I bought a Pixel 9 with the sole intention of putting Graphene on it. I wasn’t massively down with giving Google money, but my provider offered it to me for £30, then £30 a month on contract. Can’t argue with that.

If you have a Pixel, then GrapheneOS is the sensible choice. Not least because it currently only works with Pixels anyway.

One of the lads at work was freaking out because he had tickets to a festival on his phone, and it wouldn’t charge. I spent three minutes digging in the port with a wooden toothpick and wouldn’t you know there was fuck all wrong with his phone.

It’s mad that I have to search for how to turn my iPad off every bloody time.

Also, Apple don’t seem to have an appetite for supporting gaming on macOS, beyond a few big name titles announced once a year to reig ite interest.

I tried to go with Bazzite on my wife’s old PC. Fuck knows what happened, but I could not get it to recognise that I’d downloaded the image with the Nvidia drivers built in.

Ended up giving up and rolling Kubuntu. I know Kubuntu and like it. And it works beautifully. Back in the world of RDR2 now, and loving it.

Its become abundantly clear to me over the past few years that Linux is in place where, to get significant share it needs to have a major figurehead. Imagine if all ThinkPads suddenly were only available with Lenovo’s own fork. That kind of thing.

Unfortunateoy, that’s kinda the opposite of Linux ethos, and not necessarily likely to make Lenovo much money.

So the best we can really hope for at this point is a company with the brand awareness of Valve pushing SteamOS into the mainstream. People who play games know and generally trust Valve, so people (like my wife) who are on the fence, or who just need their computer to work without needing too much faffing, could likely trust SteamOS in a way they wouldn’t necessarily trust Bazzite or CachyOS.

When rewatching you’re essentially waiting for Brendanawicz to Brandenaquitz so the show can start getting good.

Shows that fit this bill for me:

Schitt’s Creek Breaking Bad

Schitt’s Creek in particular, from S02 onwards they really locked in to what we ended up loving about the Roses, which was there in S01 but not so clear. As a result, S02 on is damn near perfect.

He published his memoirs a couple of weeks back. It’s a good read.

Nerds were no longer beaten for knowing how tech works.

Looking at the nerds fucking things up right now, I’d say they could stand a few extra beatings.

I had an HTC Wizard that ran on Windows Phone 5.0. It really was a piece of shit, but I loved the slide out keyboard and the fact that I could stream internet radio with it (when I was on wifi).

But I remember having to explain to someone that no, just because it ran ‘Windows’ it couldn’t run Limewire. That said, it’s entirely possible that someone wrote a version of Limewire that it could run.

Surprised no one’s mentioned Thank Goodness You’re Here yet.

That game had me rolling from start to finish.

I didn’t actually ask you specifically to answer my question. If it was too difficult for you, then you needn’t have bothered. Instead you chose to be condescending.

You might not think that’s the case, but it is.

This isn’t a real world enterprise situation. I have never been in such a situation. It’s a forum on a website where enthusiastic amateurs and IT professionals alike discuss a shared common interest. I fall squarely into the former category, and I assume you the latter. But I don’t have to conform to your requirement for assistance. And if I don’t, then ignore me.

You tell me that I ignored the practical guides you linked, but in the comment you’ve just replied to, I specifically thanked you for the information you’ve imparted. I’m aware of the links, but life gets in the way and I’ve not yet had a chance to actually do anything with them.

You accuse me of lacking humility, yet if you look at my replies to others you’ll see that I’m grateful for their input. I am! What I don’t like is being criticised because I’m not conforming to a standard that you’ve imposed upon me. If I’m guilty of lacking humility, it’s purely in my responses to you.

I expect nothing of anyone here. I asked a question (that you considered insufficient) without any expectation of reply. I hoped for one of course, but ultimately it was just an attempt to pick the brains of those who know more about these things than I do. And evidently you do.

Your responses to me have irritated me enormously, which is a shame as I’m certain that wasn’t your intention.

I’ll draw a line under this here. Thank you for the information you’ve provided.

Auto-hiding on the seam between my two monitors for me.

I’m not massively into horror, because I don’t generally like feeling uncomfortable. But the horror flicks I do enjoy tend to be incredibly empathetic, and actually about something other than the horror.

For example, my favourite horror movie is Dark Water, a Japanese flick from 2002. It’s creepy as hell and genuinely unsettling, but at its heart it’s about heartbreak and trying to learn how to move on. It speaks to the human condition without having to rely on simple jumpscares.

In fact, I think the most successful horror movies (from an artistic perspective, rather than box office take) tend to be the ones that talk about what it is to be human.

Rupert Murdoch.

Yeah, it’s cool.

I’m ADHD as fuck, my partner is autistic as fuck (with probably a large sprinkle of ADHD too), so I get the communication thing. But also, being ADHD, I tend to either comment with all the context anyone could possibly ever need (and more), or with broad strokes because I want to achieve something but also want to go off and focus on something else. I can be very difficult to live with. My partner is a saint.

But yeah, I get that - as an IT professional - you come to support requests with a certain level of weariness. I work in engineering health and safety, so I know how thoughtless people can be.

Thank you for your response, I do appreciate your input.

However, if you weren’t trying to be rude, you kinda failed. I didn’t actually ask anyone for advice on how to sort out my setup (though advice supplied is always gratefully received), what I actually asked for was if anyone knew of any useful guides on how to learn how to set things up.

I was asking how to learn, not to be told how to write a better support ticket.

To address your reply further; how much information could I have provided that would have been enough for you? You even ask for information on my router (I use a TP-Link mesh network, if that helps. It streams my partner’s PC beautifully), on what planet would I have known to tell people that when asking how to learn?

But as I said, I do appreciate your input, and you have imparted some useful information. Thank you.

I have to admit, I’ve not replied to the previous comment because it came across as condescending. Helpful in its way, but condescending enough to be unhelpful.

But I would like to respond to this one.

I never actually stated there was a problem with the hardware, and I didn’t actually ask for any specific help with my setup. I’m aware of my own limitations as I’m new to both gaming PCs and Linux. What I actually asked for was if anyone knew of any useful guides I could browse to help me get an understanding of what I need to optimise. Perhaps I shouldn’t have offered any further context to what I’m trying to achieve, because that’s just served to allow three different people in the replies to criticise my ability to request support.

I’m happy to admit that I don’t know what I’m on about here, but I am willing to learn, and I’m happy to take on board that maybe I need to be clearer in future. But the attitude from several in these replies has come across as almost gatekeeping. A weary sigh of a comment, a reluctant imparting of knowledge, for which the only payment is me knowing my place.