Not using a launcher equals fewer barriers. GOG installers work out of the box with Wine. The whole point of GOG is literally that you can do all of that without restrictions like say… Being forced to use a launcher. So it’s not a big deal if Galaxy for Linux isn’t around.
True. They’re nice in some ways, but not all the ways.
I once read that uninstalling packages with ADB on Xiaomi phones would make it even more painful to unlock the bootloader. It’s probably just a one off half truth but even that made me be wary of just uninstalling things - but yeah this means whenever someone wants to sideload something on a Samsung they need to follow a tutorial at best, that’s blegh.
As in, no side loading at all on Sammy devices? I find that hard to believe. You mean more restrictions on installing just some but not all APKs, right? That’s still scummy either way if true.
I have a GOG library specifically because it’s not tied to a stupid Valve Epic Games Uplay Launcher. This is their competitive edge. Plus, all of what you mentioned can be done with GOG through any semi-modern web browser.
I guess since GOG doesn’t have an official launcher, we will be like, very totally unable to create and use wine prefixes. No siree.
The strings mentioned are worrying. The developer verification requires an internet access - what if there’s no internet or the connection is spotty? Does that mean you can’t install the APK without Uncle Google having the internet first?
A modern Android device does not simply let you install an APK without going through a lotta mental gymnastics. On a Xiaomi device with HyperOS, you have to turn the permission on for it and sit there for ten seconds to read their warnings before you can manually proceed. Each time you install something, there’s a chance Google Play will pop up to tell you the app does not support a modern Android version, and it will require your unlock or fingerprint to even continue. Not to mention some apps literally tell you Google Play is unsure of their security and offers you to send it so what I assume is their automated systems could give the APK file a look.
If all these scare tactics didn’t stop you, there’s nothing more Google or the manufacturers could do without stripping even more of what made Android great in the first place.
You don’t need Galaxy. Use Heroic or better yet, don’t use any launchers. GOG games are DRM-free.
No, what you mentioned is just one of the options. They literally go over “bare metal” installs even if it’s just a skim. I always find their article funny because of that.
I think you might be underestimating how some people type really slowly when given a full sized QWERTY keyboard, numpad and all.
Then again the one limiting factor of phone keyboards (touch or physical) is that they’re designed for two thumbs, instead of just whatever fingers happen to be closer to the button you want. Though I’ll admit I do miss when Nokia, BlackBerry, etc, came up with unique solutions for how to get a small physical keyboard attached to a phone.
An online friend of mine recommended it to me as the one distro I should be on. I agree. We’re both under 30 and my friend is younger than I am.
If it works, it works.
Might be an unpopular opinion but
In the late 2010s or early 2020s, I wrote a short story in the Notes app on a Nokia C3-00. It was one of the budget offerings with a QWERTY keyboard and WiFi support, and it was pretty awesome for the time, and still is to an extent.
By that point I cycled through a few touchscreen phones beginning from tiny Samsung junkers to mid-range Chinese phones we would have called “phablets” a few years back and got used to touchscreens. I’m typing this right now on a touchscreen and it’s pretty nice, yeah autocorrect is wrong some of the time but it is solid most of the time, and I can type really fast. Typing on a phone with a small physical keyboard was eye opening in a way. It felt slow, and I had to actually put some effort into pushing the buttons to make them register. In all fairness, it could be the age of the phone making the buttons stiff.
Something else is how the labels on the buttons eventually wear out. If this was a physical keyboard I could just replace it, but a small panel of keys built into a phone? Yeah not really replaceable.
I get that all those very tall, very flat slabs of plastic and metal can get boring very quickly, but I guess because there’s not so much more left to perfect that form factor.
Should I switch from Wine Staging to stable?
I’ll raise you one and say I’d rather pirate games than use either of them. At least there’s GOG, itch, Zoom-Platform, putting aside games that never come there until a decade later.
Yeah, no. EGS is a piece of shit DRM launcher, just like Valve’s own piece of shit, but it has the Epic logo. Heck, they even have free games and not even that is enough to kill the vitriol, so yeah it’s just “no steam no buy” all over again, or Steam would also be chided for many of the same things - which would be very dandy if it happened, after all, neither of them respect us enough to own our games without having to phone them home first.
I swear, the whole outrage over EGS can only be plainly and simply explained as the stupid “no steam no buy”. When a game remains exclusive to this DRM launcher made by an American corporation for 50 years, all is well in the world, but when the game becomes exclusives to that DRM launcher made by that other American corporation for a year, suddenly all hell breaks loose. They’re both the same toxin! Just blind devotion to a company that only did very pro-consumer things like make lootboxes really popular and making it hip and cool to give up ownership of your games.
For the record, the Tim should really just shut up. Or really, any American wealthy CEO for that matter, their grand standing over freeze peach isn’t worth the oxygen required to produce it instead of just… not enabling CSAM like normal platforms do?
A premium tier for WhatsApp? The app I want to get rid of but can’t because employers can’t be assed to send emails or make phone calls first?