TL;DR: why does the Steam Deck have a small screen and run Linux? Oh, that's why.
Kind of strange that this article is written like the author was a fool and then learned their lesson, but hey I'm not a writer.
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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Steam Deck
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Yeah, a lot of this stuff is pretty obvious.
This kind of article is good for general people to see though, because a lot of people who haven't used the deck assume higher resolution screen is better and windows will be better than Linux.
Valve made all these points when the Deck first released, but I guess some people didn't believe it til other devices ignored their warnings!
People forgot ps2 times where everyone enjoyed 480p 20fps gta games and enjoyed it, now everyone needs 8k 240fps, Nintendo proves again and again that's gameplay that matters, not fps and resolution
Gameplay is important, but if the Scarlet and Violet launch have taught pokemon fans anything, it's that QA testing is equally as important.
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I don't get why the reviews complains about Linux on the Deck - why are they even touching the OS? It's not needed at all for most cases.
I can’t play like 5 games.
I don’t get it either, Linux is fine for gaming at this point. Now it’s such a small amount of games that don’t work.
I can’t play like 5 games.
And are those games worth playing? From what I've seen it's mainly battle royale and sports games that have anti-cheat set up to deliberately break Linux compatibility
That really depends on the person, for me, it’s a deal breaker. If your game won’t work on Linux, I won’t play it.
Sadly, I don’t have this luxury with my work software. But I’m hopeful that things will change. I could probably make it work if there was just one app that worked on Linux.
Keep in mind that unless you are working in CAD, you're almost guaranteed to have a good alternative that works on Linux
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Familiarity.
If an alternative isn't 100% identical to a tool one is used to, one automatically has reservations, and the slightest inconvenience immediately turns into a blocking issue. On the other hand, one is typically inclined to ignore problems with tools one is used to.
There isn't much one can do about this, other than trying to keep an open mind, and being aware of that bias.
Yeah but you don't even need to see the underlying OS, just the familiar Steam client. I love Linux and use it on all my PCs and servers, but I never use desktop mode on the deck, no need to when all your games are on Steam.
I'd get a complaint like "some of my games don't run", but I honestly don't understand what he means when he writes "Wrestling with Linux on my Steam Deck has been a nightmare since day one".
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Personally I like my ROG Ally because with NTFS file system I can run all of my games, including the ones on my Xbox game pass, which is not something I can currently do with Linux-based handhelds.
That being said, I spent literally like three hours decluttering the OS because it ships with a stock Windows 11 which is full of bloat and bullshit. Spent a while with Win10privacy disabling/uninstalling all the useless crap. Why does my game console have Teams? Why does my enterprise computer have the Xbox app? Stupidity all around.
If Chimaera had better support for the ROG I'd look into dual booting, and with the chip being AMD, I have full confidence that eventually I can probably put Linux on that handheld and it will run better and last longer than it does with Windows, because of all the optimizations written into SteamOS being forked for other projects. Right now, there are some things that don't work with Chimaera on other handhelds. I think there's some gimmicky hacks I need to implement for the ROG for baseline things like speaker audio and bluetooth support.
We will see how much support Microsoft provides for their handhelds long-term, in terms of optimizing the OS. So far, they've done fuck all though. SteamOS gets better performance patch after patch.
great comment summing about the current deal.
No doubt deck is limiting in these ways and this fact should not be down played.
Once you accept the limitations, it is a great product and you are voting with your money for further development of linux as platform for gaming, which is I think why many people are exited about it. Gaming enshitiffication over last 5 years is out of hand. Got to fight back.
The Deck is incredible, and if I didn't get the ROG two weeks before the OLED was announced, I would have probably gotten the OLED and eaten the loss of my Game Pass games.
I'm not following what your first point has to do with the filesystem?
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I dual boot Windows 11 on mine, and it makes me feel like a deviant on this site. I just slapped Playnite on it, and it became fine enough for GP games.
Unless the game isn't on steam, then you do have to touch the OS
it came with some unexpected problems. The biggest one came from the feature I was most excited about: Windows.
With the increasing popularity of these different form factors and device types, it seems like people are finally starting to realize just how horrible Windows is… especially for gaming.
Windows sleep mode is fundamentally broken to the point I will never consider any type of mobile device running Windows, let alone a portable game console where suspending games is half of the utility
Yeah, as soon as I read that I stopped. The writer is an idiot
Yeah, but... think about it for a second: we're now in a world where a Linux-based OS is, in certain contexts, better for playing games built for Windows than Windows.
As a person who's been running Linux on his devices for almost 30 years now, that's incredible and I absolutely understand why folks would've initially been skeptical.
not defending the author, but there were plenty of people with a "no windows no buy" mentality prior to the steam deck release.
It is surprising to still see them around.
Were Valve to let its competitors implement SteamOS on their devices
...
That would be great though, not sure if that's possible yet
I think the original comentor was bemoaning that Valve isn't keeping anyone from installing SteamOS on their device. There are already enough community projects to jump off of.
They said that they would release it properly and I don't believe they have yet.
Correct, though they still claim to have intentions to do so once it's ready
More recently, they've also said they are happy to work with any manufacturers who want Steam OS for their devices, and encouraged them to reach out to Valve and they'll work together to get things working.
My assumption is that the real reason we aren't seeing more movement on it, is that a lot of the other handheld makers are using full Windows compatibility as a marketing point, and I also doubt Valve is going to help get other game stores working on Steam OS. It's not that weird if Valve makes a handheld that only officially supports Steam, but it might seem a little weird if Asus or Lenovo released a handheld that only officially supported buying games on Steam.
I suppose a device that could dual boot Windows and Steam OS could be a solution, but knowing how Windows updates can sometimes randomly bork dual boot setups, I could see that being a potential problem as well.
Ideally Epic, Humble Games, GOG, and the remaining publishers that have made their own stores and launchers should get their games and launchers working under Linux/Proton, but I think the current plan is for hardware companies to make a bunch of mediocre Windows handhelds, and hope Microsoft gets off their ass and makes a version of Windows tailored for the form factor. But there really isn't much motivation for Microsoft to do that, because they'd probably rather just launch their own Xbox handheld and keep that for their own gaming walled garden. Gamepass already gets them onto pretty much every other platform, so why should they care?
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