BananaTrifleViolin

joined 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

The reality is what youre asking for is very complex - you're asking for lagless streaming for a desktop. That is running a GUI on remote hardware, and then streaming that video to another computer with low latency so you have no perception of lag in moving the mouseor interaction, and continuous streaming of desktop updates.

There are lots of factors at play that can make it a poor experience.

You can have what you want if:

  • The server you SSH in to has the resources to run X well
  • The server you SSH in to has the hardware to be able to then convert that to video (with some tricks) and stream it
  • The internet connection between you and the remote server is stable and high enough bandwidth to stream the desktop
  • the internet connection between you and the remote desktop is low latency.

Its very hard to achieve all those things even when youre creating machines that are dedicated for remote desktop streaming. I have done that in my work with Windows devices and to get good quality streaming we needed dedicated hardware, dedicated software and high quality internet. And even then some of our users had bad experiences.

Most remote servers are definitely not set up to provide what you want. Dedicated software for the task will help as there are lits of tricks that they apply to make a streaming desktop appear latency free versus simpler solutions that just stream the actual desktop.

VNC is not a good solution - its basically just taking screenshots and streaming those to you. It works with fast devices on a local network, but is very limited in your use.

If you really want to solve this look at software optimised for low latency uses such as gaming. For example Moonlight/Sunshine are for game streaming but work with desktops. They are designed to be low latency high quality. But to achieve that you need the video hardware on your server, and the good low latency stable internet connection.

Real world high quality desktop streaming also needs good graphics hardware and optimised tools. It can be achieved with open source software but you need the hardware to to do the heavy lifting.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A feminine man is still a man. Its not about being feminine or masculine - your logic is like saying dating a masculine woman makes you gay.

Stop defining yourself and your sexual preferences through the lense of social expectations and acceptability. Youre basically just living your life playing by rules someone else wrote. Why limit yourself like that?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago

So I'm not seeing much on the Lemmy posts, presumably the mods have cleared those up already?

I get why you're disappointed, but there has also been a lot of push back against the toxic and hateful behaviour which is a positive thing to see.

Its important to remember the toxic people are loud and obnoxious but they are a minority. The majority needs to keep pushing back against the hate and push the values we share in the linux community of equality, fairness and respect among many others.

Unfortunately though, aside from trying to make our communities safe and welcoming spaces there is limits to what people can achieve. No one in any community can stop bad actors harassing people outside the community on social media, or obtaining and sharing their personal information.

Linux communities are not the specific problem - we do not exist in isolation. Its society that is a mess and particularly now in the US where the political tide has turned so toxic and negative. These hateful people currently feel they have licence to be hate.

All we can do is push back against the hate everyday, and show our support and value community members like Lina. Its very sad they do not feel safe to continue working on the projects they worked so hard on. But they need to see and know how much we appreciated and valued their contributions and that they belong in this community. The hate filled bigots do not.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It makes sense for the UK to be out as it's not in the EU. However the UK and EU may end up making a deal on shared procurement which makes sense for both.

Most of the top 10 biggest defence companies are US or Chinese, with 1 russian company. The largest defence company in Europe is BAE in the UK, and the only one in the top 10.

There are 5 more EU companies in the top 30, and another UK company.

A shared procurement deal would allow a bigger choice of companies and competitive procurement to keep costs down. There is a real risk for the EU (and the UK) of inflated costs if they limit procurement to a small group of European companies that don't have to compete with the big american companies for the contracts.

I think it's right to exclude the US, but then the pool of companies needs to be as big as possible to allow competitive tendering.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (3 children)

It's also aesthetically pleasant which is a big plus.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

How is it misleading? Plex Pass is a subscription? It would be confusing to many people if it said "Plex pass" instead of "Subscription" as not everyone would necessarily even know what that is. Subscription is very clear.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

I use Jellyfin as a home media server - in my set up I have it running on my desktop PC, and I use it to stream a media library to my tv.

A home media server basically just means its meant to be deployed at a small scale rather than as a platform for 1000s of people to use.

Your scenario is exactly what Jellyfin and Plex can do. If you have 5 users then you just need a host device running the server that is powerful enough to run 5 video streams at the same time. The server can transcode (where the server takes on the heavy lifting needing a more powerful CPU) or direct play (where all the server does is send the bits of the file and the end user's device such as a phone or smart tv does the hard work of making a quality play, so a lower power server device can work).

If this is contained within your home, your home wifi or network should be fine to do this, even up to 4k if your network is good enough quality. If the 5 people are outside your home then your internet bandwidth - particularly your upload bandwidth - and your and their internet quality will be important determinant of quality of experience. It will also need more configuring but it is doable.

This doesn't need to be expensive. A raspberry pi with storage attached would be able to run Jellyfin or Plex, and would offer a decent experience over a home network if you direct play (I.e. just serve up the files for the end users device to play). You might need something more powerful for 5 simultaneous direct play streams but it would still be in the realms of low powered cheap ARM devices.

If you want to use transcoding and hardware acceleration you'd need better hardware for 5 people to stream simultaneously. For example an intel or amd cpu, and ideally even something with a discrete graphics card. That doesn't mean a full desktop PC - it could be an old PC or a minipc.

However most end user devices such as TVs, PCs, Phones and tablets are perfectly capable of direct playing 1080p video themselves without the server transcoding. Transcoding has lots of uses - you can change the audio or video format on the fly, or enable streaming of 4k video from a powerful device to a less powerful device - but its not essential.

