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addie

@ addie @feddit.uk

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2
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378
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Minecraft is removing code obfuscation in Java Edition

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  • Indeed - most Java IDEs have FernFlower built in, so it's dead easy.

    Decompiled Java is surprisingly close to the original, especially compared to eg. decompiled C++; good luck with that. You get all the class, function and variable names back on the original line numbers.

    What you do not get back is any comments. So you can see what and how, but not why. Admittedly, most comments are kind of useless and do not explain 'why' very well, but for weird-but-critical code they can be essential.

  • Nearly 90% of Windows Games now run on Linux, latest data shows — as Windows 10 dies, gaming on Linux is more viable than ever

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  • Indeed - I've seen more people recommend Hannah Montana Linux (apt-based) than any of those for newcomers recently.

    You are entirely right that a Linux distribution is really just its package manager, the default packages installed, and some remote repositories which may (or may not) have had some customisation applied, which will have been pulled and built from a source repository somewhere. All that's really needed to swap between eg. Arch, Manjaro or Cachy is to update the repo files and issue a package manager update command, although I'd probably like to verify my backups and get a stiff drink first.

    The House of Linux is built out of bricks, and the bricks aren't that scary - you can take them to bits and look at them if you like, they're usually zipped-up folders of text files and the binaries you'd get from compiling them yourself. But if that's not what you're used to, then yeah - 🤯 .

    In all seriousness, I wish that most distros had art half as good as what Void Linux has - got some really gifted people, there.

  • Nearly 90% of Windows Games now run on Linux, latest data shows — as Windows 10 dies, gaming on Linux is more viable than ever

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  • Strangely enough, "Windows always fucking up my dual boot setup" is what caused me to drop Windows for good about a decade ago. And Linux gaming has come on absolutely leaps and bounds since then.

  • Nearly 90% of Windows Games now run on Linux, latest data shows — as Windows 10 dies, gaming on Linux is more viable than ever

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  • True, but network effects are important to that.

    There were huge numbers of people that wouldn't move to Linux because it didn't support all of their games. Now it does, and lots of people are moving.

    There are lots of people that won't move to Linux because they have a random bit of hardware that's not supported, or a highly-specific bit of software they need to do their job that only runs on Windows. The manufacturers wouldn't support Linux because not enough people used it. Ah, but now we have all the gamers, so there are quite a lot of people using it.

    Each domino that falls encourages the rest. Steam Linux users are more than 3x Steam macOS users, and we're not that far from overtaking it for general desktop usage. In some regions, that's already the case, and while the Windows 10 exodus can move to Linux easily, they'd need to buy new hardware fo use the Mac operating system. Not many companies would question providing Apple support; once Linux has a comparable share, it would be foolish to leave that out of consideration as well.

  • Nearly 90% of Windows Games now run on Linux, latest data shows — as Windows 10 dies, gaming on Linux is more viable than ever

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  • Listen, there's dozens of Linux users on Void, Slackware and Gentoo. Dozens! Especially the ones wanting to run the latest games. Can't just leave all of them out.

  • Nearly 90% of Windows Games now run on Linux, latest data shows — as Windows 10 dies, gaming on Linux is more viable than ever

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  • Strangely, the search page for ProtonDB shows the 'proton rating' for games which have a 'native but abandoned / broken' native Linux build, whereas the actual page for the game just shows 'native' and I can't see the button to show the rest of the information. I'm sure it used to be there; they've started hiding a lot of stuff in favour of making the 'steam deck' results more prominent. But in some cases, 'proton rating even with a native Linux build' is quite important.

    eg. Dawn of War 2 Chaos Rising.

    • search page shows 'gold'
    • actual page says 'native', but 'loads of rendering issues, really slow, broken on multi-monitor setup, use proton instead'.

    Mark of the Ninja: Remastered:

    • search page says 'platinum'
    • actual page says 'native', but 'frequent deadlocking issues makes game unplayable, use proton instead'.

  • Quantum Physics Explained

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  • Really, it's a misuse of language to describe elementary particles as having 'wave/particle duality'. If you ask them a wave-like question, they give a wave-like answer. If you ask them a particle-like question, they give a particle-like answer. But that doesn't mean they're a combination of the two; just means that our everyday understanding of big things isn't suitable for describing small things.

    We know that general relativity and quantum dynamics can't be quite right. They have enormous predictive power, but they don't overlap, which means we can't model things where they're equally important; the big bang and black holes for instance. "Higher dimensions" is the string theory way of trying to reconcile them - it might be right. But a theory isn't scientific if it doesn't make predictions you can test, and string theory hasn't been very productive in that so far. Amazing maths though, has been great for expanding our knowledge there.

  • 'Emulating the Impossible' - my interview with a developer of RPCS3

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  • That's fascinating stuff, thanks!

  • Have you or someone close to you converted to Linux recently (with Windows 10's end of support)?

