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#so say if i install a new game on steam and it adds a desktop icon for it
gender-euphowrya · 5 months
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refreshed, healed, content, thriving, ready to take on the world <- just reorganized his desktop icons
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25 Best Mass Effect 2 Mods of All Time: The Ultimate Collection – FandomSpot
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💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥 Modding Mass Effect 2 is no rocket science any more. The times where we had to endure long loading times using texmod are long over. The following guide explains how I modify my Mass Effect 2 installation. But from there on you should go on your own journey into modding Mass Effect 2. Find your own preferred set of mods and tweaks. The final part of this guide is a checklist. This list can be used whenever you re-mod your Mass Effect 2 installation. I open such a checklist each time I re-mod, just to make sure I do not forget any steps and have the order right. After you have installed and updated Mass Effect 2, it is time to apply some fixes and workarounds for the most common problems. Instead you would merely add some files, that then later get backed up, too. Therefore you have to do this only once and be done with it. Important : If you have already added mods to your install, it is best to delete and to reinstall your game, unless you know exactly which DLC folders to delete. The repair facility only checks official files and will not remove any additional files you added. Therefore you can not use it to return to a vanilla state after a failed modding attempt. Also, if you have tweaked official files like the Coalesced. Note : This should be analogous to using the Steam client, but I have never had Mass Effect 2 on Steam, so I can not say whether it is the same or not. If you are using Steam, I would be happy if you left a comment about your repairing experience using the Steam client. Warning : You have to deactivate the auto-update setting in your Origin client, or it will later destroy your modded Mass Effect 2. The best source for fixes of common problems can be found at pcgamingwiki , and I strongly advise that you work through that page thoroughly. Those are in the list below, too. I have put a link on my desktop for easier access. The Mod Manager is self-updating, so you only have to take care of this once. After you have updated and repaired your vanilla Mass Effect 2, it is time for you to create a master backup. You need some space where to put it, and only have to fire up the Mod Manager. The program will greet you with a list of installed Mass Effect titles for which you do not have a backup. If you do not have the international version, but a localized one installed, you must add the correct language to back up. Finally choose a backup destination and let it roll. Once you have reached this stage, only the rest of the Mass Effect 2 Modding Guide will matter to you. If no bad things happen, you will not have to repeat any of the steps above. As mods get updated, you might want to re-mod some day, and for this to work a roll-back to your backup is necessary. All the mods that I am suggesting are Mod Manager compatible. Upon start the program checks whether there are any updates to the imported mods, and asks you whether to update them if updates are available. The following list contains my personal mod list in the installation order that I prefer. If you find yourself in a position where you forgot to install a mod before you installed PV2, it is best to revert to your backup and to start from scratch. If you really want to lift up your ME2 experience, you will have to install texture mods. Back in the day we had to use TexMod to do this, which lengthened the startup time of ME2 tremendously. But nowadays TexMod is no longer needed. The program needs a certain set of mods, but also helps you downloading them. The ALOT installer also comes with an import assistant to help you import the required mods, and another assistant to import user mods. This will take some time. If you install it after ALOT, you have to make sure you only override those parts you wish to have substituted. ReShade is in constant development, so I always update to the latest version when I do a reinstall. And even if there is no new version since your last install, the shader packages might have been updated, and the setup program always downloads and installs the latest releases. This preset is used for my ept videos and can be used to replicate their look and feel. From here you can play around with the settings to your liking. But please note that there are dozens and dozens of shaders, and it is not only important what you use and set up, but also in which order the processing is done. Note: As a kind of shortcut, you can download my GamerSettings. The Coalesced. Basically there are these four rules you have to follow:. If you follow these rules, there should be no problems. And if you mess up, just copy the backup of your last working Coalesced. The following settings are meant to raise visual quality, and should be no problem on any decent hardware. Note: It is not entirely known whether any of these settings get ignored by the game, like so many options get ignored by ME1. What sticks, sticks. The following settings are meant to raise the quality of the drawing of shadows. This section can be added to make sure all ALOT textures are really used to their fullest extent. If you have a graphic card with at least 4GB memory, you can add this section to speed up texture loading and to make use of the memory your card has. In this section you can change the timing of the dialogue wheel. Personally I like it to appear as soon as possible, so I have some seconds to think about the answer without disrupting the conversation too much. The following are my personal settings, adapt them to your liking. These settings mean to show the wheel up to 20 seconds before the conversation starts, and up to seconds before the last line of the NPC speaking ends. And that can happen if I am in a hurry, or distracted, or … you know. The Mass Effect 2 Modding Guide is mainly meant to explain how things work, and what you need to learn and to prepare to go on your own modding journey. But from here on, all you need in future is a good checklist. With this I can record in top 4K quality maybe even 8K and can publish more frequently. This Mass Effect 2 Modding Guide looks long, but it is just meant to be thorough. The final checklist should have shown, that modding Mass Effect 2 these days is far less complicated than it used to. Please feel free to leave a comment. I appreciate any feedback, and would like to hear not only praise, but also criticism. Is any section not clear enough? Are you left with open questions? Your email address will not be published. Notify me of new posts by email. Engine] RenderDevice] D3DRenderDevice] ISVHacks] PlayerInput] BioPlayerInput] BioConversation] Watch this video on YouTube. Just add the Compatibility file to the User Mod list. RSS feed share share patreon save share tweet share. 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armlite908 · 2 years
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rainworldslugcats · 3 years
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Hi ! Just wanted to ask , how do you put your own slugcat skin in game? I know it's works with fancy slugcat mod,,, but i don't know how to use it ;-; , can you teach me
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i can try! although i only learned most of this very recently, so i’m not the most knowledgeable. i also use BepInEx as the modloader.
im going to start with the assumption that you already have fancy slugcats installed and working, after this you’re going to need the custom assets and custom tails mod. both can be found on RainDB.
keep in mind, each of these mods contains a read me with more information, so reference those if you don’t understand something in my explanation. everything is under a read more as this post is very long.
ive also attempted to be as detailed with this tutorial as possible.
and lastly, please read through the entire tutorial before starting work as it’s very likely you’ll end up having to redo things otherwise, mostly because of the way custom tails functions.
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part 1: custom tails
we’ll start with adding a custom tail, the custom tails mod requires ConfigMachine, fancy Slugcats and Custom Assets. (publicity stunt is only required if you still use Partiality, not if you use BepInEx) download and apply these mods first. (the .dll files)
once you’ve downloaded custom tails you’ll find an “examples” folder in the .zip file, this contains the files you’ll edit to make your own custom tail. 
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each of the example tails is shown on the thumbnail for the custom tails mod, so you can get an idea of how they look in action.
sidenote: the devil tail png is completely white, and thus it can be hard or impossible to see on a default photo viewer, open it on something like paint tool sai and add a colored background. once you’ve selected which base you want to use, extract (or just copy and paste) that tail png along with its txt file somewhere you can work on it, desktop works just fine. now you can make whatever modifications you want to the tail, i’ll use my firecracker tail as an example.
note: if you leave parts of the sprite purely white, it will get colored in with whatever color you choose in the fancy slugcats menu, its essentially transparency.
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once you’re happy with how it looks, it’s time to apply it. firstly, change the tails name into something recognizable, like FRtail.png
now take your txt file and name it the same thing you named your tail, and make sure to be exact or things might break.
then open said txt file and change the default tail name into your tails name.
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once all that is done, you have to navigate into the atlases folder in your rain world install. to get there open up steam, find RW and right click it in the menu to bring up this text box
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choose “properties” at the very bottom to open up this menu
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select “local files” on the side, and when you see this screen press “browse” and it will open up the root folder of RW.
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(i have quite a bit more stuff in my install folder due to mods, so don’t worry about not having all of it) from here you want to open the “Assets” folder near the top, from there you open Futile > Resources > Atlases.
now all you need to do is put both your tail png and txt files into Atlases like so:
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note: capital letters matter, if you used capital letters in your name you have to use those same capital letters in every name, for example if you use frtail.txt and FRtail.png it wont work. it all has to be the same in every case.
once that’s done, go back to your RW root folder (the one where RainWorld.exe is located) and open the “ModConfigs” folder, from there go to Fancy slugcats > custom heads. it will be empty if you haven’t made any modifications yet.
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once youre here, make a new txt file and name it the same name you’ve used for your tail.png and txt files. then open it and type the same name inside it, don’t forget to save.
now you should be ready to open up RW, remember to enable the required mods: fancy slugcats, custom assets, custom tails, config machine and publicity stunt (partiality only)
note: if your game opens up to a black screen and wont start, it usually means something is wrong with the txt files, either you forgot to add a name inside one of them, you forgot to save when you added the name, or you’ve misspelled the name. double check all the names for your png and txt files.
now then, let’s get to adding your tail to your slugcat
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once the game is open, navigate to settings and open mod config, from there you should see custom tails in the menu. once here type your custom tails name into the “sprite” box, remember to be exact with the name.
if the name shows up red, you’ve made a mistake somewhere in the process, if it shows up as white, its been successfully added!
if you touch the sliders it will add a gradient to your tail and undo/cover up any sprite changes, so keep them as black. you can also change your tails size in the fancy slugcats menu as usual.
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now you have a snazzy tail to show off to the world! “.......but wait” i might hear you say “my tail isn’t the same color as the image i made!”
that’s because whatever color you apply to your slugcat in the fancy slugcats menu gets applied on top of the image you made. meaning if your slugcat is a rather more dark color, it will make your tail darker as well. meaning not only will bright aspects of it not be bright anymore, the base of your tail will be darker than your base slugcat color, thus it wont match. this is a problem i ran into as my slugcat is purple with bright accents.
the transparency i mentioned earlier helps with this “if you leave parts of the sprite purely white, it will get colored in with whatever color you choose in the fancy slugcats menu, its essentially transparency.“
you can use this transparency to make the base of your tail match the rest of your slugcats body, now all the white will be filled in with whatever color you’ve chosen in the menu, however it still wont fix all other parts of it having the base color applied to them.
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now if your base slugcat color is white, you don’t have to worry about any of this at all! the tail will stay how you made it!
if your slugcat will be lightly colored but not completely white, or your dark slugcat will have dark markings, this is all stuff you can reasonably account for while making the markings themselves (once you’ve made the txt and png files and put them in the right places, you can edit the png in the atlases folder directly) but if you want to do something more close to my slugcat, we’re going to have to do it by changing the color of slugcat using sprites.
part 2: sprite edits
so, to get around this problem and to get the freedom to edit the sprites however we like we’re going to be editing each sprite separately. this way you can virtually add anything you like to your slugcat, antlers, spikes, fur. although this might require you to change the position of the sprites to get them to line up properly in-game.
i’ll only touch on recoloring sprites as i haven’t edited the shape of any of them yet, i’ll update this tutorial with extra info once i’ve tried it out myself.
some of slugcats sprites have multiple versions that will get bundled in order to make the animations you see in game (head, arms, legs)
others are static sprites and only have one version (tail, body, hips)
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firstly, you’ll need to find the sprites you’re going to edit, all of these sprites are included in the custom assets zip file you downloaded from RainDB.
you’ll find slugcats sprites in Unpacked Atlases > RainWorld, extract this folder to make looking for the correct sprites easier.
note: all of the sprites are white by default, this makes them incredibly difficult to see in a folder without opening them in some external program, thus i’ve changed my windows settings to make the folder background dark (this can be found in Personalization)
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this folder includes the sprites of most of the creatures in RW, so picking out slugcats sprites can be a tad... difficult. thus i'll name every single sprite you’ll need to hopefully make it easier. BodyA, HipsA, PlayerArm0 to 12, FaceA0 to 8, FaceB0 to 8, FaceDead, FaceStunned, HeadA0 to 17
aaand all the leg sprites are in a png because they have so many names
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most of them can be found bunched up together in the RW folder, a tail texture isn’t included as that will still be handled through custom tails as detailed above.
now i suggest you make some way to store all of slugcats sprites neatly, as it will save you a lot of hassle in the long run. i separated all body part sprites into folders.
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now you’re free to make any edits you like to the sprites. however, i’ll go about this tutorial with the expectation the only edits are color edits, not shape edits, as again i don’t have experience with those.
once your sprites are all colored and neatly organized its time to compile them, each body part gets compiled into their own bunch (arms in one, legs in another) for this you’ll need a program called texture packer, i can’t provide a direct link because my post might get thrown into the void by tumblr, there is however a direct link in the custom assets read me.
once you’ve downloaded texture packer, heres an easy to follow short video tutorial made by AndrewFM on how to use it.
once your sprites are bundled you’ll go through the same process as with adding your custom tail. i’ll use arm sprites as an example.
