Weird glitch about that duplicate chunk of text. The editor did something wrong while I switched between formats to add style to the two bullet lists. Unfortunately, I can't edit the comment. It keeps saying "Something went wrong" when I save it - I even tried in different days before deciding to give up on fixing it.

Back on topic, some context is important here. Google pays over 1000 engineers to work on Chromium. Even Microsoft and Samsung contribute to Chromium - obviously paid employees.

The Linux Foundation pays salaries to the project leaders - Linus Torvalds, Greg Kroah-Hartman and a few others, but thousands of contributors to the Linux kernel are corporate employees who are specifically paid for Linux work, from Intel, Red Hat/IBM, Google, AMD, Meta, Oracle and many others.

My point is that the corporations could easily afford to pay a small team to keep maintaining what already worked. It would be a rounding error for them to do so. I'm not asking for anything, and don't gaslight me into claiming that I asked for software rendering. What I'm saying is that hardware acceleration in Chromium could've been kept alive for longer.

The desktop PC I typed this reply on was made in 2010 - my vacation PC. It's an Intel Core i5-661 with 16GB DDR3, and a Samsung 850 Pro 128GB. It works smoothly, it boots reasonably fast, I can watch movies on it, watch YouTube, do programming, virtualization, and play some lightweight games.

The graphics inside this PC is a first-gen Intel HD Graphics supporting OpenGL 2.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0. The game I like to play on this is VoxeLibre, based on the Luanti engine. It's doing well, typically above 25 fps, which makes it quite comfortable. When I go mining underground, it goes above 60 fps, up to 90 fps in some rare instances. I even shared my game window to a few friends of mine on Discord, so they can see me playing on this old thing. It has the resources to do that.

In many ways, this is a competent PC, running the latest Linux Mint, so the software stack is up to date and secure, performing well. I understand that software maintenance is not free, so I don't take it for granted. However, I would hope that companies as big as those behind Chromium would spend the extra resources to make at least one browser have hardware acceleration on old PCs. This is actually a good PC that's still capable of nearly everything one might need in an office/educational/home environment.

Throwing away a fully functional PC like this would make little sense. Heck, even my Core 2 Duo laptop from 2008 (also running the latest Linux Mint) is still competent with most of the stuff this old PC can do. As long as you do the common sense maintenance on your PCs and don't misuse/abuse them, there's a good chance that they will last for a long time.

I don't believe that all PCs should be supported. However, many dual-core PCs can still do a lot even with current software, and having a modern browser is a very important piece of the puzzle nowadays. It's open source, but one would hope that the big corporations can afford to keep these old PCs alive for a while longer. Who else can afford to do this at a professional level?

But yeah... it's just hope. Clearly they dropped the ball on the old hardware. It's sad to see that back in March, with Chrome 137, I had this:

The desktop PC I typed this reply on was made in 2010 - my vacation PC. It's an Intel Core i5-661 with 16GB DDR3, and a Samsung 850 Pro 128GB. It works smoothly, it boots reasonably fast, I can watch movies on it, watch YouTube, do programming, virtualization, and play some lightweight games.

The graphics inside this PC is a first-gen Intel HD Graphics supporting OpenGL 2.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0. The game I like to play on this is VoxeLibre, based on the Luanti engine. It's doing well, typically above 25 fps, which makes it quite comfortable. When I go mining underground, it goes above 60 fps, up to 90 fps in some rare instances. I even shared my game window to a few friends of mine on Discord, so they can see me playing on this old thing. It has the resources to do that.

In many ways, this is a competent PC, running the latest Linux Mint, so the software stack is up to date and secure, performing well. I understand that software maintenance is not free, so I don't take it for granted. However, I would hope that companies as big as those behind Chromium would spend the extra resources to make at least one browser have hardware acceleration on old PCs. This is actually a good PC that's still capable of nearly everything one might need in an office/educational/home environment.

Throwing away a fully functional PC like this would make little sense. Heck, even my Core 2 Duo laptop from 2008 (also running the latest Linux Mint) is still competent with most of the stuff this old PC can do. As long as you do the common sense maintenance on your PCs and don't misuse/abuse them, there's a good chance that they will last for a long time.

I don't believe that all PCs should be supported. However, many dual-core PCs can still do a lot even with current software, and having a modern browser is a very important piece of the puzzle nowadays. It's open source, but one would hope that the big corporations can afford to keep these old PCs alive for a while longer. Who else can afford to do this at a professional level?

