Good to be back

[River_01]

Heya, I'm River! I'm a old user who used to be active, but lost my credentials for my last account several years ago. After being an lurker for years, I've decided to come back with an new account.
The post 'Why independent websites like GBAtemp are struggling to survive in 2025' inspired me to create this account so I could support the site.

Things I like: Video games, GNU/Linux, OPSEC, and old technology.

Here's hoping for a bright future for this site!

 

[DragonMals]

Video Games, GNU/Linux and Old Technology. Already fitting within the eyes of me. Welcome to the fourms!

 

[a_username_that_is_cool]

I'd just like to- oh, you called it GNU/Linux. Nevermind. Welcome back! If you'd like a good place to start, uh yeah just look at the most recent threads that's usually what I do

 

[The Catboy]

Welcome Back! I am Catboy. I also enjoy Linux. Expect to see me

 

[DragonMals]

I also enjoy Linux

What's your Distro? On my family desktop there's Linux Mint and on my Work PC it's Fedora Workstation.

 

[The Catboy]

What's your Distro? On my family desktop there's Linux Mint and on my Work PC it's Fedora Workstation.

SteamOS on my Steam Deck, Linux Mint on my backup server, and Palworld Server. Fedora on my fuckaround and find out laptop.

 

[DragonMals]

Oh yeah!!!! I forgotten that SteamOS is a form of Arch Linux! You literally have all worlds collide: SOmething Debian based (Linux Mint), Fedora-based (Fedora), and Arch Linux (SteamOS)

 

[River_01]

Oh boy, didn't expect that many replies. Guess I kind of have to tell what I use huh?

Personal: Qubes OS
Desktop/Gaming: Opensuse Tumbleweed
School laptop and servers: Debian

Also have a Steam Deck.

 

[DragonMals]

Qubes OS

I have neevr heard of this OS before! Now you got me thinking about researching about it.

Oh boy, didn't expect that many replies.

The magic of having an active site. I know that there might've been some things that've been said about the state of the temp, but I'm sure that won't leave us in a state where we might have to cancel it. I know the admins won't! (And should it does, there will be an insane amount of people I don't know from other places that'll just dissapear...)

Opensuse Tumbleweed

This is the second time I've heard someone using Open SUSE. I wonder what it's like using it and for what prupouse?

Debian

How do people even set up Linux sevrers!??!!

 

[River_01]

I have neevr heard of this OS before! Now you got me thinking about researching about it.

Qubes is a linux distro where you pretty much run everything in a virtual machine. I guess you could think of it as the operation system of VMs. It can take some time to learn and fully utilize the distro since it works differently than a traditional OS. You can create a new VM (called Qubes) to compartmentalize the things you do, like you can have one only for email and another for banking. The benefit of this is if one gets compromised (e.g. open a malicious email) then the rest will be unaffected. You can also spin up a disposable qube that automatically self-destruct after use.

Is it too much for my use case? Yes
Does it give me the ease of mind my stuff is secure? Yes

I do like having one airtight qube that doesn’t have any outside connection where I keep my passwords and another strictly for managing my servers.

If you have the time and hardware (this is an intensive OS after all) then I recommend trying it.

This is the second time I've heard someone using Open SUSE. I wonder what it's like using it and for what prupouse?

Opensuse TW is a fine distro. In the past TW never clicked with me so I always ended up switching within a week, but when I got my current Desktop I decided to give it another go because I wanted to use a stable rolling release distro with automatic full disk encryption. After year and half I’m still using it and it has some pros and cons.

Cons are it doesn’t come with all of the codecs you maybe require to watch videos, so you have to use a third party repository for it. The package manager, zypper, used to be a major con since it was extremely slow, like a big update could easily take more than 30 minutes. But zypper was updated earlier this year and now same updates could take like 5 minutes or less.

Pros are updates pretty much never cause breakages 99% of the time, software that matters for gaming are up-to-date and a feature called Snapper that I consider to be its killer app. If an update or your tinkering causes your system to bork then you can use it to revert to a previous snapshot. Also it includes a cute gecko :3

How do people even set up Linux sevrers!??!!

