I've been using Ubuntu daily for a few months. I was a bit afraid of having some major issue and having to try another distro before thinking about returning to Arch, but the balance is positive so far.

I admit there have been a few things that've annoyed me. Then again, I've had that on any OS I've used, so... yeah, computers... At least they're not printers, right?! 👀

✔️ The positives

I find the default GNOME experience on Ubuntu to be good. Back in the day, I enjoyed the hell out of Unity, and having a similar experience is nice. Of course, we're talking about GNOME here; extensions are necessary, but I didn't install that many, and some were only to improve the interface's bling (I like pretty things 🤷).

It's also nice to have a free tier for the Ubuntu Pro program. If, for whatever reason, I decide to stick with this version, I'll have 10 years of security updates (at the time of writing). The specifics are on the link above, so don't forget to check it out to know more about them.

When it comes to regular home users, Pro's free tier can be a nice thing to have. This way, they can slowly prepare the migration to a newer LTS and still stay reasonably secure. Well, to be honest, also because they don't tend to like changes, and keeping a stable environment for some time reduces the stress of computing for them.

This, of course, is also beneficial for self-hosters, for example. But it might not be for you, and that's fair, too. 🍻

Snaps have also improved quite a lot. You may find the occasional exception, but they have become quite performant compared to just a few years ago. Even the Steam snap has improved; however, it can take a little bit more time to launch than the native package when you have a lot of games installed and/or they take up a lot of disk space.

Another plus for the Steam snap is being able to change Mesa versions. There might be some games that require more recent versions than the included one, so this is a nice feature to have.

❌ The negatives

There's an issue with the Steam snap, where right-clicking on something to show a menu and then clicking on a menu entry just closes the menu and doesn't perform the action. This one can be annoying as hell sometimes! 💢

I do miss having some utilities I use already packaged or from a trusted enough source on the AUR, but I compiled them from source, and I keep tabs on new updates occasionally.

It's also a shame there is no official gamescope package, and you're left compiling it from source. I do think there are a few issues with that on the 24.04 LTS version, but I'm just remembering this as I type, so I might be misremembering.

I was also having the best KDE experience I've had in ~20 years with Plasma 6.x on Arch, but it's not packaged for Ubuntu 24.04. One time, I tried using a repo from Kubuntu or something, but I ended up borking the package and dependency lists, and couldn't remove the upgraded packages. 💀 I ended up reinstalling, which was faster than spending a day debugging dependency issues and force-installing some packages manually.

I had forgotten how PPAs can be a headache if you just YOLO it. 😅

👋 Conclusion

At least for now, I'm sticking with the latest stable LTS. When I switched, my goal was to have a system that doesn't change much over time and, in doing so, doesn't bother me every day to install a ton of updates. I also wanted something more reliable. While the verdict is yet to be reached on the latter, it has been reached on the former — most days, I only have flatpak updates.

I'll stick with Ubuntu LTS for a few more months, so I can safely say if it is what I'm looking for or if I need to find another distribution. Although I think I'll probably stick to it until the next LTS — unless I have a major issue with it —and then reevaluate it.

#Ubuntu #Linux #Arch #KDE #GNOME #Steam #Gaming #LinuxGaming #DesktopLinux

I uninstalled Euro Truck Simulator 2 (ETS2) a few weeks ago. I needed the space to install another game and try it out. That game was cool but not as good as ETS2, so I replaced it with the truck driving simulator. However, after watching a streamer use it, I added the Grand Utopia mod.

Grand Utopia is a map mod of a fictional island, partially inspired by the game's French map. The best thing about it is it uses a 1:1 scale, unlike the official game maps, which means a trip takes around the same time as it would in real life for its distance. The scenery is also well made but uses more graphic elements, so expect it to utilize more resources.

I've been playing with this mod for over a week and enjoy it very much. The new places to unlock, the beautiful sceneries, and the 1:1 scale add to a pleasant gaming experience. I cannot recommend it enough.

If you want to try Grand Utopia, there's one thing you need to do: create a new profile. It won't work with your current profiles and will even crash the game if you try to force it on an existing one.

#Linux #LinuxGaming #ETS2 #EuroTruckSimulator2 #Gaming

For this save, I loaded Germany, Belgium, England, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, The Netherlands, and Sweden's main divisions. I would've loaded lower divisions from these countries with more RAM and a faster CPU because I would've had a very slow gaming experience if I had done it with my current hardware. Loading several countries forced me to start as a professional manager (you can start as an amateur manager if you choose to), or I would have stayed unemployed for a long time, and I didn't want that.