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you’ll get a png file with all of your edited sprites in them, as well as a .json file that contains placement information, turn that json file into a txt by renaming it (yourarmname).txt
now open the txt file and rename every single part to whatever name you decided to give your arm sprites, but keep the numbers at the end of the sprite names, they are important.
note: do not rename the individual sprite png’s before they are packed
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now that your txt and png files are ready, drop them into the same Atlases folder in your RW install as you did with your custom tail, and similarly add another new txt file into ModConfig > FancySlugcats > CustomHeads and rename it to the same name you named your sprite, and add that exact same name inside the txt file itself.
if the game yet again refuses to start, remember to double check the names in the txt files.
now we’re ready to apply the sprites in-game, open up RW and head to setting > mod config,
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depending on which sprites you’ve edited, you’ll need to enter the sprite name into the specific field it belongs to, for me i’ll add the name to the arms section. you’ll get more details about what goes where when you hover over the text field.
for some of them, you’ll need to include A at the end of your sprite name, but only in the mod config menu
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this shows where they are needed.
now you need to repeat this process for each bundle of slugcats body parts and apply them. note: body and hips despite both being part of slugcats main body gets applied separately, and even though they only have one sprite each you still need to pack them with texture packer and go through the same process as for the others.
this all might seem tiresome, and in certain ways it definitely is, but once you’ve gotten the hang of the packing, adding to folders and applying the process gets a lot faster.
once all of your sprites are applied, legs, hips, body, head, arms, tail. you want to make sure in fancy slugcats settings to make your slugcats color pure white so it wont affect your custom sprite coloration in any way. however you can apply color to slugcats face through the menu as usual.
there is a known issue where slugcats fists when climbing poles don’t get colored, this issue currently can’t be fixed easily.
the end result? quite a fancy slugcat indeed!
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if i made any mistakes, or there’s extra info i should add, then message me and i’ll edit the post accordingly!
if there’s anything you can’t figure out no matter what you try, join the RW discord and ask people in the modding support channel, thats where i got most of my information from!
hopefully this is helpful to some of you! i spent quite a while making this tutorial so reblogs would be very much appreciated!
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dethl · 3 years
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so, you got the steam port of sonic adventure 2, and you noticed its a completely broken mess. yeah, i did too. i spent around an hour yesterday troubleshooting, and ive compiled some bugs and solutions in case it could help anyone. all of this is only tested for windows 10 with an xbox one controller (and a dualsense, in later revisions) and an NVIDIA graphics card
i'll start by saying the pathing to navigate to the sa2 folder because youll need to be in the folder to change a few things. the pathing for me is
This PC > C:// > Program Files (x86) > Steam > SteamApps > Common > Sonic Adventure 2
this may change if youve changed where your steam games install, but this should be the default. ill just be referring to this as "the sa2 folder" from now on
my game freezes on boot:
navigate to the sa2 folder. right click "sonic2app" (you may also want to do this for "Launcher"). click "Troubleshoot Compatibility", then "Try Recommended Settings", this should set the game to windows 7 compatibility. test it, and if it stops crashing, save the settings
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my controller isnt being recognised:
this is something that ive found can only be toggled through the launcher rather than ingame, under the menu Player
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i don't even see gamepad as an option under that menu:
try booting SA2 specifically through steam's client, as opposed to through the modloader or other methods
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i cant get past the creating a savefile screen:
while in the sa2 folder, navigate to Resource > gd_PC folder. right click and hover New, and make a new folder inside gd_PC, and rename the folder as SAVEDATA. relaunch the game and you should be able to save now
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my game is going like 120-200fps, oh god
(note: i do not know how to fix this on any graphics card that isnt NVIDIA)
(EDIT: the SA2 modloader features a FPS lock, so this could also be a valid option)
open the nvidia control panel (i can access it via right clicking on my desktop, and it comes up under the dropdown)
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navigate to Program Settings, and under Add, navigate to "sonic2app" (location listed above). to tweak any settings under this, i had to set "Select the preferred graphics driver for this program:" to be "High-performance NVIDIA processor"
under "Specify the specifics for this program:", scroll to Vertical sync and toggle it to on. Max frame rate can also be toggled under the same window, i toggled mine to 60fps
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my game keeps freezing
this fix is also under the nvidia control panel. change the toggle for power management mode, i have it set to prefer maximum performance but maybe try adaptive. default seems to be optimal power
wtf is with this trolley in city escape being stuck on my screen?
this is an issue with intel processors. this is another issue that can be fixed with the SA2 modloader
other issues ive had have been mod related. so if anyone has any questions about those or other issues, do feel free to ask and i am willing to assist
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tzalmavet · 4 years
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what's Wesnoth? I am very interested & would usually do the research myself but I sense that you would be more than happy to gush about it. :)
It’s a free, open-source, turn-based strategy game with a medieval fantasy theme!  There are kingdoms and outlaws, wizards and knights, orcs and elves, and so on!
In the typical multiplayer game, you select a “leader” from one of a handful of factions, and recruit units matching your leader’s faction to send out and kill the enemy’s leader (which can either be the computer, or another human player).  Combat takes place on a hexmap, chance to hit is determined by terrain, and damage against certain units by elements and weapon types, as well as time of day.  You increase the power of your army by leveling up individual units, which advance into new, stronger unit types once they get enough experience points.  You recruit new units by collecting gold from villages, villages which you can even steal from the enemy so that their army won’t be able to replenish.  I hear people compare the gameplay to Fire Emblem, but I can’t personally say how accurate the comparison is since I’ve never tried that game!
If it sounds complicated, it’s actually easier than that.  Most of it is logical stuff (like undead being weakened by daylight, and elves being harder to hit in forests).  I was able to grasp the basics and play fairly even as a small child.  The game is designed to be easy to learn, but challenging to master.  The AI is made to be intelligent, too, preventing player vs. computer situations from getting too easy or boring.It even comes with a tutorial, which I highly recommend trying out before diving in.  Even if you don’t beat the tutorial, it still teaches you what you need to know to play the game, and it’s not mandatory, either!  There’s no campaigns or factions in Wesnoth that are blocked behind a prerequisite, so you can try any part of it, at any difficulty, in any order.
Speaking of campaigns, they’re basically Wesnoth’s version of “story mode”.  In each one you control a different leader, and follow their story through multiple scenarios.  Unlike multiplayer mode, campaigns let you “recall” units from previous scenarios, allowing you to build up a powerful, experienced army.  Campaigns also may have objectives besides defeating enemy leaders (ex. surviving til the end of turns, or moving a unit to a certain location), so you’ll have to employ different strategies in those situations!
Wesnoth has a modding community that spans worldwide, so there’s tons of add-ons you can install from the official servers if you run out of canon content!  There are custom factions, campaigns, maps, and more.  Fanmade content is unrestricted by mainline Wesnoth’s canon, so you can see some pretty different stuff out there!  Wesnoth’s code is easy to learn if you ever want to become a mod creator yourself– all you need is a text editor and a fair understanding of English!
And if English isn’t your first language?  Wesnoth has different translations that you can switch between from the main menu!  There’s Spanish, French, Finnish, Swedish, Russian, German, Polish, Hebrew, Japanese, and at least a dozen more.  I can’t say how accurate or quality any of them are since I only know English, but they come with the game!  Fanmade content doesn’t have translations as often, but the older and more popular mods are more likely to.
The game is solely maintained by its dedicated fanbase.  The latest stable version is 1.14.9, which is also available on Steam!  However, if you want more mods and are fine with playing an older version, I highly recommend checking out 1.12.6 or 1.10.7, too.  Every version of Wesnoth plays about the same; most differences are tiny balancing fixes, cosmetic updates, and streamlining the code and UI.
If you’re wondering what device you can play Wesnoth on, the answer is: most of them!  There are official releases of Wesnoth for Windows, Mac, and Linux, all of them free.  Wesnoth is sometimes even listed as one of the best games available for Linux computers.  There are also versions for iOS and Android, but I haven’t much looked into those since I play exclusively on desktop.
https://www.wesnoth.org 
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cloudhunter25 · 3 years
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Descargar Gta 5 Mac Epic Games
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Until 2 years ago, I used to be a PC person. I had a giant tower desktop computer with fans with flashing lights. I replaced that with a maxed-out MacBook Pro so that I could start traveling and work from anywhere. The problem is, since then I’ve missed PC gaming. All that startup stuff gets so incredibly boring after awhile, and we need to destress. Why even leave your computer screen to destress when you can do it ON YOUR COMPUTER? YES! YES! FREEDOM OF REALITY!
So let’s browse the games in Apple’s App Store, well, they’re not so great. It’s kind of the iOS type stuff but then for OSX. Pretty very very shit.
But that’s stupid, because the MacBook Pro 15″ has two graphic cards, and they’re actually pretty powerful. And the MacBook Pro 13″ and MacBook Air have on-board graphic cards, but they’re fine to play PC games from a few years ago (like Skyrim). So it’s a bit of a shame, we can’t play games on it. And well, destress.
How about GTA V? It’s come out for PC a few months ago, so I wanted to see if I could get it working on my MacBook Pro. I was pretty sure I couldn’t, but I still wanted to try. I mean I’ve been wanting to play this for years, but never had a device for it. I mean, YOU NEED TO PLAY THIS, RIGHT?
I know you can run Windows on Mac with Parallels. But it’s a virtualization app, so it’d never run it with any high performance as the graphics drivers are virtual (software emulated) and not native (hardware). Try it with any game, it’ll probably crash even before playing it, or it’ll be extremely slow.
But then there’s Boot Camp, which lets you run Windows natively (without virtualization) and with high performance on your Mac. After it’s installed you’ll have to reboot to switch to Windows, but that only takes half a minute each time.
**Since Apple doesn’t like Windows, it makes it REALLY EXTRA SUPER hard to get Boot Camp to work. Obviously cause they hate Windows and never want you to use it. I get it. But that means it’s full of stupid bugs that you have to figure out yourself how to fix. It took me 10 days. Yes. 10 days of tears. Maybe that’s why I don’t know anybody using Boot Camp. So to save you all the PAIN and time, here is my tutorial with all the tricks to get it working. **
What you’ll need
16GB USB stick (not an SD card!), I tried a 8GB one as Apple recommends it, but it wasn’t big enough, yup WHATEVER!
Windows 8 ISO file, in a perfect world you’d buy this from Microsoft, but they make it really hard and want to ship you a physical CD (what the fuck, it’s 2015, let me buy an ISO), so just find an ISO file of Windows somewhere (okay fine, Microsoft, I guess you don’t WANT my money)
Steam account to buy GTA V PC (it’s about $50 I think, worth it because you can play it online if you buy it legally)
Prepare Boot Camp
First search for Boot Camp Assistant on your Mac. Click Continue and you’ll see this:
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If this is your first time, select ALL boxes. The first one makes your USB stick loaded with Windows and OSX’s boot camp loader, the second one is the Boot Camp drivers it adds, the third one sounds weird but means it’ll partition your drive to set up Windows.
So now click Continue:
Select your Windows ISO file and continue.
It’ll take some time to copy the Windows ISO to your USB stick, and then download the drivers from Apple that are compatible to your Windows version.
When it finishes, you’ll see this partition window. This means it’ll divide your hard drive up in two pieces, one drive for Windows, one for Mac’s OSX. Here it gets really dodgy, because it actually doesn’t work properly EVER.
You need to choose how big your Windows drive should be. To calculate the size: Windows needs about 20 GB to function, then you need some space for your game. GTA V takes 65 GB, so that is 65+20=85 GB. To make it performant I rounded it up to 100 GB. But it depends on how big your games are etc. Skyrim e.g. is less than 10 GB. So you’d need only 30 to 40 GB probably.
But then it doesn’t work
The reason I said this is dodgy is because it’ll probably fail. You’ll see this amazingly descript error probably like me and my friends did:
It took me days to figure out how to fix it. But it comes down to this: (1) free up space on your drive and (2) if it has disk errors or not. Aim to get about 50% free space. For me that was insane because I have a 1TB drive, with 100 GB free, so I had to free up another 400 GB. It helps to just put stuff on an external hard drive while you’re setting up Boot Camp, you can put it back after.
The non-blue stuff on Macintosh HD is my free space, not enough obviously. Make sure you get about 50% free space on your drive. So if you have 256 GB drive, get 125 GB free. At 500 GB, 250 GB free. At 1 TB, 500 GB free. You get it.
Now fix those errors
Even after clearing all that space, Boot Camp will probably still whine and fail again, like it did for me.
That’s because it’ll run into some weird errors on your drive. Those weird errors are because off, well, I have no fucking clue. But they’re there. How to fix this? Well you open Disk Utility.
Click “Verify Disk” and it’ll check your disk. This might take awhile. I got this crazy scary error. If you didn’t get that and it’s verified, then just skip this part.
