so like.

[haijo7@snac.haijo.eu]

@eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place you could run an offline VM with a minimal windows install on linux. No updates or telemetry, but you should be able to use visual studio. If you want to compile code for windows on a linux system without a vm, you can also use mingw

[jibsaram@68k.social]

@eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place ah yes. Unless I'm mistaken all that should be included in their Rider subscription, but I understand that needing to commit to the ~$19/mo plan can be challenging. I sure hope you'll find a way to be happy with your technical environment. I'm very glad I made the full-time switch to Linux 5/6 years ago, even though in my case I was coming from macOS. I'll keep my fingers crossed you'll be able to find a way to do it too.

[witchgirls@woof.tech]

@eniko So as someone who's tried making windows games on a VM I can tell you that you definitely need a spare GPU to use *only* for the Windows VM -- but it can be a regular/bad one. I had mine on a super old RX 550.

Setting the VM up is an absolute pain in the ass, but once it's done it's done and it "just works". You'll also need something like Looking Glass for you to be able to access the VM in a window, or if you have a second monitor you can just make it output to that.

If you do that + give the VM enough cores and RAM, the performance should theoretically be only mildly worse than native. It was good enough for me at least.

But yeah, it's definitely something that'd take an entire weekend to get fully working correctly and with the least amount of pain points possible...

[terral@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@eniko I just made the jump on my main desktop this weekend after using Linux mostly on laptops and servers and stuff. There's a lot of relief from no longer feeling entirely at the mercy of Microsoft's random whims and desires

[eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@Haijo7 have some serious concerns about performance when doing this while developing video games

[krishean@tech.lgbt]

@eniko @bovaz i build things like OpenSSL, Curl, and GnuCOBOL for windows in the vm, but those are all cli tools. i have built a few things like GZDoom, but since i don't have pcie passthrough set up and most opengl or (any) vulkan games won't run in a vm i can't test them in it

[foxis@social.foxis.dev]

@eniko I've had good luck with Linux and using Rider instead,plus all the dotnet click tooling works pretty well on Linux. Not perfect, but works well

[tekhedd@byteheaven.net]

@eniko @jibsaram Bummer, because if you have budget, Rider is unbeatable... But, yes, budget. For personal use there's a lot of VIM in my life.

I tried all the OSS IDEs a couple years ago, and I now use vim. (netbeans for java) Says it all really.

[beaiouns@is.nota.live]

@eniko more cranky than depressed here, but it did remind me to become flagrantly noncompliant: https://agelesslinux.org/download.html

[novemdecimal@sunny.garden]

@eniko

i'm on the same boat as you, hearing the news about more and more countries passing age verification have been making me feel hopeless, and I ended up setting up my filters on Mastodon and banning myself from watching news youtubers because of it

the thing is, I also can't go completely offline either, my internet is kind of my lifeline as I wasn't able to make any IRL friends in school, so I rely a lot on Discord for social interaction, I'm essentially a social outcast

2026 has been the wildest year in this decade and might even be worse than 2020 for me, it has also been the roughest year on my mental health because of shit like this

i'm hoping maybe the fediverse and decentralization will save us but i think this is just copium, so

[maaneeack@noc.social]

@eniko There's VSCodium, and VS Code. Would either of those do what VS Community edition does?

[eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@maaneeack I don't know what vscodium is but vscode definitely doesn't

[derickson2402@tech.lgbt]

@eniko my biggest concern is how popular spyware is becoming politically. i think everyday people will oppose it once it starts appearing publicly, like AI and data centers now

i take hope in the collective power of open source. we do not need to use programs contaminated with government spyware, we can build our own. keep demanding security and privacy, and help your community achieve them