Direct play is fine for most uses. The only limitation is the files on the server need to be in a format that can be played on the users device. So you may need to stick to mainstream codecs and containers; things like mp4 files and h.264/avc. You could get issues with users not being able to playback files if you have say mkv files and h. 265/hevc or vp9. Then you'd either need to install the codecs in the users device (which may not be possible in a smart tv for example) or use transcoding (so the server converts the format on the fly to something the users device can use but then needing a more powerful server)

I prefer Jellyfin as its free and open source. It has free apps for the end user for many devices including smart tvs, streaming sticks, phones, tablets and PCs. Its slightly less user friendly than plex to set up but not much. And the big benefit is your users are only exposed to what you have in your library.

Plex is slightly more user friendly but commerical. You have to pay for a licence to get the best features and even then it pushes advertising and tries to get your users to buy commercial content. Jellyfin does not do that at all.

Finally if your plan is to self host in the cloud, again this is doable but then you stray into needing to pay for a powerful enough remote computer/server, the bandwidth for all content to be served up (in addition to your existing home internet) and the potential risk of issues with privacy and even copyright infringement issues around the content you are serving. A self hosted device in your home is much more secure and private. A cloud hosted solution can be secure but youre always at risk of the host company snooping your data or having to enforce copyright laws.

Edit: the other thing to consider ia an FTP server. If you just want to share the files, its very simple to set up. What Jellyfin and Plex offer is convenience by having a nice library to organise things, and serving up the media. But direct play from a media server is not far off just downloading the file from an ftp server to your home device and playing it. But you can also download files from a Jellyfin server so I'd say its worth going the extra step and to use a dedicated media server over ftp.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

No, as a lack of empathy isn't the only defining characteristic of psychopathy. There is also a lack of remorse, disinhibition, and egocentrism amongst other traits.

A lack of empathy alone doesn't make someone a psychopath. For example some people on the autistic spectrum can exhibit a lack of empathy but are not psychopaths. (Should be noted a lack of empathy is not a defining feature of autism - its variable and a lot of people on the autistic spectrum do have empathy).

So its true to say a lack of empathy is a feature of psychopathy but not true to say that psychopathy is the inability to be empathetic.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 days ago

Wow, I'm a huge fan of Terry Pratchett. What a lovely story - I didn't realise he was a such a big fan of oblivion. Also the makers of that mod are very kind to have adapted the mod in ways that would help him enjoy the game despite his Alzheimer's.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 days ago (4 children)

How old are these people? These sound like kids?

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Yeah this is the reason Tesla is massively overvalued. Self drive tech won't be coming from Tesla because Musk interfered and told his engineers to remove lidar.

Musk is nothing but an investor but he believes his own nonsense about being a genius. He made some good bets but he also made some bad ones (Twitter being one) and Tesla is not going to justify irs crazy shareprice. Even having fallen 50% from peak it is way overvalued.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

In fairness to the register they also ridicule moving to a dedicatdd ERP in the same article.

You're r absolutely right there is nothing wrong with Excel. Its powerful software and ultimately it cones down to human and organisational processes about whether its being used to its best or not. You can also have the most expensive top end dedicated ERP in the world and still be a total mess. Similarly business used to run on pen and paper and could be highly efficient.

Software is just a tool, and organisation go wrong when they think it alone is the solution to their problems.

Also I doubt Health NZ overspend has anything whatsoever to do with excel. Instead it'll be due to rising demand, and inflationary pressures on public finances. We have the exact problems here in the UK with the NHS just scaled up to a £182bn.

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submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

New adventure game "The Phantom Fellows" has released on GOG and Steam, with a 10% discount until 4th Oct.

It's a comedy mystery game featuring a guy and his ghost friend, who perform jobs and investigate mysteries over 7 days in a small Colorado town. The game has a pixel art aesthetic, reminiscent of recent games like The Darkside Detective, and synthwave music.

I have no connection to the company, stumbled across the game and been playing for a few hours. So far, it's a fun game, good production values for £11. Certainly scratches that adventure game itch.

EDIT: it's made for Windows, but I've been playing it on Linux via Lutris/Wine without issue.

 

The New York Times has used a DMCA take down notice to remove an open source Wordle clone called Reactle

 

I'd been having problems with the scale of the VLC interface at 4K on my Linux machine (KDE Plasma, Wayland).

I found a solution from a mix of previous solutions for Windows and other Linux solutions which did not work for me. The problem is with QT (which is used by VLC) and the linux solution was to put extra lines in the /etc/environment file but I found while this fixed VLC it mucked up all other QT apps including my Plasma desktop.

The solution is to use VLC flatpak and set the environment variables for the VLC flatpak app only using Flatseal or the Flatpak Permission Settings in KDE.

Add two Environment variable:

Variable name: QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR Variable value: 0

Variable name: QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS Variable value: 2

For the second variable, scale_factors, set it to match the scaling you use on your desktop. 1.0 means 100%, 1.5 is 150%, 2 is 200% and so on. My desktop is set to 225% scaling, so I set mine to 2.25 and it worked. In the end I went up to 3 for VLC because I liked the interface even more at that scale (it's a living room TV Linux machine)

Hopefully this will help other people using VLC in Linux.

If you don't want to use Flatpak, you can add the same variables to your /etc/environment file (in the format QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=0) but be warned you may get jank elsewhere. This may be less problematic outside of KDE Plasma as that is QT based desktop environment. For Windows users it is a similar problem with QT and there are posts out there about where to put the exact same variables to fix the problem.

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