I was like “wait WHAT? NO!”. My SSD drive was broken? Why did nobody tell me! I rebooted into Recovery Mode (reboot and hold CMD+R). There I opened Disk Utility in there to verify my disk. If your disk is encrypted like mine, you need to unlock it first by right-clicking the disk, selecting Unlock and entering your password.
Then I verified it again, repaired everything and it worked fine. There were no errors. Odd right? Who cares! Because after this it worked. I rebooted into normal OSX mode and started Boot Camp Assistant again. This time I only selected the last checkbox:
Let’s try again
There we go, partition it:
After partitioning, Boot Camp Assistant automatically restarts. And then BAM!
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Now Windows doesn’t like our partitions
Yay! It’s Windows! On a Mac! Don’t celebrate too early, because this is where hell starts.
See what that says? “Windows cannot be installed to Disk 0 Partition 3”. Wait WHAT? WHY! Boot Camp was supposed to fix this shit, right? I was supposed to not do anything and Boot Camp would put all the files in the right place, to make it work on Mac, right?
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NOPE!
Then you press Format on that partition. And it seems to work but no it doesn’t because it says:
“The selected disk of the GPT partition style”
COME ON!
What does it take for a (wo)man to get a Windows around here?
Well, a lot. After hours of Googling, I figured it out.
You need to reboot back into OSX. Exit the installation. Then hold ALT/OPTION and select Macintosh HD to boot to. Then go back to Disk Utility:
Select your BOOTCAMP partition and go to the Erase tab, then under Format select ExFAT and click Erase. Make sure you’re erasing the correct partition (BOOTCAMP not Macintosh HD).
After that reboot your MacBook into Windows by rebooting and holding the ALT/OPTION key and selecting your USB stick (I think it’s called EFI). It’ll load the Windows install again.
Try selecting the BOOTCAMP partition in the Windows installation again, you can recognize it by the size you made it. For me that was 100 GB (it showed as I think 86 GB). If it still gives an error, go last resort. Remove the BOOTCAMP partition within the Windows installation by clicking Delete.
Then add a new partition by clicking New:
Try installing it on that partition. If that still doesn’t work, you’re out of luck, cause I have no idea either.
And then…it works
You’ll see this.
The problem is that there’s a good chance the Boot Camp drivers for Windows to understand your MacBook (e.g. use WiFi, sound, etc.) aren’t installed. Luckily they’re on your USB stick. In the Start Screen go to search and type File Explorer. Then try to fin your USB stick. Open the Boot Camp folder and find an Install app, open it and let it run. It’ll probably reboot.
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Now with all your drivers installed, most of the stuff on your MacBook will work on Windows now. My friend has some problems with the Bluetooth keyboard, but that was an unofficial keyboard. My Apple one worked perfectly. As did my Logitech wireless mouse.
Now let’s make Windows suck less
Okay, so Windows 8 is obviously the worst interface any person has come across. Like Windows 8 itself actually feels pretty solid, if you get out of that insane box square maze mayhem they call the Start Menu now. It’s insane. Who runs this company? So incredibly stupid to do this. My dad just switched to OSX because he couldn’t understand this Start Screen. Biggest fail of the century.
We have no choice though. We want to play games! So to get your start menu (from old times) back, install Classic Shell.
Then set this image as the start button in preferences:
Yay! Now to disable that stupid Start Screen, right-click on the Task Bar, then click Properties, then click the Navigation tab, then check “When I sign in or close all apps on a screen, go to the desktop instead of Start”, uncheck “When I point to the upper-right corner, show the charms”.
Now install Steam
I’ll let you do this as it’s pretty easy. Go to Steam and the top right click Install Steam.
Then search for GTA V. Click Download.
Here’s the problem, GTA V is 65 GB and that will take awhile. You obviously don’t want to be stuck for hours in Windows. The trick here is to install Parallels in OSX (if you haven’t already). Reboot to OSX (hold ALT/OPTION and select Macintosh HD) and set Parallels up so it uses the Boot Camp partition. Open Parallels, select Boot Camp on the right and follow the instructions:
After installing, try playing GTA V. Customize the graphic settings a bit. You can’t play it on super high settings, but you can go pretty far on a MacBook Pro 15″. Like I said, it has an actually really powerful graphics card, so it can run GTA V fine.
Yay!
Now you can use your Boot Camp partition within OSX with Parallels to download games/software and continue working. Then when it’s finished, reboot to Windows and play your PC games.
It took me awhile to get back into playing games when I did all of this. I mean, it’s like it has to compete with reality, which is already insane for me, and so GTA V felt somewhat “fake” to me for days, until I accepted it was a game, and nothing I did in there would be an actual accomplishment. See, that’s what startup life psychology does to you. And on a serious note, that’s why we should all play more games. Because it helps you get out of your filter bubble.
Going outside to walk your dog? Naaaaaah, why would you! There’s GTA V!
P.S. I wrote a book on building indie startups called MAKE. And I'm on Twitter too if you'd like to follow more of my stories. I don't use email so tweet me your questions. Or you can see my list of posts. To get an alert when I write a new blog post, you can subscribe below:
Furthermore, the version of the game that is put up for free is the GTA 5’s Premium Edition – this includes the full storyline from the game plus Grand Theft Auto Online in addition to all currently existing in-game upgrades and bonus content. To top it all, users would also get the “Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack” that comes with even more content as well as 1,000,000 $ bonus in-game money for online play.
All you need in order to grab the GTA V for free is a working PC or Mac (of course, one that could run this rather resource-intensive game), an Epic Games Launcher, and an Epic Games account. However, one thing we must note here is that users would have to have enabled two-factor authentication on their accounts in order to be permitted to get the game for free.
Can you run GTA V on Mac?
The short answer is yes. If you have already set up you Mac to play PC games then just go ahead and take advantage of the Full free Version of GTA V. If not, you will need to install Boot Camp, create a virtual Machine and afterwards install the game.
How to play gta v on mac without bootcamp?
Performance wise it would be unpractical using other methods. The performance decrease would make the game unplayable. However if you are using one of the latest high performance macs on the market you can give Wineskin a shot. Setting up a Virtual machine would make much sense either.
Install GTA 5 on Mac with bootcamp
Before attempting to install boot camp we recommend checking your macs specifications and cross referencing them with those recommend to run GTA 5. Next, you will need a program called Boot Camp. With Boot Camp, you can install a version of Windows 10 which is compatible with GTA 5. Here are the steps for installing Windows 10 on a Mac using Boot Camp:
Download Windows 10 ISO onto your mac
Configure Boot Camp Assistant
Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Boot Camp Assistant
Open the program and click continue
Select the Windows 10 ISO
Choose somewhere around 100GB of space
Install the Windows 10 ISO and configure Windows
Install recommended drivers after booting up the Windows partition
If you are running Mac OS Cataline 10.15 we recommend watching this YouTube video to make sure you are not missing out on any of the steps.
Playing GTA V on Mac
Although ac computers aren’t specifically designed as gaming machines, it is still possible to play games in them. However, if you want to run GTA V on a Mac, you will first need to install Windows 7 or higher. We highly recommend installing windows 10 on your Mac even with the latest version of Mac OS 10.15.5 via something called Windows Boot Camp (official instructions from Apple on how to set this up) using the instructions above. Also, note that, in order to run the game on your Mac, you will also need at least 65 GB of free space and your machine would have to meet/exceed the minimum system requirements for the game.
Downloading GTA V for mac
Please remember to download the game on the windows version via Boot Camp. The Epic game launcher itself is not compatible with Mac OS.
Gta 5 Mac Free Download
Recommended Specs To run GTA V On Mac
Processor
Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2GHZ (4 CPUs) / AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4GHZ (8 CPUs)
Memory
8 GB RAM
Video Card
NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB / AMD HD7870 2GB
HDD
Space90 GB available space
Use Geforce Now to play GTA on Mac
A number of users on the Geforce forums have been reporting that Grand Theft Auto 5 has been removed from the NVIDIA Geforce Now library of games. Many people used to play GTA on Geforce Now but the game isn’t available anymore. Initially, the rumors were that the reason for the game’s take-down was an update or some problem with the contract, but it seems that Rockstar has got a deal with Google for Stadia and Geforce Now yanked GTA because of that.
Use Stadia to play GTA on Mac
The good news is that the fans of Grand Theft Auto 5 might be able to see it arriving soon in Stadia Edition. A Rockstar Mag tweet indicated that the game can be released earlier than expected. According to the leak, players using Google Stadia seem to be shortly able to enjoy the game. However, the tweet did not have a source or any timeline for the game’s release. That’s why many fans already anticipate an update that will reveal when they should be able to play the ported title.
Descargar Gta 5 Mac Epic Games To Play
At the moment, the game persists in gaming charts, and, hence, bringing it to more playing platforms is financially meaningful for all interested parties.
Grand Theft Auto 5 also gives fans a lot of content and the players in Stadia would surely enjoy the well-regarded title in their gaming collection. It remains to be seen if this game would contribute to improving Stadia’s revenue, although this depends a lot on the continuing success and popularity of GTA 5.
Grand Theft Auto 5 can currently be played on PCs, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, with PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X scheduled to be launched in late 2021.
Running GTA on Apple silicon
For the time being m1 chips cannot run windows with Boot Camp. The fundamental reason is that the two operating systems now run on totally different architecture. Where as intel chips on Mac were capable of running Windows 10 this would be nearly impossible to achieve with all new Macs with apple silicon
Massive Epic Game Store crash due to a traffic spikeon release date
Descargar Gta 5 Mac Epic Games To Play
As soon as Epic Games Store’s official Twitter account announced that the game they will be made available for free would indeed be GTA V, understandably, a huge number of users seem to have rushed to the Store in anticipation of the free release of the title. This, however, seems to have caused a massive crash on the Epic Games servers that lasted for hours. The Epic Games team addressed this issue on their Twitter page, expressing their apologies and assuring their customers that they are working on resolving the issue. At the moment of writing this post, the server problems at Epic Games Store seem to have been resolved and people could now once again log in with their accounts and claim the Premium Edition of the acclaimed Rockstar game.
This is not the first time Epic Games Store has made such free game giveaways. Ever since the store was launched in December 2018, they have been occasionally making games free for a temporary amount of time and according to a statement from the company made in January, they intend to keep doing throughout the whole 2020.
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techforyouths · 4 years
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Is Linux Finally[Top Seven reasons] beating Windows? (Windows Vs Linux OS Battle)
Chances are you’ve all used a personal computer that runs the Windows operating system. But how many of you have actually used Linux?
If you look at the market share of operating systems for pieces over the last few years, you’ll see that Windows totally dominates the market. It’s been that way pretty much since Windows came on the scene in 1985.
The word Microsoft became a household name and synonymous with both home computers and operating systems. In January, twenty nineteen windows had just over an 88 per cent market share. Apple’s Mac operating system is next with just over 9 per cent of the share.
And after that comes Linux with just a tiny share. What might surprise you, though, is perhaps this shouldn’t really be the case.
What Windows is?
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We’re not going to bother explaining to you what the Windows OS is. That would be almost condescending.
You’ve all used it and many of you probably loved the XP version, hated Vista and Windows Me, and probably weren’t too fond of Windows 8 when Microsoft released Windows 10. It said this was the last in the line of totally new versions.
It would be updated forevermore. The point is we’ve likely all gotten used to windows. Using windows is as familiar to most people as opening a window in your home.
What is Linux?
For those of you who don’t know what Linux is, you can actually just go to the Linux official website in the company. Answers that question for you. We’ve done the reading, so we’ll paraphrase what the company said.
First of all, Linux tells us you probably do use Linux, but just don’t know about it.
This is just one sentence from its grand opening paragraph. It’s in your phones, in your cars, in your refrigerators, your Roku devices.
It runs most of the Internet, the supercomputers making scientific breakthroughs and the world’s stock exchanges.
It’s also just a regular operating system for your p._c. The operating system, which most people just initialized to OS is like the brain of the machine. Without it, the machine is pretty much useless. We don’t need to tell you that these systems can be very complex and we imagine most of you wouldn’t be confident enough to say you know exactly everything you could do with your windows OS.
That’s one reason people stick with what they know because moving to a different OS is like finding yourself in a totally new environment.
Windows Vs Linux OS Battle: Detailed Comparison?
You have to learn the laws of a new virtual jungle, which can be exciting but also a bit frustrating at times. But get this. Let us explore some advantages of Linux over windows
Linux is free whereas Windows is Paid
You can install Linux on your computer for nothing. Yes, it is absolutely free. Installing a Linux server is also free. This is what you need when you have a network of people that need serving. It isn’t free.
If you need Windows server OS though, Linux makes a big deal about this, and rightly so.
Who doesn’t like free Linux also says its server is easy to run and that anyone can do it?
Linux is open source?
