1. I dare

2. I like the angular multi texture and led strip styling of the original PS4. It was distinct and can be identified just from a glance.

Meanwhile the slim is just a featureless box with fillet edges and a trench. At a glance its difficult to tell what it is until you see the PlayStation logo.

While I am not a fan of the PS5’s design its at the minimum distinct, and striking. I just wish that it wasn’t wider than a george foreman grill original PS3

Looks better than the PS4 Pro and slims

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets.

Are they good games? No

But they are well themed and have chiptune version of Jeremy Soule’s soundtrack. I like replaying the, from time to time.

I wouldn’t worry too much about not knowing this. The steam deck is still relatively new and proton/dxvk is improving at such a blinding pace compared to the rest of Linux that my head is still spinning.

From my limited understanding, because of Arch’s rolling releases and Valve basing the steam deck on Arch. DXVK the compatibility layer for DX games to vulkan is managed by the distro. How this works is magic is still magic to me. I also think graphic drivers gets pushed on arch early too, since it’s a rolling release.

However I am in complete agreement, Arch isn’t beginner friendly, I personally like Manjaro and find it friendlier, but that’s like having a pet cat, and it’s a Bob cat. Sure it’s not a Lion, but it’s not a Kitty.

Don’t know how to specifically, but usually the GBAtemp website is a good place to start.

This forum looks like it has relevant info about the VC save formatting for N64 saves.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/transferring-wiiu-virtual-console-save-files-to-retroarch-on-switch.601327/

Have you not heard of the Steam Deck and Proton? Running MS APIs through a compatibility layer is the main goal for Linux gaming for the past few years, as it allows legacy games that had no hope in getting a Linux native port (or a terrible Linux port) to run in Linux, through the Proton Compatibility layer.

The apps I was using were running with DXVK, but due to a bug with intel iGPU driver which affects both Windows and Linux users, it didn’t work. A Intel Mesa update patched the bug, and my game worked better. When I moved back I was on an older driver and had to wait for it to be added in.

This comes from personal testing of games. There was a DX11 bug intel igpus where UE4 games crash instantly on boot. I was able to work around this by forcing dx12 in arch, but when I moved to fedora it wasn’t working, that was until about 2 months later after an update. Since I don’t know exactly how far behind fedora is in terms of graphics drivers I said it in ambiguous terms.

From my personal experience Arch is several months ahead of other distros and depending on the package and sometimes has everything you need already included for gaming.

I believe this is due to the Steam Deck.

However for ease of use, I agree there are other better distros. Fedora is only 2ish months behind arch in terms of graphics drivers and Ubuntu… has the latest proton from steam and lutris since proton isn’t installed from the local app stores.

For the first time in over 10 years. LBP Vita. Wanted to record it and just got sucked back in.

Also playing LBP PSP but not getting as sucked in

I was more going for ease of use. If you are playing the latest and greatest then I agree you’d probably want Arch based or at the minimum Fedora based distributions. However if you are playing some more stable games, or I do titles and Ubuntu is fine. The updates will come.

My SO enjoys Zorin. Based on Ubuntu (like pop os) but had built in themes that makes the desktop environment easily customizable.

They found it easy to use and set up.

I made a video going over my own experience. But I feel the biggest tip is to understand the difference between the OS and the Desktop Environment, since in Linux these are separate.

In Windows I found myself identifying the OS based on how the start menu looks and how the file explorer is.

But in Linux these are separate and are called Desktop Environmenta (DE). Your desktop can look like Windows with DE’s like KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, or Mate. It can be Mac like with KDE Plasma, or Gnome. Or it can be unique like Gnome.

If you noticed I repeated a few names, that’s because they can be customized, and some distributions make them look and feel the way they want them too.

Meanwhile the distro is more focused on what applications are pre-installed and what software will run and are available. I.e. Debain is more stable while arch is more up-to-date.

There are many guides going over this, but distro hopping is the best for narrowing this down. I found finding applications that need to work and seeing if the distro can do it, can weed out any distro that won’t work for you. If you don’t like the feel of a distro but like the functionally, then look for a similar distro but with a new GUI.

