Over the last couple days I went through several different Linux distros to see which one gave me the least amount of grief. To do this I used an old i7 laptop (with 48 gigs of ram btw, so wasn’t a total underdog) and went through SteamOS, Mint, Nobara(three different installs of it) CachyOS, and Bazzite, some other Fedora / Red hat / old nerd with a comb over distros. All in all, as much as I actually really do like Mint, Bazzite was the one that actually rand everything I through at it on that laptop, all be it at a lower quality level, but they ran.
And with that I put Bazzite on a desktop I7 with an actual Nvidia card in it and everything works. I don’t have any steam games that aren’t Linux compatible or ported (whatever) so I didn’t run into any of the anti cheat problems that apparently exist. (Btw Anti-Cheat, I guess there’s games that have an anti-cheat function and something about it requires something in the OS and it would be at the kernel level if Linux were to implement it, and well No. It won’t be happening. This is my less than basic understanding of the issue, I’m not really concerned about it so I haven’t gone deeper into it…. Yet………………………………………………………. Yet……… erm. Yet?)
At some point I’ll dive deeper into some of this but I really did this project for my own personal enjoyment.
Wait what!? I DID THIS FOR FUN!?
Yeah, you see that’s why I got into computers back in 1983 with my TRS-80 ]I[ (that’s model 3 for those who don’t read 80’s numbering gibberish) Back in the day there was no career path in computers, you didn’t have classes like there is today. It wasn’t expected of someone to know how to build or fix a computer, it was a somewhat undiscovered country at the time.
I’m not going to lie, I wear the fact that I had to ride my bike to a Radio Shack to buy a replacement keyboard and then take this honking thing apart trying not to destroy it, figuring out how to actually replace the keyboard and getting the whole thing re-assembled. Or having the giant blue book of programs that I had to type out in TRSDOS and had no way of actually saving after because doing it to the Cassette tape (yup, saving data to a cassette tape) took FOR_EV_ER FFFFFFFOOOOOOOORRRRRRREEEEEEEEVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRR. It wasn’t until later when I got the machine upgrade to have 48k(?) of ram and two drives and most importantly a serial port to plug my 110/300 baud modem into it. I loved doing all of that. I got into computers not as a career path but because I was actually drawn into it at the ripe old age of 13 years old.
But enough of old man yelling at clouds. Let’s talk about Flatpak!
So this was my first experience with Flatpak. I had heard something about it several years ago when I was using Mint, I guess (and don’t quote this as fact my memory is sketchy at best on the topic) there was debate if Mint was going to switch to flatpak because ubuntu linux had, or was moving towards. Again I don’t remember much about it because I worked in a Windows 7/8/10/11 environment so I had to keep up with all of that and supporting hundreds of users so, my Linux knowledge didn’t really get a chance to bloom. It’s sad, my interest in Unix has always been pushed aside thanks to Windows or well GSOS (if you know you know) I installed SunOS on a home machine, and not sure if it was specifically called SunOS when I worked at Sun Microsystems, but installed it on Sparc stations. Was told to try Slackware, that was … If I could go back in time I’d slap the person who suggested it. Lol. It was not pretty.
(Ok, tangent time)
I bought slackware at a Frys electronics. Why didn’t I download it? Because this was 1996. So first of all this set came with three books that would have given the Encyclopedia Britannia a run for its money in sheer volume. Then I think there was 16 CD roms, I don’t know if I ever actually got it fully installed ever.
The thing I hated about SunOS and if it did it, Slackware, was when you installed it you needed to know how many heads and cylinders your HDD was so if you just had a PC you wanted to install it on or a Spark station and you didn’t have that information written down, because honestly WHY WOULD YOU!?! You’d have to break open the PC/Spark etc get your drive into a position you could read that information and hope that the manufacturer had actually put it on the label. I am not aware of any tool at the time that would have given you that information and if it existed WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DO IT MANUALLY!?!!? I hope they realize this is why MS still holds the market. Never had to do this with MSDOS, or Windows 3.1.1 or NT 3.1 or 4 or 95 or or or or or or or…
Deeeeep breath.
So Flatpaks are a step in the right direction. When I installed Bazzite which honestly I’m not sure what kernel it’s using (Bazzite uses a customized, gaming-focused Bazzite Kernel based on the Fedora Always Ready Kernel (kernel-ark) Well now I know) I knew that Hytale was Linux native so I went to install that and it came as a flatpak launcher thing. Right click and ran it and it acted basically like any .exe file installer it was glorious. It worked it didn’t require a bunch on terminal command line nonsense, it just worked.
If you can’t tell I’m not a fan of doing things in command line, terminal, or powershell. I’ve done work in powershell etc but I don’t like it. Anything beyond a basic ipconfig tracert or ping in command line and I’m out, don’t enjoy it. Powershell I’ve used because I had no other choice in dealing with a technical issues caused by windows 10 (f*cking windows I hate you so much.) and yes, *CAUSED BY* Windows 10, first gen of the OS on a Dell all in one, just… it still makes me angry.
Flatpak is awesome. Love them. If they make that the standard and it works on ALL linux distros then MS wouldn’t have a chance, I hate the fact that I’m using Fedora ick. Sorry long standing hatred for that OS and Redhat do to supporting some engineers who used it back in the early 2000’s and well ok it’s much better now. I can see not hating it so much. I would much rather have the linux mint cinnamon desktop though. But maybe KDE Plasma will grow on me, in enjoyment that is, not like windows where it’s more like a fungal infection.
BTW, Hytale runs like a champ as does all the steam stuff I’ve installed thus far. The only issue is it’s working so well I don’t want to break this old machine by putting something else on there now. I mean I do have a Windows 11 box I could sacrificed to the Linux Gawds, but we’ll have to see.
OH OH OH OH OH OH OH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Yes I am writing this like an overly excited 14 year old, you’re point is?)
I’ve had SOOOOO many issues with my Focusrite Scarlette 2i2 in windows 11, and when I plugged in one of my older ones into linux *IT JUST WORKED* it popped up saying it was attached and then simply worked like it should have in windows.
If I ever get a job (yes I’m still putting out resumes and yes, it’s still going nowhere thus the reason I’m going down the linux rabbit whole to at least keep some sense of being an IT professional) I’m going to buy a new nvme drive (hopefully the 8TB drives will come down in price at some point) and pull my existing one out of my main machine and put the 8th in and install Linux on this box, or use acronis to clone it to the 8th and then duel boot it so I have the best and worst of both worlds.
Oh yeah, OBS simply worked, and I know I can install DaVinci Resolve (Which I still need to learn how to use) Hate Gimp so I’ll have to have at least an old Win7 laptop to run my extremely old Photoshop for the rare times I need to create a thumbnail or whatever. Whatever.
I’m tired. My head hurts, my coffee hasn’t kicked in yet and it’s 3:55 in the afternoon. Lol.
Update to come, also more writing to come now that I’ve started using the other room more for my computer activities.
-err
“To jerr is human”
PS:
Yes, that’s me with my brand new TRS-80 computer.
Jerry's Adventures 
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