Go bananas for a lightning-fast kart racer for all ages and abilities. All-Star Fruit Racing propels players into vibrant worlds filled with fast action.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 08-18-2018, 02:30 AM - Forum: Lounge
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See This Gold-Plated Xbox One X That You Can't Buy Anywhere
Microsoft is giving away an extremely shiny new console in August, as part of its Xbox Quests promotion. Finishing a pair of goals on Xbox Live within the next few weeks will enter you to win an Xbox One X plated in 24k gold.
As detailed on the Xbox Live Gold Quest site, you'll need to complete both quests between August 14 and August 27 to be entered to win the gold Xbox One X. The first is to play at least 30 minutes of multiplayer every day by August 20. The second is to score seven new achievements between August 21-27. Finishing both will get you a "mystery prize" as well as an entry into a drawing for the console.
Microsoft showed off the console in a tweet promoting the giveaway, in all its resplendent glory. It looks like it would be right at home in Las Vegas or Trump Tower. This is the only way to score the unique collector's item, as Microsoft has not announced any plans to actually sell gold-plated Xboxes.
Take on the role of a modern farmer in Farming Simulator 17! Explore farming possibilities in a new North American environment. Drive over 250 farming vehicles and equipment from over 75 manufacturers, including new brands such as Challenger, Fendt, Valtra or Massey Ferguson.
With the pre-release of 1810 you should now be seeing the new avatars throughout the Xbox One dashboard!
We are excited to hear what you think about them and would love to get your feedback. If you haven’t already, please take the time to fill out our Xbox Insider survey on avatars.
We have heard that some users are uncertain where avatars should show up. We want to help clear up any confusion.
First, as we roll out the feature, many of your friends may not have access to create their own avatar. You will see more avatars as the feature rolls out broadly and more and more of your friends are able to create avatars.
Next, you should check whether you have chosen to represent yourself as an avatar or a gamerpic. This setting can be found under your profile after selecting “Customize profile.” From there you will want to make sure to check the “Show my avatar” checkbox. This will enable you to see your own avatar on your profile page and in activity feeds. Additionally, now that you have chosen to be represented as an avatar, your friends will be able to see your avatar in various locations through their Xbox One Dashboard, including activity feeds, and friend content blocks.
Finally, you should be aware that, the first time after taking a console update, your avatar my take up to 10 seconds to appear on your profile page. In this scenario, you will see a gamerpic for the first 10 seconds before your avatar fades in. This will only occur for your own avatar in Profile, not for other people’s avatars or other scenes with avatars. It also will only happen the first time after an update.
Whether you select an avatar or not, you will still be able to see the avatars of any friends who have chosen to represent themselves as avatars.
Here are the key locations where you can find the new avatars:
Profile
If you choose to represent yourself as an avatar you will see your own avatar on your profile. If not and you have friends representing themselves as avatars, you will see their avatar on their profile page.
Activity Feed
Leaderboards
Profile Compare
GameHub
Club Header
Here are a few other places you may see your avatar.
Top of Home
Occasionally, the top of home will show avatars. This will typically be to call out friends online or to compare your Gamerscore with a friend.
Content Blocks
You can pin friends to home and will see their avatar if they have one.
Ambient Notifications
If your console is inactive for a while, you may get see a notification highlighting your friends’ status.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: I don’t see any avatars, is something broken?
A: This can happen if neither you nor any of your friends have chosen to represent themselves as avatars. Refer to the section above on making changes to your profile to display your avatar. Also note that, as we continue to roll out avatars more broadly, not all your fiends will have the ability to create their own avatars. As more people get access to the new avatars, you will see more and more avatars appearing on the dashboard.
Q:Where can I see my own avatar?
A: If you have your profile set to show your avatar, you can see them on your profile page and in any activity feed posts that you make.
Q:I think I did everything right, but I don’t see my own avatar on my profile page. I only see a gamerpic. What is wrong?
A: The first time you go to your profile page after receiving a console update, you will see your gamerpic for up to 10 seconds before your avatar fades in.
Q:Why don’t I see any avatars on Home?