For example Ubuntu ships with a mostly unmodified Gnome. I personally am not a fan of Gnome and prefer a more Windows-like feel. So I look around and find Zorin, Kubuntu, and Mint.

Word of the wise though, while you can install more than one de on install, you are better off either making a new profile or not swapping your de. Something something shared resources, something something breaking your install.

Yup. We use to have Netflix and another service depending on what was coming out I.e. Disney plus when Mandi was releasing.

Now we just do the other service,

Please ignore the iPad usb c dock with the hdmi splitter connected to it.

Many reasons. Many of which is down to how Google as a company is reaching between the proverbial couch cushions to get at the loose change to make a profit. Default opt-in tracking, breaking ad-blockers, and probably more which I forgot about since I abandoned Chrome years ago.

I’ve tried Linux on my Surface Go. It was awful but not in the way you’d think it would be.

Pros: Honestly Linux made the anemic processor on it feel snappy again. I couldn’t play the newest games, linux is not a miracle worker. But compared to the bloated experience its better than Windows 10.

Cons: The smallest features didn’t work. SD reader never worked. Needed the Surface firmware to get the webcam to work and even then it was worse than it was on Windows. No good on screen keyboard software, and from my testing no DE had a good tablet mode.

Plus the giant red “unsecured” bar on boot was an eye sore.

I know Linux is has more compatibility on different Surface models so maybe it was just my Go. Or perhaps it was Manjaro. Either way if you don’t have a machine yet maybe look at other laptop/tablets

Hey my old monitor setup isn’t here.

Main display is normal with a laptop underneath, a vertical display to the left with a laptop display on the bottom under the first monitor

I do not consider a Mac for a gaming machine since it’s library is extremely limited compared to a pc.

With that said, a steam dec+Mac would be a good combo.

Depends on use case. As others have suggested please ensure that she is in the discussions.

M powered macs are both a blessing and a curse. They are fast, battery efficient, and have the ports you need with the Pro.

But they force you to be stuck with the storage amount you leave the store with, no ability to upgrade, and a reduced software library thanks to the removal of x86 code. If she plays games on her machine, she’s going to have a bad time.

Meanwhile, Windows machines haven’t changed much since 2015. Yes they can still do everything that they could, so software isn’t an issue and games play better than they ever did. But the cost is the amount of extra research you need to do to ensure you are getting a good machine.

My current windows laptop looked good on paper, but the battery life turned out to be worse than I expected and the speakers are so quiet I can’t hear them.

With that said. If you have the budget, the Macbook is the better work machine in my view. Especially if your are just typing. We are leveling out on storage and RAM requirements, so long as you get more than 256GB of storage (1TB recommended 512GB min) and at least 8GB of RAM anything you get will feel snappy and quick.

However if she intends to use it for more, I.e. games, video editing, photo shop, connecting other devices to it like a Garmin. Then you should ensure that whatever you get can do it. (Web browsing doesn’t count any more)

You can’t just fallback on Linux just yet, as there is only a few distros for it and software is still limited.

I agree with you. But with how fractured the software and hardware space has become. Building native is expensive and time consuming.

For example a web browser is compatible with x86 amd64 armv7 aarch64 on any OS from Windows, Linux, Mac OS, iPad/iOS, and Android.

Which means that if I make 1 web page, I can support all these platforms at once.

The customer doesn’t care, they just want funny cat pics.

Building native requires both the hardware (especially if you need to build for the walled garden known as iOS), and frameworks. Where its just easier to recompile chrome, and bake in a Web Page, I.e. react native

From my quick search you aren’t getting everything from under $150.

I got a USB C dock from Amazon under the name LASUNEY, but it’s not for sale any more. I’ve seen equivalent under a 15 in 1 naming that seems to exactly the same, just under a different name LIONWEI that’s around the $100 mark, 2 DP 1Gbps and many usb ports.

I believe resolution is determined by your machine’s chipset not the dock, but I could be mistaken.

Now I also found one that has 2.5Gbps networking but that’s $270 under the Plugable brand. Not a fan of the specs of that one since the power comes from a barrel Jack instead of usb c.