I wish this was because Linux was the obviously superior choice for gaming, but instead we're welcoming it because it's "oh my god anything but Windows". I wish Anticheat was more common on Linux...
I wish this was because Linux was the obviously superior choice for gaming, but instead we're welcoming it because it's "oh my god anything but Windows". I wish Anticheat was more common on Linux too, would love to play The Finals or Destiny on my deck. I'm really rooting for Linux to become more mainstream, but for that you not only need support for gaming, but also Pro workflows. Adobe, Autodesk, Ableton, stuff like that (Shout-out Davinci Resolve for stellar Linux support)
The author also that the public SteamOS materials available right now won't get you all the gains of a steam deck. IIRC the SD has a few proprietary drivers for some important features, so you'd...
The author also didn't mention that the public SteamOS materials available right now won't get you all the gains of a steam deck. IIRC the SD has a few proprietary drivers for some important features, so you'd need to talk with Valve about utilizing those.
Valve is probably open to it, but vendors are already very comfortable with dealing with Microsoft.
EDIT: Oh, they did acknowledge part of this:
Valve still has yet to release a long-promised official public distribution of SteamOS 3, forcing users to get creative if they want to try to use modern SteamOS features on their devices. Valve does offer a Steam Deck Recovery distro for download, but the company warns that "it may not work properly" on non-Steam-Deck hardware.
Most of my comment is still valid about vendors and what they'd need to do, though.
Apparently, people have gotten The Finals the run on Proton Experimental recently, so it would seem Embark is doing work on that front to get the game to be playable on Linux as well. I think...
I think Linux is the obviously superior choice for handheld gaming - Windows, with its mouse-focused UI, is simply not made for handheld gaming. SteamOS does a far better job at giving a console-like, gamepad-focused user experience.
As the second part of your comment, I think Pro workflows would be nice, for sure, though I think it has to start with Wine or Proton to enable compatibility and software alternatives - Bitwig or Renoise as a Linux-friendly alternative to Ableton or ProTools, Blender for Max and Maya, etc.
As users get to use those programs and make higher-profile creations, and the communities get bigger alongside Linux as a whole, then maybe the pressure would push those pro companies to add Linux builds to their software. I don't think it would be possible to get them to add Linux builds otherwise, though - I don't think it would be profitable enough at the current stage.
The PC market as a whole should ditch Windows, the Steam Deck has proved that Linux is more than capable. We just need folks smart enough to make it easily accessible like Valve did with Steam OS.
The PC market as a whole should ditch Windows, the Steam Deck has proved that Linux is more than capable. We just need folks smart enough to make it easily accessible like Valve did with Steam OS.
I figured that was what Ubuntu set out to do. But it sounds like (like many things in OS) that caused a schism rather than a revolution. Regardless, most inability to switch comes from...
I figured that was what Ubuntu set out to do. But it sounds like (like many things in OS) that caused a schism rather than a revolution.
Regardless, most inability to switch comes from compatibility with software. As a professional a lot of tools simply won't work on Linux for me (Adobe and Autodesk's suite of tools), or "have support" but in reality are a lot less stable (game engine editors).
The one thing I really don't like about it, is the folder structures. If you want to modify any game files (or install mods) you have to go into these ridiculously long and muddled folder...
The one thing I really don't like about it, is the folder structures. If you want to modify any game files (or install mods) you have to go into these ridiculously long and muddled folder structures, and it's really not user-friendly.
It looks like this: ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/<GAME ID>/pfx/drive_c
The game ID is just a seemingly random string of numbers.
That is an unfortunate side effect of windows compatibility, you need to create a virtual C:\ drive so the game can function. However if we start pushing toward native linux support then that...
That is an unfortunate side effect of windows compatibility, you need to create a virtual C:\ drive so the game can function.
However if we start pushing toward native linux support then that annoyance will go away as well.
I only found this to be an issue with some Wine programs having difficulties with long path names, but it's trivial to solve this and the UX issue with symlinks. You would do the same with Windows...
I only found this to be an issue with some Wine programs having difficulties with long path names, but it's trivial to solve this and the UX issue with symlinks. You would do the same with Windows and e.g. WSL.
The game ID is in the store page's URL btw, it's inconvenient to figure out which game is which for sure but just putting it out there.
As noted way at the end of the article, So at best right now a company needs to either do what ayaneo is doing here, Or they would need to work with Valve to get an official build tuned to their...
