Proton is built on top of Wine in order to make sure games specifically work well.

You can check https://www.protondb.com/ before buying a game (with Steam or otherwise) to insure it works as expected. A lot will work with 0 tinkering but some might next extra command line parameters.

You might get the same result with Wine directly but Proton it doing everything it can to “hide” away those (hopefully small) challenges away from the final user, a gamer (like me) who wants to just sit down and play.

So… the heuristic is basically :

• games? Proton
• not games but Windows applications that somehow do not have a better open-source equivalent running on Linux? Wine

Edit: for the anecdote I wrote this reply on my SteamDeck, the gaming console by Valve coming with Steam, and Proton, and running Linux to… just play BUT I also use it to work while traveling. So yes, works like a charm!

Isn’t it what passthrough is for?

Feels very arbitrary. Why would I care about say MacOS versus FreeBSD or say NeXTSTEP (just to be provocative)?

Anyway I’m being pulled away from the actual argument, the “bare metal” argument is about performances, isn’t it?

True but wouldn’t also literacy be about knowing what defaults are and how to change them?

Helping others is nice but if it’s babysitting rather than raising them up, then they can’t in turn help others.

Meanwhile me as a barbarian installing Debian and copying my ~/.bashrc file (and a few others) if not just remounting /home/ in the new installation every few years.

Does it matter if the overhead is practically irrelevant?

A good example to “play” with could be https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ which does highlight the idea of “bits of identifying information” namely :

“A “bit” is a basic unit of information for computers. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values, often represented as “1” or “0”, for example. In your results from Cover Your Tracks, some metrics may be listed as “1” or “0”, or “true” or “false”, indicating whether a setting is enabled or disabled. While each individual metric’s details may seem like a small amount of information, when combined with your browser’s other metrics, they can uniquely identify your browser. Your results are measured in “bits of identifying information,” which is a combined summary of all these metrics.”

Point being, not all behaviors, conscious or not, explicit or not, lead to the same amount of bits. Some are VERY valuable, others are basically pointless. Knowing the difference means not spending a lot of energy fighting without making a difference.

If you are into that could be interesting to learn about metadata, e.g EXIF data, and how anything can be used for fingerprinting. What’s interesting IMHO is to pragmatically know how valuable a specific piece of data or metadata is useful for fingerprinting, namely how identifying it truly is. For example knowing if a file comes from Android or iOS is too generic to be useful whereas timestamp with geolocation data segments the potential space a lot more.

Indeed, IMHO what’s important here is precisely WHY the question is asked, namely is it to evaluate agency, passion as a proxy for skills potentially, or the opportunity to exploit.

Indeed hence my warning. I’m only sharing this alternative because in practice it works and it’s secure (AFAIK).

Edit :

black box security fob

IMHO that’s a feature, namely I do not want to OS to mess with this specific part of my setup. I do also have NitroKeys and FPGAs to tinker with but that’s different. FWIW if there is an OSHW&FLOSS alternative to the YubiKey Bio please do share.

I mean again my initial reaction would be that indeed … BUT it depends. If they genuinely offer say 3x rate, it’s on demand from MY side (not the client), double vacations, etc then maybe. Again it has to be something that’s actually interesting.

Sadly this is not even .001% the case, usually companies consider the weekend an extension of the week and such cases, they can absolutely go get fucked.

quick test as to if they’re your people or not

Absolutely… it’s like when during job interview the recruiter ask if you code on the weekend. Some people treat that like the absolute worst question ever. Yes, in most cases I would argue it’s to probe if you can be abused by working over time for free… but maybe you are into that or rather you do have found a way to make it work, e.g. NOT work during some weekdays. The point is that the question itself is a way to discover BOTH ways, for them AND for you. It is perfectly fine to stop right there and then if any of you is now aware that it’s a show stopper because of whatever difference. The entire purpose of dating or interviews is to engage in a more involving relationship ONLY if it’s worth it for both. It’s a discovery phase, not a “let’s close the sale” phase.

FWIW because you do so professionally I’d factor in the time you spend too versus buying hardware (e.g. USB dongles) or even laptop, ideally reselling the old one. I don’t know your rate or how much you can buy VAT free or your income at the moment, only that in your context this is also a business decision so you have to consider the ROI of “just” moving on with another hardware, selling the old one and with the time earned (if work is available) get another paid task instead of tinkering.

For the curious https://lvra.gitlab.io/docs/hardware/#xr-devices according to which quite a few WMR VR HMDs are supported via the Monado SteamVR plugin.

external cam haha. I use the laptop cam daily to video call family

I actually did that on desktop recently and I enjoy being able to unplug and physically remove it as I don’t use it daily. Same for the large external microphone, it’s only on my desk when I’ll have meetings planed. Maybe you could also use a mobile phone as camera.

Anyway kudos on leaving Google! It’s a great step.

For Samsung chips maybe https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Samsung could help.

If you mean interoperability there is https://libimobiledevice.org/ but honestly compared to what KDE Connect can offer with Android phones it’s just … lame.

Don’t be too sad, I’m playing and working daily with an NVIDIA for years now and it’s just working.

Fingerprint readers, in general, also widely seem to be poorly supported.

Not sure if it technically counts as fingerprint readers but using my YubiKey Bio daily, for login on my desktop and WebAuthN and… 0 problem.

voice actor, artist, and musician. My main concern is recording software and to a lesser extent, art software

Even if you are not based in Brussels where we have https://resonance-mao.be/ you might have a local equivalent, namely open source and open hardware music enthusiast and profesisonals who meet monthly at least to learn and jam. They know this domain a lot more than I do. There are a LOT of software for all that but I wouldn’t go as far as advising you. That said yes it mostly likely will require a bit of re-training. Still IMHO you have done the hardest, namely you understand the concepts behind what the tools do. The interface will be different but how it is actually done should be the same. My advice is to find “your people” and discover together.

Regarding hardware Mint is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian. I have an NVIDIA GPU and I play (and work) with it daily. Sometimes sleep/resume is buggy but pretty much never ever while actually working or playing. Regarding the Webcam, it’s not super convenient but until it gets supported (hopefully) you might have to rely on an external camera.

Neat! Two quick things :

I’m not convinced Linux has comparable software I need).

Feel free to ask here. I might not know alternatives but others could, no matter how niche.

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra […] didn’t play well unfortunately

Same advice. I don’t have one of these but what fails and how? Any specific error message?