There were a few teams with no manager, including Ajax. I applied to all of them, but Mechelen, from Belgium, was the first to offer me a contract and accept my terms. The team is weak, but thankfully, the other teams from the league are not world-class, so I've managed to stay in first place with eight games played so far.

As with every weaker team I manage, my strategy is to get players without a contract and on loan from other clubs. To earn revenue, I try to win as many trophies as possible and sell performing players so that I can then replace better players on free transfers or loans. Keeping the wages in check is another thing I have to do, or the club's finances will suffer.

This season's objective is to finish in a position that allows me to play European football, hopefully in the Champions League, and at least reach Belgium's cup semi-final. I know these are hefty objectives, but I play to win as much as possible. I already secured some players on loan that improve the squad quality, and I have two future free transfers that will also increase the grade of the attack, an area the team lacks in quality.

#FootballManager #FM #Gaming

I've been playing Championship Manager and, after that, Football Manager since 1995 or 1996. The name change was due to a fallout between Eidos and Sports Interactive around the mid-2000s, with the latter launching the Football Manager series after the event and the one that became successful. The new Championship Manager and its inferior gameplay disappeared into the annals of history.

My first game of this franchise was Championship Manager 2. A neighbor knew my parents had bought me my first computer, asked me if I had some floppy disks, and then made me a copy of the game.

This was the first game I installed on that computer, I think. It was awesome because I loved football (soccer), especially the tactical and managerial side of the sport. I spent countless hours playing it, particularly during easter and summer vacations. On some days, I would only stop to eat, go to the bathroom, and sleep (late at night, mind you). I was hooked!

From then on, I played every Championship Manager title until the fallout, and every Football Manager game released since then. As I type this, Football Manager 2024 (FM24) is running. The versions released since 2020 also helped me distract from the pain and pass the time on those nights – and there were many of them! – I was kept awake by even more intense pain than usual.

The last one I'll play

Football Manager 2024 will be the last of this generation (FM25 will employ the Unity engine) and probably the last one I'll play. I'm sad about it because I enjoyed this series for over two decades, and it brings me pleasant memories. But its price has increased, and I can't afford it anymore. I'm only playing FM24 because it was my wife's and my sister-in-law's fortieth-birthday present.

It's the end of an era for me. Everything comes to an end eventually. Maybe that will be an opportunity to try the games I bought and got from giveaways over the years.

#Gaming #FM24 #CM2 #FootballManager #ChampionshipManager

One of the games I've been playing is Euro Truck Simulator 2. I played the Windows version under Proton for over a year, maybe over two years, and the performance was good, considering I don't have a dedicated GPU on my laptop. However, after the 1.45 or 1.46 version update, the game performance decreased severely and crashed frequently.

I posted about this on Mastodon, and someone mentioned that the Linux version had good performance. I'd had issues with the Linux version a few years ago but decided to try and see how it performed. Surprisingly, the performance was better than when the Windows port worked well with Proton for me.

I've been running the Linux version for at least two months. I play it in FullHD but with the objects at 50% scale, so it doesn't get insanely slow. I also enabled the SSAO at the maximum quality, as well as the textures, reflexes, etc. – except for the anisotropic filter, but more on this below. Only the shadows stayed a level below the top quality permitted by the game. Not bad for the integrated GPU from an Intel i7-1165G7.

The thing is, I've been having an issue with the Linux port: some textures from distant or thinner objects seem to flicker, sometimes very fast. This annoys the hell out of me when I'm feeling more tired or have thicker brain fog, and occasionally it even gives me headaches.

My first attempt to fix it was changing the anisotropic filter to the max, but it didn't fix it. I tried decreasing the antialiasing but to no avail. Today, however, I wanted to play with the objects at 100% scale, so I disabled the SSAO because it carries quite a performance toll on my system. To my surprise, it decreased the flickering. I also reduced the antialiasing from Ultra to High, which held a slight positive impact.

I'm still having some issues with the textures flickering, but at least it's on a sane level.

If you know a complete fix, please ping me on Mastodon.

#Linux #LinuxGaming #ETS2 #EuroTruckSimulator2 #Gaming