ruffsl

I never want to go back to an OS I can't diff or track under revision control. I just love being able to solve an issue once and move on without worrying about if I'll forget all the minutiae of changes I made to my customized system when it eventually comes to migrating workstations or replicating across my computers.

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ruffsl @programming.dev 2mo ago

This is cool! Still reading over the wiki yet, but do you know what they term multiplexing controllers as? I'd like to learn how they implement the same controller assist functionality for merging simultaneous inputs for the same axis.

There's very little documentation on how the property game consoles implement this accessibility feature, and I'd love to learn how others have implemented the signal mixing logic from a multi user input perspective.

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ruffsl @programming.dev 2mo ago

Admittedly, it's pretty niche software. But for those who grew up using equivalents on gaming consoles such as Xbox or PlayStation, it was (still is) a pivotal accessibility feature.

And it's not necessarily only for those with physical disabilities or reflexive motor skill issues. Sometimes you'd like to introduce a really good story based game to a novice player that you know just doesn't have (yet or never) the coordination or muscle memory to complete it.

My grandparents never grew up playing videogames, and some of my nieces and nephews in the family are too young to grasp complex game mechanics. However, all of them really enjoyed playing with a control assist, where they could take the initiative in gameplay, like choosing dialogue options, steering saddled horses, flying broomsticks, exploring the world at their discretion, and I could just coast along in the backseat, fixing their camera angles, steering them back on course when lost, rescuing them in high stake combat encounters, etc.

In some ways, you could think about it as co-oping for single player games, but because it's per controller, you can do the same thing for multiplayer games as well. Like to help level the age gap in PvP games with your older sister versus your younger brother.

Before we ever played with control assist, I tried the classic method of tossing around the one controller like a hot potato, but it's just not the same in a number of ways. For one, having to relinquish a single controller really breaks immersion, as your suddenly fumbling about between living room chairs only your game characters on death's door from an unexpected boss encounter. It also deprives them of that haptics, where they can learn more easily attack patterns or UX interaction that conventionally telegraph via force feedback.

There is perhaps some functionality for solo players as well, such as splitting hand control across multiple gamepads. Like if your hands/arms were of different sizes, or you wanted to play other than with the controller on your lap, you could just easily dual wield controllers mux together the left and right sides-in-reach, or mux a regular handheld gamepad with something more like a Xbox Adaptive Controller for when dexterity or convenience demands.

Although, I think the majority of folks will find the assist co-op scenario for single player games the most appealing aspect. As others have replied on prior release posts, like parents helping their kids through their first playthrough ever, it's really an underrated feature for game consoles, and bringing that to gaming on Linux was really appreciated.

ruffsl @programming.dev 2mo ago

I'm no graphic artist, and with my disabilities it certainly would have taken me much longer to type out the same docs. Also, emojiis is what I grew up with back when AOL chat and sms char limits where the norm. LLMs have been a boon for assistive technology users, but admittedly a crux for those who less experience in computer science; though not much different from any double edge sword.

https://programming.dev/post/42735619/21165601

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ruffsl @programming.dev 2mo ago

Full disclosure AI is used, but I keep all transparent. You can read through GitHub PR reviews I use Copilot to rubber duck with, and committed the No Banana prompt for the banner logo in case folks where curious. I've a disability that impairs my typing, partly the motivation behind developing this projects, so I also use LLM to grammatically correct and format my voice dictated commits and tickets.

ruffsl @programming.dev 3mo ago

Indeed, I've encountered a few games on Steam that gracefully switch multiple controllers, but only by giving exclusive input on a first come-first-serve bases (i.e. which ever controller moves first after some cool down of inactivity from both). Hollow Knight: Silksong being one such example, as I couldn't necessarily drive separate axis from different controllers simultaneously, thus one such motivation for passing the game only one virtual controller and optionally hiding the rest to avoid input conflicts.