A: Avatars pop up at the top of Home on occasion based on a variety of different factors. Seeing them on Home is not guaranteed. That said, you can always pin your friends to Home to show their avatars.
No one likes kicking the bucket in a game. Whether you’re licking your wounds in a beat-’em-up or lamenting a mistimed jump in a platformer, death is the constant that keeps us coming back for more with respawns, ‘Game Over’ screens and more. But what if popping your proverbial clogs could be used as a gaming mechanic that actually helps you? Not an ominous bloodstain on the floor or a warning-like corpse, but an army of ghosts ready to help fight the fight they couldn’t finish?
That’s the premise behind Next Up Hero, and it makes for a Diablo-lite dungeon crawler that’s both immensely fun and utterly frustrating in equal measure. With a bright, hand-drawn art style somewhere between a Pop Cap mobile game and Skylanders, Digital Continue’s latest project has bags of charm right from the off. Its procedurally generated levels come in all manner of sizes, offering a vast selection of randomised setups that refresh every few days. You can even create your own and share these monster-filled levels with others.
Known as the Ceaseless Dirge in the game’s story, these enemies aren’t just there to provide a challenge. They also happen to drop items that can help shape your loadout. Once you’ve picked your chosen Hero (including a dual-wielding DJ called Mixtape and a bongo drum-toting warrior by the name of Symposer), you can unlock new abilities and buffs by collecting enough enemy-specific tokens. There are also Prestige Tokens, which are used to unlock new Heroes, upgrade existing ones and – in a neat twist – increase the chances of encountering rare enemies (and, thus, rarer loot) in a level.
As a top-down dungeon crawler, you’ll likely know what to expect when it comes to the familiar grind of killing every enemy in the vicinity and collecting stuff to spend later. However, don’t be lulled into a false sense of sword-swinging superiority. Next Up Hero is mercilessly difficult, even on its easiest difficulty setting. Health can’t be restored once lost and it won’t be replenished after completing each level, so you’ll need to rely on the support of those ghost-like Echoes and the Ancients they unlock.
Ah yes, those ‘ghosts’ we were talking about. Everytime a player dies, they leave behind a spectral version of themselves. You’ll find a handful of these beings lying on the floor of each colourful dungeon, and you’ll need to hold ‘X’ to revive them. Once restored, you can recruit up to eight of them at once and they’ll automatically follow you and attack any nearby enemy without the need to command them. A couple of Echoes won’t make much difference to an enemy’s health pool, but get a horde of them going and they’re a welcome way to distract more powerful foes.
Echoes can also perish, and there’s only a pre-determined number on each level, so there’s a satisfying reward to using them sparingly, especially on the harder difficulties. Ancients use Echoes like a sacrificial currency, enabling you to unlock additional powers (such as Ely’s temporary health boost or Numbskull’s melee assistance). You can customise which Ancients you want to use in the pre-game loadout, and you’ll need to decide whether sacrificing your Echoes to unlock a certain power is worth the risk of going it alone.
These are all really rewarding systems that show Digital Continue is a developer with real talent and vision, but there are real problems with the game that hold it back from gelling as a cohesive procedural whole. Enemy AI is far too aggressive, and their individual damage outlays are far too high. Add in the fact that the game’s dash mechanic is mapped to a press of the right analog stick (which never feels natural), and that it has a cooldown timer, and you realise the only viable option is to choose a ranged character and pepper every enemy from afar.
You can play the game in online co-op, which does alleviate some of the steep difficulty (you can drop into another player’s game mid-battle, or have another Hero join your quest while you’re doing the same), but it’s a balance issue that should have been addressed by now. It should be noted that this is an online-only experience as every level is stored and shared on a server. If you’re playing away from a Wi-Fi connection, or you have poor connection issues, you simply won’t be able to enjoy it.
There’s also the many serious technical issues Next Up Hero brings with it to Switch. Slowdown is a real problem for this game, especially when there are lots of characters on screen at once. Considering the game is all about having lots of Echoes fighting in your corner, and a wave of enemy types trying to rush you, you’ll start encountering serious drops in frames a handful of times per level.
