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.)

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For the video problem, it might be codecs; try using Proton-GE if it’s in Steam or use Wine-GE if not. (IIRC, Steam will often convert the videos and give you the converted ones in the shader caching if necessary. But those outside of Steam, and sometimes a few still in Steam don’t have that workaround.)

For the main issue you’re having, try running those games in gamescope, which itself is a compositor with a bunch of neat tricks. In this case it’d make sure to not lose the focus of the game even if the gamescope window loses focus. It can also optionally force windowed or fullscreen modes, upscale (even with FSR1), and lock the framerate.

Changing settings in the game itself between fullscreen or borderless (borderless should usually help with the focus issues) may help too, if the game has that setting, but then you’ll probably hit the borders issue due to FVWM. (I don’t know if you’d get the fullscreen unredirection optimization in fvwm. That could be a reason to pick one or the other for you too.)

You’re probably hitting a few edge cases by using FVWM versus a more modern environment like GNOME or KDE, but to be fair I’ve seen the focus issue happen before on a game on running through Heroic on GNOME with more than one monitor before. FWIW: I don’t remember seeing the issue in games from Steam. (It probably depends on the game itself, however.)

Penpot works perfectly on Linux, and you can even host it yourself in your own computer if you want. It’s web-based and works in both Firefox and Chromium browsers. (I think WebKit ones too, but it’s been a little while since I’ve tried it with Epiphany.)

I use Penpot myself all the time on Linux, but I’m usually using the hosted version so I can collaborate with others without having to maintain a server. I have also run locally in a container using Podman, even with Podman’s rootless support.

But to start using it, all anyone needs to do is point their browser of choice to https://design.penpot.app/ and sign in. There is no setup process or installation needed; self-hosting is completely optional.

Just pointing this out, as there are non-free services that the apps use:

Frog is awesome, but note that while Frog works offline for OCR, it has TTS (text to speech) which uses an online service. As long as you avoid having it read to you, it’s all done locally.

And Dialect always uses an online service. Some of the servers are FOSS, but some aren’t. But everything you type or paste into it is sent somewhere else. (This is the case with using translation websites too, of course.) I’m not saying you shouldn’t use it; I’m just saying that you should be aware.

Hopefully Dialect will add Bergamot (what both Firefox by default & the “translate locally” extension use for translation) at some point. Dialect has a longstanding issue about it, but no forward motion yet. https://github.com/dialect-app/dialect/issues/183

For something open source that runs completely on your computer for translations, you’d want Speech Note. https://flathub.org/apps/net.mkiol.SpeechNote It’s Qt based, but works well. In addition to translation, it can do text to speech and speech to text too. You do have to download models first (easily available as a click in the app), but everything, including the text you’re working with, is all done locally.

I use both Frog and Speech Note all the time on my computer (GNOME on Fedora Linux). They’re excellent.

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.

Also: Inspector Gadget.

An international US, French, and Canadian production.

Penny (the “hacker” niece) and Brain (the intelligent dog) solve all of the cases that Inspector Gadget (cyborg cop) bumbles through, even though he’s essentially RoboCop with gimmicks.