DFX4509B

I’ve been using the browser client.

That’s odd given GCN1 and 2 will fully work in Linux with a compatibility toggle to enable AMDGPU support set in the kernel parameters, and GCN3 and newer natively supports AMDGPU without that toggle being required.

Even older dGPUs like the R9 270/270X or 280/280X, hell, even the R9 290/290X or 390/390X (R9 390/390X is just a faster 290/290X which ships with 8GB VRAM as standard issue), while admittedly pushing it a little, will also work fine for most indie titles and even truly ancient (as in DX9-era and earlier, think stuff like Silent Hill 2 which launched in 2002 for the PC) AAA stuff, you’ll just need to manually enable a compatibility toggle for GCN1 or GCN2 cards to work with AMDGPU in DIY distros like Arch or Gentoo while last time I thought some prebuilt distros like Fedora enabled it by default.

These are the compatibility toggles you’ll need to set in kernel parameters for GCN1 and GCN2 cards to work with AMDGPU if they’re not set already. GCN3 and newer natively supports AMDGPU without needing said toggles.

amdgpu.si_support=1 amdgpu.cik_support=1

Except AFAIK loose mainboards aimed at the DIY market, as well as barebones kits, don’t ship with SecureBoot turned on by default and an off switch for that is mandatory to the PC spec.

So you’re suggesting MS will somehow block non-Windows OSes from installing, even on hardware like loose mainboards for building your own PC with, or even on barebones mini PC kits or certain laptop SKUs, which don’t ship with an OS installed to begin with and expect the user to install it themselves? I mean, unless something extreme happens like changing the entire PC platform to be like the current Macs, that won’t be feasible.

Also, doing that would kill the Steam Deck which I doubt Valve would take sitting down.

Good luck locking loose mainboards sold for the DIY market, which don’t come with anything installed by default, to a given OS, the only way that could maybe work is forcing the OS in ROM.

Another way would be to discontinue the socketed desktop form factors and replace them all with mini PCs that are as locked down as the current Macs.

Good thing PCs aren’t locked into Windows.

I’ve been happily running the mesa-dev stack (mesa-tkg-git from the chaotic-aur repo) both on semi-current hardware (an RX 6600 that’s sidelined by a bad fan atm) and somewhat older hardware (the Vega 56 I’m using as a backup because it’s my second best card after the RX 6600) for a while now so I don’t know what you’re doing.

That I played with on an old Pentium II rig? The now-defunct Crunchbang (Bunsen Labs is that distro’s successor).

That I actually used as a daily driver? Ubuntu 12.10.

I’ve been daily-driving Linux for well over a decade at this point and have pretty much settled on Arch now after multiple distro-hops in that timespan.

The Steam Deck is at least trying to attract the casual users in, and I feel like the Switch 2 getting hammered with bad press right now and getting destroyed by the Nintendo fanbase might convert a few people over to the Steam Deck too.

That sucks, how long before DR goes full Adobe and starts moving to a subscription model? And how long before Blackmagic paywalls some features on their cine cams like Canon started doing on their still cams?

I thought for sure the free version of DR was still a fully-featured suite and didn’t paywall anything ala Adobe, and what you got with the paid version was an actual upgrade over an already pretty powerful app.

DaVinci Resolve also has a free version that’s a fully-featured editor with nothing locked behind a paywall, the benefit from buying the paid version is you get an actual upgrade in functionality over the already-pretty-powerful free version.

However it’s still a proprietary app so if that bothers you, then KdenLive seems like a good FOSS alternative to that.

Also, Endeavour is a thing if someone is a true newbie to the platform and is looking for a prebuilt distro, and archinstall nullifies a lot of the ‘difficulty’ in airquotes of installing Arch.

The general point I’m trying at is just sending a newbie straight off the deep end instead of letting them in easy to start off with and letting them move on to greater challenges on their own when they feel like they’re ready for it, is going to hurt the cause of presenting Linux as a viable Windows or Mac alternative, way more than it’ll help it.

Just pointing someone just ditching Windows or Mac for the first time with no terminal experience at all, straight to Arch, Gentoo, or even Slackware, is only going to fluster them and maybe even piss them off, which the last thing you want to do when introducing someone to a new platform, is alienate them in any way as opposed to welcoming them in, which pointing them straight to a more challenging distro instead of letting them on easy with a more beginner-friendly one and letting them move on to a more challenging one when they’re ready for it, will definitely alienate potential new users.

Think of introducing someone to a new OS platform for the first time, as if you’re teaching someone how to draw for the first time, for example, ideally you’d pick fun and simple exercises to teach them the basics before going into the deeper intricacies of the subject matter at a later date if they continue to be interested in the subject matter, pointing a new Linux user to something like Debian or OpenSUSE, or even Mint so they can learn the basics of the OS platform before moving on to a more advanced distro like Arch or Slackware, is the IT equivalent of that.

I’m of the opinion that if you’re a newbie to Linux and want to use a more GUI-centric distro, then be my guest, telling someone to jump straight into something like Arch when they’re just ditching Windows for the first time is more likely to just turn them off Linux forever.

That said, as said newbie gets more comfortable with the terminal, Arch is there if they want more of a challenge, and even then with archinstall, the main difficult part is effectively nullified, although for more advanced, long-term users, fully manual installation is still there on the Arch ISO as an option, but I’d be more likely to point them to something like Debian or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed to start with as those are generally more beginner-friendly than Arch is.

Even for Doom3, both vanilla and BFG, and RTCW, Steam versions included, Lutris allows you to install native community ports for those pretty easily too.

Then it’ll support Rockbox. I would recommend flash-retrofitting it for long-term reliability if it hasn’t been retrofitted already, though, the spinning rust is a known weak point on older iPods.

Even on older kernels, if anything hardware like GPUs will benefit more from running newer drivers than a newer kernel, ie. AMD cards from GCN1 up to present-day RDNA3 are actively being supported by Mesa and the dev branch generally tends to have more optimizations especially for newer cards but also older ones as well, than the latest stable branch.

The EL distros - CentOS Stream, Alma, and Rocky, all have a package which allows you to install a manufacturer repo that lets you install the latest AMD drivers from, for example, and CentOS Stream 10 and Alma 10 are both on the 6.12 kernel now.

Like I said, it’s rare especially for games, it’s more common in productivity software though…

cough Adobe… cough

The current standard DRM for the games industry, Denuvo, will work in Proton.