Same as the past 10 or so years, from what I can tell.

The majority of posts on Reddit are also like that. Perhaps a curse of a feed-oriented forum (or whatever this type of social media is called)

I'd suggest changing the link permission to "anyone can comment" instead, as any ill-intended individual can grief the file as it is now. Then those who moderate the file can approve or deny new entries.

Previous 12 months:

June 2023: -0.03%
May 2023: +0.15%
April 2023: +0.48%
March 2023: -0.43%
February 2023: -0.11%
January 2023: no difference
December 2023: -0.06%
November 2022: +0.16%
October 2022: +0.05%
September 2022: -0.04%
August 2022: +0.04%
July 2022: +0.05%

It would seem Linux among Steam users shows a growth tendency.
Hopefully this tendency keeps going strong!

One thing I suggest is:
You're trying to get something working but it isn't going anywhere? Try again later.

First, because of the obvious calming down, since stress can affect the person's capacity to solve problems.
Second, I've noticed how many things on Linux have some degree of similarity and/or relation to one another. So trying other things in the meantime can give you the needed insight for solving a previous problem.

Having an option to toggle, top and down, would be nice, me thinks.

First, I'd suggest flashing a community system ROM. OEM systems are both very bloated, and stop being supported much earlier than community ones, so they're not ideal unless you need to use it with some banking app or the sort. And if you don't need Google's services (de-Google, anyone?), I strongly recommend going for a vanilla system instead of a Gapps one.

Now, as stated in MargotRobbie's comment, one good use is as a media player. If you can sideload stuff like VLC and Librera Reader, you should be covered.

You can also use it for some lighter gaming, if that's your thing, as there's plenty of emulators, wrappers and engine implementations for Android.

You can also use it for running servers, if you do this sort of stuff.

And if you like to test around with softwares, a spare Android device is pretty good to have.

DRM is not a protection. It is a killswitch. Even MMOs can theoretically be DRM-free. So this situation just lays the DRM issue bare. points to GOG, Itchio, ZP, and so on

Grid-based, dungeon crawler RPG (a mouthful, I know). The most recent titles in this genre I remember are the Mary Skelter trilogy, but the first game is about 10 years old already.

I'd recommend Mint, because, from my experience, it's pretty stable, UX is designed so terminal usage can be kept to a minimum (but you can still prioritize it if you want), support from programs is overall good, and it ditches snap. But worth noting that, if you need cutting edge features, Mint is not for you, as it seems to be the new Debian, where updates are traded off for stability.

If you absolutely must get something from Google Play, I suggest Aurora Store, which acts as an alternative frontend for Google Play, so you don't have to have GApps installed.

If you have use for command line programs, Termux, a terminal emulator, is a great option, and it also works with root.

For reading eBooks, I also have a recommendation, Librera Reader (but I'll check the OP's recommendation too).

Material Files and Simple File Manager are great file browsing tools. But if you need a file browser for root specifically, I recommend Material Files specifically.

If you like reading books, comics, etc, maybe Librera Reader?

Dunno how it is on Google Play, but it's available FOSS and DRM free outside of it:
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.foobnix.pro.pdf.reader/

Got a gaming laptop some months ago, and it is actually very powerful indeed. But it came with Win11 by default, only requiring the final setup. Now... How can a system lag a decent laptop so much.

Needless to say, it didn't take much for me to decide to swap for good ol' Mint Xfce, and even try out a few other Linux systems, and now, pretty much everything runs flawlessly, at most requiring to avoid using the ultra settings.

But indeed, Windows is bloat incarnated, and it only gets worse. So much so it even feels like Win10 on a VM can clog the whole system. Weird how that doesn't happen with Win7, no matter how long I leave it open on a VM.

Most Final Fantasy entries are either independent of each other, or very loosely connected, even more so on the mainline. Only straight up sequels, prequels and spin offs would potentially require having played earlier titles.

Odd community to post on, if it's serious.

But if it is serious indeed, my rule of thumb is: "Does it hurt? Then seek a doctor. No two ways about it."