As noted way at the end of the article,
Valve still has yet to release a long-promised official public distribution of SteamOS 3
So at best right now a company needs to either do what ayaneo is doing here,
using an adapted version of Holo ISO
Or they would need to work with Valve to get an official build tuned to their hardware.
All this said, I like SteamOS quite a lot and dislike Windows quite a lot, so, yes.
I don't specifically think the handhelds should choose SteamOS over any other OS because it's Steam. I think they should choose Linux and customize it to their needs! If SteamOS works best for...
I don't specifically think the handhelds should choose SteamOS over any other OS because it's Steam. I think they should choose Linux and customize it to their needs! If SteamOS works best for them, bully, but otherwise they can put Mint on it with a front end for all I care. Windows is distinctly built as a desktop/laptop office environment. Full disclosure, not counting laptops, there are currently two windows computers, one Linux and two Steam Decks in my living room, so I'm not like fully anti Windows or anything.
Given how rocky these companies' Windows tools are, I'm not sure I want them trying to make Linux tooling. SteamOS 3 is very far from "Linux that boots straight into Steam Big Picture", and has...
Given how rocky these companies' Windows tools are, I'm not sure I want them trying to make Linux tooling.
SteamOS 3 is very far from "Linux that boots straight into Steam Big Picture", and has been tuned and optimized to be as efficient and capable as possible. The gamescope compositor reaches into the end of the game's rendering pipeline to bypass normal window manager overhead (reducing latency). The near-instant suspend/resume is nothing short of magic, especially given how rock solid reliable it is.
Valve even got HDR working, something that is (currently) otherwise impossible on Linux, by modifying every piece of the display pipeline to make it happen.
Yes, someone like Asus or Ayaneo could probably recreate these things, but would they do so competently? Or open source? Valve has open sourced nearly every piece of SteamOS 3 that isn't Steam itself; I doubt most other companies would do the same unless obligated by the GPL.
Have no doubt that SteamOS is nothing short of magic (and the suspend feature has made RDR2 a much more playable game for me but even something like Pop! OS Is far and above Windows for a handheld...
Have no doubt that SteamOS is nothing short of magic (and the suspend feature has made RDR2 a much more playable game for me but even something like Pop! OS Is far and above Windows for a handheld device.
This is probably far from the majority opinion, but I find Windows as a mobile OS to be such a terrible experience that I really wouldn't mind missing these features for a basic Linux+Steam...
This is probably far from the majority opinion, but I find Windows as a mobile OS to be such a terrible experience that I really wouldn't mind missing these features for a basic Linux+Steam experience.
Windows really isn’t that well suited for portables, not even classic non-touchscreen laptops. The Windows trackpad experience only got decent somewhat recently and is still bad enough on some...
Windows really isn’t that well suited for portables, not even classic non-touchscreen laptops. The Windows trackpad experience only got decent somewhat recently and is still bad enough on some laptops that people continue to carry mice, and the OS itself is plagued with a chronic aversion to staying in low-power idle states when the user isn’t doing much with all sorts of nonsense constantly going on in the background, not to mention the whole mess of “modern standby”.
I’m convinced that a significant chunk of those who use and continue to buy Macbooks are doing so not because they like Macs but rather because they find Windows laptops untenable (and for more technical types, the selection of Linux-first laptops restrictively small).
The best thing about SteamOS is that you don’t think about it. On the Steam Deck you simply have a nice UI with nice UX. You simple buy, install and run a game. It’s stable. You never have to see...
The best thing about SteamOS is that you don’t think about it. On the Steam Deck you simply have a nice UI with nice UX. You simple buy, install and run a game. It’s stable. You never have to see the desktop mode. It’s simply a good gaming device. In that sense it’s just like using a PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo. This is a big achievement by Valve.
Inuse SteamOS/Steam Deck as regular PC. I have dock for it and if I don't have to do video editing, I can easily work with just Steam Deck. If I have to do video editing, I do so in Shotcut on my...
Inuse SteamOS/Steam Deck as regular PC. I have dock for it and if I don't have to do video editing, I can easily work with just Steam Deck.
If I have to do video editing, I do so in Shotcut on my Linux desktop.
I've ditched Windows for the most part, my only reason to have a Windows install is for GeForce now of all things because the windows and Mac apps are they only way to play at 1440p 120fps and...