Then there’s the fact that it continually crashes, freezing the game and locking the HD Rumble into a perpetual state of angry vibration. There’s no way to save the game in this state, so a hard reset of the software is the only way to solve it; all those foes you just ground through, all those Prestige Tokens you collected and all that time you spent carefully finding Echoes is gone. Our review copy froze in this way three times in our first couple of hours alone and the problem persisted throughout our playthrough.
Conclusion
There’s plenty to like about Next Up Hero. Turning death into an applicable AI co-op mechanic is a neat spin on a game with a high death turnover, and its cartoon art style complements an impressively large menagerie of monsters to kill. Unfortunately, there are inherent problems with balancing and some disastrous technical problems. Its grinding takes too long, melee characters are all but pointless due to the high damage output of enemies, and those technical issues make committing time and effort a constant risk.
Take on the role of a modern farmer in Farming Simulator 17! Explore farming possibilities in a new North American environment. Drive over 250 farming vehicles and equipment from over 75 manufacturers, including new brands such as Challenger, Fendt, Valtra or Massey Ferguson.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 08-18-2018, 02:30 AM - Forum: Lounge
- No Replies
This Week at Bungie – 8/16/18
This week at Bungie, we’re heading to gamescom.
The away team is all packed up and ready to ship out to Köln, Germany, for a week of community love and Gambit trials. Our booth will be home to some friendly skirmishes. We’ll host as many Guardians as we can. We’ll find some moments to show you some things you have yet to see and tell you some things you have yet to hear. Keep your eyes on our social channels next week!
Not all of us will be battling jetlag and minions of Darkness. Here at home base, Forsaken is in the very final stages of development. We’re applying finishing touches, and we know there are still some questions you want answered before the Prison of Elders is breached.
Let’s introduce you to the devs with the details for this week.
Known by All
Many of you have asked about how rewards will work in Gambit. We’ve seen questions as to whether it will feature a ranking system akin to Valor or Glory in the Crucible. Senior Designer Robbie Stevens and Test Lead Sam Dunn can answer these questions with an explanation of Infamy ranks.
Robbie: With Forsaken just around the corner, Gambit will soon be unleashed into the wild. I wanted to discuss our high-level goals for the mode:
Fuse the best aspects of PvE and PvP into a brand-new activity that you can experience only in Destiny 2
Make the mode accessible to players of all skill levels, but give it depth and variety that will keep even the most hardcore Guardians coming back for more
There’s always a role to play; whether it’s slaying enemies, scooping up Motes, or invading, there’s always a way to contribute to your team’s success
Communication isn’t required, but strategy and quick thinking are just as important as thumb-skill
Always make it possible for teams that fall behind to come back, so they don’t become discouraged
Gambit was designed with replayability and variety as a core part of the experience, but we knew that wasn’t enough. Players need desirable loot to chase and a way to show their dedication. So, with that in mind, we created our very own ranking system: Infamy.
At a high level, Infamy is:
A progression-based ranking system where completing matches earns you points
Winning matches will greatly accelerate your climb, while losing matches still earns you points, just fewer than if you win
An experience that rewards players with unique Gambit weapons and armor
We’ve been watching the response to the Valor ranking system in the Crucible. A lot of this new work takes that community feedback into account. At this point, I’m going to pass it to Sam, who pulled double duty to design and test the Infamy ranking system.
Sam: To start, we’ve designed Infamy ranks to be more granular by splitting most of the familiar ranks into three tiers. This will allow players to work toward shorter-term goals that are achievable in a few play sessions, rather than over many weeks. It also gives us more opportunities to grant rewards. The Guardian, Brave, Heroic, Fabled, and Mythic ranks will all have three tiers. The Legend rank will remain as one solid chunk.