Likewise from Brazil and likewise would rather see whatsapp gone from my devices. Sadly, I still need it for work and other official matters. Still, I'm slowly but surely abandoning whatsapp, by either convincing people I talk to to migrate to other, less anti-consumer services, migrating myself to sister groups or alternatives in other services, and/or abandoning a group or chat altogether. And all the while being vocal about it by raising my concerns about whatsapp (just saying "I don't like it and you should move too" can be pretty counter-intuitive with our countrymen). Hopefully, this way, I can drop it altogether once it becomes clearly irrelevant.

But this reminds me I haven't deleted/left any chats for a few days, so I'll take the opportunity to do just that.

I use the Android app Librera Reader, since it's the best one I could find that is officially distributed outside of the Play Store (de-google, anyone?).

You can find the APK on both F-Droid and GitHub.

For ebooks, since Librera doesn't seem to be able to validate DRM (thankfully), I buy ebooks in DRM free formats, meaning I usually pend to Itchio, IndieGala, Fanatical, Humble Bundle, Story Bundle, etc.

If I may suggest, start following federated pages too. Each social media has its niche, and now, with federation that allows direct communications, it's the perfect opportunity to find a social media whose features you like (which you seem to have already gotten), and curate your contents so it's perfect for you without depending solely on your chosen social media's niche.

Any with good hardware as long as you can switch to stable and community-made ROMs.

The ones I've used enough to have an opinion on are Kbin Social (current one) and Lemmy World. Out of the two, I liked Kbin the most for being the most minimalist. Even if Kbin is the most unstable/beta forum of the two, I still prefer it over all the visual noise of Lemmy World.

Not much of a fast food culture over here as there is in the US that I can tell, but I often like some crispy french fries.

Looks like it was around the end of March when Valve announced the date they'd end support for Win7 and Win8. So perhaps a part of the Windows userbase went to Linux. If for fear, as a final push to drop Windows, etc., I don't know, but perhaps they may have influenced.

Dunno how your instance fares regarding moderation, but looking at the modlog of my instance, Kbin Social, moderators seem to act only against disruptive behavior, like spam and gratuitous offenses:
https://kbin.social/modlog

And I haven't seem people complaining elsewhere, like on Discord, about Kbin-related instances, unlike certain Lemmy-related instances, so it appears to be fine for now.

Oh, so that must be why quite a few of the magazines I follow more consistently started appearing empty. Thanks for addressing it, op!

I use a plain LibreOffice Calc sheet, an equivalent of Excel, but much lighter and system-agnostic.

In it, I track all the things I have, the partial completion percentage for each "group" (GOG, PS2, physical PC games, etc.), total completion percentage, somewhat when I finished each game (there's stuff I finished years ago, which makes pinpointing dates a tad hard), and a few other small data.

The partial completion percentage also helps to pick the games from the groups I've been neglecting the most (the ones that end up with the lowest percentages).

If you want to use LibreOffice sheets too, I think there is a port of LibreOffice to Android, and if you install Linux on Android, it works there too.

I'm no gamedev, but as a consumer, my impression is that this itch happens because of where the person asked usually looks to.

The way I see it, games, much like all other segments of entertainment, can be divided into big productions and smaller productions.

Those productions are usually accompanied by proportionally big or small companies.

From what I can observe, bigger companies get where they are because they made something no one expected but that worked great. But then, a paradox forms, they get so big that perhaps they're too afraid too fail. After all, the higher you get, the higher you fall. And so, in fear of failing, instead of daring, and thus being innovative, they stick to the same formula that got them where they are, over and over, trying to keep momentum. This lack of innovation, added with the tactic of selling hype instead of actual contents, feels extremely wearing.

Meanwhile, the smaller companies don't have this leash that is being too big and needing to keep momentum, meaning they have more room to dare being different.

Surely, there are many indie projects that leave to be desired, but the impression I get is that the amount of indie games that get good reception, as well as how good this reception is, usually end up being of a much higher order than those shiny AAA games that are made to sell consoles.