OK, so the next big point when discussing Linux is the fact that it’s distributed under an open-source license. What does this mean? Well, basically you can do whatever you want with your OS, which is great for many folks since they enjoy the fact that they can study exactly how it works and make a change. Imagine you were not into a Windows feature and then thought, OK, I can do this better.
I’ll just rewrite the code and add something. Linux lets you do this. Linux also notes these two things that users have the freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour.
People also have the freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. This is why Linux users like to say they’re part of a community.
A common phrase is it’s an OS that’s run by the people for the people. The same way you can tinker under the hood of a car.
Linux lets you see what’s inside. Some folks like to get under the hood. That’s just their nature. Linux really works for these people. So this is starting to sound too good to be true and easy to use free OS.
That doesn’t break much. And one that you can alter and fiddle with and improve anything else.
Linux has a lot of versions to choose from
Yes, in fact, there is. Linux has a lot of versions to choose from, but the company calls them distributions. So you have quite a few choices of how you want your OS to work and what your desktop will look like.
When we say a few, we actually mean hundreds, if not thousands. Some are more popular than others, and if you choose, you can opt for a version that’s pretty close to windows and look and feel.
If you like the Apple Mac OS, there’s a Linux distribution that tries to mirror that.
Linux is much secure and less vulnerable as compared to Windows
Another major point is that Linux is less vulnerable to attacks than Windows, which had a virus before. What about some particularly hard to remove malware who’s been hit so hard they felt like taking a hammer to their blue screen of death.
Now you might be thinking, wait a minute here. If Linux is basically an open-source system, surely it must be vulnerable to attacks?
Well, we’re told by the security experts that Linux is actually harder to gain access to so fewer files can be corrupted. It’s a long story, but the way Linux is designed makes it less likely to suffer from viruses.
It can happen, but it happens a lot less than on the average computer using windows. Of course, there’s also the fact that Windows is way more popular. So, of course, that’s the system people want to hack.
Linux Os required less Power than Windows?
We’re also told that running a. OS requires less power, so in other words, you could run the system on an older computer so it’s reliable, easy to run, allows you to choose from many distributions, allows developers to fiddle around and it’s free.
So come on, there must be a downside because hardly anyone in the world uses it compared to Windows. Something just doesn’t add up here. Coll
Collections of Softwares: Linux vs Windows
Well, Windows being so huge means it has much more software. You can run on it. There are thousands of programs you can run on Linux for free and you can even get Windows software on Linux with a bit of effort.
You can even have your beloved Microsoft Word running on your Linux machine. But in all, Windows offers a much wider variety of software.
What about the hardware supporting software? Well, it said in the past you might have had trouble getting Linux on a machine, but that’s a thing of the past. Most machines you can buy today should be able to run Linux without issue.
What experts have a views on Linux over Windows?
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We will explain this reason below.
Enough of the expert commentary, though. Let’s see what real people who have switched from Windows to Linux have to say.
The most popular comment on one Reddit thread was At the end of the day, the Linux community wants to make software and Microsoft wants to make money when those goals are opposed to Linux becomes the better choice.
In fact, a lot of the people who now use Linux say that they’re very happy they made the change and mostly for the reasons we have talked about today.
Another person wrote updates, not bugging you. It’s faster. No spyware runs well on older machines. Tons of variety and penguins. He likes penguins.
Another person wrote. It’s free, as in freedom. No stupid licenses that tell you you can’t use your computer the way you want to.
You’re free to use it for any purpose. Change it, redistribute it, and to distribute the changes you make. It’s software that’s useful for society. We didn’t see many negative comments for Linux, but one person said when it comes to gaming, Windows is better as the games are designed to run on windows.
He also said that as Windows 10 is the entire deal, Microsoft is focused on making it the perfect environment. It’s coherent, he said.
Whereas the Linux world is massive and for some people that could be confusing. Actually, when it comes to Linux and gaming, you can find many forums with people arguing about this.
This is what one very popular gaming web site said. Yes, Linux is a decent operating system for gaming, especially since the number of Linux compatible games is increasing due to Valve’s Steam OS being based on Linux.
However, we would still advise anyone who doesn’t need any of the advanced features that Linux has to offer to stick with Windows due to its ease of use and fewer compatibility issues with games.
Conclusion on Linux Vs Windows?
This is not to say, however, that Windows is bad. Not at all. And Windows 10 has been, for the most part, very well received. As we said at the beginning, Windows has been part of people’s lives for many years. People know what they’re working with.
And even though Linux offers similar alternatives, a lot of people don’t want to make the effort to change. There’s also the case for a long time, people have gone over to Linux because they thought it was only for people who knew a lot about computers.
That using it might take some amount of computer savvy. There is no doubt that people will have to do some learning. And as we already said, you’re entering a different jungle.
But no, you don’t have to be a computer science major to use a Linux computer. That said, some people just don’t want to have to learn something new.
And on top of that, if a computer comes with a pre-installed version of Windows and works well enough, why on earth would they go through the effort to change no matter which you choose, Windows, Linux or even a different OS altogether?
FAQ’s on Linux vs Windows?
Why don’t more people use linux
It’s that familiarity and of course, the fact that it comes pre-installed on many pieces you buy that prevents some people from crossing over the scary waters of OS change toward the little known island of Linux.
Why Linux market share not even 2 percent?
So with all this positivity being spoken about Linux, why is its market share not even 2 per cent? You can read tech web sites where real computer nerds talk about this and you’ll see people saying that Linux really should be ascending faster than it is. But actually one developer said what we’ve just said in that Linux is just far too fragmented. He also just said the obvious and that it just hasn’t gained momentum yet. And well, Microsoft has a PR machine that’s virtually unstoppable.
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from WordPress https://techforyouths.com/linux-finally-beating-windows-vs-linux/
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linuxlife · 4 years
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Linux Life Episode 61
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Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to my on going quest in the world of Linux.  
Well a lot has happened since my last episode.  The W3550 Xeon decide to fail on me as The PSU decided to give up the ghost with no warning or real errors.  All I know is it refused to start a few times.  Now I had been having problems with the AMD R9 270X graphics card so I swapped it out with a Nvidia 630 GT.
The 630GT was from the i7 desktop which I swapped out with the Nvidia 1050 which is still in there currently and working well.  However when I switched it into the Xeon it worked upon initial installation then the Xeon started to fail upon start up but lights would come on.  After two further attempted start ups it the refused to do anything whatsoever.
So unfortunately I don’t have a replacement power supply to hand as the Xeon requires a 750w PSU to work efficiently.  The only one I have to had is a 450w one on hand which would not allow the Xeon to start.  So the Xeon at the moment is on the shelf until I can source a new one at a reasonable price.
So I got another machine up and running.  The Machine is an Intel G540 Celeron board I had lying about in an Acer case.  It’s not an Acer system I just reused the case to install the G540 which is sitting on a Gigabyte H61M-S2PV motherboard.
I also installed the Nvidia 630GT as I had it to hand from the Xeon.  I also used the 240GB V Series SSD from the Xeon as it was available.  So once again I have a working system.  Now the Intel G540 Celeron for those who don’t keep chip specs to hand is a Sandy Bridge dual core dual threaded machine so it is never going to be a speed demon however it is running at 2.50 GHz which is not bad.
I have also installed 8Gb of DDR3 RAM from the Xeon so although it’s ECC ram the machine doesn’t worry about that and is running perfectly fine.
So I naturally went to install Namib Linux and it installed fine initially but after its first update broke and pamac would not update any more.  I managed to get pamac back after a bit of playing with terminal commands but it still wouldn’t synchronize the databases.  More finagling later involving pulling down the required files from the AUR to my phone then transferring them using a program called Sweech via Wi-Fi.  I got Pamac back to the tray
Restarted but still no synchronising databases.  Updated keyrings and mirrorlists but still no avail.  In the end I gave up as no matter what I did it would not update.  Not happy.
The crazy thing is the i7 desktop is still running Namib Linux and I did exactly what I did regarding the Xeon and it works absolutely fine so I am confused.  There must be a step on the i7 I did which I have completely forgotten, who knows one day I may remember.  So Namib is out of the loop also at the moment.
So I decided since this is not a regularly used machine more of a test bed I remember quite a few episodes I liked the look of Solus 4 at the time.  Well it just happened a few days before I typed this article Solus announced the update to Solus 4.1, new and improved and several bug fixes.  So I downloaded the ISO on the i7 transferred it to USB using Etcher and installed it on the newly restored G540.
It installed fine and I even managed to install the Nvidia drivers without a problem and it worked fine.  I used their software Centre which is based on the Ubuntu one to install my usual software however I came unstuck with the dock I use.
Now I use Cairo Dock.  I use it because you can move its offset to move it up and down off the edge of the desktop so you can clear the main dock.  Which you can’t do with Docky or Plank.
It’s not in their store.  I look on Solus’ website.  Many have requested it but they have not got it working.  So i couldn’t use it.  I tried Plank for about half a day before remembering why it annoyed me.
Another program I use is I-Nex to check the video driver it’s similar to CPU-Z which is used on Windows and Mac.  Guess what its not in the store database either but CPU-X was.
However as good as Solus is their store is missing so many things and because they use their own package manager extension of eopkg there is no converter like Debtap which Arch uses to convert Debian files to allow them to install.  So it makes life very awkward if you want specific software.
I’m sure someone is going to tell me of such a convertor and what it is called and I am going to feel kind of stupid, but I could not find it or any clue to such.
So I decide against Solus.  In time I may go back should they update such but for now like every time I have tried Solus ,it is still in development and needs to catch up.
Maybe in about 2 years I may try again.  So now I am current running Ubuntu Studio 19.10 it works OK.  I have had to add a few PPAs to get certain programs but it has been reasonably easy to get most running.
However one thing that does annoy me is having to search the appropriate apt-get package name for certain things because it isn’t always what you think it would be.
Once again I was trying to install I-Nex.  I added the PPA and sudo apt update, sudo apt-get install I-Nex.  It failed could not get libcpuid version 14 or higher.  So I found the deb file installed it and I-Nex still wouldn’t install.
Luckily CPU-X would install so I removed the I-Nex PPA aned installed the CPU-X one and it worked first time.  Such an annoyance that even if you install the info even from the alleged website of an app.  It isn’t always true.
That is one thing I will say about Arch if it changes someone updates the wiki immediately and tells you the new name or how to sort it.  Not the case it seems with Ubuntu.
However after all that Ubuntu Studio is still on the G540.  I have managed to get Steam, working, however because the 630GT doesn’t have Shaders 4.0 as it’s the Fermi model of the card not the Pascal which was produced later, I know I can’t use Lutris and Vulkan as it will not work sufficiently.
However it will play games just not high end ones which I can live with.  So that brings us up-to date.  How long it will remain with Ubuntu Studio 19.10 I don’t know.  However I have got all the programs I want at the moment and it does work if albeit slower than the Xeon.
Have you any Linux distributions you would like me to examine... Zorin OS, MX Linux, Fedora Silverblue, Mint 19.3, Netrunner, the list goes on.  If so give me a message at [email protected] with your suggestions.
OK well I think that’s enough for this episode...so until next time, take care.
