Vanilla gnome isn’t for me so I used to install some extensions when I used it.

After a few hopping, I stopped using Gnome, because I find that painful to :

• install the extension app (the one that allow you to download and manage the extensions, and that is usually not the one installed, it might have changed, as I stopped using Gnome for a year or even more)
• install the extensions I want
• configure the extensions

On KDE, I just have to set it as I need it.

If you do not change distributions everyday, then it’s not a big issue I guess.

But it might be troublesome for beginners trying distributions that have vanilla-close gnome to know that extensions exist. My needs are not complicated, so I only used extensions that allow me to have a dock on both of my screens, and to have the minimize button.

Go to settings;

type "build number " in the search bar;

click on the build number until you’re a dev.

Go into developer options;

type “background process limit”;

Choose the maximum number of applications you want to have in background.

Profit

What an horror ! What are you gonna do ? Use your working system ? That’s sad…

It will create a default profile in your home (games/heroic/Prefixes) where everything will be installed, and if you have steam installed, it will detect the proton version of steam, and use it.

If some dependencies of the game are not installed, you’ll be able to run winetricks and install it in the profile of the game or to use steam runtime.

Using Windows-only games on Linux is getting better at an impressive rate those last years. There is more and more games working out of the box with steam or heroic. But yeah, sometimes, you just have to give up (or use Windows ).

Try the heroic game launcher. It usually works well. It let you log into gog, epic and prime account and games easily.

If the game doesn’t run well, try your luck on protondb to see if there is a way to fix it : https://www.protondb.com/app/22380

I’ve install the gog version of fallout 1 with the heroic game launcher, it worked out of the box. Maybe you’ll have some luck with new Vegas.

Linux has been the biggest rabbit hole I’ve been in. There are too many distribution for me to choose one without testing as much as I can. It made me change what I wanted/needed. I went from “I don’t want to use CLI at all” to “man, GUI is too slow for that”.

I tried many Debian children and grand children distributions, Fedora based ones (Nobara, atomics bases,…), Opensuse, NixOS, Solus, arch based distributions…

Now, I’m on cachyOS, that seems to be the good balance I need (for now), between GUI/already configured and “I can do it the way I want”.

One year after starting using Linux, I’ve switched from a 3060ti to a 6700xt, just because it made hopping easier.

If you exclude me not being able to settle down on a distro, Linux is a funny experience to me. My needs are not that big, as I just play some games, have a light need of an office suite. I can do anything I used to to in windows, but without Microsoft and his friends looking above my shoulder.

KDE : it’s the only DE where I can have 2 identical panels (app pined+ full system tray) on each of my 2 screens without installing extensions.

KDE can do what I want without having to look for extensions. Breeze theme is good enough for me, I don’t need to look for something else. So far it’s the best out of the box experience I had.

I prefer Gnome look, but I distr’hop too often to have the courage to setup the desktop every time.

GNOME with dash to panel. It allow you to clone it I guess. dash to dock allow you to copy the dock, so only the applications, not the systray.

KDE allows you to create panels on every screen, with the systray. You’ll have to replicate them manually (pin the applications or whatever you put on your first panel).

Others DE I tried had flaws for that :

Cinnamon cannot have all the systray on the second panel.

Budgie doesn’t allow you to have a panel on the second screen (but you can clone the panel on the same screen).

Mint is far better, I usually recommand it. But Ubuntu is still more popular.

I didn’t use Manjaro in many years, so I can’t judge it. The biggest problem I see with Manjaro is that it has access to AUR.

Manjaro has its own repos, and they take more time to release packages than Arch, which can be a good thing stability wise. But if you have applications from AUR installed then you might have conflicts with the dependencies needed and the dependencies used by the system.

As I said, I didn’t use Manjaro in a while, so I don’t know if it still a problem. If it is, then it’s a shame that the biggest advantage of Arch, the AUR, become that much a risk for the system.

