Some good advice already in this thread.

Also worth considering QEMU as an alternative to VirtualBox. The Virt-manager tool is decent way of managing machines, and it’s relatively straight forward to create a base machine if you’re duplicating it. Virtualbox is perhaps initially more user friendly for absolute beginners, but once you have any familiarity with virtualization I’d suggest QEMU offers much more.

Also I find integration between the guest and the host linux system is generally more straight forward. Most linux systems already ship with samba and other relevant tools QEMU uses to interact between host and guest. There isn’t a need to faff around with the guest-additions stuff. Plus KVM virtual machines can run with near native performance.

I have one of these, it’s a decent mini PC. It’s decently powerful - I used to play some steam games on it; a bit equivalent to steam deck or a bit more powerful. I used it for streaming on my home TV. I upgraded to a even better one as I liked it so much - and wanted to do more gaming.

It’s a full PC basically. Whether it suits your purposes really depends on what you want to host? It could be overpowered and a bit redundant for a lot of self hosting uses.

I have a Raspberry Pi 5 which is cheaper than this, and am hosting docker with Home Assistant, Sync thing, and fresh RSS running on it at the moment with plenty of spare memory and cpu resource.

This mini PC is considerably more powerful and will have a higher power use at idle. You may struggle to use it at capacity so may be a bit wasteful?

And even the rasp pi 5 is over powered and expensive for a lit of common home server users.

So whether this PC is a good price and choice really depends on what you want to do with it. It’s at the end of the spectrum of being able to comfortably play 4k video. So it’d likely be a decent Jellyfin streaming host if that’s what you want?

Thrustmaster makes the Eswap controller which are modular. You can change the positions of the sticks and buttons on both sides I believe. I dont know how they work wirh linux though.

https://www.thrustmaster.com/products/eswap-s-pro-controller/

I’m not hyped by the Switch 2: its expensive, its games are expensive and the launch titles are paltry. It also has competition in the form of the Steam Deck and a range of SteamOS and Windows handheld devices with a huge volume of games available including many at significantly lower prices.

Switch 2 needs exclusives to justify its price and its existence. Switch 1 games with slightly improved graphics (which you have to pay for) and a small handful of launch titles make the Switch 2 a bad proposition for anyone except diehard fans at this point.

At the moment there are no compelling 1st party games in the pipeline. 3D Mariocart and Donkey Kong Bananza seems to be it for now. No new Mario platformer, no Zelda, no pokemon at launch. Everything is old games with better graphics, and much of it available on other platforms like PC with better graphics already anyway (e.g. Cyberpunk 2077 - a 5 year old game which most people have played and is still better on PC or PS5/Xbox; why is that a compelling launch title?).

Nintendo has a lot of work to do - I think there is a real risk the Switch 2 will be a flop if they dont get 1st party exclusives out before the holiday season.

As someone else has said; important to check the model number for the offical guide but if its a LAPQC71 (A, B, C or D) then this covers it: https://manualmachine.com/intel/bqc71abbu6000/8104213-user-manual/

The slots look to be hidden behind your hand in your photo.

The guide says its made for an 80 mm NVME (i.e. 2280). You look to be holding a 42mm (2242) or 60mm (2260) which is too short. There could be screw holes there that aren’t documented but if not you’d have to get an adaptor to extend the length of the NVME to fit. Far better would be to get a drive the right length.

NVME 2242, 2260 and 2280 are all the same in terms of the connection, the only difference is the board length. The longer ones can potentially fit more memory on them so are “better” (good in full desktops for example where there is plenty of space) while the 2242 are designed to fit into smaller spaces like laptops or miniPCs. This laptop seems to be supporting the longer slots which is actually good but unfortunately it may mean your card is not going to be big enough.

It’s always worth reading the manual before upgrade components as it will tell you exactly what slots are available and what standards are supported. There are 2 NVME slots - 1 is NVME only, the other can support NVME and SATA.

Yeah that looks right assuming its the right model; compared to the diagram in the quick start guide, in the picture he’s covering the area where the slots are with his hand and the drive hes holding. This quide for the same model numbers is the same: https://manualmachine.com/intel/bqc71abbu6000/8104213-user-manual/

OP needs to check his model number.