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tak4hir0 · 5 years
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By Geoffrey A. Fowler | The Washington Post Columnist You open your browser to look at the web. Do you know who is looking back at you? Over a recent week of web surfing, I peered under the hood of Google Chrome and found it brought along a few thousand friends. Shopping, news and even government sites quietly tagged my browser to let ad and data companies ride shotgun while I clicked around the web. This was made possible by the web’s biggest snoop of all: Google. Seen from the inside, its Chrome browser looks a lot like surveillance software. Lately I’ve been investigating the secret life of my data, running experiments to see what technology really is up to under the cover of privacy policies that nobody reads. It turns out, having the world’s biggest advertising company make the most-popular web browser was about as smart as letting kids run a candy shop. It made me decide to ditch Chrome for a new version of nonprofit Mozilla’s Firefox, which has default privacy protections. Switching involved less inconvenience than you might imagine. My tests of Chrome versus Firefox unearthed a personal data caper of absurd proportions. In a week of web surfing on my desktop, I discovered 11,189 requests for tracker “cookies” that Chrome would have ushered right onto my computer, but were automatically blocked by Firefox. These little files are the hooks that data firms, including Google itself, use to follow what websites you visit so they can build profiles of your interests, income and personality. Chrome welcomed trackers even at websites you’d think would be private. I watched Aetna and the Federal Student Aid website set cookies for Facebook and Google. They surreptitiously told the data giants every time I pulled up the insurance and loan service’s log-in pages. And that’s not the half of it. Look in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser. See a picture or a name in the circle? If so, you’re logged in to the browser, and Google might be tapping into your web activity to target ads. Don’t recall signing in? I didn’t, either. Chrome recently started doing that automatically when you use Gmail. Chrome is even sneakier on your phone. If you use Android, Chrome sends Google your location every time you conduct a search. (If you turn off location sharing it still sends your coordinates out, just with less accuracy.) Firefox isn’t perfect – it still defaults searches to Google and permits some other tracking. But it doesn’t share browsing data with Mozilla, which isn’t in the data-collection business. At a minimum, web snooping can be annoying. Cookies are how a pair of pants you look at in one site end up following you around in ads elsewhere. More fundamentally, your web history – like the color of your underpants – ain’t nobody’s business but your own. Letting anyone collect that data leaves it ripe for abuse by bullies, spies and hackers. Google’s product managers told me in an interview that Chrome prioritizes privacy choices and controls, and they’re working on new ones for cookies. But they also said they have to get the right balance with a “healthy web ecosystem” (read: ad business). Firefox’s product managers told me they don’t see privacy as an “option” relegated to controls. They’ve launched a war on surveillance, starting this month with “enhanced tracking protection” that blocks nosy cookies by default on new Firefox installations. But to succeed, first Firefox has to convince people to care enough to overcome the inertia of switching. It’s a tale of two browsers – and the diverging interests of the companies that make them. The cookie fight A decade ago, Chrome and Firefox were taking on Microsoft’s lumbering giant Internet Explorer. The upstart Chrome solved real problems for consumers, making the web safer and faster. Today it dominates more than half the market. Lately, however, many of us have realized that our privacy is also a major concern on the web – and Chrome’s interests no longer always seem aligned with our own. That’s most visible in the fight over cookies. These code snippets can do some helpful things, like remembering the contents of your shopping cart. But now many cookies belong to data companies, which use them to tag your browser so they can follow your path like crumbs in the proverbial forest. They’re everywhere – one study found third-party tracking cookies on 92 percent of websites. The Washington Post website has about 40 tracker cookies, average for a news site, which the company said in a statement are used to deliver better-targeted ads and track ad performance. You’ll also find them on sites without ads: Both Aetna and the FSA service said the cookies on their sites help measure their own external marketing campaigns. The blame for this mess belongs to the entire advertising, publishing and tech industries. But what responsibility does a browser have in protecting us from code that isn’t doing much more than spying? In 2015, Mozilla debuted a version of Firefox that included anti-tracking tech, turned on only in its “private” browsing mode. After years of testing and tweaking, that’s what it activated this month on all websites. This isn’t about blocking ads – those still come through. Rather, Firefox is parsing cookies to decide which ones to keep for critical site functions and which ones to block for spying. Apple’s Safari browser, used on iPhones, also began applying “intelligent tracking protection” to cookies in 2017, using an algorithm to decide which ones were bad. Chrome, so far, remains open to all cookies by default. Last month, Google announced a new effort to force third-party cookies to better self-identify, and said we can expect new controls for them after it rolls out. But it wouldn’t offer a timeline or say whether it would default to stopping trackers. I’m not holding my breath. Google itself, through its Doubleclick and other ad businesses, is the No. 1 cookie maker – the Mrs. Fields of the web. It’s hard to imagine Chrome ever cutting off Google’s moneymaker. “Cookies play a role in user privacy, but a narrow focus on cookies obscures the broader privacy discussion because it’s just one way in which users can be tracked across sites,” said Ben Galbraith, Chrome’s director of product management. “This is a complex problem, and simple, blunt cookie blocking solutions force tracking into more opaque practices.” There are other tracking techniques – and the privacy arms race will get harder. But saying things are too complicated is also a way of not doing anything. “Our viewpoint is to deal with the biggest problem first, but anticipate where the ecosystem will shift and work on protecting against those things as well,” said Peter Dolanjski, Firefox’s product lead. Both Google and Mozilla said they’re working on fighting “fingerprinting,” a way to sniff out other markers in your computer. Firefox is already testing its capabilities, and plans to activate them soon. Making the switch Choosing a browser is no longer just about speed and convenience – it’s also about data defaults. It’s true that Google usually obtains consent before gathering data, and offers a lot of knobs you can adjust to opt out of tracking and targeted advertising. But its controls often feel like a shell game that results in us sharing more personal data. Get breaking news and alerts with our free mobile app. Get it from the Apple app store or the Google Play store. I felt hoodwinked when Google quietly began signing Gmail users into Chrome last fall. Google says the Chrome shift didn’t cause anybody’s browsing history to be “synced” unless they specifically opted in – but I found mine was being sent Google, and don’t recall ever asking for extra surveillance. (You can turn off the Gmail auto-login by searching “Gmail” in Chrome settings and switching off “Allow Chrome sign-in.”) After the sign-in shift, Johns Hopkins professor Matthew Green made waves in the computer science world when he blogged he was done with Chrome. “I lost faith,” he told me. “It only takes a few tiny changes to make it very privacy unfriendly.” There are ways to defang Chrome, which is much more complicated than just using “Incognito Mode.” But it’s much easier to switch to a browser not owned by an advertising company. Like Green, I’ve chosen Firefox, which works across phones, tablets, PCs and Macs. Apple’s Safari is also a good option on Macs, iPhones and iPads, and the niche Brave browser goes even further in trying to jam the ad-tech industry. What does switching to Firefox cost you? It’s free, and downloading a different browser is much simpler than changing phones. In 2017, Mozilla launched a new version of Firefox called Quantum that made it considerably faster. In my tests, it has felt almost as fast as Chrome, though benchmark tests have found it can be slower in some contexts. Firefox says it’s better about managing memory if you use lots and lots of tabs. Switching means you’ll have to move your bookmarks, and Firefox offers tools to help. Shifting passwords is easy if you use a password manager. And most browser add-ons are available, though it’s possible you won’t find your favorite. Mozilla has challenges to overcome. Among privacy advocates, the nonprofit is known for caution. It took a year longer than Apple to make cookie blocking a default. And as a nonprofit, it earns money when people make searches in the browser and click on ads – which means its biggest source of income is Google. Mozilla’s CEO says the company is exploring new paid privacy services to diversify its income. Its biggest risk is that Firefox might someday run out of steam in its battle with the Chrome behemoth. Even though it’s the No. 2 desktop browser, with about 10 percent of the market, major sites could decide to drop support, leaving Firefox scrambling. If you care about privacy, let’s hope for another David and Goliath outcome.
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savetopnow · 6 years
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2018-03-16 06 APPLE now
APPLE
9 to 5 Mac
Users in Iran are no longer able to access the App Store
How to share one iCloud Storage plan with your whole family
Apple touts developer success in response to allegations of ‘abusive trade practices’ in France
Google Maps adds ‘wheelchair accessible’ routes’ for improved mobility [Video]
How to compose 2:1 video in Final Cut Pro X that’s better formatted for today’s smartphones [Video]
Apple Insider
Highly questionable video claims to show 'iPhone SE 2' with iPhone X styling
Video: Anker's new PowerWave Wireless Chargers power your iPhone at 7.5W
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Play games on your Mac installed on another computer with Steam In-Home Streaming
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Pro Tip: One-tap scroll back to the bottom of the camera roll
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New Logitech gaming speaker brings light show to your desktop
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The Seven Biggest Lies Theranos Told
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iOS 11 Update Day: iOS 11 will break some apps
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The iPhone Turns 10 Today
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Quick Takes: Fitbit Executive Says He Hasn't Met Anyone Passionate About Owning an Apple Watch
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Video Depicts Likely Fake iPhone X-Style 'iPhone SE 2'
Deals: 2018 Mac Essentials Bundle, New Anker Chargers, and Latest 4K iTunes Movies on Sale
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Save $100-$150+ on 13″ Touch Bar MacBook Pros with these deals at B&H
Current deals on 27″ Apple iMacs, models up to $153 off MSRP
Thursday Deal: 13″ 2.3GHz MacBook Pro for $1199, $100 off, pay no sales tax in 48 states
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OSX Daily
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WWDC 2018 Starts June 4, iOS 12 & MacOS 10.14 Likely to Debut
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Apple open 2018 WWDC registration, announces conference for June 4 – 8 in San Jose
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Apple expands MFi licensing program, releases specs to allow for USB-C port, Lightning to 3.5mm adapters
Rumor: Apple to release more affordable 13-inch Retina Display MacBook Pro in June
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Unlikely ‘iPhone SE 2’ with iPhone X design surfaces in new video
What if Apple implement Siri’s on-device learning to the point that they can learn everything on-device and then sync across your devices with end-to-end encryption.
I always thought Lost Mode would connect to known Wi-Fi networks so it'll actually find my iPhone
GrayKey iPhone unlocker poses serious security concerns
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Making the switch back to Windows. Not happy about it.
If your MBP has a "popping noise" issue and you have warranty/AppleCare, get it repaired. I got my Logic Board, Display, and Speaker Assembly replaced at no cost!
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iPhone SE 2 allegedly appears in leaked video
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Google Pixel owner here, looking to switch to an iPhone in the near future. How many of you use the notification shade? I have an iPad and have found myself never looking at it since it always looks like a mess. I may be using it wrong, so tell me your experience with it.
Is Apple using all the major suppliers for Flash and DRAM for iPhone 8?
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Gaming on Windows is just better.
Reasons windows is better I'll, save you guys the trouble there aren't any actually yeah. I agree. Are you guys kidding me? The vast majority of the world runs Windows on the desktop and believe it or not. There are some pretty darn good reasons for it, so guys we compiled the top 10 of them from our community to share with you in this video thanks LastPass for sponsoring a portion of this video. They relieve the burden of trying to remember all your passwords for every website. Let LastPass fill in your passwords, for you learn more at the end of the video or at the link below [, Music ]. First up and this one's a shocker gaming, our community spoke, and we agree. Gaming on Windows is just better. 
Not only are there tons of current games for the Windows PC platform like literally thousands of them, but accessing them and keeping them up to date is much simpler than it used to be thanks to online marketplaces like Steam, origin, you play, and yes, even the epic Game store and Windows gaming has far more going for it than just the current library. Recent progress towards integration with Microsoft's Xbox ecosystem has brought cross-platform play to some titles and even cross-platform purchases, and on the subject of compatibility. Well, there's the back catalog of games, which numbers in the tens of thousands with a shocking number of old games still being playable on modern hardware. I fired up 1602 80, a game from almost 1602 80 on my Windows, 10 PC with a Titan RT X on it with minimal tinkering required. 
That'S crazy! So we're actually working on a collab with good old games. Right now to show this off make sure your sub, so you don't miss it on the subject of tinkering Windows games, particularly the older ones, allow for a ton of it with large communities that have built everything from their own servers from multiplayer to mods that alter Visuals or gameplay elements and even mods that change the genre of the original title fun fact for you, young kids out there dota used to be a custom map in Warcraft 3. Finally, there's the advantage that comes naturally with being the incumbent gaming platform support wan na try out the hottest new peripherals like brand new graphics cards, VR headsets, haptic feedback, vests odds are excellent, that the Windows software is going to be much more polished than what's available. For other platforms, that is, if anything exists, for them at all, RTX real-time ray tracing on Mac. 
Please is actually a common one for users of every platform and it's that it just works or because I don't feel like something new like Apple Microsoft has made it OS that, for the most part, works as intended. Out-Of-The-Box, no real extra effort is needed. Thanks to Auto magical third-party driver installs through Windows Update when you get into the weeds with obscure devices, hardware compatibility on the platform does have its issues, but for the average user it is much better than it used to be, and so is the general intuitiveness of Using it I mean I still remember when they introduced the documents and pictures folder. Comm 4 is the toolbox. The registry editor, if used responsibly, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to optimizing. The windows experience task manager got some big upgrades with Windows 8 and now makes it so simple to monitor CPU RAM network and even GPU usage. 
So anyone can do it, but if you want to go even further, this rabbit hole. 2 has pretty much no bottom resource monitor, gives you a much more granular. Look the information from cast manager, making it easy to identify processes that are sending large amounts of network data out or causing your disk to churn and slow down the rest of your system. Task scheduler is a crazy, powerful utility that lets. You have Windows, automate tasks for you. It can open and close programs for you when you log in and out it can send emails when tasks complete and you can even post to Twitter and Facebook using the window. Scheduler and power toys are back, so these are actually Microsoft provided tools that enthusiasts can use to add or enhance features.
 I was a huge fan of sync TOI back in the day and this new window management one for Windows, 10 looks sick. 5. Is the support base want to learn how to do some of the stuff? You'Ve talked about well, with 78 % of the worldwide desktop OS market share. If it exists, someone has probably done it so, like you want to become the new macro king. Well, there are tutorials on how to do that, need to troubleshoot a weird error between the official support from Microsoft, for both current and legacy windows and the thousands of enthusiasts on forums around the world. The odds of finding someone to help. You are pretty good. One. Great resource is actually our forum linked below, where our community is ready, willing and able to help feel free to check that out after the video 6 is productivity. Even Apple had to acknowledge. 
