There are different Linux distributions that do offer paid support, as far as the OS goes. So if you’re interested in professional paid support for the OS, something like Zorin OS or Ubuntu may be an option. I’ve seen others recommend Linux mint, and that’s my go-to for someone not familiar with Linux. It’s popular and even if whatever repair shop you’re taking it into isn’t familiar, they can find the resources online to fix whatever problem you may have. But being totally practical, even if you dislike windows, if it’s able to do what you need, and the people that you know are familiar with it, is it worth the effort to swap for you and your use case?

The remaster just came out this year, and Oblivion is loved by a lot of people. I replay it every couple years. Regardless, old games are very much still worth experiencing.

I’m not really interested in some aggressive back and forth on a Lemmy thread, so this is the last response I’m going to leave with you. I shared what my experience was at the time, and I don’t especially care if you believe me. I’m not my time trying to put together and research a list of equivalent hardware with time accurate prices to the Xbox One/Ps4 generation to please a random person I haven’t met on Lemmy. If you care that much, you can do the research.

I built a PC that was more expensive and more powerful than consoles at the time, but did plenty of looking into different hardware prices. The important thing is prices at the time. You can feel free to do the digging if you want. Usually you’d end up with just slightly more expensive for the Base hardware, but with no online subscription cost that would make console more expensive long-term.

It really was, I migrated from console to pc around the beginning of the Xbox One/ps4 generation. It was more effort to hunt down parts and build a PC, for sure, but it was very doable to match console performance for the same price. These days though thanks in part to tariffs, and crypto mining, hardware prices are worse than they used to be.

It certainly was the case, for a while, given you were shooting for similar specs to consoles. But times are a little different now.

You don’t need to use steam to use wine and proton. I do this pretty much every day, playing games from GOG, or from itch.io. where you get the executable for the game doesn’t matter. I’m currently part way through a run of Baldur’s Gate 1 from GOG, and it’s a Windows executable. You could set up a wine prefix manually, but there’s options like lutris, bottles, or play on Linux to handle that for you. I’ve played games from battle.net and ea app as well, all on linux by setting up proton in Lutris.

You can run non-steam windows games on linux as well, even without steam installed.

Dark Souls 2 gives you a very large amount of human effigies that can restore your max HP, and in a very early game area there is a ring you can wear that limits how low your max HP can go. It’s in a chest in a very early game area that you will walk by and see guaranteed in order to progress. What I think is more interesting is how you think it’s the norm and expected that you should be able to play through an action game and rarely die. It’s okay to enjoy power fantasy games, where dying means you fail - and you just get to retry the part you failed. But that doesn’t mean that enjoying the process of learning an enemy patterns and overcoming adversity is insane. Those games are not power fantasy action games, you are supposed to feel weak. Because when you feel weak and then you kill that damn boss anyways, it’s one of the best feelings ever in gaming. On top of that, a lot of the consumables that you’re talking about you can buy infinite of. Like I said, the games aren’t that hard, enemy patterns are usually pretty simple with only a few attacks, and as you move through areas you learn what gimmicks the enemies are going to abuse and can just adapt to them. Most enemies can be easily parried, or you can kill problem enemies with poison arrows or magic from a distance. Often I think that the people who are convinced that souls games are brutal and not fun are people who try to play them like they are some kind of action hero instead of taking advantage of the tools the games give you to use, especially the summons.

The games can certainly be punishing in key areas, and it’s better that newer entries and other soulslikes make an effort to make learning the games be more friendly. Death is punishing, sure. Losing consumables, fighting through the same enemies again, or even just having to run back to a boss - these are all sources of friction in this genre. Up front, I do wish these games had accessibility options, I do want more people to experience what they have to offer. But death really just isn’t as punishing as a lot of people make it out to be. Dark Souls isn’t that hard, in most cases. There’s certainly bullshit, and it takes time to learn enemy patterns, and dying can be bad feeling. I think that without the friction, if you could overcome every location and boss on the first or second try, these games would just kind of suck. So it’s a balance.

I’ve been using linux for years, after windows 10 forced an update at the beginning of a college class I needed the laptop for, and that update took longer than the class. Today though, I use Garuda Linux, but I’ve hopped around between a variety of distros. For many years I’ve kept a small SSD with Windows 10 on it, so I could play League of Legends or run software I couldn’t get to work in WINE. But with EOL now here, and my PC not supported by 11, I finally just cleared that drive so I can store games or movies/shows on it.

I saw this recently and it kind of blew my mind how good the animation is. Highly recommend.

I was in college at the time, I went to class, which I needed my laptop for. I believe it was windows 10? I opened the laptop to start my work, and windows immediately, unprompted, without permission, began an update - an update that took longer than the class lasted. This should never happen, and for me it never does on any Linux distribution I’ve used.

I use Samsung phones for work, it’s really just some UI changes, and they’re genuinely much worse than just stock android. Samsung is just trying to differentiate itself.

You can select to run them in proton, rather than just normal wine, in lutris. I’ve been doing it to run games from gog for years with few issues, namely games that are old and have the same problems working on windows as well. So… Yes they will?

Linux compatibility is fine. You can pretty easily install gog games by logging into your gof account on lutris. It’ll let you see your whole library and install directly from it, and any games that work in proton will work just fine using proton via lutris. You can also just add your gog game as a non-steam game and run it there.

We don’t usually work with cash. Most people I know don’t carry cash at all, and it’s a pain to get, since most paychecks are direct deposit. You’ve gotta head to an ATM or the bank, or ask for cash at checkout at the store.

The soundtrack in Celeste is fantastic

You can, in fact, learn to draw things yourself. It’s insane to expect artists to work for below a livable hourly wage just because you can’t afford it.

It’s sad that so many people are willing to buy new devices with lithium ion batteries in them when much of the cobalt used in the production of them is mined via slave labor in Congo. I’m sorry but open world Mario kart and higher fps in your games isn’t worth slavery.