I’ve seen a video where the guy installed steam on Ubuntu 24.04. Of course it was the snap. The guy usually tests distro to see of it’s easy to game on it. If the drivers are easy to install, etc…

He usually launches steam, then tests Valheim, Overwatch, Tomb Raider and cyberpunk.

Overwatch didn’t launch, cyberpunk neither. Valheim reported that a service didn’t launch. Tomb raider was OK.

Then he uninstalled the steam snap and installed the .deb one. Everything worked.

Enforcing packages is already something that people don’t appreciate on Linux, enforcing packages that don’t work is surprisingly hated.

Ubuntu is supposed to be a distro for beginners, how am I supposed to recommand a distro when I have no confidence the applications will work ?

It is on izzyOnDroid repo :).

It depends on the DE you use. I only know about 3 of them :

KDE can put as many panel as you want with all the system tray you want. You’ll have to pine the applications on each panel individually.

On Gnome, you’ll have to install extensions as dash to panel to have a panel that can be cloned.

On Cinnamon, you’ll be able to create a panel on the second screen, pine applications on it, but not all of system tray can be duplicate. There is a ticket opened for that : https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/issues/9889

there are a few options to make gog/epic games works with heroic, if it doesn’t work out of the box :

• using proton from steam/GE
• using steam runtime
• using protondb to know what to tweak the launch options or windows component to download via wine tricks
• copy the game in steam.

I’ve seen that a protondb user posted about cyberpunk 2077 working on heroic launcher. I hope you’ll manage to have it too.

I don’t use a Nvidia card, nor play Starfield, but I’ve seen some videos explaining that Nvidia drivers 535 don’t work well with Starfield. People had to downgrad to 530 or 525 to have it work. I don’t know if nvidia released new drivers since, but if you have issues trying Starfield, you can keep an eye on that.

They plan to do it. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/09/05/uniform-or-standard-outfit-details-of-experiment-in-french-schools-to-be-unveiled-in-the-fall_6124790_7.html

So… I believe I’m old now…

*insert “I’m in this meme and I don’t like it” picture.

Starfield works on linux since day one… If you have an AMD graphic card. I’ve seen that it’s more complicated on Nvidia.

I put in my previous message one of the most important reason, if not the most important, why it is difficult to have good data about the mask efficiency. Here it is again : Relatively low numbers of people followed the guidance about wearing masks or about hand hygiene, which may have affected the results of the studies. If you can not trust the people you use as data, you can not trust your results, and for something as trivial as wearing a mask, we have seen that people cannot be trusted… So, how can you produce proof that masks work ?

Yes surgical masks are effective. Not 100%, but they have a good efficiency to prevent people to spread the desease. They stop the biggest dropplets when you speak or cought, no debate. They also stop smaller particles because of the electrostatic effects and the diffusion effects. Also, the mask mesh doesn’t look like a football net. It’s more like a dense forest. Adding to that the fact than small particles don’t move in straight lines ( brownian movement ), it makes the surgical masks have a non neglectible efficency.

The main reasons surgical masks are recommended above the others (n95/p2),are that other masks are more disturbing to wear and they cost more than surgical masks.

"Our confidence in these results is generally low to moderate for the subjective outcomes related to respiratory illness, but moderate for the more precisely defined laboratory-confirmed respiratory virus infection, related to masks and N95/P2 respirators. The results might change when further evidence becomes available. Relatively low numbers of people followed the guidance about wearing masks or about hand hygiene, which may have affected the results of the studies. "

Yeah… They are not really confident about their results… You can find studies that show effectiveness of the mask in a few clics : https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/egcenter-discussion-paper-series/1086/

Soooo, I will continue to think that the mask is effective against viruses spreading by air. Knowing that n95/P2 masks protect mostly the person who wear them and surgical masks protect mostly people from the wearer.

Are you using garuda ?

A friend of mine tried it and found garuda’s tool really useful, but while setting his firewall, he realised that garuda send lots of data. It made him uninstall it immediatly.

If it’s a concern for you, you might want to check that.