Windows is strength when it comes to buckling down and just getting some work done, whether you're trading stocks, writing reports, tracking financials, making super cool, PowerPoint, slides or making YouTube videos like us windows probably supports the software and the hardware that you need to get it done. Microsoft'S Office suite is incredibly powerful and works best on Windows if you want to do 3d or CAD work. Most of the industry-standard software is on Windows and, let's not forget the plethora of one-off and highly specialized programs needed for scientific study, engineering and many other industries. Now I wasn't sure where to put this little bit so we're gon na chuck it in productivity, shortcut keys, so many shortcut keys, classic control-alt-delete for when things go wrong windows and one two three and four to launch the corresponding app on your taskbar go ahead and 
Try it it's really cool and if you like bad one, you can grab the other new power toy that lets. You hold the Windows key to see all the shortcut keys for your active programs. Oh productivity bliss awaits my friends. Seven is OS unity with some notable exceptions. Windows hasn't changed too drastically over the years. So if you went straight from Windows, XP to Windows, 10 you'd probably find your way around it sooner rather than later, and if you're a technician. This can be really nice because it's not uncommon to find yourself working on a different version from one hour to the next. It'S a totally different experience compared to Linux, which has I don't know, I stopped counting after 30, let's just say a lot of different distros or versions that are designed for a multitude of different tasks or specialized use cases. 
There are mainstream optimized distros out there, but if you don't consult the internet beforehand as a newcomer, it can get really confusing and thing is even if you do consult the internet. People might not agree on which flavor of the month is vastly women do bunt to stop being cool. Eight was a bit of a surprise to me, but it came up a lot. So maybe I just take the taskbar and file explorer for granted. The modern taskbar is a great tool for maintaining a clean and organized desktop, giving you quick access to frequently used programs and offering up a quick preview of all of your active windows as for File Explorer. Well, it's got its issues. The search is pretty slow. The up, folder navigation is done. Sometimes, documents should go to sequel and slash users, slash your username, not this PC etc. 
But it's got wide support for thumbnail, previews lots of useful information readily available, and it requires no keyboard shortcut to cut paste. Sometimes you don't have to be great just better than your competitor. 9 is reliability with good Hardware. The days of daily blue screens are long. Gone crashes do still exist, but for years now I've experienced long periods of smooth and stable performance. Microsoft does have some work cut out for them to make their automatic updates mover in the regarde, but they at least seem to be aware of the problem. At this point, bringing us to ten finally sort of related to gaming to compatibility, got an old program from the Windows XP days. Well, there's a decent chance that, with some trial and error, you will be able to get it to run even in the latest. Builds of Windows 10. 
There are just so many specific use programs that have been written over the last couple of decades and losing access to them because of an OS update could be devastating for some people. Compatibility mode actually works more often than you'd think and when it doesn't, some quick googling will often bring up a solution, and the cool thing is that goes. Both ways got a computer that mom bought 10 years ago, but still wants to use. Well, there's a solid chance that Windows and most programs that run on it will still work on that, even if not very well. Our Skull trail system from 2008 was actually a great example of this no driver issues and, aside from a couple of games that refused to launch because of missing CPU instructions, our issues were related to performance rather than to compatibility, so guys go check out that video. 
If you haven't already now one of the tools we love using on Windows comes, of course, from our sponsor for this portion of today's video LastPass LastPass relieves the troubles of remembering your passwords and reduces the anxiety about getting locked out of your accounts and then waiting For reset password emails, you won't need to write down, remember or reset passwords anymore with LastPass LastPass allows you to keep track of an unlimited number of passwords and not just passwords. Even just things like you know, Wi-Fi codes or just things you want to remember and store somewhere safe, and it doesn't only work for desktop it even works on mobile sites and apps for both iOS and Android. When you open an app or a site, LastPass will fill in your username and password making logging in easy, so click the link below to find out more about LastPass. So, thanks for watching guys hope you enjoyed this video see you 
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suzanneshannon · 4 years
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Thank You (2019 Edition)
One of our yearly traditions here is to thank all y'all CSS-Tricks readers at the passing of a new year. It means a lot to me that people come here and read the words I write, and the words of all our staff and guest authors that contribute here as well.
Thank you!
Plus, we dig into the numbers this time of year. I've always tried to be open about the analytics on this site. Looking at them year after year always serves up a good reminder: niche blogging is a slow game. There's no hockey-stick growth around here. Never has been, never will be. The trick is to build slowly over time, taking care of the site, investing in it, working hard, and with some luck, numbers trend upward. This year, overall traffic didn't even do that. Sometimes you gotta fight for what you've got! Growth came in other areas though. Let's take a gander.
It was January 1st, 2019 that the current design of this site (v17) debuted, so this entire year overlaps perfectly with that. I'll certainly be tempted to release major iterations with that same timing in the future for comparison sake.
Overall numbers
Google Analytics is showing me 90.3 million pageviews, which is a bit of a decline from 2018 at over 91 million. A 1% decline. Not a big problem, but of course I'd way rather see a 1% increase instead. We'll take that as a kick in the butt to produce a stronger year of content to hopefully more than win it back.
Looks like we published 726 articles over the year, which includes link posts and sponsored links. A good leap from 636 last year and 595 the year before that. Clearly quantity isn't the trick to traffic for us.
I don't know that we'll slow down necessarily. I like the fact that we're publishing multiple times a day with noteworthy links because I like to think of us as a timely industry publication that you can read like a daily or weekly newspaper in addition to being an evergreen reference. I don't think we'll invest in increasing volume, though. Quality moves the needle far more than quantity for this gang.
There is a bunch of numbers I just don't feel like looking at this year. We've traditionally done stuff like what countries people are from, what browsers they use (Chrome-dominant), mobile usage (weirdly low), and things like that. This year, I just don't care. This is a website. It's for everyone in the world that cares to read it, in whatever country they are in and whatever browser they want to. We still track those numbers (because Google Analytics automatically does), so we can visit them again in the future and look historically if it gets interesting again. Taking a quick peak, however, it's not much different than any other year.
Performance numbers are always fascinating. Google Analytics tells me the average page load time is 5.32s. On my fast home internet (even faster at the office), the homepage loads for me in 970ms, but it's more like 30 seconds when throttled to "Slow 3G." "Fast 3G" is 8 seconds. Sorta makes sense that most visitors are on faster-than-3G connections since the traffic is largely skewed toward desktop. No cache, we're talking 54 requests (including ads) and 770KB (fits on a floppy). It's good enough that I'm not itching to dig into a performance sprint.
Top posts of the year
You'd think we would do a section like this ever year, but because of our URL structure, I haven't had easy access to figure this out. Fortunately, in March 2019, Jacob Worsøe helped us add some Custom Dimensions to our Google Analytics so we can track things like author and year with each pageview.
That means we can find things, like the most popular articles written in 2019, rather than just the most popular articles looked at in 2019 — regardless of when they were was written. Here's a graph Jacob sent:
Here's that list in text:
The Great Divide
Change Color of SVG on Hover
New ES2018 Features Every JavaScript Developer Should Know
An Introduction to Web Components
Where Do You Learn HTML & CSS in 2019?
The Many Ways to Change an SVG Fill on Hover (and When to Use Them)
Look Ma, No Media Queries! Responsive Layouts Using CSS Grid
How to Section Your HTML
Prevent Page Scrolling When a Modal is Open
CSS Animation Libraries
8.25% of traffic came from articles written this year. If you look at where these articles fall on the list of all URLs in 2019 (not just those published in 2019), the top article starts at #75! Hard to compete with older articles that have had time to gather SEO steam. This kind of thing makes me want to get re-focused on referential content even more.
Interesting that our top article was editorial, but everything else is referential. I like a little editorial here and there, but clearly our bread and butter is how-to technical stuff.
Search
There are two aspects of search that are interesting to me:
What do people search for right here on the site itself?
What search terms do people use on Google to find this site?
On-site search is handled by Jetpack's Elasticsearch feature, which I'm still quite liking (they are a sponsor, but it's very true). This also means we can track its usage pretty easily using the analytics on my WordPress.com dashboard. I also installed a Search Meter plugin to track search form entries. I can look at Google searches through the SiteKit plugin, which pulls from Google Search Console.
Here are all three, with duplicates removed.
Jetpack Search Data Search Meter Search Data Google Search Data 1 amazon (?!) flexbox flexbox 2 flexbox grid css grid 3 css tricks flex css tricks 4 flexbox guide animation css important 5 css grid svg css triangle 6 css flex position mailto link 7 grid guide css grid vertical align css 8 css important css css comment 9 the great divide border css shapes 10 css shapes background css background image opacity
There is a bit of a fat head of traffic here with our top 10 pages doing about 10% of traffic, which syncs up with those big searches for stuff like flexbox and grid and people landing on our great guides. If you look at our top 100 pages, that goes out to about 38% of traffic, and articles past that are about 0.1% of traffic and go down from there. So I'd say our long tail is our most valuable asset. That mass of articles, videos, snippets, threads, etc. that make up 62% of all traffic.
Social media
It's always this time of year I realize how little social media does for our traffic and feel stupid for spending so much time on it. We pretty much only do Twitter and it accounts for 1% of the traffic to this site. We still have a Facebook page but it's largely neglected except for auto-posting our own article links to it. I find value in Twitter, through listening in on industry conversations and having fun, but I'm going to make a concerted effort to spend less time and energy on our outgoing social media work. If something is worth tweeting for us, it should be worth blogging; and if we blog it, it can be auto-tweeted.
But by way of numbers, we went from 380k followers on @css to 430k. Solid growth there, but the rate of growth is the same every year, to the point it's weirdly consistent.
I also picked up an Instagram account this year. Haven't done much there, but I still like it. For us, I think each post on Instagram can represent this little opportunity to clearly explain an idea, which could ultimately turn into a nice referential book or the like someday. A paultry 1,389 followers there.
Newsletter
I quite like our newsletter. It's this unique piece of writing that goes out each week and gives us a chance to say what we wanna say. It's often a conglomeration of things we've posted to the site, so it's an opportunity to stay caught up with the site, but even those internal links are posted with new commentary. Plus, we link out to other things that we may not mention on the site. And best of all, it typically has some fresh editorial that's unique to the newsletter. The bulk of it is done by Robin, but we all chip in.
All that to say: I think it's got a lot of potential and we're definitely going to keep at it.
We had the biggest leap in subscribership ever this year, starting the year at 40k subscribers and ending at 65k. That's 2.5× the biggest leap in year-over-year subscribers so far. I'd like to think that it's because it's a good newsletter, but also because it's integrated into the site much better this year than it ever has been.
Comments
Oh, bittersweet comments. The bad news is that I feel like they get a little worse every year. There is more spam. People get a little nastier. I'm always teetering on the edge of just shutting them off. But then someone posts something really nice or really helpful and I'm reminded that we're a community of developers and I love them again.
4,710 approved comments. Up quite a bit from 3,788 last year, but still down from 5,040 in 2017. Note that these are approved comments, and it's notable that this entire year we've been on a system of hand-approving all comments before they go out. Last year, I estimated about half of comments make it through that, and this year I'd estimate it at more like 30-40%. So, the straight-up number of comments isn't particularly interesting as it's subject to our attitude on approval. Next year, I plan to have us be more strict than we've ever been on only approving very high-quality comments.
I'm still waiting for WordPress to swoon me with a recommitment to making commenting good again. ;)
Forums
There were a couple of weeks just in December where I literally shut down the forums. They've been teetering on end-of-life for years. The problem is that I don't have time to tend to them myself, nor do I think it's worth paying someone to do so, at least not now. Brass tacks, they don't have any business value and I don't extract enough other value out of them to rationalize spending time on them.
If they just sat there and were happy little forums, I'd just leave them alone, but the problem is spam. It was mostly spam toward the end, which is incredibly tedious to clean up and requires extra human work.
I've kicked them back on for now because I was informed about a spam-blocking plugin that apparently can do incredible work specifically for bbPress spam. Worth a shot!
Interestingly, over the year, the forums generated 7m pageviews, which is 7.6% of all traffic to the site. Sorta makes sense as they are the bulk of the site URLs and they are user-generated threads. Long tail.
Goal review
✅ Polish this new design. Mixed feelings. But I moved the site to a private GitHub repo half-way through the year, and there have been 195 commits since then, so obviously work is getting done. I'll be leaving this design up all of 2020 and I'd like to make a more concerted effort at polish.
✅ Improve newsletter publishing and display. Nailed this one. In March, we moved authoring right here on the site using the new Gutenberg editor in WordPress. That means it's easier to write while being much easier to display nicely on this site. Feels great.
☯️ Raise the bar on quality. I'm not marking it as a goal entirely met because I'm not sure we changed all that much. There was no obvious jump upward in quality, but I think we do pretty good in general and would like to see us continue to hold steady there.
