Linux continues its rise in Steam Survey
My first one to switch did so recently. Gave him an open offer to help get going if he ever got interested, then proceeded to just go about using my linux system for our multiplayer gaming and couch gaming hangouts.
It took a little less than three years from when I first switched for him to follow.
My sister is also on linux, has been since she took my gaming laptop as her own, and she never felt a need to switch it back to windows.
Well, I'd start with physical buttons. Forget stuff like face ID. A button that scans your fingerprint is a lot simpler to "get". Same goes for volume keys.
Automatic screen brightness is pretty good, but if it weren't a thing, buttons would work there. That's how laptops do it.
I'd add a feature that makes certain settings reset to "default" after a configurable amount of time (or never). Airplane mode or mute could turn off over night, so grandma can never "disable" her phone and become unreachable, or unable to reach anyone. (Except by turning it off, a concept almost no-one has to be taught)
Give me the ability to disable quick settings in the notifications shade, grandma doesn't need to toggle nfc, wifi, her data connection, or start screen recording (I literally tried to remove all the quick settings, but there's a minimum!). Hell, get rid of the notification shade completely and make it a physical button that just opens your messages from whatsapp, sms and email, all in one list.
I don't think we need to dumb down everything a phone can do. And I think we can assume an elderly person can get help with changing settings or setting it up to begin with. As such, what I wish fir, is for the simple stuff to be even simpler, and for the complicated stuff to be hidden away and essentially have configurable child locks, so they can't be touched, except by someone who knows what the stuff does.
It should be possibly to put a device in a mode where it is "senile-proof". But it isn't. My grandmother can, and has, put her devices in a state where they do not work, simply by turning on airplane mode without realizing. And our current solution is to use Life 360, so we can check that her phone is still "online" and have someone visit her to fix it, if it isn't.
I've done it over phone many times. I have a system.
I have them read whatever is on screen until I figure out what they're looking at.
Then I use one of my own devices to follow along, so I have an idea of what they're seeing, so I can give extremely specific instructions.
Sounds ok.
But limiting. My grandma is still able to learn and think.
She currently uses a tablet and a phone. Android, set up by me, and locked down as much as possible.
One home screen, with the apps she wants on one half of the screen, and a widget that shows notifications on the other half. (Limited only to notifications from apps like whatsapp, etc., she doesn't need see that the phone updated the OS during the night etc.)
This way, all I had to do, was tell her how the home button works, and how the back button works. No explaining quick settings or the notification shade.
From there, she's slowly learned each app, always safe in knowing she can hit home/back if confused, and take it from the beginning.
The notification widget has been especially good, as it is always there showing her her messages, and she can tap them to go straight to replying.
It's infuriating to me that all modern devices require extra steps, just to see messages you've received. The way a message would be shown on the lock screen and then be "gone" upon unlocking the screen was infinitely confusing to her.
I've never lost patience with my grandma like that. She's old, a sweet person (most of the time) and perfectly intelligent if you let her be.
In fact when guiding her with tech, I hate the way she calls herself stupid and slow when she makes mistakes.
We just don't make tech for old people the way we should. There are "accessible" phones but the ones I've had experience with are atrocious hackjobs with deal-breaking quirks, when the whole point is to be simple.
It's why I only got into youtube and reddit.
There, in the smaller more niche corners, you can still find genuine interactions. Less and less on reddit, but youtube seems to be going back towards small creators actually being discoverable.
I recently stumbled into a vtuber on youtube with just a couple dozen viewers (1500 subscribers). Clearly doing it for fun, and with a chat slow enough to have a conversation about the game being played, both with her and the other viewers.
Here on the fediverse, it is even smaller and more niche. Sometimes that means there's no-one around. But when people are around, it's people who are a lot more invested in conversing. On popular social media, people are there to turn their brains off, not on.
Others already pointed out that all the problems exist here, too. But I believe that the nature of instances and communities, mean that the small corners that only get found by those who are interested, will always exist. No matter how big the fediverse one day gets.
You can use VLC if you get the stream url via a web browser, first. MPV can do the same.
The problem is VLC/MPV don't have a built-in way to browse and pick what you want to play.
They don't.
That's why Hasbro can't just make another BG game, Larian isn't willing.
So now they're looking to make it anyway. Without Larian, or even the people at Hasbro that Larian worked with.
They've already expanded it into a non-deck-speciphic thing for the other compatible handhelds.
Yup.
Unless they just take the IP, and assets they've made, and use that to make something else, Marathon is likely DOA.
If by the time it comes out it even whiffs of a live service long-term nickle-and-diming, people will dismiss it.
It's not permanent. At least it wasn't for me.
Ripping youtube or ytm will cause them to ratelimit your ip and/or account (media not available error).
For me, access was restored after 48h.
It was really inconvenient, so I found other ways. A mix of buying whats available on bandcamp, and ripping qobuz using a trial account (which btw is so much faster, ytm was taking days to rip just a couple artists).
I use Symfonium with Jellyfin for music now, if you tag everything with Picard, the "smart" playlist capabilities are competent.
Still pop into ytm to discover new stuff, tho.
You should even be able to hot-swap the game drive. No reboot needed.
Oh I like that
I don't know.
But it's not all phones. I've had some android devices that take over a minute to start up, but my current Xperia 1V also only takes 20 seconds to ask for the pin, then another 2-4 seconds for the home screen to fully show.
I do want to point out that phones aren't running blazing-fast ssds. Lots of android devices run fairly sluggish eMMC flash.
For a while now, I've been making sure the android devices I buy are running a recent standard of UFS flash, instead. The difference is noticable, just with stuff like opening apps and moving files around.
That'd be like paying for internet service being used to screw you.
A usenet account is not in itself proof of anything.
Yes, since most games are simply unrated.
But the "playable" rating does not require full steamdeck support, it just means the game runs. A "verified" rating means a game is a fully seamless experience on the deck.
Do you know about co-optimus.com? Is that the "third party" you mentioned?
I don't know of anything better. Setting your filter and sorting by user rating is pretty effective. Aside from that I sort by release date and check back every now and then.
They do, though?
There is a "shared/splitscreen co-op" filter option.
Combine that with a controller support filter.
Op didn't install anything on their system yet.
Sometimes.
They tend to make sure stuff that gamers care about are up to date and working.
You'll likely need the newest kernels and software packages if you're running the latest gen of GPU and/or CPU, to get the most out of them, or even get them to work at all.