I'm starting to second-guess my switch to linux...

[zixi]

4 hours ago, InDarkestNight said:

So yeah, how do I get mod organizer working on Ubuntu?

It can work perfectly but you really have to be careful. It's like those dungeons where it's easy to fall off the narrow road... you know the ones!

I use RockerBacon's install at github. Follow the instructions to the letter. Eventually, MO will pop up and you can take it from there. MO won't win any beauty contests but it's very powerful and it does the job. I don't link it to Nexus. I download manually and then install that way. Download here takes forever. 

 

11 hours ago, InDarkestNight said:

I'm getting really bored with my playthrough though.

Re your playthrough... I have suggested the Live Another Life and its many add ons... and I'll do that again. I think you'll find it easy to construct backstories on the hoof (as I do) and if you don't bother saving at all then it's a 'see how long I can last' scenario. I love it. Maybe you will. It depends if you can let go of the: I have to finish everything feeling that games sometimes give you. 

There are several extensions to Live another life but MMX452 has just added some more. MMX452 is one of my fave modders at the moment because of the new additions. They're really fun too! 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/57554

However, one of my real favourite starts is this:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4939

and the imprisoned by the Thalmor one... I love it. I've used it with NPCs travel but that seems to have been deleted which is such a shame because that mod was very exciting... it put groups of foes in the game and you could say how big the groups should be and set the probabilities. Anyway, I'd use that so that after escaping I could role play the Thalmor were after me... GreyMtnFox has an Invasion of the Thalmor here:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/47346

which is quite tricky as well... 

So, I'd set this all up and be chased by Thalmor... Made a fortune... Whiled away rainy afternoons and then walked away - no save... if the game crashes and I lose everything then I start again... so what. It's chess... there's always another play through...

 

Do the Mod Organizer thing when things are quiet and calm. And never ever ever let it update! Or you'll be a couple of hours sorting it out - trust me... been there and done that! Have the medal...

[InDarkestNight]

I know about Alternate Start, and have been a long-time user of it. But my issue is I'm getting bored with my current playthrough. My skills are just restoration, one-handed, and heavy armor. I'm also finding myself underpowered. I don't know what I could do to spice up my build honestly. I was thinking of becoming a dual-wielder. I wish I could add one more skill or two ontop of my current build to make things a bit more interesting. I'm planning on eventually investing into quite a few skills, including:

alteration, alchemy, enchanting, smithing, conjuration, archery,

I may also invest in the 'stealth skills', though honestly that may be a bit pointless with how OP my build will be. Guess sneak attacks could be useful, but I'm wearing heavy armor here.

[HeyYou]

So, go to Whiterun. Go hunting. Collect deer, and elk hides. Mine some iron. (there are several mines nearby) Then use those materials to make armor of some description, level up your smithing, so you can make better stuff... improve YOUR weapons and armor. Lather, rinse, repeat. You can make several levels pretty easy that way, build up your smithing skill so your weapons and armor are better, and even on Hard, the game gets easier.

[InDarkestNight]

Well, go the necromage exploit working. Invested 7 perk points. I'm able to go to toe with bears now. Decided to tackle a bandit camp, but still can't do it. I'm starting to regret playing on expert. Maybe I need to just ditch this playthrough and start my dry runs for my LotD playthrough. I feel like I'm playing for my life now, contemplating actually making money on this game, even if its probably not going to be much. People doing similar things seem to get about 4~5k videos within a year per video. No idea how much money that is. If I did know, I would know if its even worth trying to monetize this. I may record it anyway, just because of the effort I'm going to put into this.

[InDarkestNight]

Well, my game just randomly crashed to desktop for the first time. Guess I'm not making that youtube series afterall. How can I record playthroughs when I'm crashing all the time? Also, I'm just getting sick of playing this game. I'm sick of dying, I'm sick of reloading, and the occasional freezes and crashes aren't helping with that. I'm still having to forestall this new sidequest I'm just doing for the first time, because I can't handle the enemies. Even with my new gear sabrecats can still two-shot me. I did level smithing a bit, and got my sword and half my armor pieces (my helmet and boots are enchanted) upgraded to superior. It didn't make a f*#@ing difference.

If I'm going to make a youtube channel about gaming, I'm probably better off making videos showing me playing a game that actually f*#@ing runs. Neither version of skyrim works on my tech, and there's not a damned thing I can do about it. i was hoping to start a youtube series and make enough money on that to upgrade my graphics card and processor, but that's clearly not happening for Skyrim.

As for my crash, the game is completely unmodded. In fact, I haven't even gotten around to trying to get mod organizer to work. I have thought about manually putting stuff in my data folder, but its just not worth the fuss. Besides, not a god damned thing I did fixed the issue. The only mod I EVER installed that made a difference was New Vegas Anti Crash. That's it. It still didn't work 100%. Besides, it didn't address the type of crash I just got; completely random and out of the blue while I'm walking around in the overworld. The only pattern I've ever been able to find is that they never, ever happen in interior cells, or even cities; they only happen WHEN I'M WALKING AROUND THE OVERWORLD. Wtf am I supposed to do? All i can do is switch to another game and record myself doing that. No idea how I can find recording software that will work in linux though. Even then I need to either put the files on my laptop so I can use microsoft's powerpoint to make youtube videos, or I need to find a powerpoint program for linux that can record audio and output files in youtube's video format.

