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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 22nd, 2023

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  • Doesn’t distrobox (and podman) come with SteamOS these days too?

    You wouldn’t be able to layer, but using distrobox-export from inside a distrobox container would let you export command line apps as well as graphical ones too. The graphical apps will even show up in your menu and can be pinned as well.

    (Of course, if something is available on Flathub already as a Flatpak, installing the app via Discover is easier and better. While Flathub has a lot of apps, it doesn’t have everything, so being able to pick and choose from any distribution using distrobox is nice for a very large selection of software.)


  • Riker catches an alien “virus” (from a plant) and lays down naked under a shiny blanket for the rest of the episode. Pulaski forces Riker to dream of the most boring and worst segments from season 1 and 2.

    Most shows have flashback episodes that feature highlights. TNG had a clip show that showcased the worst segments. It was the most lackluster finale episode of any Star Trek season. And this was even well after Riker “grew the beard”.


  • Merlin wasn’t available here when I checked at some point in time (last year?)

    whoBIRD does use BirtNET, from Cornell, so it’s basically the same backend (although it may be an older version).

    I recently tried out Merlin (which is now available here) and it’s amazing. It’s definitely more featureful than whoBIRD, although both have the core “recognize bird directly using your phone” features.

    For anyone OK with non-FOSS apps, Merlin is great. For anyone who wants a FOSS app for bird detection, whoBIRD is still pretty good.

    Either way, identifying apps using ones phone is nice. 👍 Big things to Cornell for making the ML for both of these apps.




  • For the video problem, it might be codecs; try using Proton-GE if it’s in Steam or use Wine-GE if not. (IIRC, Steam will often convert the videos and give you the converted ones in the shader caching if necessary. But those outside of Steam, and sometimes a few still in Steam don’t have that workaround.)

    For the main issue you’re having, try running those games in gamescope, which itself is a compositor with a bunch of neat tricks. In this case it’d make sure to not lose the focus of the game even if the gamescope window loses focus. It can also optionally force windowed or fullscreen modes, upscale (even with FSR1), and lock the framerate.

    Changing settings in the game itself between fullscreen or borderless (borderless should usually help with the focus issues) may help too, if the game has that setting, but then you’ll probably hit the borders issue due to FVWM. (I don’t know if you’d get the fullscreen unredirection optimization in fvwm. That could be a reason to pick one or the other for you too.)

    You’re probably hitting a few edge cases by using FVWM versus a more modern environment like GNOME or KDE, but to be fair I’ve seen the focus issue happen before on a game on running through Heroic on GNOME with more than one monitor before. FWIW: I don’t remember seeing the issue in games from Steam. (It probably depends on the game itself, however.)


  • Penpot works perfectly on Linux, and you can even host it yourself in your own computer if you want. It’s web-based and works in both Firefox and Chromium browsers. (I think WebKit ones too, but it’s been a little while since I’ve tried it with Epiphany.)

    I use Penpot myself all the time on Linux, but I’m usually using the hosted version so I can collaborate with others without having to maintain a server. I have also run locally in a container using Podman, even with Podman’s rootless support.

    But to start using it, all anyone needs to do is point their browser of choice to https://design.penpot.app/ and sign in. There is no setup process or installation needed; self-hosting is completely optional.


  • Just pointing this out, as there are non-free services that the apps use:

    Frog is awesome, but note that while Frog works offline for OCR, it has TTS (text to speech) which uses an online service. As long as you avoid having it read to you, it’s all done locally.

    And Dialect always uses an online service. Some of the servers are FOSS, but some aren’t. But everything you type or paste into it is sent somewhere else. (This is the case with using translation websites too, of course.) I’m not saying you shouldn’t use it; I’m just saying that you should be aware.

    Hopefully Dialect will add Bergamot (what both Firefox by default & the “translate locally” extension use for translation) at some point. Dialect has a longstanding issue about it, but no forward motion yet. https://github.com/dialect-app/dialect/issues/183

    For something open source that runs completely on your computer for translations, you’d want Speech Note. https://flathub.org/apps/net.mkiol.SpeechNote It’s Qt based, but works well. In addition to translation, it can do text to speech and speech to text too. You do have to download models first (easily available as a click in the app), but everything, including the text you’re working with, is all done locally.

    I use both Frog and Speech Note all the time on my computer (GNOME on Fedora Linux). They’re excellent.




  • I basically gave up on podcasts on the desktop and only use AntennaPod on my phone. When I’m at my desktop, I have my phone paired with my computer via Bluetooth and play that way. I can pause it on my computer via KDE Connect (GSConnect on GNOME).

    Bluetooth audio from phone to desktop works on Fedora Linux quite well. It probably works on other Linux distros too. I’m guessing it might also work on other OSes like Windows and macOS.

    KDE Connect is available on Android, iOS, KDE (and can run on other desktops too), GNOME (via the GSConnect extension), Windows, and macOS.

    This solves the syncing problem by sidestepping the need for it. My podcast state is always correct and I always have my podcasts with me, even when out and about.