy of the sheet to my phone in a standard format and use a non google app. The file itself can be backed up to on line storage and remain accessible from multiple devices but you remove it from googles walled garden.

    On android if you want open source then Collabra is a full office suite based on LibreOffice. Alternatively LibreOffice Viewer is the official libre app - ok for viewing files but with an experimental mode for editing (not really ready for editing yet).

    WPS Office is a free office suite with add or paid version which has a good reputation.

    Microsoft Office is also an option.

    If you want to stay with google sheets and just view the file offline then try saving a copy to your phone in a different format and view that with the Google spreadsheet app (if it can still do that). But I'd take the pop up as a sign that its time to move on from googles shitty products.

  • My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore
  • Unfortunately for many, even in this day and age, there is not much choice. I main linux but also keep Windows on my PC as there are still tines when something will only work in Windows. Usually work related or gaming (VR in particular for me) and in fairness its increasingly rare.

    Many other users aren't motivated to change. For Microsoft, its a bit like boiling a frog - if you turn up the heat slowly the frog just puts up with it. That's what Microsoft is doing to its customers - a slow constant enshittification, seeing what it can get away with. Try something and it causes outrage? Don't worry, just undo it and just try again in a few years! Many are already used to no privacy and being sold as a commodity that they don't even question it happening on their own personal computer.

  • McDonalds removes AI drive-throughs after order errors
  • That is then not a technology ready for mass use. That would be McDonalds paying IBM to let it beta test (or alpha test it seems) its software for them.

    And the only way to check the order would be to listen to each order and confirm the order is correct - so totally duplicating the AI's job. It then becomes "what's the point" for McDonalds?

    AI tools at present are broken and not fit for purpose.

  • McDonalds removes AI drive-throughs after order errors
  • AI is and always has been a bullshit technology. Its no where near as capable as its proponents in tech industry have been claiming. Its all driven by greed to feed into a stock price frenzy but its the emperor's new clothes. In the future it may be something useful but at present even the tools that exist are unreliable and broken.

    Self Drive Cars is different, very much a Tesla issue rather than generalised. Tesla has a first move advantage but then Elon Musk blew it by forcing his engineers to cut back on sensors and tech to save money because he knows best. Other self drive manufacturers are doing well and even have licenses to test their fully featured systems in multiple locations.

    AI is a generally crap technology (maybe in the future it will be something useful). Self Drive is a generally myself up technology, except at Tesla where they went for the crap unworkable version.

  • Worst prediction ever
  • No one seems to have actually read the article, just the headline. This is the ultimate click bait title - kudos to the headline writer in 1939.

    The tl/dr: It's saying Hitler's authoritarian actions were galvanising other countries to step up and protect democracy after the failures after WW1.

    In the final paragraph:

    It is one of the most interesting phenomena of Hitler's political activity that it has resulted in bringing about so soon such an overwhelming and unprecedented manifestation of defensive solidarity amongst the democratic peoples.

    And the final line of the article:

    It would be the height of paradox if Hitler, of all persons, were destined by his statesmanship finally "to make the world safe for Democracy."

    The article is surprisingly prescient.

  • www.eurogamer.net New York Times takedown domino effect hits nearly 2000 Wordle clones

    The New York Times has issued a takedown notice to Reactle, a Wordle clone, which has meant around 1900 other versions …

    New York Times takedown domino effect hits nearly 2000 Wordle clones

    The New York Times has used a DMCA take down notice to remove an open source Wordle clone called Reactle

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    VLC Scaling issues on 4K KDE (Fix)

    I'd been having problems with the scale of the VLC interface at 4K on my Linux machine (KDE Plasma, Wayland).

    I found a solution from a mix of previous solutions for Windows and other Linux solutions which did not work for me. The problem is with QT (which is used by VLC) and the linux solution was to put extra lines in the /etc/environment file but I found while this fixed VLC it mucked up all other QT apps including my Plasma desktop.

    The solution is to use VLC flatpak and set the environment variables for the VLC flatpak app only using Flatseal or the Flatpak Permission Settings in KDE.

    Add two Environment variable: > Variable name: QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR > Variable value: 0 > > Variable name: QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS > Variable value: 2

    For the second variable, scale_factors, set it to match the scaling you use on your desktop. 1.0 means 100%, 1.5 is 150%, 2 is 200% and so on. My desktop is set to 225% scaling, so I set mine to 2.25 and it worked. In the end I went up to 3 for VLC because I liked the interface even more at that scale (it's a living room TV Linux machine)

    Hopefully this will help other people using VLC in Linux.

    If you don't want to use Flatpak, you can add the same variables to your /etc/environment file (in the format QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=0) but be warned you may get jank elsewhere. This may be less problematic outside of KDE Plasma as that is QT based desktop environment. For Windows users it is a similar problem with QT and there are posts out there about where to put the exact same variables to fix the problem.

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    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)BA
    BananaTrifleViolin @lemmy.world
    Posts 2
    Comments 274