Once installed, I think you can often even run the exe of the pirated game through Steam as a “non-steam app” using Proton

Half of the instructions there are installing tools that you only install once, not every game.

And once you set up Lutris, it’s pretty trivial to open .exe files with it.

Not sure what quick settings you mean, but have you tried Bazzite yet? I’ve been using it on my laptop for several months now, and it’s been fantastic. Built for gaming, and it seems to already have a ton of shit set up correctly that id normally need to do myself on Arch

Did you try Desktop Mode on the Deck? Makes things a lot easier. Haven’t had much issue with things like this with my Steam Deck, but on Linux PC, I’ve had none. Ever. Try Bazzite, it’s built for gaming.

I would just Google, “using bottles/lutris to install game on Linux” and I imagine you could find people walking through it.

What others said… I think I’ve even run the installer as a non-steam app through Steam using proton and that worked as well. Unless I’m misremembering.

A rare palace coup, perhaps?

I also play games on this system, so having newer kernel and Mesa versions help.

I guess I’m that guy in this thread constantly bringing up his current distro of choice lol… But have you tried Bazzite? From what I understand it’s basically Kinoite but built with gaming in mind.

If you have, I’d be curious as to what differences there were between it and Kinoite…

I recommend giving Bazzite a try for gaming. I switched to it from Arch (well EOS), and it’s been wonderful.

I loved EndeavourOS, but I’m just not sure bleeding edge is for me. Mostly because I will forget to update for a week, and suddenly there are 500 updates, all with interconnected dependencies and pacman is just like “wtf dude?”

I’m not sure I really gained any benefit from that over using a more stable release. I switched to Bazzite a few months back, and it’s been amazing. Immutable is very interesting, and it’s made for the most stable PC I’ve ever owned.

Highly recommend Bazzite for gamers (or I guess it’s good for multimedia too), or if not, one of the other Fedora-based immutable distros.

I’ve been using Bazzite for a few months now (switched from EndeavourOS, which was great) and it’s been amazing. I’m sold on atomic/immutable. I have never had a PC this stable, including every Windows PC I’ve had.

And it’s perfect for gaming. There are weird little tweaks and settings that I had to do on EOS to get my GPU working correctly, etc., and they all just work out of the box in Bazzite (I did get the iso image made specifically for my laptop, which definitely helps). It’s super impressive actually.

And distrobox (BoxBuddy comes installed) can be used to access the AUR or whatever if I feel the need to. Just fire up an Arch box, and have at it.

Playing the original Half-Life is like a formative gaming memory for me… It had been such a massive leap from your DOOM 2s and Dukes Nukem. I was super young though, so I don’t know how much I cared about the narrative.

HL2, on the other hand…Now that I remember vividly. I remember having to use five CDs to install it because Steam had literally just been invented (for HL2). Having to create a Steam account and log into a service to play a game was so foreign at the time lol…

Might be time to re-play.

This might only be true for people who played the original when it first came out (or at least, were playing video games at that time, and are used to the dated graphics).

Also, to add to this: if you haven’t played Portal and Portal 2, then you need to do that now. Like possibly even before HL

If you’re gonna start with 1, I recommend playing Black Mesa as the updated graphics and qol stuff make it easier to tolerate in modern times.

But that’s just me. There is probably some crucial reason why Black Mesa is not the definitive version, and I’m about to hear why

Hmmm… I guess it has been over a decade. Maybe it’s time to play HL2 again.

This has now become canon

There are guitar pedals that have toggle dials (? dunno if that’s the correct term). But they are dials for things with several discrete settings (usually more than the two or three that a typical dipswitch can handle).

Off the top of my head, the JHS pedals where they pack like 7 or 8 versions of an OD circuit into a single pedal (Bonsai, Muffaletta, PackRat), all have such dials. They click into place and there is nothing in between. And it works just fine.

Old television dials also come to mind. Discrete channels with nothing but dead air in between.

You can get kits online for pretty cheap, and probably make something like this yourself if you really wanted to. Just get a kit to make a fuzz pedal or overdrive, and do some custom modifications to the enclosure.

Fuzz maybe.

I just had a flashback to playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater after school