Well, you install the linux flavor of your choice and the necessary software on a computer, and then remotely connect to it to send and receive data. What software? Well it could be for backups (Nextcloud), media server (Jellyfin/Plex), and just anything really. You could host a web server but it is however not really the best idea to host it on your home network since if you open up your router to the outside world it could potentially cause issues. If you don’t have the hardware and/or want to host a website than you can rent a virtual private server (VPS). I use VPS for all of my publicly hosted stuff but use my own hardware for private use.



Thank you for reading my rant and I hope I didn’t info dump you (and everyone else)

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Personal: Qubes OS

Didn't expect another Qubes OS user. Not a widespread OS.
Steep learning curve, but well worth the effort.

Have fun!

 

[DragonMals]

Qubes is a linux distro where you pretty much run everything in a virtual machine. I guess you could think of it as the operation system of VMs. It can take some time to learn and fully utilize the distro since it works differently than a traditional OS. You can create a new VM (called Qubes) to compartmentalize the things you do, like you can have one only for email and another for banking. The benefit of this is if one gets compromised (e.g. open a malicious email) then the rest will be unaffected. You can also spin up a disposable qube that automatically self-destruct after use.

Is it too much for my use case? Yes
Does it give me the ease of mind my stuff is secure? Yes

I do like having one airtight qube that doesn’t have any outside connection where I keep my passwords and another strictly for managing my servers.

If you have the time and hardware (this is an intensive OS after all) then I recommend trying it.

I unfourtanately don't have the hardware, but the fact that something like this even exists is baffling to me. I don't understand how someone can manage the programming skills to make incredible stuff like this. This would personally be a nightmare for me to use as I like to have everything in one space work for me, but for those that wants to use stuff in seperate "systems," this is something incredible to have. Hopefully it can handle simple package managers so it can run stuff like Discord and others for social purposes.

Opensuse TW is a fine distro. In the past TW never clicked with me so I always ended up switching within a week, but when I got my current Desktop I decided to give it another go because I wanted to use a stable rolling release distro with automatic full disk encryption. After year and half I’m still using it and it has some pros and cons.

Cons are it doesn’t come with all of the codecs you maybe require to watch videos, so you have to use a third party repository for it. The package manager, zypper, used to be a major con since it was extremely slow, like a big update could easily take more than 30 minutes. But zypper was updated earlier this year and now same updates could take like 5 minutes or less.

Pros are updates pretty much never cause breakages 99% of the time, software that matters for gaming are up-to-date and a feature called Snapper that I consider to be its killer app. If an update or your tinkering causes your system to bork then you can use it to revert to a previous snapshot. Also it includes a cute gecko :3

Ahh~ I see.. I remember my father having a really old version of OpenSUSE on a PC that we still own (though stil don't use) and for some reason since we were never able to log into it, at the time we didn't think on what to do with the machine until i wanted to come in and replace it with various Linux Distros to see if I can get the hang of trying Linux out. I honestly have to thank that little moment becuase of that, I now am interested into it the way that I am with Linux on our Family PC (Fedora Cinamon Spin), my father's laptop (Linux Mint), and my Work PC (Fedora Workstation). I couldn't find a better DE than Cinamon to work cause when I tried out XFCE, the lack of a use of the super button (that's what GNOME calls the Windows key) extremely bothered me since I'm more used to the usefulness of it in both GNOME and KDE Plasma. Even CInamon makes good use of it to some extent. I could've put Fedora Budgie on there but for some reason, I'm not really digging it as much as Cinamon when imho, Budgie seems like if GNOME and Cinamon had a baby.

Well, you install the linux flavor of your choice and the necessary software on a computer, and then remotely connect to it to send and receive data. What software? Well it could be for backups (Nextcloud), media server (Jellyfin/Plex), and just anything really. You could host a web server but it is however not really the best idea to host it on your home network since if you open up your router to the outside world it could potentially cause issues. If you don’t have the hardware and/or want to host a website than you can rent a virtual private server (VPS). I use VPS for all of my publicly hosted stuff but use my own hardware for private use.

Thank you for telling me about this!! Right now we don't really need a server for something like this, but in the case that we do, information like this would be useful. Right now our way of accessing all of our media is on a simple 4 TB space, with each and every one of us having our own space to put our files. Of course, we don't exclusively use this, since all of us have phones and PCs along with our own means of sharing storage and whatnot.