Apart from this major change, Infamy ranks will function very much like Valor ranks:
Each rank will require more Infamy points to complete than the last
Win streaks award bonus points
Your win streak caps at 5 and doesn’t get reset until you lose a match
Your win streak won’t be reset if you join a match in progress
In addition to completing matches, you can also earn Infamy by completing Gambit bounties. Each day, the Drifter will have a selection of daily bounties available for sale that will award Infamy points, as well as other rewards. He’ll also sell a special weekly bounty once you reach Level 50. The weekly bounty will award a large number of Infamy points and a piece of powerful gear. This allows you to always be making progress toward Legend, no matter what your short-term goals are.
Guardians notorious enough to catch the Drifter’s eye by climbing the Infamy ranks will be able to earn some pretty sweet gear.
Guardians who have tried Gambit in the wild have given it high marks for fun. At the same time, we know you well enough to know that a worthwhile reward is another crucial ingredient in a recipe that brings you back to the fight again and again. We hope to see you in Gambit when it launches with Forsaken!
“Magnificent!”
During our combat reveal stream, we used the Crucible as a proving ground to show off how new weapon systems and tuning will affect the way we fight in all activities as Guardians in Year 2 of Destiny 2. The updates to the tools of the trade are not the only changes you can expect in the arenas that pit players against players. Senior Crucible Designer Kevin Yanes is here to be accountable for how you’ll distinguish yourselves and earn awesome rewards in glorious combat.
Kevin: I’m glad to have the chance to talk to you all about Crucible ranks going forward. This past season of gameplay has taught us a lot about what has worked well and where we can do better. As we kick off the next season, we’re excited to give players new ranks to earn! Let’s dive right into the goals we had for designing the Crucible rank system in Season 4 and the changes that they generated:
Goal: Make earning a high rank in Glory NOT feel like your second job
Changes:
Glory rank points gained and lost have been re-tuned to reduce the overall climb to higher ranks
The weekly award has been fixed and its gains have been doubled
Goal: Recognize the achievements of players who did not receive their weekly awards in Season 3
Changes:
Players who competed in Season 3 will earn bonus rank points for completing their first match in Season 4
Does not require completion of any previous weekly milestones
Goal: Encourage more players to strive for higher Glory ranks
Changes:
Losses in the Competitive playlist no longer reset your Valor win streak
Radar has been reenabled during Competitive gameplay
Control and Clash modes have been added to the Competitive playlist
Loss streaks have been removed
We are currently investigating activity reconnections to Competitive Crucible for players who encounter an error midgame; this will not be available at the launch of Forsaken, but we are looking to add this feature postlaunch
Goal: Remove the time pressures associated with Glory ranks
Changes:
Pinnacle Crucible rewards are now awarded via quests
Some of these quests will ask you to engage with Valor or Glory ranks
These quests will NOT go away at the end of the season
Redrix’s Claymore is being retired in Season 4
Players who already earned the weapon will still be able to equip and use it
Players will be unable to earn Redrix’s Claymore beyond Season 3
Shaxx will offer a new quest that players can complete to earn Redrix’s Broadsword, a companion weapon to Redrix’s Claymore
Redrix’s Broadsword features a similar talent arrangement, but it does not share the lore and Triumphs associated with Redrix’s Claymore
Once you’ve earned the weapon, random roll versions of Redrix’s Broadsword will start dropping from Crucible engrams
Each drop will have the fixed Outlaw + Desperado combination
Each drop will also have randomized barrels, magazines, and Masterwork perks
Players who earned Redrix’s Claymore in Season 3 will receive additional bonuses
Owners of Redrix’s Claymore will be granted an exclusive emblem when redeeming the corresponding Triumph
Claymore owners will be eligible for drops of Redrix’s Broadsword from Crucible engrams even without completing the corresponding quest
A new Crucible reward will be added via a quest in Season 4
Goal: Continue to promote Rumble as a third mode
Changes:
Earning a place in the Top 3 in Rumble will now count as a win
The correct number of Valor rank points will be granted
If you committed to any of the rank ladders we established in Season 3, thanks for making the fight lively. We love supporting the competitive community, no matter your skill or mood. Keep your feedback coming, and we’ll keep making the Crucible a place where you submit to some of the finest tests of skill that Destiny has to offer players.
—Kevin
You heard him.
