T w e n t y S i d e d

We’re approaching my one-year anniversary with using Linux full time. I’ll probably write a bit more about it then, but I did help a family member get started over the last few weeks. Because they had concerns about certain games not working, the first attempt was adding a Manjaro Linux partition to an existing Windows 11 install. (A recent Windows update had introduced regular freezing issues on their almost-new Asus 2024 TUF Gaming laptop, which was a major instigator of the switch to Linux.) While office apps and some games worked, we quickly found out that gaming installs were weakest on a dual-boot system…or at least on a dual-boot system that didn’t use Linux as the first and primary partition. I.e. if you just shrink the Windows partition and add Linux, a lot of games won’t work. So we wrote down the Bitlocker number for the system and played with installing several different distributions on a full wipe of the hard drive. Drauger was an early favorite but we were scared off by how little support there was; same with Nobara. To be fair, Nobara says right on the webpage “this probably won’t work. Just so you know.” Endeavor was the first to receive a full-partition, and only after that (I only briefly looked at it last year) did we discover that Endeavor is really meant to be “run” through the command line. Which is fine, and I have no doubt works great; but isn’t what we were looking for in a Windows replacement. The eventual and current solution was an afterthought originally: Bazzite. The only extra steps we’ve had to take so far is to add Glorious Eggroll’s custom proton implementation, which fixed one game’s problem with freezing at the first cut-scene. (The game has some lag problems but it’s a recent game with no thought given to Linux implementation, so that doesn’t surprise me.) Most things have worked with default settings. Soon we will experiment with Virtualbox and a Windows Vista installation to facilitate the playing of an old Windows game for which you can’t even get installs at the moment. If we could get the install files I suspect it would work under WINE with no problems, but at the moment all there is is a “as-is pre-installed” copy. Incidentally, my spellchecker wants me to correct “pre-installed” to “pee-installed.” Which it says is a real phrase. I don’t believe that.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Final Fantasy 1 (part 007) – The Vampire Problem”

Paige Francis He/him

This week we return to Final Fantasy 1 Pixel Remaster. I have been grousing about the weather almost non-stop, and the only answer I think is to just be thankful we’re back to cold and wet against the odds…even if it is only supposed to last this weekend. We are allegedly going to hit 90 degrees F in a few days, and the 1/3 of an inch of rain we got this weekend is possibly the last significant amount we’ll get this year. And I just found out at least as late as the 1950’s, you could buy a handgun in what was described as a “grocery store” in the United States. Just had to get that out of my head. The thing is, I’m old enough to remember when “grocery stores” were still transitioning from general stores and 5 & Dimes to what we think of now. My upbringing was southern and rural, so that affects the model some, but when I was very young (after the point in the story I’m watching, which would have been post-WWII to early 1950’s) most “grocery stores” were still small community general store-type establishments that had put some refrigeration in. That seems to be what made them a grocery store. A rural community such as the nearest “town” to my home might have one…my home community still did until only a few years before I was born. The nearest “bigger” town had a half-dozen or more. When I was young this was down to four, although a couple built new, “big” stores and within only a few years there were only those two left, with an occasional third operating.  Anyway, the point of all that is despite being described as a “grocery store,” at the point the story takes place it was much more likely to be closer to what we would consider a general store. I don’t think anyone would actually think it odd that you could buy a handgun in a general store.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Final Fantasy 1 (part 006) – Dwarves & The First Town of Lore”

Paige Francis He/him

Hey, folks. This is Paige. I don’t have anything to upload right now primarily due to scheduling changes. Some of it is from last week: after a short amount of time of very little wind we’re back to sandstorms again. So much for being able to take a break. BTW, I was serious about moving. It keeps getting pushed back because of other factors, but we’re moving North and out of the sand’s way as soon as possible. In fact several of the things I’ve had to work on relate tangentially to that. Some of the home repair is just fixing things that are “livable” day-to-day but should probably be fixed before a sale. Some things aren’t my decision.

Anyway, as always I have several posts started but not anything finished. I’ll have something up soon!

Paige Francis He/him