Thank you for reading my rant and I hope I didn’t info dump you (and everyone else)

Info dumping is something I crave. And thank you for sharing it!

 

[AncientBoi]

 

[River_01]

I unfourtanately don't have the hardware, but the fact that something like this even exists is baffling to me. I don't understand how someone can manage the programming skills to make incredible stuff like this. This would personally be a nightmare for me to use as I like to have everything in one space work for me, but for those that wants to use stuff in seperate "systems," this is something incredible to have. Hopefully it can handle simple package managers so it can run stuff like Discord and others for social purposes.

I completely understand of having everything in one place. Due to how Qubes OS works, you kind of have to manage and juggle between multiple VMs which can be overwhelming. Sure you can have one qube where you do everything but at that point why not just use a normal linux distro?

Installing software is a bit different since you don’t do it on the VM itself, but rather on the template that the VM is based on. I’m not sure if I can give a good explanation on everything, so I recommend browsing the Qubes OS website for better explanations than I could ever give.

Ahh~ I see.. I remember my father having a really old version of OpenSUSE on a PC that we still own (though stil don't use) and for some reason since we were never able to log into it, at the time we didn't think on what to do with the machine until i wanted to come in and replace it with various Linux Distros to see if I can get the hang of trying Linux out. I honestly have to thank that little moment becuase of that, I now am interested into it the way that I am with Linux on our Family PC (Fedora Cinamon Spin), my father's laptop (Linux Mint), and my Work PC (Fedora Workstation). I couldn't find a better DE than Cinamon to work cause when I tried out XFCE, the lack of a use of the super button (that's what GNOME calls the Windows key) extremely bothered me since I'm more used to the usefulness of it in both GNOME and KDE Plasma. Even CInamon makes good use of it to some extent. I could've put Fedora Budgie on there but for some reason, I'm not really digging it as much as Cinamon when imho, Budgie seems like if GNOME and Cinamon had a baby.

Yeah it sucks when you can’t login after installing OS. This reminded me when I installed Opensuse on my old computer once years ago, for some reason GRUB was installed on the usb drive that I installed Opensuse from. So after installing it, remove the usb drive and rebooted, I was met with the BIOS screen. When I inserted the drive back in, then I was able to load the OS. I said “screw it” and installed something else.

Cinnamon is a nice DE but personally not my cup of tea. It is pretty nice for people who are coming from Windows and want to have some sort of familiarity. On my desktop I’m running KDE Plasma mostly because of it can scale properly under Wayland. Gnome also works but I started to dislike it after Gnome 40 (I feel like I’m one of the few people who liked Gnome 3.xx). On my school laptop with a fresh install of Debian 13, I am setting up labwc, which shouldn’t be difficult since it’s supposed to be very similar to openbox (my fav wm).

Thank you for telling me about this!! Right now we don't really need a server for something like this, but in the case that we do, information like this would be useful. Right now our way of accessing all of our media is on a simple 4 TB space, with each and every one of us having our own space to put our files. Of course, we don't exclusively use this, since all of us have phones and PCs along with our own means of sharing storage and whatnot.

Whatever works for you is how is should be and no one can say otherwise. At the moment it sounds like your setup works fine as it is.

Info dumping is something I crave. And thank you for sharing it!

No problem

 

[DragonMals]

I completely understand of having everything in one place. Due to how Qubes OS works, you kind of have to manage and juggle between multiple VMs which can be overwhelming. Sure you can have one qube where you do everything but at that point why not just use a normal linux distro?

Installing software is a bit different since you don’t do it on the VM itself, but rather on the template that the VM is based on. I’m not sure if I can give a good explanation on everything, so I recommend browsing the Qubes OS website for better explanations than I could ever give.

I will go do that, thank you. I'm a mix of asking other people for help, and looking at the guides myself. Most of the time though, especially as of recent, I just figure it out myself, and somehow by some miracle, I managed to get it to work. I don't know how, but it works 100% of the time. You've done quite an excellent job explaining everything, though.

