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I can't believe a paid OS needs a tool like this. Here's a GUI tool called OFGB (Oh Frick Go Back) to remove all the ads in Windows 11. It's understandable if a free OS or app needs ad support, but this is just crazy github.com/xM4ddy/OFGB
[Screenshot Of a GUI Tool To Removes Ads From Various Places Around Windows 11]
I would love another plug and play experience like I get with windows so I can spend my very limited time on playing the games I like out of the box. Any ideas on how I would do that please?
Get a Steam Deck.
No seriously, Steam Decks run on an immutable Arch (edit: I thought my steam deck was a Ubuntu distribution until just now when someone corrected me, see how much of a fool I am and yet I still find my steam deck easy to use when I am exhausted and don’t want to troubleshoot/learn new shit!) distro of Linux. Immutable means every update addresses the core of the operating system in a way that you can’t fuck up anywhere as easily as a normal operating system.
The desktop UI is great, there is a flatpak App Store pre-installed, I mean you can search for Xonotic or any other utility you need and install it in 30 seconds flat. It is just a Linux desktop with decent presets.
The thing is the Steam Deck doesn’t boot to desktop, it boots to a big picture mode where the UI looks like a console. It is easy to browse your games and it feels like you are using a very focused, locked down device from the likes of Apple or Nintendo, not a full blown portable Ubuntu computer running a slick wrapper around one of the most extensible constructions of software ever made (no unfortunately the Steam Deck isn’t a LISP machine).
The clever bit though is that SteamOS (basically a Ubuntu distro) has Proton which is designed to emulate windows (closely related to the other windows emulator WINE). This allows you to play the vast majority of windows games on your Steam Deck and because the windows games are ran in a virtual environment…. when you press the power button to sleep your Steam Deck it just pauses that virtual environment which means that ALLL kinds of games old and new that were never designed to be abruptly paused and resumed end up with wayyyyyyy less issues on the Steam Deck than they would if you were running them in Windows natively and trying to do the same thing (with say a microsoft Surface or something).
I regularly play Steel Panthers WinspWW2 on my Steam Deck. I run it on dosbox which either comes preinstalled on the Steam Deck or is available on the “app store” I can’t remember (not really a store because no one is selling anything).
https://www.shrapnelgames.com/Camo_Workshop/WW2/WW2_page.html
^look how shit this website looks, this is an ANCIENT game running on DOS and it honestly barely runs on native windows anyways, you can’t full screen it without it crashing on windows.
All I had to do was add the launch file to steam and now I can open up my steam deck, scroll down to WinspWW2 and start playing the best turn based tactical strategy game ever made… on the go….. that came out in 1995 and has been updated continually since and is basically being kept functioning by an elaborate janky lifesupport system that most people with windows computers don’t even want to bother with because the experience of playing the game is too annoying….
It just runs on my Steam Deck tho!
The virtual dos environment lets me not have to worry if the game will crash when I pause and alt tab to a different program or abruptly put my device to sleep without giving the game time to save or something…. the Steam Deck just suspends the virtual environment and from the perspective of WinspWW2 no change needs to happen. The program just sits open and frozen waiting for me to press the power button on my Steam Deck and keep playing.
Not saying you have to do nerdy shit with your steam deck, what I am saying is that you can do whatever you want to with your steam deck and not have to worry that a company like Microsoft is going to take a dump on a nice thing you had worked out between you and your gaming setup.
Get the Steam Deck it is the best of both worlds, slick and polished when you want it to be, customizable and extensible when you need it to be.
I haven't gamed on Windows since buying my Deck, but you're testimonial here isn't very convincing. It's a portable gaming device that requires a dock (or hub) to even play on a monitor. It's underpowered by design. Not even all top Steam games run on it.
Damn sorry I can see why you don’t like it and those are valid points about doing a bad job with my testimonial, I don’t really know that much about any of this I just type things into google and yell excitedly at the words that pop up most of the time when I am programming (I am looking to learn how to automate this with AI).
Also ok my confusion in thinking WINE is a virtual environment and an emulator when it isn’t, is something anyone could get confused about, if they wanted to make sure everyone knew they should have Put It In The Name and instead they named it after that sour grape drink I would always see my parents friends drink who think the New York Times is a genuinely progressive news organization.
But whatever, I am a fool as I keep telling people and if anything my post should be more convincing because I love my steam deck and find it easy to use even when I am downloading and installing utilities in desktop mode like Qutebrowser and tailoring custom keybindings to use it. I can still figure this out, which is a miracle if a very mundane one at that.
You are clearly right here, and if I was going to make a good argument for the Steam Deck I should have come off as someone who evidently loves their Steam Deck and wants to chat with people about it in a critical fashion where commenters with various different perspectives acknowledge the ups and downs of the device and it’s inherent limitations while refraining from the need to correct newbies sharing their love for the device on incorrect technical details that other newbies aren’t going to care about.