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  • Moved my father-in-law from Windows 10 to Mint.

    Biggest problem was all his 'documents', which were office365 web links rather than 'actual documents'. Linux presents them as the urls that they really are. They open just fine, though, and can be exported as real local docs for libreoffice etc.

    Security and privacy were the main selling points for him. He'd done some reading and thought that Mint was among the best choices for a newstart that just want everything to work; no interests in playing games or anything. I agreed that was the most solid choice. I use Arch btw myself, but wouldn't recommend that for beginners.

  • Who is a good Duck? You Are! 🦆 🫲 💕 (Hide AI images in search results)

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  • Hey, works for me mate. I'll take 'elaborate and poetic' writing over 'AI slop' every day of the week - it's a great match for all the gothic writing style in 40K as well.

  • If it works it works

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  • Speaking as someone with a chemical engineering degree and twenty years in industry:

    • we have some really complicated computer programs and simulations for all the important stuff, then we add ten percent for safety and round it up to the next standard size. We don't buy 292 mm pipe, we just use 300 mm, because that's what's on the shelves.
    • you need to be able to decide quickly whether results you're seeing are sensible, usually to order-of-magnitude, and whether eg. it will take an hour to fill a tank, or a week. We usually don't care whether it's 55 minutes or 56. You need to be able to do those sums in your head, though.

    3 is more than accurate enough as an engineering approximation for pi. In fact, 5 is close enough, and much easier to work with.

  • "B-but it's privately funded!!" Ok, man, wellllll

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  • See, that's why you start with the demolition. Can't leave it like this, big ugly scar in a historic building, even if the costs have increased 10x from the original estimate. Got to keep paying.

  • She Was Abandoned On The Street And Found Me. Meet Kira. 😻😹😺🐾

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  • Aww, sweet looking puss. Good work on taking her in.

    Was kind of hoping that your other cats would be called Ryuk and L, but that might be asking for trouble.

  • Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch ever"

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  • Aww, man alive. Most perfect desktop environment I've seen in years, and then it's a full OS rather than just a DE. Had been looking in the ArchWiki for how to install it and everything.

  • The Intel i386 turns 40 years old — 275,000 transistors running at 16MHz changed personal computing forever

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  • We'd managed to snag a second-hand i186-based PC, with integrated green-and-black screen and two 5 1/4" floppy drives. Most useless excuse for a computer you ever did see; good luck trying to take notes with edlin on DOS any faster than just writing them down. Super-futuristic looking, though - predated the iMac by over twenty years.

    Remember getting a ZX Spectrum for Xmas and being astonished that computers could actually display colour and play games. Z80 for the win.

  • Microsoft is making every Windows 11 PC an AI PC

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  • There's no committee that approves words being added to the English language. Anything that's understood by the group that uses it is a real word. We make up new words and change the definition of old ones all the time; dictionaries are descriptive, not proscriptive.

    That doesn't stop the concept of 'agentic AI' being a pile of bullshit being peddled by snake-oil salesmen, of course, but you don't have to be Shakespeare to be permitted to make up new words.

  • Windows 10 refugees flock to Linux in what devs call their "biggest launch ever"

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  • SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!

  • with meme music playing at random

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  • The sound and the video would get out of sync if you left it on long enough, like 24 hours or so, for added confusion.

  • Ruby Central tries to make peace after 'hostile takeover'

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  • I think it's in the nature of capital cities that they tend to attract quite a lot of people who want to try "life in the city" for a while and then move on? I've a few friends who moved down to London to see if they could make it in the music industry, which they did not, and then moved on to somewhere else with a less insane cost of living, after a decade or so. I'd observe that, while there's quite a lot of Brits in London, there's a massive shortage of Londoners. When people have kids, they generally want a bigger house somewhere with a decent school nearby, which in many cases means moving to the outskirts, or to a different city altogether.

    That's very much to London's benefit, though. They have everything that you can imagine; specialist shops of every variety, and opportunities in every industry. However, I don't think 'London weighting' of wages is really sufficient. Even if the wages are eg. 20% more for doing the 'same job' as the rest of the UK, you aren't going to get a lot for that, and a lot of people in entry-level jobs are going to be living in big shared houses and struggling to scrape by, until they find the experience/inclination to leave. That's a tale as old as time, tho, and probably to the benefit of the city - without a massive turnover of people, wages would probably need to be even higher.

    Diversity is strength. If you don't like that, then a bustling metropolitan capital city is not for you, and London is no exception. They've a nice bridge for the racists to throw themselves off; cry while you do, dickheads.

  • 5 reasons you should ditch Windows for Linux today

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  • Centrally managed repositories help a lot, here. Linux users tend not to download random software off of sketchy websites; it's all installed and kept up to date via the package manager.

    Yes, Linux malware and viruses exist, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise. The usual reason for installing Linux virus scanners is because you're hosting a file/email server, and you want to keep infected files away from Windows users, tho.