[InDarkestNight]

Tried to boot up my game again, got past the point where I crashed, only for it to crash again. Guess I just can't play Skyrim anymore, can I? The only thing I have left to try is to buy a new graphics card and see if that helps. That would be a lot of investment for one game though; nothing else I've ever owned has given me this problem. EVEN SHADOW OF MORDOR WORKS BETTER ON MY SYSTEM. Maybe I should just give up on Skyrim and go play something that actually f*#@ing runs. Too bad I own nothing else I enjoy due to worthless steam. What am I supposed to do? Play solitaire and sudoku on this thing? f*#@ bethesda, now and forever. They serioiusly make even EA look like a complete and utter joke. At least EA DOESN'T GO OUT OF THEIR WAY TO STOP PEOPLE FROM PLAYING THEIR GAMES.

[InDarkestNight]

Okay, I'm sick of this build. I thought the necromage perk would make me op, but its doing the opposite. I'm super weak to fire, even with the best fire resist enchant I can find, and during the day my attributes are being reduced by 60 points, making me stupid fragile. I ended up waiting for over 12 hours just so I could clear this one area with full health. Clearly this build isn't as op as I thought it would. Guess I need to start over, and do it again but at adept and without using ANY exploits. Or maybe I need to start trying to get mod organizer to work. Sadly, I can't test out my planned graphics load out until I get a new graphics card, which may or may not fix my performance issues. Either way, that's not happening anytime soon. Guess that youtube idea is going to have to wait for several months, assuming my stategies to save money actually result in profit rather than going further into debt.

[zixi]

There's a lot to be said for the making lemonade scenario - it keeps your blood pressure down for one thing. So, for example, the last time I went to SkyrimSE some of the mods were deactivated by the new software. I decided I'd switch the whole lot off.  However, Bethesda asked me to log in (yet again) - I couldn't be bothered to search for the password and I haven't been back there since. So, I played the main quest to Morrowind and now I'm playing Oblivion. I'll play till I lose interest or something happens. I also play 7K - free on Linux - Trevor Chan gave the game to the community. I don't miss SkyrimSE. 

I don't use youtube (or Google) - I detest (and despise) adverts  -  but I think edited highlights from a game would be better than watching an entire play-through.  However, I would rather face a den of lions than watch spectator 'sports'.  Can't you just edit the transitions when a crash occurs? Movarth's Lair for example is not that exciting before or after but the bit in the caves is...

I can't help over vid tools on Linux as I no longer edit vids. Ubuntu Software will have anything that it suggests as useful. The Synaptic Package manager might have something but it's awkward to search unless you have the name of something you're looking for so I guess in your situation I'd ask a specialist Linux forum thingy... My guess here is that almost all players aren't on Linux...  Whenever I mention Linux no one says anything and I skulk off to the Steam Linux community till the moment passes... lest people here think: Oh, no not zixi again! 

 

 

[ScaryGuy255]

To me Linux is a better option than Mac/Windows.  I feel like the other two spy on you and I get programs and everything else tries to do that.  Lots of people are all "just accept it" but that's never been me.  The other two treat the user as just a user most of the time and try to handle everything for them and prevent them from deleting system files or installing viruses (which I admit is generally a good thing.)

However if I want to mess up my own computer that should be my choice.  Maybe I want to try modifying / replacing the bootloader / display manager / window manager/whatever.  Maybe I want to rip out the included app store and replace it with my own that only lists open sourced apps.  Linux gives me the option to do so, and most of how to do that is well documented if someone wants to read up on it.  However there are endless choices with it and with that comes endless ways to mess it up.  One has to be willing to read the logs and look online for solutions when that happens.

I'm currently running Ubuntu, but I removed the entire snapd system.  I don't recommend that and instead just going with another distro that doesn't use that system in the first place.  I'm also not a fan of the systemd init system so I'm thinking of moving to another system (maybe pclinuxOS or Void.) I also use i3wm and a TUI login.  You can tweak the others OS platforms to some extend but to modify it as I have or in any other major way is generally forbidden and the OS might revert those changes even if it lets you in the first place.

If someone is new to Linux I'd recommend starting with an operating system geared toward newbies, but not Ubuntu because it's starting to feel like Canonical is making choices for you.  Linux Mint is based off Ubuntu and that has a better feel to me these days.  MATE is also nicer/more light weight (good if you have limited resources) than Gnome and as a bonus has an interface that is more like Windows (pre 11.) You can also try it out now by doing "apt install mate" and it'll install the entire system.  Then just logout and switch it in the chooser (the gear at the lower right corner in GDM3 which shows up after selecting a user.)

[zixi]

I agree over Linux and was driven by much the same thing. I agree over Mint as well. I have a machine here running Mint (with Cinnamon desktop) but it isn't my main machine. It's a very nice system though and I always thought if you were moving from Windows 7 it was an easy transition. I didn't spend long on Windows 8 just long enough to be concerned over what the OS was doing and I haven't run any other Windows system for more than a few minutes  so I really wouldn't be able to suggest the 'nearest' alternative. 

Re snap - yes, I know other Linux users who are irritated by snap... 

To be frank about it all, I don't really notice the Linux OS much at all - unless something 'goes wrong' and then I have to. The rest of the time it just sits in the background and doesn't try to make decisions or annoy me. If it did, I'd delete it in a heart beat. 

Welcome to the forum BTW -  personally, I really like to see other Linux gamers about.