Unfortunately the guide suggests it only supports 80mm length (2280) NVME drives. There could be a screw hole for the 42mm or 60mm sizes but they’re not mentioned. It may be the NVME he has is too small for the design of the laptop. OP is holding what looks like a 2242?

There are adaptors (e.g. on ebay) to add length to a shorter drive to fit into the slot, but the ideal is to buy the right size of the slot.

They’d be idiots to ally with him; they’ll just be tainted with the same brush.

However maybe the behaviour of the Republicans and Democrats may finally open the way for a third party challenger. Who knows. Politics in Europe is rife with new populist parties; in the US the conventional wisdom has been that the Republicans are the manifestation of that but the disgust and disenchantment with the mainstream parties has helped drive 3rd parties here in Europe. That could still happen in the US even though the system is so heavily rigged by the 2 parties in their own favour.

Its an increase in the share of steam users. The steamuser base has also been growing in that time, so the absolute number may have increased more.

I use Firefox and Librewolf.

I’ve used Firefox for a long tine, and I strongly favour it as the only true independent browser engine left. Everything else is under Google or Apples control, and many of the various chrome forks are commercial and compromised. I dont trust Brave or Vivaldi in terms of privacy. And google has severely limited privacy options in chromium based browsers with its recent changes.

Mozilla is far from perfect and I’m disturbed by some of its actions but it remains the least bad option. Librewolf adds a layer of privacy and separation that I like although its not my main browser. I main Firefox with lots of privacy extensions.

I do have chromiun and chromium ungoogled installed and exclusively for streaming video. Not because Firefox isn’t capable but because I have loads of extensions in Firefox so its easier just to contain all my subscribed streaming services in its own browser and not have to faff with DRM or ad block issues. I watch YouTube in Firefox, but use Chromium to watch BBC, Channel 4, and Netflix (when I had it). I use Jellyfin media player to stream my own content.

Except the big danger with fully self driving cars is that drivers are not paying attention at all as they have nothing to do most of the time. They’ll be on their phones regardless of what theyre supposed to do and that will cause deaths. So such a glaring safety flaw will have numerous opportunities to happen in real life - humans do not make good safety features in cars; thats what the self drive stuff was for.

Teslas self drive technology is not fit for the roads regardless of this. Musk had sensors stripped out pf the cars design to save money because apparently he knows better than all the worlds self drive engineers. The guy is a just an investment bro woth a huge ego - he can’t let the people hes investing in get onwith it, because he sees himself as a “genius”. The guys a moron.

Yeah, I have MiniPC running Nobara. I’m interested to see of SteamOS would work even if i have no intention of switching.

But gaming mini PCs with steamOS preinstalled might be a future product range that comes along so its interesting to see how close steamOS is to that.

The gaming focused distros are great and won’t be harmed by that, but steamOS might grow the linux desktop further by being a viable windows alternative for people who want a bit more power than a steamdeck and want an off the shelf low or mid range gaming PC. Steam Machines may now actually be viable thanks to how far Proton has come. The original machines were probably 10 years too early.

I work in healthcare in a specialist field, and the best are not the ones who get recognised. The ones who get recognised chase respect and fame - in healthcare that is going to conferences and speaking, and writing as many papers as possible.

But the best people in my field are the ones who do the actual job each day at an extremely high level. They go unrecognised except by those of us who understand what it takes to be good. They’re humble and focused. Some of them for sure go and speak at conferences and publish papers etc but its not those things that make them the best, although those are the only those things that make them “visible” outside their place of work.

The same goes for music and actors. The most famous are not necessarily the best. They are the ones who people like or are the most commercial etc. The best singers are not necessairly world famous - they may be working professionally in less popular sectors such as opera or classical music or choirs, or they may be totally amateur. Similarly the best actors may be strutting a stage somewhere and never seen in a movie or tv show by the majority of the world. And even then they may be the “star”.

Fame and notoriety has get little to do with talent - some famous people are undoubtedly near the top of their field but it is far from required.

Yeah, Transport Fever is not a city building game. Its a transport game, like Transport Tycoon.

City Skylines has a great transport element to it but its ultimately a city builder.

Cities 2 has been an unmitigated disaster. The single biggest strength of the first game was its user generated assets easily accessed via steam workshop but cities 2 still has no official way of doing it even now. They seriously compromised and broke the game by trying to make something that works the same on PC and Consoles. Its been 18m and that still isn’t fixed and they’re still focused on trying to release for consoles rather than fix the single biggest fundamental flaw.

