I’d have 4 main solutions I can think of, and that can be used together if needed:

• VMs for running Steam and for games that MUST use Steam.
• Emulators, wrappers and source ports for games that allow that, e.g. BSNES for running River Girls Zero, Joiplay / Artemis / EasyRPG / AquariaOSE for games that use compatible engines, etc.
• Having a separated computer you can use 100% offline (requires sideloading games)
• The annoying idea some users give that strays from the original question, but that I think that is valid for once - to get the games from places that openly distribute it DRM free

If you are indeed autistic and it is a problem in your daily life, knowing what is the problem is the first step to dealing with it, I think. You could even find strategies to turn hindering aspects of the condition into strengths, by knowing where your issues may stem from. And on the bureaucratic part of diagnosis, sadly I can’t comment as I don’t have much experience with that part.

Something I personally do is to load games from their entries in the start menu. And when there’s no installer to set the start menu item, a program like Alacarte, or manually editing the files that handle those entries on Linux, the .desktop files. Alternatively, linking the executable files to either Heroic or Steam can also be viable.

As for how Linux handles executables, if it’s a native Linux program, you usually need to set the read-write-execute permissions to be able to launch them. Tutorials usually suggest to run chmod 777 /path/to/executable, or other variants that set full permissions to all users and user groups, but as a security concern, I would suggest running chmod 700 /path/to/executable, as this would give the full permissions only to the current user (there’s a bit of a formula to come up with this number, btw).

And regarding VMs, they are as fast as the hardware allows minus the host system’s demands, so it will always be slower than baremetal installs. But in some specific cases, it’s still the best option.

Regarding gaming support, Heroic Launcher also help a bunch, since you can easily set up multiple versions of forks of Wine (Valve’s Proton being one), or even to use the system ones.

About the wifi issue, maybe it is some oddly specific hardware that the devs tackled only in Mint 22. And in a bit of a humorous tone, what’s learning without a bit of struggle? 😅

And lastly, besides dual boot, you could also set up a VM with the secondary system(s) you want. Just worth noting hardware-dependent games, e.g. many from the Windows 9x time, will struggle on VMs.

[Copypasta of the other repost] While I know the situation described in the article can set a precedent, the title feels misleading at best, given the article describes a single case, and not (yet) a widespread practice.

Look for games that are sold DRM free. Those can’t be taken from you by devs or the store after backed up. And usually devs and/or stores that deliberately sell such games also make it clear people can keep their games.

About the history rabbit hole, glad I was able to help! ^_ If you’d be interested for more history musics, Radio Tapok and Glittertind have some too, with Radio Tapok singing mainly about Russian history, and Glittertind, iirc, having only one history-oriented album, Evige Asatro.

And about the the article, don’t think I did. But maybe it was about Afrikaans? Iirc, it’s a variant of Dutch. Or maybe it was Macau or Philippines? Memory might be failing me, since it’s been a while since I checked into them, but I vaguely remember reading that they speak variants of Portuguese and Spanish, respectively.

So, you had asked about materials to study in a previous comment. While I found no concrete materials yet, maybe looking for questions related to proficiency level tests could be a good start? Like for example in my case, to study materials oriented at norskprøve (for Norwegian), JLPT (for Japanese), or to practice since I don’t get many chances to speak in Spanish, SIELE’s test.

Found something: Apparently Recochoku occasionally sells music videos, but the store is blocked outside of Japan.

On breaking down lyrics, reminds me of the English version of Sabaton’s “1648” song. During the song’s bridge, it seems to me that the singing becomes strangely deep for something sang in English, but since the main singer is a half Swede/Czech, a Czech name is used in that bridge, and the singer said he some times confuses the English and Swedish lyrics for that album, maybe that’s why.

And on the matter of colonization, that’s would be, for example, why the main Norwegian dialect, bokmål, is so close to Danish, as Norway, from what I could find, was a Dane colony for a few centuries. And in a similar sense, from what I could find, why the dialects in Spain are so strong, since after dictator Franco’s regime fell, a policy was placed to bring back the dialects he tried to erradicate.

Yeah, things like interest of the right holders, contractual limitations and availability of a given media do play a part on getting published on a given platform.

Other than GOG’s withering “movies” section, I only remember of two that aren’t overly niche, DLsite and Fakku (both mainly porn stores). Maybe Itunes’ videos are DRM free, but I haven’t tested and still it would break the “no app” condition since it’s required for payment and download. Also maybe Itchio and Gumroad have something on videos too, since they don’t limit the types of media allowed there, but I have yet to confirm.

GOG tried, but either gave up or wasn’t able to keep supporting it (their communication is bad so hard to pinpoint). Now their movies section is just collecting dust, like Humble Trove was in the months before the old model was axed.

My study materials, or even the methods, aren’t very consistent, and mostly revolve around trying to interpret posts with languages close to the ones I already know here on the fediverse, checking the etymology of terms I’m curious about (Wiktionary’s usually the first option for that), and watching some channels like youtube’s “Glossonauta” (warning: Brazilian Portuguese channel) and “Living Ironically in Europe” (has some interesting videos on linguistics despite the name).

And after the learning curve I faced thanks to Norwegian (it’s close enough to English that it often trapped me where it diverges), I also developed a habit of, when studying a new language, to think not just how it works, but also why. Like how anything can be shortened into a noun depending if the context allows in Portuguese, or how the politeness of a phrase in Japanese often seems proportional to its length, or how sounds often change in Norwegian to keep a good flow to speech, or how a language is influenced by the history or culture of its people.

Two places that are of interest for me recently are Spain and Norway, since both end up being very central for at least understanding somewhat languages nearby. I find it super interesting to understand languages around without studying them specifically, and it also helps drawing an etymological map in my head. =D

Linguistics, data hoarding, and when I’m in the mood or have time, gaming and reading.