mat

joined 2 years ago
[–] mat@linux.community 2 points 6 days ago

Thanks. I've successfully "upstreamed" some of my patches to some courses, but sadly still most of the education is Visual Studio-based. It's good to see more people in the new years contacting me after asking teachers about Linux and being given my name for help, but of course I want this to be a base part of the curriculum!

[–] mat@linux.community 43 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I did a bachelor of videogame programming in Belgium 99% on Linux (minus exams), but it was definitely a huge struggle. All the courses and assignments were Windows-only, and 90%-ish required Visual Studio (non-Code) and Windows-only libraries like DirectX or Win32. I got by writing my own tooling to auto-convert these to CMake projects and convincing each teacher to allow me to hand in CMake projects. I wrote SDL backends for most of the win32 assignments, falling back on clang's excellent cross-compiling for stuff that requires e.g Windows.h. I wrote a blog post about this: https://blog.allpurposem.at/adventures-cross-compiling-a-windows-game-engine And using e.g DirectX natively on Linux, easier than expected: https://blog.allpurposem.at/directx

I also wrote a small wiki on my general experience + a summary of courses and main problems encountered... Windows was non-negotiable during exams: https://dae-linux.allpurposem.at/ I maintain tools, converted assignments, and information on this for future students who want to attempt something like me, but it's hard to recommend the Linux challenge if you are totally new to programming!

Hope some of this is helpful!

[–] mat@linux.community 1 points 3 weeks ago

Thank you for sharing! I will check it out.

[–] mat@linux.community 13 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I started getting spam in German to an email address I gave to the town hall of my town. They use multiple domains to send it, but they all have the same link format that redirects to a fake AI-generated dating site. I've tried reporting some to the police, as well as the hosting providers, but haven't heard back at all. I'd like to delete the address, but it's the one town hall uses to reach me...

[–] mat@linux.community 8 points 3 weeks ago

Found out just now he made a video about it and explained his actual experience using it, it's really cool! Glad to see more folks sharing this stuff.

[–] mat@linux.community 32 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Awesome! I hope he will help share this with more folks, the friends who I've talked into finally giving modern non-Ubuntu Linux a shot love it, but there's a lot of work to get over the damaged image created by the countless "linux user installing a browser" memes. I'm sure someone with his reach can help though :)

[–] mat@linux.community 55 points 4 weeks ago (8 children)

The amount of folks I see use Opera GX "gaming browser" because some influencer said so...

[–] mat@linux.community 3 points 1 month ago

I dual booted Ubuntu originally, but I never used it. Had to really make the jump when I installed Arch on my desktop in ~2020 because I heard it would run games better. I've stayed 100% on Linux since! After trying quite a few distros (Fedora, Debian, EndeavourOS, Garuda, Archcraft, more I'm forgetting) I have finally settled on NixOS... it's been over a year and I still haven't switched, that's gotta be worth something :)

[–] mat@linux.community 1 points 1 month ago

Darn. I recall reading good articles from some of these publications in the past. Shame...

[–] mat@linux.community 43 points 1 month ago (3 children)

This article reads like satire... it's sentence after sentence of "and I did it using one of the [best office chairs]" which is a link to some review by themselves. Every bit mentioned had an affiliate link and there wasn't an actual review of what the experience (software, setup, visual fidelity) is like??

[–] mat@linux.community 2 points 1 month ago

Ouch, that sucks yeah. Guess I got lucky with the games my friends like to play. Only one is I guess Valorant, but I don't engage with that one anyways. Guess you're stuck on the dual boot until devs of these games start ticking the Proton support box :P

[–] mat@linux.community -1 points 1 month ago (5 children)

What games keep you on Windows? Besides a few anticheat-enabled ones which choose not to support it, basically everything works fine. I game (and work in gamedev!) 100% on Linux.

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submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by mat@linux.community to c/technology@lemmy.world
 

I just moved into a student dorm for a semester abroad, and beforehand I emailed them asking whether they had ethernet ports to plug my router into (I use it to connect all my devices, and for WiVRn VR streaming). They confirmed that I could, but now that I'm here the wifi login portal is asking me to accept these terms from the ISP, which forbid plugging in a router. There's another clause that forbids "Disruptive Devices" entirely, defined as:

“Disruptive Device” means any device that prevents or interferes with our provision of the 4Wireless to other customers (such as a wireless access point such as wireless routers) or any other device used by you in breach of the Acceptable Use Policy;

So what are my options? I don't think I can use this service without accepting the terms, but also I was told by the student dorm support that I could bring a router, which contradicts this.

EDIT: some additional context:

  • dorm provider is a company separate from my uni (they have an agreement but that's it)
  • ISP (ask4) is totally separate from dorm provider, and have installed a mesh network that requires an account. On account creation, there are many upsells including one for connecting more than one device. The "free" plan only allows me to sign in on a single device, and I can upgrade to two devices for 15 pounds.
  • ethernet requires login too
  • VR streaming requires a high performance wifi 6 network, which is why I bought this router (Archer C6 from tp-link)
 

Hiya! I'm following a gamedev degree in university. It's been a major challenge doing it from Linux, as everything is Windows stuff (.sln Visual Studio projects, DirectX API, excel graphs...). However I've gotten by by making my own tools and dipping into WINE when it gets too difficult. I'm replacing my laptop due to hardware faults (never buying from ASUS again) and my Framework 16 preorder should arrive in a month or two.

I'm considering trying out NixOS. I currently have Arch on the laptop because it makes it easy to get recent versions of libraries and compilers. However, I've had lots of issues due to inconsistent setup (SDDM theme randomly disappears, KDE apps have black text on dark background, video encoding does not work) and I figured having a declarative config might allow me to set things up better and more consistently. I do have a few worries though, given this is new to me:

  1. Installing proprietary software. For certain courses I unfortunately have to use software like Unreal Engine, Maya, Houdini, Unity, P4V, and a few others. I read NixOS has difficulty with running random binaries. I also could not find an UE5 package in nixpkgs, which Arch does have.
  2. Building binaries. I know nixos does some weird stuff with libraries and binaries. I need to be able to do normal stuff with binaries, and perhaps package and distribute them. It'd be really nice to be able to try out different compilers for my CMake/C++ projects also. Can NixOS do that easily?
  3. VMs. I will be doing dGPU passthrough for testing assignments before handin. I assume this is no problem but it requires some weird stuff so I want to be sure before diving in!

Am I better off just setting up a brittle Arch install again, or is NixOS worth the plunge?

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