Transport Fever 3 is a game people are looking forward to, but not as a replacement for cities skylines.

Stack Overflow, like Reddit, derives its value entirely from its users—it’s just a host. Now that users (and their knowledge) are moving elsewhere, the platform’s importance is fading.

It’s odd when people worry about Stack Overflow’s decline. Online communities have always shifted: from BBSs and newsgroups to forums, chat, Yahoo Groups, Reddit, and Stack Overflow. Each had its time.

The next gathering spot for tech-savvy users might be the fediverse, but who knows at this point. AI isn’t solely to blame for the shift—people moved to Stack Overflow because it was better than what came before. Now, as it declines in quality thanks to general enshittification of services as companies try to monetise uaers, they’re moving on again.

I’m not against AI itself—it’s the hype and misinformation that frustrate me. LLMs aren’t true AI - or not AGI as the meaning of AI has drifted - but they’ve been branded that way to fuel tech and stock market bubbles. While LLMs can be useful, they’re still early-stage software, causing harm through misinformation and widespread copyright issues. They’re being misapplied to tasks like search, leading to poor results and damaging the reputation of AI.

Real AI lies in advanced neural networks, which are still a long way off. I wish tech companies would stop misleading the public, but the bubble will burst eventually—though not before doing considerable harm.

• 1 Pixel 6a
• 1 personal desktop, 1 work desktop
• 1 personal laptop that I never use (9 years old)
• 1 HTPC in my living room
• 1 RPi5 (running home assistant)
• 2 Boox ereaders of different sizes
• 1 Lenovo Tablet that I never use (6 years old)
• 1 Steamdeck
• 1 Google TV stick (rarely used)

All except the work desktop run Linux or Android.

I use OpenSuSe on my desktop and laptop, and Nobara on my HTPC. Rasberry Pi OS on the RPi5.

My desktop is my own build, with a ryzen 7 and 3070 gpu, 64gb ram.

Aside from my phone, I use my HTPC the most, Desktop second (including often to stream games to the HTPC), and the larger boox ereader. Don’t use the laptop unless traveling and even then don’t always bother to take it; to the point I’ve decided not to replace it despite its age until it dies. I do take the tablet when travelling but most of the time its unused.

The HTPC I use to game, stream online and home libraries, and browse the internet. Its largely replaced my steamdeck, allowed me to game on my desktop PC from my sofa and largely made my Google TV device redundant.

I’m not sure why this is being downvoted—you’re absolutely right.

The current AI hype focuses almost entirely on LLMs, which are just one type of model and not well-suited for many of the tasks big tech is pushing them into. This rush has tarnished the broader concept of AI, driven more by financial hype than real capability. However, LLM limitations don’t apply to all AI.

Neural network models, for instance, don’t share the same flaws, and we’re still far from their full potential. LLMs have their place, but misusing them in a race for dominance is causing real harm.

The rating is only about whether SteamOS will run the game and its middleware. Its not about how well the game runs on the hardware or with the inputs for the device.

Its basically like saying its compatible with Windows or MacOS - it will work with SteamOS if its SteamOS verified. It is an OS compatibility rating; slightly more than it just working with proton or linux to include “game functionality, launcher functionality and anto-cheat support” according to the steam announcement.

Whereas Deck Verified means it specifically works with the Deck hardware too, including satisfactory performance and inputs.

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/532097310616717411

I think if Starfield had come out 10 years ago it would have wowed people and been a classic. But now it just seems dated when you have other games doing RPG better (Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3, Baldurs Gate 3) and open world space better (No Mans Sky).

Starfield doesnt do RPG as good as those games, nor does it do open world space as well as No Mans Sky. I’ve heard it described as being as wide as an ocean but as deep as a puddle, and that doesnt seem far off to me.

I really hope Bethesda have paid attention and dont make the same kind of mistakes with Elder Scrolls VI. Big and empty is not the way to go.

I wonder why Apache continues to support OpenOffice. Its barely moved since 2014 and hasn’t even had a security update since 2023. They could archive it as an active project (keep the code available for those who want it) and redirect most users who land on the OpenOffice site to LibreOffice.