I've ditched Windows for the most part, my only reason to have a Windows install is for GeForce now of all things because the windows and Mac apps are they only way to play at 1440p 120fps and higher. It's an absolutely stupid reason to have windows installed, but until nvidia adds support for those features to a web browser, I can't switch over 100%.
This is a misconception. Steam can provide DRM, but Steam IS not DRM. There are plenty of DRM free games on there (like Baldurs Gate 3 for example), which can be purchased using Steam and then...
Steam essentially is just DRM for software makers so it would be a big mistake to rely on it being integrated into an OS anyway.
This is a misconception. Steam can provide DRM, but Steam IS not DRM. There are plenty of DRM free games on there (like Baldurs Gate 3 for example), which can be purchased using Steam and then played without it.
Steam can provide a DRM solution but it's not inherent to the platform.
Steam OS is also perfectly usable without using the Steam launcher. What Valve is doing here, is a good thing. They're making Linux a more usable OS for gaming, which is something I can get behind.
Not to mention all that they've contributed back to open source. They've submitted patches to the linux kernel, mesa, dxvk, wine, etc. Apparently they're paying over 100 open-source developers to...
Not to mention all that they've contributed back to open source. They've submitted patches to the linux kernel, mesa, dxvk, wine, etc. Apparently they're paying over 100 open-source developers to work on steamos and all those contributions are being pushed upstream so every distro can benefit.
Griffais says the company is also directly paying more than 100 open-source developers to work on the Proton compatibility layer, the Mesa graphics driver, and Vulkan, among other tasks like Steam for Linux and Chromebooks. - via The Verge
Even if Valve drops off the face of the earth right now, everything they've done so far to improve gaming on Linux is permanent and benefits the entire Linux gaming ecosystem in general.
I wish this was because Linux was the obviously superior choice for gaming, but instead we're welcoming it because it's "oh my god anything but Windows". I wish Anticheat was more common on Linux too, would love to play The Finals or Destiny on my deck. I'm really rooting for Linux to become more mainstream, but for that you not only need support for gaming, but also Pro workflows. Adobe, Autodesk, Ableton, stuff like that (Shout-out Davinci Resolve for stellar Linux support)
The author also
didn't mentionthat the public SteamOS materials available right now won't get you all the gains of a steam deck. IIRC the SD has a few proprietary drivers for some important features, so you'd need to talk with Valve about utilizing those.Valve is probably open to it, but vendors are already very comfortable with dealing with Microsoft.
EDIT: Oh, they did acknowledge part of this:
Most of my comment is still valid about vendors and what they'd need to do, though.
Yeah, so long as things like Photoshop don't have native Linux support, I can't switch over, as heartbreaking as it is.
Apparently, people have gotten The Finals the run on Proton Experimental recently, so it would seem Embark is doing work on that front to get the game to be playable on Linux as well.
I think Linux is the obviously superior choice for handheld gaming - Windows, with its mouse-focused UI, is simply not made for handheld gaming. SteamOS does a far better job at giving a console-like, gamepad-focused user experience.
As the second part of your comment, I think Pro workflows would be nice, for sure, though I think it has to start with Wine or Proton to enable compatibility and software alternatives - Bitwig or Renoise as a Linux-friendly alternative to Ableton or ProTools, Blender for Max and Maya, etc.
As users get to use those programs and make higher-profile creations, and the communities get bigger alongside Linux as a whole, then maybe the pressure would push those pro companies to add Linux builds to their software. I don't think it would be possible to get them to add Linux builds otherwise, though - I don't think it would be profitable enough at the current stage.
The PC market as a whole should ditch Windows, the Steam Deck has proved that Linux is more than capable. We just need folks smart enough to make it easily accessible like Valve did with Steam OS.
I figured that was what Ubuntu set out to do. But it sounds like (like many things in OS) that caused a schism rather than a revolution.
Regardless, most inability to switch comes from compatibility with software. As a professional a lot of tools simply won't work on Linux for me (Adobe and Autodesk's suite of tools), or "have support" but in reality are a lot less stable (game engine editors).
semi-relevant xkcd https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png
also being poorly programmed is kind of adobes thing these days.
The one thing I really don't like about it, is the folder structures. If you want to modify any game files (or install mods) you have to go into these ridiculously long and muddled folder structures, and it's really not user-friendly.
It looks like this: ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/<GAME ID>/pfx/drive_c
The game ID is just a seemingly random string of numbers.
That is an unfortunate side effect of windows compatibility, you need to create a virtual C:\ drive so the game can function.
