@novalug Can I use this as a forum for expressing interest in topics I'd love to see people give talks on? No? I'm going to do it anyway ;-)

1. Using Nix package manager to set up developer environments.
2. Migrating my gaming PC to Linux. Relevant b/c my PC doesn't support Windows 11, and I don't want to build a new one yet.

@emacdona "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"

@emacdona you still doing this? Have you played with devbox?

@andy I haven't played with devbox. I did play a bit with devcontainers... but the JetBrains IDE support for them seems unstable -- and I don't want to use VSCode.

I haven't given up on devcontainers. They seem ideal for: "Here's just enough to build this project... and some IDE configuration to meet our code style -- the rest is up to you to configure how you want" -- which is probably what a lot of developers want.

Nix is very appealing to me, however, b/c I'm looking more for something like "Oh, I had this old Lisp codebase configured exactly how I wanted to run on version x.y.z of emacs with plugins A, B, and C installed just how I wanted -- and I haven't touched it in 3 years and I want it to 'just work' (tm)".

I'm REALLY interested in "nix" the package manager... and how feasible is it to use it on my OS of choice?

s/OS/Distro/ -- I didn't mean to imply I want to run Nix package manager on anything but Linux. I am not a masochist.

@emacdona people run it on macOS. I like the concept of Nix (and NixOS), the execution not so much. My understanding of devbox is that it takes away the complexity of Nix for dev containers.

For my needs, I'm moving to Homebrew and lima-vm. Dev containers sound like a great idea for complex needs. I am not there yet.

@andy Ever since homebrew required I take ownership of stuff outside of my home directory (on Mac -- where was it, /opt?), I completely lost faith in them. I still use it begrudgingly (on my Mac)... but that one decision of theirs really triggered me :-)

@emacdona I can't commit to giving a talk, but I've fully migrated to linux for gaming for 5 years and would be happy to talk through any questions you have. Main determining factors will be what software you rely on a day-to-day basis, as well as what your main style of game is.

@nmlynch901 Thanks! Lots of questions...

* What distro do you use?
* What Video Card do you use (which are best supported?)
* Can I expect any game that runs on my Steam Deck to run on my Linux gaming rig? If not, why?

Regarding your questions:
> what software you rely on a day-to-day basis

Do you mean non-gaming software? If your concern is whether I rely on my Windows machine for other things -- I don't (I use Mac and Linux for non-gaming)

> as well as what your main style of game is.
* Single player Open World RPG
* Rocket League

But, to be perfectly honest, if switching to Linux means that I'll have to be careful what new games I buy because they may not run on Linux... I'm probably not ready to switch yet.

That's why I asked the question about my Steam Deck. It seems like I can put just about any game on it -- I thought that meant that just about any game ran on Linux.

@emacdona
* What distro do you use?
- Linux Mint. I use it for the "just works" factor. I usually recommend Mint for newcomers, unless you are already familiar with the Desktop linux ecosystem (I assume you use servers since you are in this group haha), or Arch if you want to be pushed to learn immediately. Arch is a great distro, but there are a lot of foot guns because it gives you full control, so buyer beware. Any distro is fine, but the choice can be overwhelming so I just push people towards two haha.

* What Video Card do you use (which are best supported?)
- I have Nvidia, but AMD is best supported. x11 + nvidia works great (linux mint default), but wayland + nvidia still has issues. Tl;dr, any GPU can work.

* Can I expect any game that runs on my Steam Deck to run on my Linux gaming rig? If not, why?
- 99% of the time yes. I've never had a game that works on my deck not work on my PC, and I use my steam deck heavily, mostly for OSRS but for a lot of other games as well.

* Do you mean non-gaming software? If your concern is whether I rely on my Windows machine for other things -- I don't (I use Mac and Linux for non-gaming)
- Yeah any software generally. For example, Adobe software, Photoshop, Davinci Resolve (this technically works, but it's a pain for any 'prod' use-cases IMO), iMovie, Banktivity all don't work on Linux. If you rely on anything like that and don't have an equivalent web app, then you will need to have a plan to replace it before switching. I've had friends try this only to bounce off it because all their workflows break. If you have a separate machine for that type of work, then nevermind.

- as well as what your main style of game is.
The only games linux has trouble with these days are the large Online Multiplayer games like Fortnite, CoD, LoL, Tarkov, etc. AKA games that use Anticheat. They sometimes have support if the dev enables it, but often the anticheat breaks the game working on wine. The only games I've had to switch to windows for in the past 3 years are league of legends, and Battlefield 6. 99% of the time the game just works from steam.

If your gaming style fits well for the steam deck, then you should not have issues with Desktop linux. Steam has great support generally. For rocket league, I think you'd need Heroic Launcher since it's on Epic. There will occasionally need slight tinkering to get things to work, but protonDB usually has good reports to double check: https://www.protondb.com/. Most of the time it's just changing the version of proton in a dropdown and launching. Here is a non-exhaustive list of game I've played in the past few years, all on linux:
BG3
Divinity Original Sin 2
Risk of Rain 2
Helldivers 2
Path of Exile
Path of Exile 2
Abiotic Factor
Barotrauma
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 1 and 2
Subnautica
Outward
Rimworld
Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2
Darktide
Modded Morrowind
etc