Getting Social
Since the original launch of Destiny 2, we’ve been reporting your feedback on Guided Games and matchmaking systems to our Social team. Today, Design Lead Steve Dolan will be detailing changes that will make it easier to keep your Fireteam together. He also has news for how Clan features will be updated in Forsaken.
Steve: I want to fill you in on changes coming to social systems before we start our Forsaken adventure together.
We’re bringing back a feature that many have asked for on many occasions. Fireteams that are formed in some activities will stay together once the activity is complete. This applies to the following:
Strikes
Gambit
Crucible
Note: This does not apply to Competitive Crucible. Additionally, if a Crucible match ends by a mercy ruling, or the scores are wildly disproportional, players will be put back into matchmaking to find a new team.
Activity Reconnections
Starting with Forsaken, if you disconnect from a Guided Game, you’ll be offered the opportunity to reconnect to the activity if it is still active. We’ll reserve your slot for up to three minutes. After that, Guides will be able to backfill the Guided Game with Seekers that are currently in queue.
In Guided Raids, these reconnections will help with individual player disconnects. In the case that an entire Fireteam disconnects, we want to minimize the impact to raid teams. Going forward, players will be able to take their raid checkpoints out of Guided Games and use them in the normal version of the raid. If you all disconnect, form up your Fireteam again and head into the normal version to continue on your path of total raid destruction.
Clans Update
Since launch, 50% of you have hit max rank in your Clans each season. Going into Forsaken, there are two major things we wanted to improve with Clans:
Give you more reasons to play with your clanmates
Make clan perks more interesting
How you earn Clan XP is changing. When you start your journey in Forsaken, Hawthorne will have three daily bounties. They can be completed alone or with a Fireteam to grant a small amount of Clan XP. Once your character reaches level the new 50, Hawthorne will add three additional weekly bounties that grant larger amounts of Clan XP, but require you to fireteam up with your clanmates.
Here is a preview of the new clan perks for Season 4 that will be more impactful and worth the time it takes to achieve them.
Rank 3: Increased resilience when you’re in a fireteam with clanmates.
Rank 5: Grants a chance to receive additional Etheric and Baryon resources when collecting them in the Reef.
Rank 6: The weekly clan milestone also grants a Masterwork Core.
Express Yourself
And of course, we’ve been busy making sure you’ll be able to express yourself to other Guardians in the world come Forsaken. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming on September 4.
If you don’t have a Clan, someone is always recruiting. You’re missing out on another roster of willing teammates, a whole shared loot stream, as well as all these new features.
Going out with a Bang
Next week, a new mode will be featured in Crucible Labs, and we’re expecting explosive results. Senior Designer Andrew Weldon is here to set the stage for your final lab session of Season 3.
Andrew: This past weekend, you got a chance to play the updated version of Showdown. This iteration contained updates based on your feedback and our own observations. Like Lockdown, we’ll gather as much information as we can and start making decisions as to our next steps and will update you when we have more to share.
We’ve received feedback on both Lockdown and Showdown that both modes felt too tilted toward the Competitive playlist style of gameplay – 4v4, round-based, higher stakes, etc. And you’re right – that was the target experience for both modes. This next time around, however, we’re going to swing the pendulum the other way…
Our next Crucible Labs will be the mode Scorched. This mode has a very deep, complex, and serious rule set:
You spawn with a Scorch Cannon
Everyone else spawns with a Scorch Cannon
You shoot each other with said Scorch Cannons
Seriously, that’s it
Our designers were so pre-occupied with whether or not we could, we didn’t stop to think if we should.
Tuesday, 8/21 at 10 a.m. PT: Free-for-all
Friday, 8/24 at 10 a.m. PT: 6v6
This is a wild and zany mode, but one that we’ve had a ton of fun playing here at Bungie. We hope you’ll also have a blast with this mode as the final Labs offering before Year 2 begins.
Scanning…
Update 2.0 is just around the corner, followed by Forsaken a week later. Destiny Player Support has a forecast for what to expect on the week between, where you may notice a few hiccups in the experience.