Wait
Yeah, your overall point is 100% correct and well made. Just a few things that don't really matter to an end user they were complaining about
Arch not Ubuntu
Hahahaha well I am an idiot
I do love that this is basically like being a devout worshipper of a cult but realizing 5 years in that I got the wrong address, showed up to the wrong cult, but then everyone was so dark and moody and only spoke in deceiving rhymes so that nobody realized the administrative mistake, including me AND the innocent villagers going about their day outside the cult complex who I continually tried to convert to worship a god which was quite obviously in fact not the god lovingly illustrated on the sign atop the cult mansion’s roof either in name or description but in point of fact the god worshipped by the other cult mansion two blocks south on Michael Street not Michel Street (? Is that even a name?).
An understandable mistake for a citizen passing by from the other side of the city, but when you are actually in the wrong cult and don’t even know it? Oof that is some next level shit.
I'd say literally any distro other than Ubuntu.
I even avoid downstream distros now.
I've mostly settled comfortably on Debian due to it's stability. Nothing whatsoever against Arch, though.
I was correcting op about the steam deck. Although I do agree with you, personally I run nixos for stability while still being fairly bleeding edge
I haven't looked at a steam deck but will have to see about it. I am keyboard and mouse though I have tried control pads before and I cannot use them
I understand, you can use the steamdeck docked liked a normal desktop of course.
You just have a fairly hardware limited extremely lightweight gaming desktop that you can throw in your backpack, but it still does a damn fine job of that too so shrugs. I mean get a Logitech k780 or whatever Bluetooth keyboard you like, a mouse too, Bluetooth works just as fine on the Steam Deck as any other laptop.
I like plenty of indie games and I have a deep love for entire genres of video games that categorically don’t require any computing muscle to work (cataclysm dark days ahead I love you) so I don’t care as much about having a super powerful gaming computer at this point in my life but it is definitely a valid criticism of the deck.
Interesting I will definitely take a look. Thank you!
I never considered old DOS games until now. Thank you!
Check out this tutorial if you are interested, it is a good quick visual run through of how to get a game running on your steam deck with dos box.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jiIDEfznP6g
The main tutorial is only 6 minutes, the rest is the person showing how to do it several different ways and talking through the process. Something I also appreciate is how they immediately transition to talking about Decky Loader which is a utility that allows the steam deck to run plugin utilities in Gaming Mode/inside the steam overlay in gaming and specifically one of its plugins, SteamGridDB.
https://github.com/SteamGridDB/decky-steamgriddb
https://github.com/SteamDeckHomebrew/decky-loader
See when you add your random DOS game to steam it just looks sad and blank next to all your official steam games. That doesn’t inspire you to play the game! SteamGridDB comes to the rescue though by making it take a matter of seconds to browse the steam community for artwork banners and icons themed for that game and painlessly spruce up how your favorite non-steam games look when browsing through your library in Gaming Mode (basically “console mode”).
You can search for the game name or just rename the launcher file you added to steam as the original game (i.e. in steam rename the game My Favorite Old Game not MyFavOldGame_launcher_V2) and the automatic search in SteamGridDB should pull up any artwork made by the community for custom game banners and such.
It seems like a small thing, but it isn’t.
(You can also use your own custom artwork with SteamGridDB which you have to for most obscure games but you would be surprised what other people have uploaded for niche games it definitely surprises me).
First, I'd take a look to see if there are any games you really want to play to make sure they're Linux compatible. ProtonDB is a great resource for this. The amount of games that work on Linux is actually pretty great, and the coverage is only increasing. That said, the biggest gap comes from games that require anti-cheat software, since that tends to require Windows. It sucks, since it's a one-sided decision from publishers, and there's not much to do besides keep Windows around, at least in a dual-boot. If you're mostly a single-player gamer, you're probably good to go. If you play AAA competitive multiplayer games, you're probably out of luck. Best to check before getting started.
Secondly, I'd take a look at Nobara. It's designed from the ground up to deliver what you want: a plug-and-play, out-of-the-box experience geared towards gaming. I can't speak from personal experience, but I've heard good things. I've also heard good things about Pop_OS, which I think makes gaming a priority, too. Linux Mint is also great for offering a smooth transition, but I'm just not sure if there are any hurdles for gaming specifically.
I'll also add that, while you might need to do some tinkering on Linux, even the regular distros don't actually have it that bad. For the most part, it's enabling an option on Steam, maybe downloading a package, maybe some settings here and there. Yeah, Windows still has it smoother, but it might be worth it to not have to fight Windows elsewhere, like with all the ads and privacy invasions. YMMV. For me, the juice is worth the squeeze, because the squeeze isn't actually that hard once you get a little know-how. :P
Also... you can dual boot. Say you need Windows for some games, or don't want to futz at all to get them running. You could do that to game or use whatever software only works with Windows, then reboot into Linux for more basic computing. Maybe it's not worth the hassle of rebooting for you, but it's yet another option if you don't want to compromise on gaming, but also don't want to deal with Windows the rest of the time.
I installed pop_os after Ubuntu murdered itself for undisclosed reasons, quite a nice experience and my setup is notorious for windows because of my mismatch of components. (10+ years of difference in components)
I will take a look thank you
I solved this by getting an Xbox. I start a game, and it works (as long as there's no mandatory updates...). No worrying about system specs, graphics drivers, or anything like that.
I was all about PC gaming in my teens and 20s. These days, I work all day and have much less free time, and want a gaming system that just works with minimal effort. Consoles handle that nicely.