First new game on Ubuntu: Helldivers 2

 Starting with today's "shit state of the world" report... wait a minute, Ukraine aid has gotten through Congress, and Israel is making offers for a cease-fire in Gaza?  Well, it's a bit early to be calling either truly "good news", but one can hope, right?

Before I get into the main meat of this post, gotta give my updated take on Steam on Ubuntu in general.  The big thing being that, as of right now, anybody wanting to use Steam on Ubuntu should not use the "snap" version that Ubuntu offers as the "safe" version.  That's because at least one game, and likely more, misbehaves if you have that version of Steam installed, but works fine if you have Valve's official version installed - and since that game is No Man's Sky, that's kind of a big deal.  Other games I've tested include Bridge Constructor Portal and Everspace (both of which have Linux-native versions), as well as Skyrim, all without major issues beyond some graphics glitches when I try to push my APU a bit too hard.  Proton is a beautiful thing, and ProtonDB is a wonderful resource.

With a little experience under my belt, I felt safe enough to actually spend money on a new game, in this case Helldivers 2.  Yeah, I'm a little late to the party, but between making the move to a new PC and overcoming my resistance to having anything to do with Sony anything (see my earlier posts as to how I came to leave Playstation for XBox back in the day, if you're interested), I'm not feeling too bad about it.  Early is nice, but seeing how a business runs a game is nice too.

For those not in the know, Helldivers 2 is a futuristic third-person shooter set in a galaxy where you are fighting for "managed democracy" (read space-fascists) against hordes of alien creatures and automatons, in various missions with up to three other players.  Tonally, it's a weird sort of playing-it-straight-for-laughs setup, which is helped by two mechanical aspects of the game: all the missions are Player-versus-environment (PvE), and friendly fire is always on.  Part of the fun is just in avoiding (or not) taking out other players with some of the ludicrously powerful options at hand (think orbital strikes, auto-turrets, flamethrowers, that sort of thing).  And unlike most shooters, when you die, you don't magically respawn (or get brought back to life a la Destiny's space-zombie Guardians), but your replacement dives down onto the planet's surface... they may look a lot like your previous guy did, but the voice change and different patriotic "barks" make it clear that this is somebody entirely new.  The obvious reference point for all this madness is Starship Troopers, but it wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't some Paranoia in the mix as well.

So, how's it play on Ubuntu?  Pretty good, or, as one of the ProtonDB entries put it, it doesn't crash any more often here than on Windows.  I'm enjoying it quite a bit, but the whole at-my-computer-desk thing makes it harder to play for extended sessions, especially once cats get added to the equation.  If it ever comes to the XBox side of the console space, I might just buy it again for $40, just to play it over there... but I'm not holding my breath, and I'm damn well not buying any PlayStation console to play it on now - bad enough that I had to set up an account.  Overall, I'd generally recommend this, outside of those people I know that just wouldn't enjoy anything shooter-y.

A farewell to Windows

 So, to gloss over the increasingly shit state of the world... Ukraine's in ever-more-dire straits due to Russia's invasion (and Republican obstructionism here in the US isn't helping), Israel's not done with Gaza yet... and decided that attacking an Iranian embassy in another country would be a good move while they're already distracted, which Iran (reasonably) took issue with, and decided to respond with drone attacks on Israel last night.  Looks like things are heating up over there, here's hoping we all live through any further escalations.

While that's all going on, I (as usual) am focused closer to home.  In particular, Windows 10 is going away next year, and Windows 11 is a product I don't want in my day-to-day life (outside of work, of course, can't escape it there just yet).  Looking over all the software I use routinely, the only thing that Windows really brings to the table is the ability to use all of my Steam library - you know, that pile of games I've acquired over the years where I've tried things out briefly, then promptly set them aside to come back to some other day, which never comes.  Even cutting that down in half, I've got more games in there than I'm likely to ever come back to, and, courtesy of Steam's Steam Deck efforts, more and more of them can be played in Linux without major issue.  With that in mind, I've assembled a new "daily driver" for home that's just getting a Linux install - if I ever have a burning need for Windows, I can buy it then.

Mind you, that's a lovely idea in abstract, but how well that turns out depends greatly on the state of the Linux ecosystem these days.  With that in mind, I decided to go with Ubuntu... but I've also got some rather new hardware involved (AMD 8700G APU, woohoo!), so I thought going with the recently-released Ubuntu 24.04 Beta would be a good idea.  Long story short, no - this is a "true beta", not a marketing exercise, and it only took a couple of reinstalls for me to decide to move on.

Well, if the bleeding edge is out, then stability is the name of the game... so, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS it is.  The end result is... better, but nowhere near consumer-grade.  Just to call out the issues I've run into so far:  I had to install a terminal-based program to get my audio working properly (I've got a 5.1 sound system that I've used for decades); AMD's graphics hardware drivers involve installing a package using Ubuntu's built in tools... followed by a script in a terminal; Ubuntu's Steam package reacts badly to maximizing its window on the desktop (as in, nothing displays outside of the menu bar, even if you revert screen size); and my personal favorite, their preferred update method resides in their "store" app, which, when I try to update it, won't update because it's in use, and there's no method there to schedule updates for, say, the next restart cycle or anything like that.  All in all, it's easy to miss the (relative) polish the Windows experience provides these days... but it's not enough to make me switch back to Windows just yet.

It's the start of a new Linux adventure here.  Much as I like to keep things simple, especially when it comes to computer gear and the like, I have to admit to being a little excited to see how things go.