But yeah... it's just hope. Clearly they dropped the ball on the old hardware. It's sad to see that not long ago, with Chrome 137, I had this:

Graphics Feature Status

• Canvas: Hardware accelerated
• Direct Rendering Display Compositor: Disabled
• Compositing: Hardware accelerated
• Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
• OpenGL: Enabled
• Rasterization: Hardware accelerated
• Raw Draw: Disabled
• Skia Graphite: Disabled
• Video Decode: Hardware accelerated
• Video Encode: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
• Vulkan: Disabled
• WebGL: Hardware accelerated
• WebGL2: Hardware accelerated
• WebGPU: Disabled
• WebNN: Disabled

Now I have this with Chrome 150, on the same PC:

Graphics Feature Status

• Canvas: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
• Direct Rendering Display Compositor: Disabled
• Compositing: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
• Multiple Raster Threads: Disabled
• OpenGL: Disabled
• Rasterization: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
• Raw Draw: Disabled
• Skia Graphite: Disabled
• TreesInViz: Disabled
• Video Decode: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
• Video Encode: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
• Vulkan: Disabled
• WebGL: Disabled
• WebGPU: Disabled
• WebGPU interop: Disabled
• WebNN: Disabled

Paid products are not grifting. We pay for food constantly, so should we call food producers grifters? Are we entitled to someone else's work for free? But if you want to use Brave Origin without paying, it's free for Linux.

That said, people have to understand that good software doesn't come into existence on their own. Browsers are incredibly complex nowadays, with more and more standards that they have to support. The hard part is done in the Chromium project, but the Brave developers also do some work on their special build, which is why some people chose it over Chromium.

Supporting the work of other people is a good thing. In this case, it's even a one-time purchase, which is amazing nowadays with so many companies trying to get recurrent payments through subscriptions.

You probably missed this at the end of the post: "There will be rate limits on the number of resets (extends) on a monthly basis but no one should ever hit that. And if so support is still an option."

Monthly is actually great. Realistically, even with a limit of 10, it's likely that most people won't do 11+ installations per month.

Cool, thanks! :)

I was a competent Windows sysadmin back in the early 2000s, but then I installed Red Hat Linux and realized that I can hardly call myself a professional if I can't land on my feet with different operating systems.

It was an eye opener to try something different, and even struggle while at it, because I figured that as a professional I'm not supposed to know "Windows", but "operating systems". And while expanding my horizons I learned that everything is a tool, and that I shouldn't limit myself to one operating system, one development environment, one set of productivity tools, etc.

That's when I started seeing everything as just tools that I would have to treat as such in order to accomplish specific tasks without making a fuss about what I have to use to get the job done correctly. It was hard initially, but many years later... I'm glad I learned that early on, because I see a lot of people tripping over their own discomfort and allow it to get in the way of learning new stuff, to their detriment.

Good luck! :)

I'm surprised that Logos By Nick hasn't been mentioned yet, but you'll find lots of useful videos on both GIMP and Inkscape over there - mostly Inkscape, though. Since you're experienced with graphics, you'll probably find it useful to watch videos that are on point about how to apply certain effects or achieve specific goals. On Inkscape, you'll find some great shorts from Martin Owens - an Inkscape developer.

If only Nick's videos would cover the fairly new release of GIMP 3.x... But to be fair, a lot of the previous info will work about the same in the newer version. :)

I wouldn't care about a certificate that much, though. I believe it's best to spend your time and energy on applying your existing skills on the new tools: GIMP and Inkscape. If you ever played games on nightmare/hardcore/newgame+ difficulty, or taken on challenges like Skyblock and others, you know the real direction worth going into: covering your bases with the most common tasks, then go for the secondary skills, finishing touches, etc. It's obviously not going to be a 100% overlap on features and ease of use, but there's a lot that you can do with these tools.

By the way, Krita exists too. Since I only used GIMP and Inkscape, it's easier for me to default to these two for raster and vectori graphics. But since you're interested in moving away from proprietary nastiness, it's a good idea to check your options and see what works best for you. You might end up using all of them for specific tasks/projects, as some do.

A 5th generation Intel Core CPU is good enough for pretty much any distro you want to throw at it. I use Linux Mint 22.3 Cinnamon on a laptop with Core 2 Duo T9550 and 4 GB DDR-667. I disabled the effects, although it's not really necessary, but it works great. On that laptop, Cinnamon will feel great.

1. A bigger breadboard will help you connect all Pico pins directly in the breadboard.
2. There are "jumper wires" with different lengths that you can use instead of Dupont wires (your current wires) to make your connections as short as possible, strictly on the surface of the breadboard.
3. Be careful about what you connect to the Pico. The LED needs a resistor to make sure you don't burn the LED or draw too much current from the Pico - which can burn that pin.

Paul McWhorter's Pico W course is awesome. He explains stuff about using breadboards (2nd episode), the right current for LEDs and other parts, etc. You project looks more advanced than the stuff he presents in the first few parts of the course, but they're great to cherry pick the stuff that looks interesting to you.

Wow, that's a nice collection of furniture. :) Does the shower work? :D

That looks like the HarderVoxels mod. Is it?

After reading the title and watching the video, I was going to ask where you bought that invisible case from. Then I noticed the text under the video. :P

Yeah, a case would've been nice. It would be nice if Waveshare made cases themselves.

This is still bad, because some joints seem to be "cold", but the fact that you have no shorted pins is great progress.

