Just be sure to get the edge release if you care about gaming or have current (like newer than 2021) hardware. Mint’s main release is on an old kernel, 5.15 I think. Mint edge release is running kernel 6.5, which is from earlier this year.

Face it, they can do whatever they want with your computer and you’re powerless to stop them.

Not my computer. They can’t do shit if it’s not installed.

This is why you should not trust them regarding Recall. They will not let it go. It will be forced on you eventually.

“The incident is widely characterized by critics as an example of mishandled manhandled customer service.”

Just a typo.

It’s a deeply complex game dating back thousands of years. It’s extremely compelling, difficult to learn, and you could spend a lifetime mastering it. I can understand why the church fears it. Who has time for a sermon when you could be studying Tsumego and learning Joseki?

Microsoft will just enable it via an update once all the fervor dies down. They haven’t abandoned the plan, and won’t, not while your data is pure profit for them.

Hell with them, no more Windows PCs in my home. I’m sick to death of everyone and their mother trying to both advertise to me and sell my data without my permission and at zero benefit to me.

The fact this is even necessary makes me want to shit a brick.

“Do you want to make an online account?” No. “Okay, please set up your local account.”

That should be it. And honestly, even that’s egregious to me. Signing into online bullshit should be opt-in, not opt-out. Thank goodness I don’t use Windows anymore, finally wiped the last Windows machine in my house this past week.

Also if i want to make a plex server on an old PC, what would people recommend?

My plex server is headless, running Almalinux. Doesn’t take much, I have it running on a very old NUC8 (NUC8i5BEK). The box is also running Asset UPnP and AudioBookshelf server too.

Personally, unless the server will also be the client (as in, you’ll be watching from the server box and not a streaming box, tablet, TV app, etc), I’d skip any GUI and just install it from the terminal, save your resources for what matters. Desktop environment is pointless for a server machine.

If you were buying a cheap machine to handle it today, I’d probably recommend a Beelink (or other) mini-PC with a Ryzen 5000 series chipset (5500u/5560u models with 16GB RAM can be found very cheap, generally $215-$240 new these days). The 5000 series in particular are very power efficient for something you likely will leave on all the time, and have both 6c/12t and 8c/16t variants, though the 8 core ones will probably be more like $300-$320.

Whatever you buy, if it comes pre-installed with Windows, delete the OS. I wouldn’t trust preinstalled on these boxes, and in any case Microsoft is getting really sketchy with this whole Windows Recall thing anyway.

Try entering the pin wrong repeatedly. May not work, but there’s a setting to force a wipe if it’s entered incorrectly 10 times. Will only work if that was enabled that at some point, but it’s worth a shot.

For instance, you can’t factory reset an iPhone without connecting it to either an OSX computer, or a PC running their special program.

This is patently untrue. Settings -> General -> Transfer or Reset iPhone. You have the option from there to wipe all data, do a full factory reset, or transfer the phone’s data to another device.

I’ve no idea where you’re getting your info from.

Last time I worked fast food, my manager was a cokehead and didn’t care if anyone took extra free food for their lunch break. She also let people place orders near end of shift as “oops” meals and take home whatever food they wanted so long as it wasn’t insane (anything up to like $15-$20 was fine, mind you this was like 2001 so that was a decent amount at McD’s).

Times have changed.

Generally underscore _ works best for this, and should be viable for both OSes.

You’re not likely to do that for $150. You might be able to pull an old Dell Precision T5500 tower with a weak Xeon on eBay for cheap and refit it with more ram, better CPU and cheap non-redundant storage for $200 - $250.

For sake of power requirements though, seriously consider your use case and needs. You can get by pretty well with cheap mini-PCs like Intel NUCs or AMD minis like Beelink for pretty cheap and just cluster them with something like Proxmox to scale out instead of up when you need additional resources. This will be reasonably priced and keep the power bill and noise levels down.

But otherwise I learned the hard way many years ago to just buy Logitech after purchasing a stupid expensive gaming mouse from a brand I’ve forgotten whose left click died in less than a year.

Seems to be a problem in general. I’ve been using Elecom trackballs for years, first one I bought still works. Ones I’ve bought in the last year all started wigging out on left click within a couple months. I took one apart recently to swap the mouse switch with a quick solder job and it’s good as new. Seems like the newer ones are using really cheap Chinese Omron switches that die quickly. IIRC the older one uses a Japanese Omron switch. The new one I soldered in is a Kailh GM2.0.

Sorry, I edited my post above with some tips for desync issues. Have found in particular turning off shadows majorly reduced the frequency desyncs happen.

If you’re seeing that, good chance you’ve got some kind of network issue (or there’s a problem with the Photon setter you’re on and you should switch servers).

Generally I might see a desync every few hours. Rarely more often, but we can play for 6+hours sometimes with zero issues.

Couple things that could cause issues though:

• make sure you’re both running at the same screen refresh (60hz is preferred).

• if using the UB mod, make sure all settings are the same on both clients.

• weirdly, turning off shadows can have a major impact on network sync. Try disabling shadows.

• If you’re not maintaining 60 fps, turn down settings until you are, and if not possible lock both clients to 30 fps.

• Lastly, as noted above if you’re having frequent desyncs, manually select your option server and choose a different region. E.g - I’m western USA, but I’d there’s issues I’ll switch to US East and that will generally resolve it.

Frankly, this is the only bummer with Solasta, the fact that networking is via Photon and no LAN option. Is set up my own Option server if I could but it doesn’t seem to be possible.

Weird, wife and I have played it co-op the entire time. There’s occasional desyncs (saving and reloading fixes that) and otherwise all good.

You need to install the unfinished business mod to really make Solasta shine. It’s… unofficially endorsed by the devs (in the sense that the UB mod discord channel is hosted on the official Solasta discord). It adds races, subclasses, and more to bring the game fully in-line with tabletop options, including multi-classing.

Besides that, while the official campaign is decent enough, some custom campaigns are incredible, like full games in and of themselves, and some take more advantage of the game engine and dialogue options than the official campaign.

To me, Baldur’s Gate 3 is an interesting experiment, but in terms of gameplay it’s just not D&D. It’s a weird relationship sim with some (very) loose D&D mechanics. It has fun moments but the game is inconsistent, buggy, and generally becomes very un-fun, especially in multiplayer.

BG3 is very much a Larian game with D&D trappings, not a D&D game just made by Larian, if that makes sense.

I put something like 50-60 hours into BG3 and just couldn’t be bothered to finish it, stalled out once in act 2, and again on a second attempt in act 1. By contrast, I’ve got over 500 hours and counting in Solasta.

———-

Edit - oh, and with regard to rations, stack up early as you can (at least 20) and from there you’ll gather plenty in the field map if you have someone with high survival. Alternate option would be to have a Ranger or dries with goodberry, and later on other classes get the create food spell.

Or you could just disable the food mechanic altogether, it’s your game.

Yeah, don’t accept trash from strangers.

I have full faith in Tactical Adventures. Solasta is the closest translation of tabletop D&D to CRPG ever made IMO. All they need is a better than indie budget and permissions to use the full license and content instead of just the SRD.