This is their report.
Hotfix 1.2.3.2 Recap
This week, to address issues blocking some players from upgrading their Solstice Armor at the Statue of Heroes, we deployed Destiny 2Hotfix 1.2.3.2.
Upon installing this hotfix, some players on PC reported seeing odd behavior in the character screen. With the conclusion of the Hotfix 1.2.3.2 deployment we expect issues causing this behavior to be resolved, however, players who continue to be affected should try running Scan and Repair from the Blizzard launcher.
Players who encounter other issues following this hotfix should report them to the #Help forum.
Resplendent Masterworks
Last week, we confirmed that Solstice Armor can no longer be upgraded after the conclusion of Solstice of Heroes. This week, we can confirm that players will be able to complete objectives to masterwork their Legendary Solstice Armor (Resplendent) after Solstice of Heroes ends on August 28.
This will require players to have already upgraded to their Legendary Solstice Armor (Resplendent), since the Statue of Heroes will no longer be available to upgrade the Scorched and Rekindled sets. As a reminder, these armor sets only generate elemental orbs during Solstice of Heroes.
Lastly, players should be aware that Valor ranks reset at the conclusion of Season 3. If players do not unlock their masterwork for achieving Legend in their Valor ranking by the end of Season 3, their Valor rank will reset and they will have to begin anew in Season 4.
For more details on Solstice of Heroes, players should visit our Vital Information thread.
Forsaken Preparation
To set the table for the launch of Forsaken on September 4, all players will be prompted to accept Destiny 2 Update 2.0.0 on August 28.
As Destiny 2 crosses into its second year, players may observe a number of issues in the week between August 28 and September 4. While we are working to document known issues for this week-long transition, players should be prepared for some general turbulence.
To set expectations, here is a sampling of issues confirmed for the week leading up to Forsaken, starting on August 28:
Exotic weapons will lose their +5 Power mod in preparation for the Year 2 mod system, but Legendary weapons will not until September 4
Nightfall strikes will not have scoring until September 4
Some tooltips and item descriptions may reflect Year 2 item behavior, even if item functionality is not updated until September 4
Some tooltips and item descriptions may reflect Year 1 item behavior until September 4, even if item functionality has already been updated for Year 2
Year 2 weapon slots will be live for all players, which may cause some weapons in players’ inventories to go to their Postmaster
All players should ensure their Postmasters are clear by August 28 to prevent loss of items
Some Year 1 Power weapons which previously had an elemental attribute will become Kinetic for Year 2
The elemental attributes for a handful of targeted Year 1 weapons will be changed and locked to a specific attribute for Year 2
All other Year 1 Energy and Power weapons in players’ inventories will have their elemental attributes locked for Year 2
Players can expect more details about the week leading into Forsaken in next week’s Player Support Report.
Splice it together
With just a few short weeks until Forsaken releases, we’re seeing some great plays in the Crucible being shared amongst the Community. While weapons slots and sandbox changes are imminent, we still want to tip the hat to those who’ve been showcasing skill through the first year of Destiny 2. Not only skill with a controller, but also in for form of awesome artwork being posted to the Creations Page.
Movie of the Week: If Destiny 2 had an Anime Opening!
Honorable Mention: Rest well, Cayde.
Honorable Mention: Look at this Titan main.
If you’d like a chance to earn the Lens of Fate emblem, make sure to submit your video to the Creations page on bungie.net and include #MOTW in your title.
Here are last week’s top scores for the Nightfall
Tomorrow, 3x Valor kicks off at 10AM in the Crucible. 12 days left to complete your Moments of Triumph, and your Solstice of Heroes armor sets. Once August 28 rolls around, we’ll be in a new world with Sandbox and Weapon slot changes. Seven short days after that, Forsaken launches. Time flies when you’re having fun, and I have to say, it’s flying fast.
As a final note, I’d like to throw a shoutout to a collection of our community artists. Their work inspires so many of us here at Bungie, and we want to give them the proper spotlight that they deserve.