❌ Better guides. We didn't do all that much with guides. Part of the problem is that it's a little confusing. For one thing, we have "guides" (e.g. our guide to flexbox) which is obviously useful and doing well. Then there are "Guide Collections" (e.g. our Custom Properties Guide) which are like hand-picked and hand-ordered selections of articles. I'm not entirely sure how useful those hand-curated guides are, especially considering we also have tag pages which are more sortable. The dudes with the biggest are the hand-written articles-on-steroids types, so that's worth the most investment.
New goals
100k on email list. That would be a jump of 35k which is more than we've ever done. Ambitious. Part of this is that I'm tempted to try some stuff like paid advertising to grow it, so I can get a taste for that world. Didn't Twitter have a special card where people could subscribe right from a Tweet? Stuff like that.
Two guides. The blog-post-on-steroids kind. The flexbox one does great for us, traffic-wise, but I also really enjoy this kind of creative output. I'll be really sad if we can't at least get two really good ones done this year.
Have an obvious focus on how-to referential technical content. This is related to the last goal, but goes for everyday publishing. I wouldn't be mad if every darn article we published started with "How To."
Get on Gutenberg. The new WordPress block editor. This is our most ambitious goal. Or at least I think it is. It's the most unknown because I literally don't know what issues we're going to face when turning it on for more than a decade's worth of content that's been authored in the classic editor. I don't think it's going to hurt anything. It's more a matter of making sure:
authoring posts has all the same functionality and conveniences as we have now,
editing old posts doesn't require any manual conversion work, and
it feels worth doing.
But I haven't even tried yet, so it's a don't-know-what-I-don't-know situation.
Again, thanks so much!
I was thinking about how stage musicians do that thing where they thank their fans almost unfailingly. Across any genre. Even if they say hardly anything into a microphone during the performance, they will at least thank people for coming, if not absolutely gush appreciation at the crowd. It's cliché, but it's not disingenuous. I can imagine it's genuinely touching to look out across a room of people that all choose to spend a slice of their lives listening to you do your thing.
I feel that way here. I can't see you as easily as looking out over a room, but I feel it in the comments you post, the emails you send, the tweets you tagged us in, and all that. You're spending some of your life with us and that makes me feel incredibly grateful. Cheers.
🍻
The post Thank You (2019 Edition) appeared first on CSS-Tricks.
Thank You (2019 Edition) published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/
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blochwillard08-blog · 5 years
Text
How To Restart Your Apple iphone Without Utilizing The Residence Or even Power Buttons.
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grassroutes · 5 years
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Librem 13: The Most Secure Laptop Yet
Our verdict of the Librem 13: A slimline ultraportable MacBook rival with the tightest security and privacy you'll see on any commercially available computer, the Librem 13 is one of the most stunning laptops you'll ever use. Unique security features push the price up, but if you're happy to use Linux, this is ideal.810
Concerned by failings in digital privacy and security? Feel as though you’re constantly at the mercy of cybercriminals, creepy corporations, and sinister government departments? Your data is vital: you are the product. Short of going offline, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Or is there?
Linux hardware manufacturer Purism has released a pair of laptops with a focus on security. The Librem 13 and Librem 15 run the PureOS distro, and feature hardware security features.
To find out more, we got hold of the Librem 13, a lightweight ultrabook that retails direct from Purism for $1399.00.
youtube
Librem 13 Specifications
Available from the Purism website and starting at $1399.00, the Librem 13 has configurable RAM, storage, and wireless options. Our review device spec is as follows:
Operating system: PureOS
Battery life: Roughly 7 to 9 hours
Processor: Intel Core i7 6500U (Skylake)
RAM: 4GB (available up to 16GB) DDR4 at 2133 MHz
Storage: 120GB (available up to 4TB; M.2 storage up to 2TB is also an option)
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 520
Display: 13.3″ IPS
Chassis: Black anodized aluminum with low noise fan
Webcam: 720p 1.0 megapixel
Dimensions: 325×219×18mm
Weight:1.4kg
Wireless: Atheros 802.11n dual antenna (no wireless option is available)
Audio port: 1 headphone/line output jack
USB ports: 2x USB 3.0 Ports (1x type C),
External output: 1 HDMI Port (4K capable)
Card reader: 2-in-1 SD/MMC
In addition, there’s a backlit keyboard with two brightness settings, and an impressive Elantech multitouch trackpad.
We’ll be looking at the Librem 13’s security and privacy credentials later. At this stage, however, you should know that it has Trusted Platform Module (TPM), a special chip that adds security features.
You’ll also find two kill switches, which we’ll look at below.
In the box is a power supply and a Quick Start Guide. I’ve had a few brand-new laptops over the past decade, and I can’t remember that last time I saw such a guide, so this is a welcome inclusion from Purism.
Purism? Who?
Registered as a Social Purpose Corporation, Purism was founded by Todd Weaver in 2014 and manufacturers devices with a focus on three important values:
Software freedom
Computer security
Internet privacy
Purism declares that “profit maximization is not the purpose” of its business, but that it cannot have charitable status due to selling hardware and maintaining lines of credit.
To find out more, Purism has published the relevant sections of its Articles of Incorporation. You might be interested in statements such as “The Corporation will only use and distribute free/libre and open source software” and “respects users’ rights to privacy, security, and freedom.”
The Librem 13 laptop is one of several Purism devices designed to this end. They rely on trusted hardware and run without proprietary firmware and drivers. For example, the Librem 13 uses the Coreboot firmware, in place of the Intel Management Engine. It’s basically a lightweight, secure BIOS, the implications of which are outlined on the Purism website.
Does This Linux Laptop Allay Online Security Concerns?
Staying secure online, and safeguarding your privacy, has become as important as ensuring you have the latest device and the fastest internet.
Over recent years, an increasing amount of responsibility for online security has been placed your hands. Beyond the comparatively basic implementations of the latest wireless networking standards, it’s left to you and your operating system to make your PC or laptop secure.
Along with antivirus software, there’s the option of keeping your connection secure with a VPN and employing a set of habits to ensure you stay safe online.
You know the sort of thing: avoid ransomware, don’t open unsolicited email attachments, don’t share your login details, etc.
But that doesn’t have to be where it ends.
Purism’s website describes the Librem 13 as “The first 13-inch ultraportable designed to protect your digital life”. But what does that mean, and how does the laptop live up to it?
Respecting Your Rights to Privacy and Security
Purism describe the computer as having been “designed chip-by-chip, line-by-line, to respect your rights to privacy, security, and freedom. Every hardware and software component—and everything we do—is in line with our belief in respecting your rights to privacy, security, and freedom.”
This is demonstrated in several ways. Most obvious are the kill switches, mounted on the left side of the notebook, next to the audio port. The two switches are for radio (wireless and Bluetooth) and the webcam and built-in mic.
All you need to do is ensure these switches are set to off if you’re not using those features.
Another key security feature is the browser, PureBrowser, which is based on Mozilla Firefox.
Underlying all of this is TPM. The Trusted Platform Module is a chip on the Librem 13 motherboard that helps to integrate various features on the computer. These include GPG encryption, tamper detection, and the kill switches.
It’s a Linux Laptop: Ultra-Secure PureOS
If you’ve used Linux before, you’ve almost certainly used Ubuntu.
Like Ubuntu, PureOS is based on Debian and features the GNOME 3 desktop. However, PureOS is quite different from Ubuntu. While it might look the same, under the hood it’s a bit different.
For example, if you fancied running some games on the Librem 13, you wouldn’t be able to grab them from Steam. The digital distribution service has a Linux version, but it won’t run on PureOS due to the unavailability of some packages.
On the other hand, this isn’t a gaming laptop, so that might not kill the deal for you. After all, you could install a different operating system.
While PureOS comes pre-installed on the Librem 13, you can install a whole new Linux operating system. This might be using the entire disk, or dual booting from two partitions. There’s also the option to dual boot using a secondary drive, such as the M.2 disk.
Purism tell us they encrypt the root and swap partitions on the HDD, leaving the /boot partition unencrypted for dual booting.
Better still, if you opted to reinstall PureOS, the default settings re-enable encryption on the root and swap partitions, so no additional configuration is required.
In general, the choice is clear: PureOS for a more secure computing experience, or install a new distro for flexibility.
First use of PureOS requires you to set an encryption password. After this, you won’t be able to boot the laptop without the password, which is separate to the standard user account. This degree of security permeates throughout the Librem 13 experience.
Librem 13 Body and Design
The black anodized aluminum finish on the Librem 13 is cool to touch, giving the laptop a feeling of quality that matches the internals.
With the now-traditional ultraportable wedge shape, the Librem 13 is remarkably slim, measuring just 0.7-inch at the thick end of the wedge. It’s slim enough to fit into all but the most compact of tablet and laptop bags; along with the internals, this fulfills Purism’s description of the Librem 13 as “The Road Warrior.”
As beautiful as the body is, it really attracts finger grease. Within five minutes of opening the Librem 13, you could see exactly where my fingers had been; my palms, too. This is nothing new for anodized aluminum finishes, however, and can be dealt with using a damp, lint-free cloth.
One of the key weaknesses of laptop computers—beyond the ease with which they can be stolen—is the hinge. If this goes wrong or breaks, the computer is pretty much useless. There are ways to prolong the life of a laptop hinge, such as opening with two hands, one at each corner, or top open slowly from the center of the lid.
Keeping these in mind, the Librem 13 has a “super sturdy hinge” which Purism claims keeps the laptop “shut when shut”. It also keeps the chosen screen angle, anywhere within a 130-degree arc.
Is the Keyboard Fit for Purpose?
When it comes to using the laptop, you’re first presented with a responsive keyboard, comfortable, with everything within easy reach. Sure, there’s no number pad, but the FN button can help there as the number pad keys have been replicated on the right of center of the keyboard.
I have quite large hands, but despite the size of the computer (noticeably smaller than my main notebook), the keyboard seemed to suit me perfectly. As with any keyboard it will take some getting used to, but I was up to my usual typing speed within a few minutes. This is always a good sign!
It should be noted, however, that there are no Caps Lock or Number Lock LEDs. This means if you’re typing in the wrong case, you’ll have to rely on what’s on screen to tell you. It’s not ideal.
This isn’t to say there aren’t any LEDs on the keyboard, however. The Wi-Fi indicator, battery charging light, and the main power LED are found in the upper right.
The trackpad, meanwhile, isn’t as slick as some others (there’s no glass, for example), but it feels robust and clicks well. The trackpad and PureOS support various gestures, such as tapping two fingers to display the (right-click) context menu or dragging two fingers up and down to scroll.
A notebook computer can live or die based on the quality of the keyboard and touchpad. The Librem 13 passes with an above adequate touchpad and surprisingly comfortable keyboard.
What’s Inside the Librem 13?
Inside the anodized black shell you’ll find a powerful collection of hardware. The Skylake Intel Core i7 6500U processor is accompanied by 4GB of DDR4 RAM, with 120GB of storage. There’s the option of fast M.2 storage too, up to 2TB. M.2 is an SSD form factor that connects directly to the motherboard and offers enhanced storage speeds.
Graphics comes courtesy of the Intel HD Graphics 520, displayed on the surprisingly good 13.3-inch IPS display, with an anti-reflective matte finish.
You’ll also find the usual connectivity options. Along with wireless networking, the Librem 13 has two USB 3.0 ports, a USB Type-C port, headphone port, standard HDMI-out (with 4K support), and an MMC/SD card reader.
On the left side you’ll find the radio and multimedia kill switches.
Librem 13 Linux Software and Updates
Using PureOS is straightforward. You’ll see the GNOME desktop when you log in, which is almost ubiquitous across Linux these days. A rectangle “super” key is labeled with a white rectangle, matching the Purism logo. It opens the overview, where open apps, the search box, dock, and additional desktops can all be accessed.
 New apps can be found via the Software tool, which lists applications, utilities, and games that can be run on PureOS. Installing software is easy: simply search, select, and click Install. It’s also possible to install software via the command line, as usual with Linux.
Built in software includes LibreOffice, ToDo, Kodi, a Document Viewer compatible with PDF, and PureBrowser. Rather than something new, it’s basically Mozilla Firefox with the HTTPS Everywhere and uBlock Origin extensions preinstalled.
It’s worth noting some sites won’t work by default in this browser. YouTube, for instance, won’t play videos without disabling uBlock Origin.
Battery Life: Can You Stay Secure on the Move?
Purism’s website states the Librem 13 offers “roughly 7 to 9 hours” battery life.
Our review device was used regularly over a week, mainly for web browsing and word processing on the move. I’d say the battery life is in the stated area, perhaps a little less. It’s certainly good enough to not worry about three-hour trips to your favorite cafe without the mains adapter.
While it might need to chug along for intensive tasks, overall the Librem 13 is ideal for “road warrior” use.
