There’s quite a lot needed from peripheral manufacturers, regarding drivers and utilities. You still can’t, for example, just buy any new printer or scanner - you have to check compatibility first.

In any foodstuff which says “average contents”, followed by a number, you will always get fewer than average.

For example, your packet of chicken nuggets says “average contents : 24 nuggets”. You are the person who receives 23 nuggets.

Rest assured that sometimes only half the text gets pasted.

It may be worth having a look at the Proton issues github page for it if you’ve not already - though the only report I could see that sounded like your issue was the (currently unresolved) thing about it not running with DXVK, but running with terrible performance in WineD3D - they apparently got it running properly through Lutris with Wine GE 8.26.

Can the AI determine if I’m just uploading photos of Kier Starmer as my ID?

They exist. Go on a Steam discussions page for a popular game that doesn’t currently support Linux, and create a new post politely asking about the possibility of Linux support.

*A wild WINDOWS ZEALOT appears*

I think everyone’s got the CAD/3D programs covered, so a slightly “out there” answer:

If you’re just doing 2D blueprints for yourself, do you actually just need a 2D vector program for doing a scale drawing with measurements?

I’ve done a lot of floorplans / layouts/ site maps etc using Inkscape, for instance.

It depends on exactly what you’re wanting out the other end - so you may be lacking a lot of the features in a full CAD program, but the learning curve is comparatively so shallow that you might have a working plan by the end of the day, rather than the end of the month.

I’m a big fan of this one. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress, Space Haven etc. Seems to be in committed and constant development for both content and bugfixes.

Yes. Unless you have any problems, stick with it. It’s easy to use, it’s stable, it’s pretty well supported, it’s common enough that there’s a lot of advice available. You already know it and don’t appear to have any issues or complaints with it.

There’s no harm in trying some other distros on a live USB if you’re feeling curious, but there’s no reason to change for the sake of it. In case you weren’t aware, a live USB runs completely off the USB stick - so you can test it on an existing machine, and it won’t alter any installed files.

There’s a chance that with a very new machine with very new components that Mint may have a compatibility problem (by default it uses slightly older, more tested kernels or software versions) - you can normally fix this by manually installing newer versions, or using the “Linux Mint Edge” version (which uses newer kernels by default) - or by trying a different distro which uses newer kernels/packages by default.

Sometimes people get this funny thing in their head that Mint/Ubuntu/PopOS etc are “beginner distros” and after you’ve used them for a few years, you need to “upgrade” to a more complicated one - but no, for the majority of purposes, you can carry on using the one you like, until they stop making it, or you stop liking it.

Wait… dbzer0 is “divide by zero”?

I’ve been reading it as “dibzer nought”

This is really interesting, thank you :)

What a lovely, fun little game! Thanks for sharing :)

I genuinely didn’t realise that! It looked like they were missing, and just had the little nubs underneath.

Would you perhaps like to imagine they were missing, if only for the sake of my previous comment? :)

How often do you write the word “wads”? I can see a potential problem.

I miss lovely, earthy, warm, friendly chocolatey Brownbuntu.

I always felt purplebuntu was a bit vile.

I might be wrong, but wasn’t Movit just for timeline preview, and hadn’t worked properly for quite a few versions and now you just use the NVENC/VAAPI etc export profiles to export with GPU?

I’m sure it’s not possible for everyone - but I essentially did this some years back - though more with Premiere than Photoshop - and therefore more Cinelerra/Kdenlive than Gimp/Krita.

I ran a dual boot system from about 2008 until about 2015. If it could be done in Linux/FOSS, it was. If it couldn’t, it was done in Windows/Adobe software.

I was self-employed, though I often did subcontracting work for a handful of media/umbrella organisations - so sometimes I had to use Premiere or Sony Vegas to carry on half-done projects I was handed.

Bear in mind this was when you bought Adobe software and didn’t rent it - and you could also keep running an older version for years.

Anyway, over time I used the Windows partition less and less, until I got rid of it entirely when I got a new computer.

I had to work a bit harder one year, and I did miss out on a few projects - but mostly, I could do everything I could do previously, but it took a bit longer for a while until I adjusted to a different workflow.

After that, you’re just saying “That’s a £2000 job”, “That’s a £200 job”, and meeting a deadline. Nobody really cares if it took 7 minutes longer to do, and I saved a lot of time not using Windows any more.

Editing (and other design stuff) is a far smaller part of my overall work these days, but I still do a good chunk of projects over the year, and I’ve been 100% Linux for almost 10 years. No regrets.

To a degree, yes, but don’t expect magic. Some laptops have a waterproof membrane under the keyboard, so if you’re lucky, and it does, you may be able to just pop the keys off and dry the membrane out, and make sure no liquid creeps round the side into the electronics.

Otherwise you may have better odds if you open up the case and mop up any/all loose liquid you can get to with a microfibre cloth, as soon as possible, then try and let it air dry for a while.

A sealed bag with dried rice and your electronic object may absorb a bit of leftover moisture, but only to the extent that it will equal the moisture level in the sealed bag - the dried rice will gain a little extra moisture, the object will lose that bit of extra moisture.

Try to resist the urge to turn it on to check if it’s working until you’ve got all the moisture out.

It’s a good plan for a more professional setup, but in this distinctly unprofessional setup, if I did it remotely, I wouldn’t get my chat and a cup of tea and biscuit :)

I can’t personally, but I’ve installed/set up Linux systems for quite a lot of older people, and I think only one of them ever uses the terminal for anything. The rest just… use the computer.

On the whole, they’re pretty much just using Libreoffice, Firefox and a few other bits these days. If something needs the terminal to fix, we’re already past the point where they’ve phoned me to pop round and fix it.

These used to be Ubuntu systems, but I switched them all to Mint after having endless Snap permission problems with printers, USB sticks and other peripherals. Once up and running, it’s pretty low maintenance.

I guess they don’t need to use the terminal, because I’ll go and do it if it’s necessary - but we are looking at once every few years. Not a lot of tech support needed.

On my own machine, I probably use the terminal every day.