Yeah it sucks when you can’t login after installing OS. This reminded me when I installed Opensuse on my old computer once years ago, for some reason GRUB was installed on the usb drive that I installed Opensuse from. So after installing it, remove the usb drive and rebooted, I was met with the BIOS screen. When I inserted the drive back in, then I was able to load the OS. I said “screw it” and installed something else.

Cinnamon is a nice DE but personally not my cup of tea. It is pretty nice for people who are coming from Windows and want to have some sort of familiarity. On my desktop I’m running KDE Plasma mostly because of it can scale properly under Wayland. Gnome also works but I started to dislike it after Gnome 40 (I feel like I’m one of the few people who liked Gnome 3.xx). On my school laptop with a fresh install of Debian 13, I am setting up labwc, which shouldn’t be difficult since it’s supposed to be very similar to openbox (my fav wm).

In order of my personal favorite desktop environments, it would have to be GNOME, KDE Plasma, and Cinnamon. The reason I choose GNOME over everything is the mere fact that something within it allows for me to connect my Wii and WiiU remotes to the system, without having to install some other method to do it. Prior to knowing that though, KDE Plasma was my number one, but due to some issues where I continue to get a sudden crash notification every time I use it like I broke something major (I'm still learning the ropes of Linux), I just moved to using GNOME. Cinnamon is third cause it's just a good one overall, although I can imagine this not being some other people's cups of tea and such. I wonder if it's possible to use an old DE while having the latest version of software within Linux and whatnot, and if possible, how. I think there was a form of an old version of GNOME called MATE, and there's also COSMIC that's similar, I guess? Like I said, I'm still learning the ropes.

Whatever works for you is how is should be and no one can say otherwise. At the moment it sounds like your setup works fine as it is.

Yep! The only thing I can't run Linux on is my gaming desktop since it doesn't run good with NVIDIA drivers.

A litttttttle bit off topic, but it's nice to have another fan of Cleopatra Fortune.

 

[River_01]

The reason I choose GNOME over everything is the mere fact that something within it allows for me to connect my Wii and WiiU remotes to the system, without having to install some other method to do it.

What really? Dang, I did not know Gnome support them out of the box. Doesn't matter how long you've used Linux, you learn something new once in a while

I wonder if it's possible to use an old DE while having the latest version of software within Linux and whatnot, and if possible, how. I think there was a form of an old version of GNOME called MATE, and there's also COSMIC that's similar, I guess? Like I said, I'm still learning the ropes.

Well if you are creative enough and have time, you can change the look and feel of any DE to make it retro. I e.g. changed Maté to look exactly like Windows XP. Yeah Maté is a fork of Gnome 2 since when Gnome 3 was released it was universally hated (like drastically changing the UI/UX and performance issues). Cosmic is a brand new DE made by System76 (creators of Pop_OS!) and from the looks of it, it kind of reminds my modern Gnome. It will be exciting to see the full release since I've heard a lot good things about it from the people who has tested it.

Yep! The only thing I can't run Linux on is my gaming desktop since it doesn't run good with NVIDIA drivers.

If I remember correctly NVIDIA is not as bad like it used to be. Granted I can't say for certain since I went full AMD in 2020 though from the looks of things it seems a lot better in recent years. It did happen to me twice where NVIDIA driver update borked my system (first time it destroyed the X server and second time I was stuck at the lowest 16:9 resolution) but that was back in 2019. If you decide to switch to Linux on your gaming PC it would be the best if you did some research beforehand and also know most AAA multiplayer games won't work.

A litttttttle bit off topic, but it's nice to have another fan of Cleopatra Fortune.

Well it is one of my favorite puzzle game and has a banger soundtrack (Shinin' Queen and Desire). I have no idea how many hours I've played it on my copy of Taito Legends 2. I was really happy when I saw the game is available on modern platforms and bought it on Steam. The game randomly popped up in my head today and figured I should use it as my profile pic.

 

[SylverReZ]

Heya, I'm River! I'm a old user who used to be active, but lost my credentials for my last account several years ago. After being an lurker for years, I've decided to come back with an new account.
The post 'Why independent websites like GBAtemp are struggling to survive in 2025' inspired me to create this account so I could support the site.