The Fedora Magazine recently interviewed Lennart Jern on how he uses Fedora. This is part of a series on the Fedora Magazine. This series profiles Fedora users and how they use Fedora to get things done. Contact us on the feedback form to express your interest in becoming a interviewee.
Who is Lennart Jern?
Lennart Jern is a Swedish-speaking Finn, who has been living in Umeå, Sweden, for about three years. He was born and raised in southern Finland where he obtained his master’s degree in applied mathematics. His time at university exposed Lennart’s true passion. “While at the university, I realized that computer science was really what I wanted to work with.” In order to follow his dream of working in computer science he moved to Sweden with his wife to pursue a master’s program in computer science. After a short while he had learned enough to land a job with a local startup. “I’m working with cloud/distributed systems, specifically with tools like kubernetes and OpenShift.”
Lennart’s first contact with Linux was in 2006. Some of the computers in his high school were running OpenSuse. He installed Ubuntu’s Hardy Heron in 2008 and has been using Linux ever since.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Star Wars: The Force Awakens are his two favorite movies. Lennart likes simplicity. “I generally don’t like fancy food. Nothing beats a homemade pesto-mozzarella pizza.”
Self hosting is one of Jern’s hobbies. He hosts a private blog and a git service running on a cluster of Raspberry Pi computers. “For my blog I am using Jeckll and the git service is gogs.” The Raspberry PI cluster makes use of Kubernetes. Lennart uses several other open source tools to maintain the hosted environment. “I use for the self hosting environment are certbot for certificates, ansible for automation and parallelization of tasks.”
The Fedora Community
Lennart became active with the Fedora Community when his friend introduced him to Fedora. “A friend of mine, Ludvig, was running Fedora on his laptop and I got curious. I wanted to know more about the differences between Linux distros so I simply tried it out.” His friend, Ludvig, also convinced him to get involved with the open source world. “He was using Fedora when we were in high school, probably because it was what Linus Torvalds was using at the time.”
Lennart’s first interactions with the Fedora Community came when he was looking for solutions to issues with Pulse Audio. He found the community friendly and welcoming. “It is nothing to be afraid of, just try it! You don’t have to commit all your free time to it, nobody expects that. If you stumble across something that you can fix or report, do it! It will feel great!”
When asked what he would like people to know about Fedora Lennart was quick to mention stability. “I feel that many still have the impression of Fedora being a bleeding edge distro with problems and broken applications every new release. Bleeding edge might still be true, but I find Fedora very well polished and stable these days.” Lennart would also like to see Fedora more well know in Nordic countries.
What Hardware?
Jern has five machines running Fedora. One desktop, one laptop and three Raspberry Pi computers. The desktop is a custom computer with an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 CPU and 16 GB of ram. The desktop makes use of two graphics cards for multi seating. The video cards are both made by Asus. The first is a Radeon 6870 and the second is a Radeon RX 550. The laptop is a refurbished HP ProBook 430 G2. It is equipped with an Intel Core i5-4210U and 4 GB or ram. Two of the Rasberry Pi computers are model 3 B+ and the other is a model 3B.
What Software?
All of Lennart’s computers run Fedora 28. “The laptop and desktop are both on the Workstation edition while the raspberries have minimal installations.”
One of the raspberries (the model B) is still running ARMv7, while the other two are running the newer aarch64 images. Jern’s laptop and desktop are close to the base workstation edition. “I just add a couple of GNOME extensions specifically the Drop Down Terminal and the Dash to Dock extensions.” Notable applications that Lennart uses include:
Chrome as browser,
Atom as text editor/IDE,
Gedit or vim for ad hoc text editing,
Slack and Telegram for chatting.
Lennart also use git for version control, occasionally with gitg and meld as helping tools. He makes use of Gnome Boxes and vagrant for experimenting with things in virtual machines and docker for his container needs. “Finally, an important piece of software that I have come to rely on is pass and QtPass for password management.” Jern also uses syncthing for synchronizing files between my computers.
“When I’m done geeking around, I relax with some Steam games. And, when I do not need the full power of my desktop I let it contribute to the World Community Grid.“
