lancalot

Obligatory watch for those interested in buying a new laptop. TL;DW: the latest generation of CPUs is such an improvement over the last one, that it feels like you’re seriously missing out if you don’t buy one of 'm.

Assuming that Arm-powered Linux devices aren’t ‘ready’ for your workloads, we’re left with the latest by AMD and Intel.

However, it’s noteworthy to mention that these aren’t provided by traditionally Linux-first vendors like NovaCustom, System76, Star Labs or TUXEDO computers yet.

Heck, these are currently only found on laptops by ASUS, HP, Lenovo and MSI. And from within their offerings, none are sold with Linux OOTB yet. This isn’t important for easy install (as I’ve yet to find one bundled with EndeavourOS anyways), but it is for proper Linux support so early into its lifecycle.

So, quite frankly, I’d suggest you to abstain from buying a device right now as it might lead to buyer’s remorse. Instead, consider buying one at next year’s Black Friday.

However, if you truly need one device right now, then I’d stick to one sold with an AMD Zen 4 processor. Furthermore, either ensure that the device is sold with Linux OOTB, or check out its ArchWiki entry to see how well-documented it is and buy accordingly.

For specific device recommendations, you seem to be particularly interested in making use of Black Friday deals, and thus I’d assume that price is an important factor. Unfortunately, most Linux-first vendors aren’t particularly known for offering great buck for your money. This does make it easier to choose, though.

Taking all of the above into consideration, we actually arrive -perhaps unsurprisingly- at Lenovo’s Thinkpad line of devices with AMD’s Zen 4 processors.

So with the recent drama it looks like bcachefs isn’t going to stay in the kernel for too long.

That’s way too doomsaying. Even after ReiserFS’ developer was sentenced in 2006, it took till 2022 for it to be deprecated. And it has only recently been left out of of the kernel.

Or ‘do worse than’.

I think I like this one as well. Basically, as you’ll see later on, the expression is (probably) best translated as ‘to be inferior’. Combined with the negation that’s brought with “don’t”, we could rephrase the sentence as ‘Honestly, in terms of ease to play, SteamOS (or clones like Bazzite) aren’t inferior to Windows.’.

‘steamos doesnt under-do windows in terms of gaming’

Another one that I like 😜. But, the double ‘do’ is indeed a bit awkward.

Mind if i ask what language the expression ‘do under’ is from?

Sure! It’s an expression found in Dutch. Heck, to be more precise, it’s a verb that can be split: ‘onderdoen’, but also ‘doen onder’. The literal translation would be, as you’d expect ‘underdo’ or ‘do under’. Here’s the (English) wiktionary entry.

Also agree with everything you said about OSes. I had tried linux in the past but mostly stuck to windows for gaming, then i got a steam deck and ill never install windows ever again.

Valve has truly outdone itself. While I only started using Linux after Proton’s release, the horror stories from the pre-Proton era still send shivers down my spine.

Excellent write-up!

Though, it’s a pity that a great ambassador of OpenBSD has stopped using it.

It doesn’t get much better than Digital Foundry’s coverage on the matter.

We were able to, up until Riot chose to mess it up for everyone (including us).

however, for them to be “main”, they should have “derivatives”,

Got you. Aight. I suppose that does disqualify NixOS. Though, to be fair, Guix System is heavily inspired from NixOS.

I also tried Nix OS, the use of 1 config file is refreshing, however that ease comes at the cost of some flexibility, installing Steam there is too complicated for me

Hehe 😜. Yeah, the paradigm shift associated with NixOS isn’t one that’s overcome in one sitting. But it’s cool to hear that you’ve tested it for yourself.

Anyhow, this was a cool interaction. Thank you for offering your insights! Wish you, my akhi in (at least) humanity, a lovely day!

Apologies. Allow me to clarify.

I meant that it’s not harder than Windows, when it comes to playing games. And I even made that claim stronger by proclaiming that it’s probably even easier.

Edit: SteamOS is the operating system found on the Steam Deck. It’s basically Arch Linux (btw), but with Valve’s (very) special sauce. It’s what you’d expect from your average game console; which is a good thing*.

Honestly, in terms of ease to play, SteamOS (or clones like Bazzite) don’t do under fall short of Windows. Heck, I’d argue they might even be easier.

The real issue is anti-cheat. But that’s just the next hurdle we’ll have to overcome.

Edit: TIL that the expression “to do under” has no place in English.