And with those points in mind, I go back to the first phrase of those considerations of mine by pondering if perhaps the people you asked to aren't biased by seeing/consuming too much of those games whose companies are trying to maintain the status quo.

Now, what was my favorite console generation, you ask? None. But I do have one console that I love far more than the others, the PlayStation Vita.

"How heinous!" / "This console has no exclusives!" / "It launched dead!"

This is no joke and I'll explain why.

Starting with the SNES up until recently, I was always 1~2 generations behind everyone else, so I could see very well how the landscape for gaming on a given console was after the dust settled in.

The SNES was nice but I didn't play much of it at the time. The PS2 had great and unique games a la carte (I'm still finding good games to this day tbh). The PS3 started feeling same-y, with too much glitter and too little contents in most games I could find. And the Vita's catalogue is a salad due to Sony supporting it for some time (long enough to have some bigger IPs in it), indie developers supporting it long after Sony dropped support (even modding in the Vita is mostly just "made a wrapper to run x or y game on the console"), and it supporting by design the PSP and, by extension, the PS1, made it so games could be picked at random without any specific luring you more than the others. And upon picking many games at random, this degradation I described before became more and more palpable.

The Vita is my favorite console because it has no consistency in its catalogue. And this lack of consistency lets me find just so much stuff that is genuinely good. To me, a device blessed by its curse.

So yeah, I think the entertainment industry feels stale because the bigger projects, the ones that are usually seem first, are stale, while the smaller projects can still thrive. But as they say, the first impression is a lasting impression, so if what the person sees first are games that staling in quality, their views on gaming overall may be tainted.

Since 10 y.o. is old enough to be a cutoff for me, PS Vita, and because modding community never stopped. You can even play some Android and PC games through wrappers in it. *-*

Direct link: https://kbin.social/sub/

Alternatively, click on the Kbin logo on the top left, click on the /sub to the right of the logo, and choose the tab you seem fit (top, hot, newest, active and commented).

I'd imagine a centralized weekly Q/A post would get more engagement, and thus appearing more often when sorting by activity, which would then cause, by extension, more engagement. And this potentially self-sustained cycle could be good for Q/A.

And I'd likely try to contribute with answers, but I might ask every now and then.

Unsure on mobile, but on PC, Kbin also has an icon on the bottom left for image posts you can click on which will load the full image right below the post.

I don't mind necro as long as it isn't obvious spam, so don't worry. =D
(besides, Reddit also had a lot of this, where pertinent replies would only appear a long time after the posts were made)

But thanks! The game looks pretty interesting, going by the promotional materials, and the store page also mentions it has both English and Japanese, so likely at least texts will be translated.

Yup, like this!

Strange, searching for python_discussions@mastodon.social on kbin.social/search doesn't bring up anything, even though I already found another up-to-that-point not generated profile through there (which causes it to have a profile generated here on Kbin Social).

Not Ubuntu-based, but I saw a friend who's mainly a Mac user comment well about Endless OS, which is Debian-based (so Ubuntu's cousin). Maybe worth checking out?

Besides GOG, which has been mentioned in other comments, there's also Zoom Platform (basically Good Old Games 2.0) and Project EGG {Japanese store/kinda preservation project (kinda since it uses some basic DRM) for games mainly from non-MS-DOS PCs}.

For normal usage, yes. But it would serve as a back up, in case any of the instances becomes inaccessible.

On Reddit, the only thing I noticed is mob mentality behavior, specially when something goes against a community's opinion. In which case, they'll try to silence you as much as possible. And never saw any subreddits with such disingenuous "policies" as the ones you commented, luckily.

The only one I knew (before checking the other comments lol) is WinLaunch:

https://github.com/MrC0rrupted/WinLaunch

https://winlaunch.org/

On that matter, if you haven't dug on the topic yet and if I may suggest, look for Linux systems ("distros") with either the Xfce or Wayland desktop environments, since they're some of the lightest around (Xfce being the most stable of the two, but Wayland seems pretty promising already).

Xiaomi mobiles aren’t available in the US

Maybe the OP could import one? Or are there sanctions even for importing?