giving back
Whenever I buy a new game, I check on ProtonDB whether people have trouble getting it to run on Linux or if it sucks on Steam Deck. For the unaware, Proton is software used to make Windows games run on Linux, and developed by Valve (the company behind Steam). New versions of Proton are released every now and then to make more games playable or fix certain issues. On Steam, you can enable Proton via Settings > Compatibility. It lets you select Proton versions there too. What this does is conveniently leave everything about compatibility and running Proton to the Steam launcher, so you have to do nothing aside from clicking Play like usual.
Anyway, this website has been so important for me for checking out games and what I can expect if I wanna run something on my Deck. But the website lives off of user generated reports. So I finally made an account (logging in via Steam), set my PC up as a device with device info and wrote a big batch of reports, 44 so far.
When reporting, it asks you if you were able to install, launch and play, what version of Proton you’re using, if you need any launch options or extra tinkering software to make it run and more. You can comment on each section if your ticked answer indicates any issues in that regard. At the end, you can give a broad recommendation (or not) and conclude the report. It can take a while to get these published, usually they manually approve them once a day. After your first report gets published, you can see any pending ones in your profile.
I’m planning to make many more; these are just the games in my library (~180 games) that I played on PC on Linux. Soon, I’ll connect my Deck to the account so I can write accurate reports for the games I exclusively ran on Deck. After that, I’ll try out games I haven’t played since my Windows days. I’m passionate about showing people that gaming on Linux is overall a great experience now.
Something else I spontaneously got into was pledging a yearly amount to an organisation that is taking on different environmental challenges around the globe and documenting their process online. My fiancée came across them on YouTube making videos about their work. The quality and content was amazing, and they were very educational about the species, environment, boosted the local groups they partnered up with, and were transparent about spending. They usually give the local groups money to continue their projects of increasing the population of endangered species, pay for vet bills and expensive equipment. They’ve been doing this since April/May 2023, so they’re fairly new; I researched them a bit and found no controversies or issues, so that reassured me.
They’re gamifying your donation a bit by giving you a profile on their website where you can vote on what they should do, and earn badges showing what projects your money went to. There’s one each month. I’m not a fan of downloading apps; I try to do most things on PC or in mobile browser. I tried out their app and for now I kinda like it, so it stays. I don’t think you need the app, so thankfully it is not forced.
I felt pretty down recently, but at least I can do these things, even if I am not well enough to go out there myself or code helpful stuff.
Published 05 Oct, 2024, edited 7Â months, 2Â weeks ago