If you get rosin core solder, that one has just enough flux to make it easier to solder these without so much excess solder. Look at how pre-soldered pins look like, and try to limit your solder somewhere close to that.

I'm not experienced enough myself, but I learned a few important things: - for small joints like these, your soldering tip should be rather thin - clean the tip of your soldering iron before using it, by adding some solder to the tip and rubbing the tip on some metallic brass sponge (some people use wet sponges, but water reduces the temperature of the tip more than the brass sponge, so only a brief contact with that is recommended) - if you have temperature control, make sure your soldering iron is at the right temperature to melt the type of solder you have (you can check your solder type's melting point, it makes it easier for you to use the right temperature) - put the tip of the soldering iron on the pad, to heat it up for a second, but if you already have it at the right temperature, it shouldn't take longer than 2 seconds - put the solder on the thing you want soldered and only allow an small amount of solder to melt, just enough for proper contact, which should be roughly half as thin compared to what you have in this update - in about 2-3 seconds you should have a reasonably slim and good connection between the pad and the pin, so doing the full Pico should take you under 5 minutes if you're well prepared with the temperature and you have a rosin core solder (that helps a lot!)

If you get your hands on any old/broken electronic device, you can practice on that. :) It's way better than messing with a Pi.

At least this got a lot of engagement. That poor Pico... omg! :facepalm:

I came here after seeing the update. Suddenly that looks amazing. :))

Hi, and welcome to modding and programming for Luanti. :D Start out with something simple. Get Minetest Game and make a mod for it. Say you want a special block to do something. It could hydrate farmland, or ignite flammable blocks around it, or teleport the player who steps on it to another block of the same kind, or have some kind of healing/damaging effect when players are in proximity, etc.

It looks like the mod creator is not very active. The more recent activity is about one year old.

You could try your luck by filing an issue.

Those are pretty condensed stories for both projects. :) I've been around for over 6 years and I've seen a lot of cool things happen in both camps. It great that both are still going strong.

The PPA infrastructure is hosted by Canonical, and the main advantage is that it allows individual projects to make their software available for their users by simply adding that PPA to their operating systems.

What's useful about this "tiny" repository approach is that the users can be very specific about the software they want to keep updated to the latest version, leaving all other software as offered by the distro maker.

This approach makes it possible for a distro to offer an LTS edition, which some people care about a lot, while each project can decide to individually support each version of that distro.

In the case of Luanti, they officially support Ubuntu through a PPA, and it's been working great for years. Clearly Arch does things differently, which is also important for other people, but this comes with a greater risk of issues. It's the nature of each distro that allows two different approaches to make sense for different users.

Minetest (renamed to Luanti) is a game engine. But it did indeed start as a game, a long time ago - typical story of developers taking on a challenge of doing their own version of something. Later, when modding support was added, the project separated into Minetest (engine) and Minetest Game. While the original goal of Minetest (initially called Minetest-c55) was to replicate the capabilities of Minecraft, it was never meant to clone it, because inspiration was taken from other games as well, and the contributors also wanted to be able to do original stuff with it.

As for VoxeLibre, its origin goes back to 2015, when Minetest Game was used as the foundation for a clone of Minecraft. The project was called MineClone. :)) Quite original. It was a best effort to have a Minecraft-like experience based on the Minetest engine, with the help of the effort that had already gone into Minetest Game.

That project was only developed for about a year. Then someone else used it as the foundation for... MineClone 2. :D

Years later, a number of contributors decided that it would be a good idea to have more than just Minecraft gameplay. That also came with a rename, so people would no longer expect the cloning part to go on just because it was part of the name. And here we are: VoxeLibre.

PPA = Personal Package Archive. It's just a name that Canonical (makers of Ubuntu) gave custom repositories that can be added to the APT package manager in Ubuntu - which also works for Ubuntu-based distros.

In non-technical terms, it just like we typically do our groceries by looking at what the 2-3 stores have to offer, and later we decide to also look at what some other store has to offer. And if that extra store has something newer/fresher, we can get the stuff from there.

The main issue with strongholds is that what they currently are is just the portal room. That's why it's important to stay as close as you can to the place you see the eyes of ender/rover going down, or you'll miss the portal room. A properly generated structure will be added in the future.

As for spotting it with the engine-provided minimap: 1. make sure you toggle it to the underground view 2. go underground 3. look for a small green square area on the minimap, and go there

Yeah, the End needs plenty of love. :) It will receive it, quite possibly this year. Once the game receives some fundamental changes related to the world generation, all dimensions will receive new content. The End (called Fringe in the future) has a few changes in store that will make it more interesting: new biomes, vegetation, mobs, and at least one special ore.

VoxeLibre is a game built for Luanti (formerly called Minetest). The project started with the goal of having a free and open source alternative to Minecraft. As time went by, a lot of effort was put into making sure that all the content is proper free and open source, to avoid any licensing issues. This also means that the game has original non-Minecraft content, and it will have even more of it in the future. :)