Meanwhile, full disk encryption means that if the laptop is stolen while you’re out, no one can access your data.
Do You Need a Librem 13?
It’s ultra-secure and ultraportable, lightweight, powerful, easy to use. Sure, there are a few grumbles if you want to use closed source software, but overall the Librem 13 is one of the sexiest laptops available.
Sexy AND running Linux? No, really.
With a reliable, comfortable keyboard, stunning IPS display, responsive trackpad, a range of storage options and a frankly impressive battery, this is probably the best laptop I’ve ever used. It’s not a desktop replacement, it’s not a gaming laptop, but it is powerful enough to sit alongside a Dell XPS or MacBook Air and look like the best option.
Now, the security options might not be for you. You might like the look of the Librem 13 but not fancy Pure OS. That’s fine, as it can be replaced, although you’ll lose TPM support, and the kill switches won’t necessarily work.
From my point of view as a laptop user, Linux fan, and security writer, this is a superb machine that does pretty much everything I need, wherever I am.
When it comes to laptops, you can’t ask for more than that.
Enter the Competition!
Purism Librem 13 Secure Linux Laptop Giveaway
Read the full article: Librem 13: The Most Secure Laptop Yet
Librem 13: The Most Secure Laptop Yet posted first on grassroutespage.blogspot.com
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droneseco · 5 years
Text
Librem 13: The Most Secure Laptop Yet
Our verdict of the Librem 13: A slimline ultraportable MacBook rival with the tightest security and privacy you'll see on any commercially available computer, the Librem 13 is one of the most stunning laptops you'll ever use. Unique security features push the price up, but if you're happy to use Linux, this is ideal.810
Concerned by failings in digital privacy and security? Feel as though you’re constantly at the mercy of cybercriminals, creepy corporations, and sinister government departments? Your data is vital: you are the product. Short of going offline, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Or is there?
Linux hardware manufacturer Purism has released a pair of laptops with a focus on security. The Librem 13 and Librem 15 run the PureOS distro, and feature hardware security features.
To find out more, we got hold of the Librem 13, a lightweight ultrabook that retails direct from Purism for $1399.00.
youtube
Librem 13 Specifications
Available from the Purism website and starting at $1399.00, the Librem 13 has configurable RAM, storage, and wireless options. Our review device spec is as follows:
Operating system: PureOS
Battery life: Roughly 7 to 9 hours
Processor: Intel Core i7 6500U (Skylake)
RAM: 4GB (available up to 16GB) DDR4 at 2133 MHz
Storage: 120GB (available up to 4TB; M.2 storage up to 2TB is also an option)
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 520
Display: 13.3″ IPS
Chassis: Black anodized aluminum with low noise fan
Webcam: 720p 1.0 megapixel
Dimensions: 325×219×18mm
Weight:1.4kg
Wireless: Atheros 802.11n dual antenna (no wireless option is available)
Audio port: 1 headphone/line output jack
USB ports: 2x USB 3.0 Ports (1x type C),
External output: 1 HDMI Port (4K capable)
Card reader: 2-in-1 SD/MMC
In addition, there’s a backlit keyboard with two brightness settings, and an impressive Elantech multitouch trackpad.
We’ll be looking at the Librem 13’s security and privacy credentials later. At this stage, however, you should know that it has Trusted Platform Module (TPM), a special chip that adds security features.
You’ll also find two kill switches, which we’ll look at below.
In the box is a power supply and a Quick Start Guide. I’ve had a few brand-new laptops over the past decade, and I can’t remember that last time I saw such a guide, so this is a welcome inclusion from Purism.
Purism? Who?
Registered as a Social Purpose Corporation, Purism was founded by Todd Weaver in 2014 and manufacturers devices with a focus on three important values:
Software freedom
Computer security
Internet privacy
Purism declares that “profit maximization is not the purpose” of its business, but that it cannot have charitable status due to selling hardware and maintaining lines of credit.
To find out more, Purism has published the relevant sections of its Articles of Incorporation. You might be interested in statements such as “The Corporation will only use and distribute free/libre and open source software” and “respects users’ rights to privacy, security, and freedom.”
The Librem 13 laptop is one of several Purism devices designed to this end. They rely on trusted hardware and run without proprietary firmware and drivers. For example, the Librem 13 uses the Coreboot firmware, in place of the Intel Management Engine. It’s basically a lightweight, secure BIOS, the implications of which are outlined on the Purism website.
Does This Linux Laptop Allay Online Security Concerns?
Staying secure online, and safeguarding your privacy, has become as important as ensuring you have the latest device and the fastest internet.
Over recent years, an increasing amount of responsibility for online security has been placed your hands. Beyond the comparatively basic implementations of the latest wireless networking standards, it’s left to you and your operating system to make your PC or laptop secure.
Along with antivirus software, there’s the option of keeping your connection secure with a VPN and employing a set of habits to ensure you stay safe online.
You know the sort of thing: avoid ransomware, don’t open unsolicited email attachments, don’t share your login details, etc.
But that doesn’t have to be where it ends.
Purism’s website describes the Librem 13 as “The first 13-inch ultraportable designed to protect your digital life”. But what does that mean, and how does the laptop live up to it?
Respecting Your Rights to Privacy and Security
Purism describe the computer as having been “designed chip-by-chip, line-by-line, to respect your rights to privacy, security, and freedom. Every hardware and software component—and everything we do—is in line with our belief in respecting your rights to privacy, security, and freedom.”
This is demonstrated in several ways. Most obvious are the kill switches, mounted on the left side of the notebook, next to the audio port. The two switches are for radio (wireless and Bluetooth) and the webcam and built-in mic.
All you need to do is ensure these switches are set to off if you’re not using those features.
Another key security feature is the browser, PureBrowser, which is based on Mozilla Firefox.
Underlying all of this is TPM. The Trusted Platform Module is a chip on the Librem 13 motherboard that helps to integrate various features on the computer. These include GPG encryption, tamper detection, and the kill switches.
It’s a Linux Laptop: Ultra-Secure PureOS
If you’ve used Linux before, you’ve almost certainly used Ubuntu.
Like Ubuntu, PureOS is based on Debian and features the GNOME 3 desktop. However, PureOS is quite different from Ubuntu. While it might look the same, under the hood it’s a bit different.
For example, if you fancied running some games on the Librem 13, you wouldn’t be able to grab them from Steam. The digital distribution service has a Linux version, but it won’t run on PureOS due to the unavailability of some packages.
On the other hand, this isn’t a gaming laptop, so that might not kill the deal for you. After all, you could install a different operating system.
While PureOS comes pre-installed on the Librem 13, you can install a whole new Linux operating system. This might be using the entire disk, or dual booting from two partitions. There’s also the option to dual boot using a secondary drive, such as the M.2 disk.
Purism tell us they encrypt the root and swap partitions on the HDD, leaving the /boot partition unencrypted for dual booting.
Better still, if you opted to reinstall PureOS, the default settings re-enable encryption on the root and swap partitions, so no additional configuration is required.
In general, the choice is clear: PureOS for a more secure computing experience, or install a new distro for flexibility.
First use of PureOS requires you to set an encryption password. After this, you won’t be able to boot the laptop without the password, which is separate to the standard user account. This degree of security permeates throughout the Librem 13 experience.
Librem 13 Body and Design
The black anodized aluminum finish on the Librem 13 is cool to touch, giving the laptop a feeling of quality that matches the internals.
With the now-traditional ultraportable wedge shape, the Librem 13 is remarkably slim, measuring just 0.7-inch at the thick end of the wedge. It’s slim enough to fit into all but the most compact of tablet and laptop bags; along with the internals, this fulfills Purism’s description of the Librem 13 as “The Road Warrior.”
As beautiful as the body is, it really attracts finger grease. Within five minutes of opening the Librem 13, you could see exactly where my fingers had been; my palms, too. This is nothing new for anodized aluminum finishes, however, and can be dealt with using a damp, lint-free cloth.
One of the key weaknesses of laptop computers—beyond the ease with which they can be stolen—is the hinge. If this goes wrong or breaks, the computer is pretty much useless. There are ways to prolong the life of a laptop hinge, such as opening with two hands, one at each corner, or top open slowly from the center of the lid.
Keeping these in mind, the Librem 13 has a “super sturdy hinge” which Purism claims keeps the laptop “shut when shut”. It also keeps the chosen screen angle, anywhere within a 130-degree arc.
Is the Keyboard Fit for Purpose?
When it comes to using the laptop, you’re first presented with a responsive keyboard, comfortable, with everything within easy reach. Sure, there’s no number pad, but the FN button can help there as the number pad keys have been replicated on the right of center of the keyboard.
I have quite large hands, but despite the size of the computer (noticeably smaller than my main notebook), the keyboard seemed to suit me perfectly. As with any keyboard it will take some getting used to, but I was up to my usual typing speed within a few minutes. This is always a good sign!
It should be noted, however, that there are no Caps Lock or Number Lock LEDs. This means if you’re typing in the wrong case, you’ll have to rely on what’s on screen to tell you. It’s not ideal.
This isn’t to say there aren’t any LEDs on the keyboard, however. The Wi-Fi indicator, battery charging light, and the main power LED are found in the upper right.
The trackpad, meanwhile, isn’t as slick as some others (there’s no glass, for example), but it feels robust and clicks well. The trackpad and PureOS support various gestures, such as tapping two fingers to display the (right-click) context menu or dragging two fingers up and down to scroll.
A notebook computer can live or die based on the quality of the keyboard and touchpad. The Librem 13 passes with an above adequate touchpad and surprisingly comfortable keyboard.
What’s Inside the Librem 13?
Inside the anodized black shell you’ll find a powerful collection of hardware. The Skylake Intel Core i7 6500U processor is accompanied by 4GB of DDR4 RAM, with 120GB of storage. There’s the option of fast M.2 storage too, up to 2TB. M.2 is an SSD form factor that connects directly to the motherboard and offers enhanced storage speeds.
Graphics comes courtesy of the Intel HD Graphics 520, displayed on the surprisingly good 13.3-inch IPS display, with an anti-reflective matte finish.
You’ll also find the usual connectivity options. Along with wireless networking, the Librem 13 has two USB 3.0 ports, a USB Type-C port, headphone port, standard HDMI-out (with 4K support), and an MMC/SD card reader.
On the left side you’ll find the radio and multimedia kill switches.
Librem 13 Linux Software and Updates
Using PureOS is straightforward. You’ll see the GNOME desktop when you log in, which is almost ubiquitous across Linux these days. A rectangle “super” key is labeled with a white rectangle, matching the Purism logo. It opens the overview, where open apps, the search box, dock, and additional desktops can all be accessed.
  New apps can be found via the Software tool, which lists applications, utilities, and games that can be run on PureOS. Installing software is easy: simply search, select, and click Install. It’s also possible to install software via the command line, as usual with Linux.
Built in software includes LibreOffice, ToDo, Kodi, a Document Viewer compatible with PDF, and PureBrowser. Rather than something new, it’s basically Mozilla Firefox with the HTTPS Everywhere and uBlock Origin extensions preinstalled.
It’s worth noting some sites won’t work by default in this browser. YouTube, for instance, won’t play videos without disabling uBlock Origin.
Battery Life: Can You Stay Secure on the Move?
Purism’s website states the Librem 13 offers “roughly 7 to 9 hours” battery life.
Our review device was used regularly over a week, mainly for web browsing and word processing on the move. I’d say the battery life is in the stated area, perhaps a little less. It’s certainly good enough to not worry about three-hour trips to your favorite cafe without the mains adapter.
While it might need to chug along for intensive tasks, overall the Librem 13 is ideal for “road warrior” use.
Meanwhile, full disk encryption means that if the laptop is stolen while you’re out, no one can access your data.
Do You Need a Librem 13?
It’s ultra-secure and ultraportable, lightweight, powerful, easy to use. Sure, there are a few grumbles if you want to use closed source software, but overall the Librem 13 is one of the sexiest laptops available.
Sexy AND running Linux? No, really.
With a reliable, comfortable keyboard, stunning IPS display, responsive trackpad, a range of storage options and a frankly impressive battery, this is probably the best laptop I’ve ever used. It’s not a desktop replacement, it’s not a gaming laptop, but it is powerful enough to sit alongside a Dell XPS or MacBook Air and look like the best option.
Now, the security options might not be for you. You might like the look of the Librem 13 but not fancy Pure OS. That’s fine, as it can be replaced, although you’ll lose TPM support, and the kill switches won’t necessarily work.
From my point of view as a laptop user, Linux fan, and security writer, this is a superb machine that does pretty much everything I need, wherever I am.
When it comes to laptops, you can’t ask for more than that.
Enter the Competition!
Purism Librem 13 Secure Linux Laptop Giveaway
Read the full article: Librem 13: The Most Secure Laptop Yet
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