However if we start pushing toward native linux support then that annoyance will go away as well.
I only found this to be an issue with some Wine programs having difficulties with long path names, but it's trivial to solve this and the UX issue with symlinks. You would do the same with Windows and e.g. WSL.
The game ID is in the store page's URL btw, it's inconvenient to figure out which game is which for sure but just putting it out there.
As noted way at the end of the article,
So at best right now a company needs to either do what ayaneo is doing here,
Or they would need to work with Valve to get an official build tuned to their hardware.
All this said, I like SteamOS quite a lot and dislike Windows quite a lot, so, yes.
I don't specifically think the handhelds should choose SteamOS over any other OS because it's Steam. I think they should choose Linux and customize it to their needs! If SteamOS works best for them, bully, but otherwise they can put Mint on it with a front end for all I care. Windows is distinctly built as a desktop/laptop office environment. Full disclosure, not counting laptops, there are currently two windows computers, one Linux and two Steam Decks in my living room, so I'm not like fully anti Windows or anything.
Given how rocky these companies' Windows tools are, I'm not sure I want them trying to make Linux tooling.
SteamOS 3 is very far from "Linux that boots straight into Steam Big Picture", and has been tuned and optimized to be as efficient and capable as possible. The
gamescopecompositor reaches into the end of the game's rendering pipeline to bypass normal window manager overhead (reducing latency). The near-instant suspend/resume is nothing short of magic, especially given how rock solid reliable it is.Valve even got HDR working, something that is (currently) otherwise impossible on Linux, by modifying every piece of the display pipeline to make it happen.
Yes, someone like Asus or Ayaneo could probably recreate these things, but would they do so competently? Or open source? Valve has open sourced nearly every piece of SteamOS 3 that isn't Steam itself; I doubt most other companies would do the same unless obligated by the GPL.
Have no doubt that SteamOS is nothing short of magic (and the suspend feature has made RDR2 a much more playable game for me but even something like Pop! OS Is far and above Windows for a handheld device.
This is probably far from the majority opinion, but I find Windows as a mobile OS to be such a terrible experience that I really wouldn't mind missing these features for a basic Linux+Steam experience.
Windows really isn’t that well suited for portables, not even classic non-touchscreen laptops. The Windows trackpad experience only got decent somewhat recently and is still bad enough on some laptops that people continue to carry mice, and the OS itself is plagued with a chronic aversion to staying in low-power idle states when the user isn’t doing much with all sorts of nonsense constantly going on in the background, not to mention the whole mess of “modern standby”.
I’m convinced that a significant chunk of those who use and continue to buy Macbooks are doing so not because they like Macs but rather because they find Windows laptops untenable (and for more technical types, the selection of Linux-first laptops restrictively small).
The best thing about SteamOS is that you don’t think about it. On the Steam Deck you simply have a nice UI with nice UX. You simple buy, install and run a game. It’s stable. You never have to see the desktop mode. It’s simply a good gaming device. In that sense it’s just like using a PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo. This is a big achievement by Valve.
Inuse SteamOS/Steam Deck as regular PC. I have dock for it and if I don't have to do video editing, I can easily work with just Steam Deck.
If I have to do video editing, I do so in Shotcut on my Linux desktop.
I have ditched Windows in 2008.
I've ditched Windows for the most part, my only reason to have a Windows install is for GeForce now of all things because the windows and Mac apps are they only way to play at 1440p 120fps and higher. It's an absolutely stupid reason to have windows installed, but until nvidia adds support for those features to a web browser, I can't switch over 100%.
Absolutely
This is a misconception. Steam can provide DRM, but Steam IS not DRM. There are plenty of DRM free games on there (like Baldurs Gate 3 for example), which can be purchased using Steam and then played without it.
Steam can provide a DRM solution but it's not inherent to the platform.
Steam OS is also perfectly usable without using the Steam launcher. What Valve is doing here, is a good thing. They're making Linux a more usable OS for gaming, which is something I can get behind.
Not to mention all that they've contributed back to open source. They've submitted patches to the linux kernel, mesa, dxvk, wine, etc. Apparently they're paying over 100 open-source developers to work on steamos and all those contributions are being pushed upstream so every distro can benefit.
Even if Valve drops off the face of the earth right now, everything they've done so far to improve gaming on Linux is permanent and benefits the entire Linux gaming ecosystem in general.
I didn't even know that, that's way better than I thought! Thanks for the info.