Things I like: Video games, GNU/Linux, OPSEC, and old technology.

Here's hoping for a bright future for this site!

Welcome back, River!

Your hobbies seem to fit my criteria as I'm into the same sort of thing. Everything from old tech (mainly 80's/90's PCs like the Amiga and IBM PCs) and I also run Linux (particularly Fedora). You are more than welcome to ask any questions and share great knowledge.

P.S. I don't stop yapping about my hobbies as usual, so expect me to talk a lot.

 

[DragonMals]

This has to be one omf my most favorite introduction threads, What a wonderful way to introduce yourself, but I do sincerely apologize for the late response. Been doing a bunch of stuff on my end.

What really? Dang, I did not know Gnome support them out of the box. Doesn't matter how long you've used Linux, you learn something new once in a while

I didn't even know about this until my curiosity went through me, and after learning that, I wished that Windows and all other Linux DEs has the same functionality. I think Budgie had it too, but I don't wan to test that since I'm plenty satisfied with what I have with Fedora Workstation and whatnot.

Well if you are creative enough and have time, you can change the look and feel of any DE to make it retro. I e.g. changed Maté to look exactly like Windows XP. Yeah Maté is a fork of Gnome 2 since when Gnome 3 was released it was universally hated (like drastically changing the UI/UX and performance issues). Cosmic is a brand new DE made by System76 (creators of Pop_OS!) and from the looks of it, it kind of reminds my modern Gnome. It will be exciting to see the full release since I've heard a lot good things about it from the people who has tested it.

Everyone hated GNOME 3? As soon as you've said that, I've quickly changed my Fedora DE from the latest release of GNOME to MATE, and I personally hated it since there were a bunch of things that were missing from the latest release. It might have the nostalgic factor, but yeah I can only do KDE Plasma and GNOME. Maybe Cinamon if I'm being too gracious. Plus, I don't think MATE has the abillity for me to connect my Wiimotes to it, either.

If I remember correctly NVIDIA is not as bad like it used to be. Granted I can't say for certain since I went full AMD in 2020 though from the looks of things it seems a lot better in recent years. It did happen to me twice where NVIDIA driver update borked my system (first time it destroyed the X server and second time I was stuck at the lowest 16:9 resolution) but that was back in 2019. If you decide to switch to Linux on your gaming PC it would be the best if you did some research beforehand and also know most AAA multiplayer games won't work.

NVIDIA on my main laptop screen works fine, but on my second monitor, it either glitches like crazy (KDE Plasma), or doesn't support alternate size options/hz (anything above 60 would cause visual glitches), and the only distros that don't have a problem with this is Fedora Workstation and Pop!OS.

Well it is one of my favorite puzzle game and has a banger soundtrack (Shinin' Queen and Desire). I have no idea how many hours I've played it on my copy of Taito Legends 2. I was really happy when I saw the game is available on modern platforms and bought it on Steam. The game randomly popped up in my head today and figured I should use it as my profile pic.

Underrated Taito Puzzle game, I tell you, but I myself do NOT know how to play the game. I might try out the Saturn port of the Arcade release sometime soon, but for now? I think I'll still give it a few before I try. Good to know someone acknowledges this game cause it's wonderful.

 

[River_01]

Everyone hated GNOME 3?

From what I’ve heard from people who were around when it was launch, it was kind of a disaster. Like I said before it drastically changed everything and at performance issues. Canonical ditched Gnome and created their own DE called Unity, but they ended up going back to Gnome in 2018. People later on got used to to the new design and performance got a lot better.

As soon as you've said that, I've quickly changed my Fedora DE from the latest release of GNOME to MATE, and I personally hated it since there were a bunch of things that were missing from the latest release. It might have the nostalgic factor, but yeah I can only do KDE Plasma and GNOME. Maybe Cinamon if I'm being too gracious. Plus, I don't think MATE has the abillity for me to connect my Wiimotes to it, either.

Fair point. Mate OOTB is kind of bare bones and clunky by modern standards. I personally like it because of the old school feel it has. I used to run it on my school laptop but noticed one day the temps were in the 80s even though I wasn’t doing anything demanding. Switched to a simple window manager and now it barely goes over 60°, even though I do heavy stuff.

