Is that true? It looks like at least some people have gotten AMD GPU passthrough to work unless I am misunderstanding.

Also, as an FYI most VR games worked well for me on baremetal linux through proton. Half Life Alyx, Beat Saber, The Lab, COMPOUND, Walkabout Minigolf, and 2-3 more indie titles all worked. Although I guess you need to have the right headset - I think only the Valve Index and a few HTC headsets work with minimal effort on linux, others might work with a lot of tinkering.

AMD is ideal but Nvidia is fine. Basically any game that would work on AMD will work on Nvidia (only exception I know of is the VR mode of Phasmophobia edit: apparently this was fixed ~1yr ago). Gamepass still won’t work though - blame Microsoft for that one.

That said, Nvidia has more of a performance hit when switching. Ancient Gameplays recently did a video comparing Nobara vs Windows 11, with both the RX 7900XTX and the RTX 4080 Super. These were his average results across 20 games:

RX 7900XTX: 1080p +2%, 1440p +0%, 4k -2.2%

RTX 4080S: 1080p -13.8%, 1440p -13%, 4k -10.2%

So your games will work. They just might run 10%-15% slower until you can snag an AMD card. If you’re interested in fully committing, looks like most used 3080s are going for ~$500 on ebay, so you could probably get an AMD card and get most of your money back.

I had the same audio crackling issues in Helldivers on Pop!_OS too. What fixed it for me was following mmstick’s (Pop!_OS dev) instructions from his reddit post about audio crackling, particularly the headroom advice (I think somewhere between 256-512 worked for me):

If you experience audio crackling, try changing the ALSA properties in /usr/share/wireplumber/main.lua.d/50-alsa-config.lua. Particularly the period-size and headroom. Remove the leading -- from properties you are modifying. Log out and log back in after making changes. Note that any changes to this file will be overwritten on the next wireplumber update.

First start with changing the headroom to 1024, then 2048. Then try adjusting the period-size. Higher values increase latency and may reduce crackling. A lower period size decreases latency but requires more CPU.

Edit: also Pop!_OS uses pipewire by default for a few years now, not pulse audio

If you accidentally ban linux users in three[1] different[2] banwaves[3], then linux was only halfway supported in the first place, even if they overturned (almost) all of those bans.

I think the real reason they did it was EA’s financial situation. Since money is tight, the amount of resources they were willing to put into real linux anti-cheat probably dropped to “none at all,” and now we’re here. Otherwise other cheater-prone games like Counter Strike, Overwatch, Halo, The Finals, DayZ, Hunt Showdown, etc would have probably dropped/blocked linux by now too.

@helios@social.ggbox.fr @griefreeze@lemmy.world, a Respawn employee responded on reddit and wants a list of user IDs/gamertags for those banned on linux:

https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1fi77vs/comment/lnh13kj/?context=8

EDIT: A Respawn employee on reddit is now asking for the user ID/gamertag of those banned on linux: https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1fi77vs/comment/lnh13kj/?context=8

— Original comment —

Looks like you’re not the only one:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1f5kyd1/psa_using_proton_experimental_or_at_least/

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1ffxfjb/apex_legends_proton_epic_bug_that_do_that/

They’ve falsely banned linux players before, once in March 2023 and again in August 2023.

I got hit in the Aug 2023 ban, and had my permaban overturned after 1-2 weeks. Expect to have your appeal rejected, we had to make enough of a fuss about it to get a community manager to reach out to the development team to get people unbanned:

https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/15uqt7w/linux_users_getting_falsely_banned_again/

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Linux-players-getting-banned/td-p/12338557/page/50

I haven’t played in 9-10 months since the false positive put a really bad taste in my mouth, so I don’t have any datapoints to add for the current state of things, but I wish you the best of luck getting unbanned.

I had a very similar issue with Heroic Games Launcher (streaming to steam link, steam shortcut added, game thought I was using mouse and keyboard instead of controller). I fixed it by enabling “minimize heroic on game launch” in Heroic’s options. Maybe see if something similar exists for Lutris

English-speaking population is about 1.5 billion worldwide and 300 million of that is in the US (first language or additional language), so the US is about 20% of the world’s English speakers. The 2nd and 3rd countries with the most English-speakers are India and Nigeria, so factor in internet access, and the US is almost certainly >20% of the English-speaking internet.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population

SteamOS uses PipeWire, Pulse Audio isn’t even installed

You didn’t list your distro, but I had the same issue on Pop!_OS. I fixed it by modifying the ALSA properties in /usr/share/wireplumber/main.lua.d/50-alsa-config.lua. I’d first try uncommenting headroom and changing it to 1024, then logging out and back in. If that doesn’t work, go 2048. If that still doesn’t work, then I’d maybe try adjusting period-size.

For me, a value in the ~1200 range for headroom fixed it completely. But it will entirely depend on your sound card/hardware. And note, these values will probably be overwritten with any wireplummer updates.

Also keep in mind, increasing headroom will increase audio latency, so try not to increase it too drastically.

I specifically bought a Pixel 5a because it was the last Pixel with a headphone jack. Then after a year, it died on me, and they sent me a 6a as a replacement.

I miss the jack. A lot. But it’s hard to justify buying a whole new phone for one. Once this one dies, I don’t know what I’ll do.

Questionable privacy/security practices: https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/30/23486753/anker-eufy-security-camera-cloud-private-encryption-authentication-storage

If you’re looking for an indie alternative, Roboquest seems like a good recent shooter for two players. It’s on both Steam and GOG. Gunfire Reborn also seems fun.

These aren’t indies, but there’s also Deep Rock Galactic, L4D2, and of course the original Helldivers.

I’ve been able to stream my non-steam games from my linux desktop to my steam link, at least the ones in Heroic Games Launcher. Although, for that to work I had to use Heroic’s “add game to steam” and “minimize heroic on game launch” options. Without the minimize option, the game thought I was using a mouse and keyboard instead of controller.

The beta is now live

As far as I know, no one has ever gotten their account banned store-wide.

Like you mentioned, sometimes games with anti-cheats like Apex Legends or Overwatch will falsely ban linux users (from that specific game - not the whole Battle.net or EA store), but they usually undo those bans within a week or so for most users.

I was hit with one of the Apex bans, and it was overturned within a week or two. But there were a few people who I am pretty convinced did not cheat and are still banned, so maybe be cautious with that particular game.

Approval voting has a special place in my heart because it is such an easy transition from first-past-the-post (what the U.S. uses). You literally just change the ballot from “select the candidate you like” to select the candidates (plural) you like" and you’re done, and it’s such a significant upgrade from FPTP.

It’s certainly still better than the US’s current first-past-the-post system, but it has a critical flaw where a candidate who would have won can end up losing by becoming more popular, which could be abused by people trying to “game” the voting system. In reality, something like approval or score voting would be more representative of voter’s desires.

See Nicky Case’s excellent write-up on how that can happen: https://ncase.me/ballot/

I will always upvote that ncase ballot link, it’s so well-written.

Lots of people here are arguing for Ranked Choice, but Nicky’s write-up shows that even though it’s still better than the US’s first-past-the-post system, something like Approval or Score voting are much better options.

This is a form of score voting, and the specific form you discuss is the method used to elect the members of Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee (although they call it “Support”, “Neutral”, and “Oppose” instead of “Upvote”, “Abstain”, and “Downvote”).