I'd be happy if Steam were to adopt such an accessibility feature into Steam input directly, much like Xbox and PlayStation. Perhaps they'll take more of an interest in multi controller configurations with the upcoming refresh of the Steam Controller, given the wireless dongle is meant for multi device pairing.

ruffsl @programming.dev 3mo ago

Would be good to cross post this to:https://programming.dev/c/nix

ruffsl @programming.dev 4mo ago

I've observed some notable improvements when benchmarking with the CachyOS kernel on NixOS via Chaotic’s Nyx using moderately old hardware:

https://programming.dev/post/38304031

Haven't yet tried replacing the same comparison on newer hardware, but would be interested to see what others have tested. Any observations?

ruffsl @programming.dev 4mo ago

I'm in search for the same white whale. There's quite a bit of documentation for multi-seat configurations for Linux, i.e. supporting the use of multiple screens and keyboards for separate simultaneous logins.

However I'd like to remote into a separate game scope session with its own human interface inputs and virtual audio and video outputs, as the same primary user normally logged in active desktop environment session. I'd like it so the remote and local sessions would not interfere with each other state, but without necessitating multiple Linux users for each session use case.

That last bit is what makes it more tricky and very niche. Supporting essentially multiple desktop environments probably demands separate user debus sockets. Using c groups via containers makes that viable, but like you, I also like to avoid containers and extensive volume mounts.

ruffsl @programming.dev 4mo ago

I top linked the most recently published video mostly for the introductory breakdown in ternary logic equivalence, but the interview with the ternary researcher, Dr Bos, also linked in the description above includes a number of corrections and accurate description of the subject.

Yeah, definitely not a lost art or anything, as physical ternary signals already have applications in communication like high data rate interfaces. Still, would be interesting to see ternary expand into logic domains with emerging developments in TCMOS research.

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ruffsl @programming.dev 4mo ago

This is discussed around the 27 min mark of the video with Dr. Steven Bos, particularly in maintaining voltage thresholds for signal propagation when using multiple devices, in context of logic, memory, and communication use cases. Interestingly, for example, GDDR7 and USB 4.2 already use physical ternary signals.

https://youtu.be/mqEOxQuOdog?t=1620

Edit: signal to noise ratio is also discussed at the 40min mark, also with respect to increasing information density vs complexity from higher symbol bandwidth, or terms of radix vs frequency.

ruffsl @programming.dev 5mo ago

Appreciate the heads up. Looks like they use merge bots to auto update the package version JSON files for git packages, making for a very large/frequent commit history. Was that what made bisecting imposable?

I also see they pin the nixpkgs input, but do others normally modify that nixpkgs input to follow their global nixpkgs from their own system flake, or does that invalidate the use of Nyx community cache?

ruffsl @programming.dev 5mo ago

Compiling the Linux kernel from scratch takes over an hour on this laptop. Given I'm tracking the unstable channel on a rolling distro means doing that several times a week. Ain't nobody got time for that. Or at least I don't...

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ruffsl @programming.dev 5mo ago

I don't have resources to locally build an optimized kennel for every update for each of my systems, thus my interests in keeping with a community cache.

I didn't do much here, just swapped the kernel via config and ran some benchmarks. I posted as I was more curious to hear of what engineering trade offs may be at play, and what experience folks have had in daily driving CatchyOS's kernel patch sets.

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ruffsl @programming.dev 5mo ago

I wasn't sure if these results were specific to my older hardware, or more generalizable to newer systems.

ruffsl @programming.dev 5mo ago

Indeed perhaps. I'd really like to see something like a Content-addressed Storage model from snix get upstreamed. That could really revolutionize bandwidth requirements for nix package updates and store sizes. Imagine downloading only the binary diffs for updates to packages like large modern browsers, IDEs, election apps, etcs, that mostly share common files across versions and packages. Suddenly, daily driving a rolling distro on the bleeding edge would be no more taxing on networks or disks than your average infrequent Debian update.

https://snix.dev/