NVIDIA on my main laptop screen works fine, but on my second monitor, it either glitches like crazy (KDE Plasma), or doesn't support alternate size options/hz (anything above 60 would cause visual glitches), and the only distros that don't have a problem with this is Fedora Workstation and Pop!OS.

Yup sounds about right. Even though NVIDIA has gotten better, they can still be a prick when it comes to Linux. If I remember correctly mixed hz can lead to funky results if you use Xorg. You could use Wayland but NVIDIA doesn’t play nice with it. For some funny reasons, Linus publicly giving NVIDIA the middle finger still holds up, despite doing it a decade ago.

Underrated Taito Puzzle game, I tell you, but I myself do NOT know how to play the game. I might try out the Saturn port of the Arcade release sometime soon, but for now? I think I'll still give it a few before I try. Good to know someone acknowledges this game cause it's wonderful.

If I recall the modern release is essentially the Saturn version running in an emulator but it’s all in Japanese. I wish I could the original Saturn version but I’m not gonna spend 200$ (plus shipping and import fees) for it

It’s nice finding other people who at least knows about it. I’ve mentioned it to some of my friends who are knowledgeable about retro games but have never heard about it. Taito has some amazing gems that seems to be forgotten by time.

 

[DragonMals]

From what I’ve heard from people who were around when it was launch, it was kind of a disaster. Like I said before it drastically changed everything and at performance issues. Canonical ditched Gnome and created their own DE called Unity, but they ended up going back to Gnome in 2018. People later on got used to to the new design and performance got a lot better.

Ohhhh so BACK THEN, it used to be a problem.. I still see people not recommending GNOME to new users, but tbh, I'm quite confused by that. The best thing about this DE is that you're able to customize it with extensions, and you can make GNOME feel like Windows, Mac, or something custom, similar to KDE Plasma. I used to work with the original, but after realizing I can make it work like Windows, I Immediately stuck to doing that. I even made a pusedo combination of the two, having the background apps on the taskbar show on the top, an eject button, and the dock from MacOS.

Fair point. Mate OOTB is kind of bare bones and clunky by modern standards. I personally like it because of the old school feel it has. I used to run it on my school laptop but noticed one day the temps were in the 80s even though I wasn’t doing anything demanding. Switched to a simple window manager and now it barely goes over 60°, even though I do heavy stuff.

Even if it sacrifices performance, I have to say that the most featured DE is the best one to use. The nostalgia factor can come in if you're creative enough. Like you've said, you were able to recreate XP in certain DEs, and I can see other people recreating the feeling of other Windows versions in different DEs, too. In fact, GNOME has an extension that restores the MATE look except it's modernized.

Yup sounds about right. Even though NVIDIA has gotten better, they can still be a prick when it comes to Linux. If I remember correctly mixed hz can lead to funky results if you use Xorg. You could use Wayland but NVIDIA doesn’t play nice with it. For some funny reasons, Linus publicly giving NVIDIA the middle finger still holds up, despite doing it a decade ago.

That's because NVIDIA, unlike AMD and Intel, is closed-source, and of course, nobody likes closed-source. Fun fact, this and the fact that Windows automatically turns on Secure Boot on my machine are the reasons I started supporting Open Source software more than ever. I used to appreciate them a little bit by now, but all I wish is for everything to be Open Source (but I can't).

If I recall the modern release is essentially the Saturn version running in an emulator but it’s all in Japanese. I wish I could the original Saturn version but I’m not gonna spend 200$ (plus shipping and import fees) for it

It’s nice finding other people who at least knows about it. I’ve mentioned it to some of my friends who are knowledgeable about retro games but have never heard about it. Taito has some amazing gems that seems to be forgotten by time.

I completely forgotten that Taito re-re-released this game on modern hardware, but yeah from what I'm looking at, it is just the Satrun version. I think its the definitive way to play the original. I don't get on how there's some Arcade games that aren't on PlayStation that have been ported to the Saturn without issue. One example of this is Magical Drop II. I guess they preferred the Saturn hardware more than Sony's? Idk. Only time will tell.

I can't believe I'm actually speaking this much.