Doesn’t distrobox (and podman) come with SteamOS these days too?

You wouldn’t be able to layer, but using distrobox-export from inside a distrobox container would let you export command line apps as well as graphical ones too. The graphical apps will even show up in your menu and can be pinned as well.

(Of course, if something is available on Flathub already as a Flatpak, installing the app via Discover is easier and better. While Flathub has a lot of apps, it doesn’t have everything, so being able to pick and choose from any distribution using distrobox is nice for a very large selection of software.)

I totally agree. whoBIRD is amazing.

I did use BirdNet for quite some time before whoBIRD was available, but it’s so great to be able to open up the app (whoBIRD) wherever and have it identify the birds we’re hearing without having to wait for a network round trip. The somewhat recent feature of showing bird photos in whoBIRD is nice as well.

Running the app from time to time has had me notice birds in the area I would’ve otherwise missed.

Thanks to the app, I saw a long tailed tit for the first time and even managed to get a few photos! (They were mixed in with other bird song, but the app said they were singing in the area too. After a little searching, we found them.)

Photos:

https://pixelfed.social/i/web/post/677904448182940941

https://pixelfed.social/i/web/post/678023083037619560

It’s definitely an app that would make someone install F-Droid on Android if they haven’t already. (As it’s only available on F-Droid and not Google Play.)

https://f-droid.org/packages/org.woheller69.whobird/

I basically gave up on podcasts on the desktop and only use AntennaPod on my phone. When I’m at my desktop, I have my phone paired with my computer via Bluetooth and play that way. I can pause it on my computer via KDE Connect (GSConnect on GNOME).

Bluetooth audio from phone to desktop works on Fedora Linux quite well. It probably works on other Linux distros too. I’m guessing it might also work on other OSes like Windows and macOS.

KDE Connect is available on Android, iOS, KDE (and can run on other desktops too), GNOME (via the GSConnect extension), Windows, and macOS.

This solves the syncing problem by sidestepping the need for it. My podcast state is always correct and I always have my podcasts with me, even when out and about.

Docker on Windows and Mac also runs containers through a VM though. (It’s more obvious on Windows, where you need WSL (powered by a VM) and Hyper-V (a way to run VMs on Windows). But on a Mac, VMs to run Linux are also used to run Docker containers inside the VM.)

Podman Desktop helps to abstract VMs away on Windows and macOS: https://podman-desktop.io/

For the command line, there’s “podman machine” to abstract away the VM. https://podman.io/docs/installation (installing on macOS is mentioned on that page and Windows has a link to more docs which also uses the podman machine command.)

As for Docker compose, you can use it directly with Podman too: https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/podman-docker-compose (there’s also podman-compose as well). The only thing Docker compose doesn’t support with Podman is swarm functionality.

Docker compose can even work with rootless Podman containers on a user account. It requires an environment variable. https://major.io/p/rootless-container-management-with-docker-compose-and-podman/ (it’s basically enabling the socket for podman and using the environment variable to point at the user podman socket)

Oh, sorry. I missed that detail. ☹️ Apologies.

Yeah, I agree that it’s a bother to do it with every game. You’re absolutely right.

This should be some global setting, especially as they even officially sell a dock.

This actually is an option!

I’ve used it to play games from the Deck at native 1080p on my TV.

I’m not at my Steam Deck right now, but I remember it’s in the settings. I think if you go to the game’s settings, look for something like “native” display. You have to go into the settings for each game you want at a larger resolution on an external monitor in game mode and select “native”.

I don’t remember if it needs to first be enabled on the system settings in the display area. (I think it does the right thing for system settings by default in most cases.)

IIRC, desktop mode also automatically supports the native resolution, but game mode is nice and console-like. Desktop mode might be a bit clunkier than what you’d want for couch gaming. Setting the option in game mode for the game is likely your best option.