I like Simutrans, which is basically an OpenTTD competitor with more complexity but an uglier interface. Sadly development on it has been fairly slow, at one point there was a one-way road patch but it’s since been abandoned.
It would be nice if I was not logged out every few hours when browsing on iOS (safari). It’s annoying and I often just read threads logged out, then get sad when I can’t upvote without scrolling to the top to log in again.
You’re right, my laptop does have a Nvidia card, but I thought one of the main benefits of Linux was being able to run on any hardware, or that’s at least what people have been saying since Windows 11 had certain requirements. I bought my laptop because it was only $250 (in 2017) but still had a 1080p screen and a graphics card, and I was a broke college student who couldn’t afford to be picky. If I could, why not pay a little extra for Windows as well?
Proton’s amazing and it’s made gaming on Linux significantly more feasible, but I struggled on the same laptop getting it to work, and needed to copy in flags and use old versions. It often works without a hitch but it’s still another thing to go wrong. Thankfully there are a lot more native Linux games due to Unity though.
Edit: Mint did give me an easy option to switch to proprietary drivers, but they were the wrong version and crashed when I tried to game. I ended up having to find them and download them manually.
Not quite, running 75% of games requires turning on Proton, and while it’s incredible they can run at all, many have minor issues and/or require setup to work well. Plus dealing with graphics card drivers that are extremely laggy by default unless you find and install the correct version of the proprietary ones.
I’m assuming they’re referring to Proton/Wine, which is pretty great that exists, but the fact you need it in the first place, plus random incompatibilities and needing to add flags for some games, makes it less than ideal compared to Windows where everything just works™.
I had quite the opposite experience. Middle of last year, reinstalled Mint on an HP Elitebook 8570w (everybody online seemed to recommend it over upgrading in-place like a normal operating system), and wanted to play games. Steam installed fine, but Mudrunner had to be configured to use Proton. Fair enough, but it crashed on startup. Okay, I’ll try an older version. Still crashes no matter what version I try (and I was on shitty vacation WiFi so downloading was extra slow mind you). Okay, I’ll try some random USE_WINE3D flag I found on the internet. No longer crashes, but the performance is piss slow. “Oh right”, I remembered, “I have to select the proprietary Nvidia drivers”. Fortunately Mint has a setting to easily select them, unfortunately after installing them the game crashes no matter what I do. Give up and go back to open source with 5fps. Try again later, and realize that apparently Mint installed the wrong Nvidia drivers, and I have to manually download them and install via the command line. Some more tweaking Proton versions and flags, and the game is finally running at a solid 20fps.
Compare that to my brother I was playing with. Identical 8570w laptop, identical Quadro K1000m CPU, identical Mudrunner game. The game worked out of the box and ran faster on his computer than it ever did on mine. I don’t remember the exact FPS but it was at least 30, probably closer to 45.
And before someone comments on “Nvidia”, I thought one of the benefits of Linux was supposed to be the ability to run on anything. Even the cheap laptop I got in 2017 because it was $250 but came with a 1080p screen and a graphics card. Paying more for the “correct” hardware would defeat the entire point of saving money with an open source operating system.
TBF considering how slow/unreliable and infrequent it tends to be, it’s hard to believe anyone would use it if they didn’t have other options. Even in my city (where buses run 30 minutes instead of every hour as is common elsewhere), it takes an hour and 15 minutes to get somewhere that’s a straight 15 minute freeway drive by car. And it’s worse in larger cities where buses are delayed by traffic such that you miss your transfer.
And it’s not like improvements like BRT or light rail will change it much considering how often they run in boulevards with 35mph speed limits and stop lights vs the 65mph grade separated freeways. Even a grade separated subway would be slower than driving unless it had spaced out stops, but then walking to said stops would take a lot of time (plus we couldn’t afford one, especially not one that actually serves the sprawl).
Under these conditions, it’s understandable to not even bother considering it as an option.
Could be worse, at least it’s not Voat, which consisted of ALL people and communities banned from Reddit (and usually for good reason aka racism, sexism, fat people hate)
Agreed, just glance at the linked Reddit thread and it’s refreshing how little Linux is mentioned. I’m really tired of seeing it (and related FOSS circlejerking) on every vaguely related Lemmy thread and I suspect that’s where most of the “Linux bashing” is coming from, we’re just sick of it.
You never see gas pumps on their own, they’re always attached to some sort of store, and from what I’ve heard has makes very little profit but brings customers so they’re both pretty closely tied together.
Yes I’ve never walked to the local gas station to buy gas but I’ve walked to the local gas station plenty of times to buy bananas, cigarettes, and various snacks. I feel like they probably asked “gas stations” specifically because it was a more familiar way to say “convenience stores” because in practice most Americans don’t visit standalone convenience stores much (and people probably think of the ones that cater specifically to alcohol/cigs/sketchy lottery tickets).
Most gas stations come with convenience stores, and I’d imagine people would want to walk there to get quick snacks, munchies, and beer. Some (like Wawa and Kwik Trip) can be surprisingly nice, even featuring hot meals, free ATMs, and basic groceries.
I know they could have specified “convenience store” but most people’s experience with convenience stores is at gas stations, and it seems like a lot of the ones without gas stations are sketchy/alcohol-focused, or are ethnic stores with weird groceries.
Almost every gas station is attached to some type of store, mostly convenience stores, which usually have a modest selection of quick snacks, drinks, beer, sometimes basic groceries and hot meals too. When I hear “Kiosk” I think one of those touch screens that fast food restaurants use for ordering in place of human cashiers. I guess it’s also the name of the small booths in malls (and could conceivably exist stand-alone) but I couldn’t imagine them selling anything more than e.g. magazines and hot dogs. Aka far less variety than a gas station convenience store.
Oh and “grocery shop” sounds too much like “grocery store” (aka larger and less convenient), and I’ve never heard the term “elementary store” before (sounds too much like “elementary school” — is it a place for 5th graders to shop?)
I think the hurdle isn’t money but time, and yes it takes quite a bit of time to learn a new OS, figure out why your graphics card is running so slow, move your files to an external drive and back, find alternatives to the programs you use and learn their quirks and missing features, learn the difference between apt-get and snap and flatpak when programs only support one, figure out what a .tar.gz file is and how to install one (what was that chain of commands with “sudo make” in it), find tweaks and workarounds to get certain games working in Proton, and do that all again if you don’t like the distro (because Linux users love suggesting new distros)
Trying an orange is a lot easier than creating a boot USB, copying all your files over to an external hard drive, installing a new OS, fixing weird things like the graphics card having crap performance or the laptop screen brightness not dimming, learning the weird 3 letter file structure, being bogged down by apt-get vs snaps vs flatpak and adding repos (why not search and download an .exe like a normal OS), realizing that your more specialized programs don’t work, etc.
Besides, it’s not just ONE person, seeming everyone says it every time a lemon has a scratch or a blemish or too many seeds. And then they dramatize it by calling it an “abusive relationship”.
I like Simutrans, which is basically an OpenTTD competitor with more complexity but an uglier interface. Sadly development on it has been fairly slow, at one point there was a one-way road patch but it’s since been abandoned.