Game dev and Linux user

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • I personally got a surface go 3. Put fedora on it and the surface kernel and it works pretty good - GNOME’s interface honestly works better for touchscreens then windows. Just be aware that some config might be needed - I had an issue with the keyboard that required making a udev rule (I documented it on the surface kernel github issues page).







  • Some build advice:

    • Be safe - don’t wear socks, stand on a hard floor if possible, ground yourself if you have a wrist strap for that, and discharge any static by touching metal and/or the case before touching any components. And no matter what, DO NOT open the power supply, and definitely don’t touch anything in it!
    • The huge motherboard connector probably requires more force than comfortable.
    • Watch through at least one build guide before starting. That way you know the process.

    Hope that helps, and don’t let it scare you away - it’s really fun to do and if you’re careful, chances are nothing major will go wrong.


  • It depends on how you install stuff. Games on Steam or downloaded from online from places like itch.io can be put on any drive without issue.

    In terms of software though, native packages (deb, rpm) are gonna want to put files in various system folders, so it’s pretty much impossible to get those off your os drive.

    Other packaging solutions can help with this though. Appimages can be put anywhere, nix let’s you install to another drive, same with flatpak.

    And if you’re savvy, you could use docker to install system packages on other drives, although I wouldn’t recommend it.


  • So I use a surface device with the Linux surface kernel, and there was (and probably still is) an issue where the type cover doesn’t properly rebind after being detached and re-attatched. To make matters worse, connecting other USB devices disconnected the type cover. My solution was to make a udev rule that detected if the keyboard is “removed” and then try to rebind it, effectively unplugging it and plugging it back in again in software.