The recent news that SteamOS may soon be shipped with third-party devices could be particularly important for Linux gaming on desktops.

Even gamers nexus’ Steve today said that they’re about to start doing Linux games performance testing soon. It’s happening, y’all, the year of the Linux desktop is upon us. ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

  • @Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    18•15 hours ago

    I don’t understand this tbh. It’s here already. SteamOS will likely be just like the deck - immutable arch running the existing steam package.

    You can totally do this today and it works great. Don’t want to mess with arch and that confusing command line? Use something easier like mint and install the flatpak - then you don’t even have to futz with nvidia drivers. Or use bazzite?

    What does steamOS offer that we don’t already have? (Serious question)

    • @muelltonne@feddit.orgDeutsch
      7•11 hours ago

      A few things:

      1. It gives manufacturers a blueprint for their devices. You will see a lot of handhelds running SteamOS from different manufacturers. You will also see a lot of small “gaming boxes” with SteamOS to plug in your TV. That’s great!
      2. Game Developers will have one distribution to test their games on. One of the bigger problems linux had before SteamOS was the big clusterfuck of different distros. Great for users, but a big headache if you’re developing for it. Now you can say “it runs on SteamOS”, test on SteamOS and you don’t have to deal with bug reports from people running RedStarOS
      3. It’s Valve. It’s a company. They are the biggest store selling games and they are building their moat to protect themselves against Microsoft, Apple, Epic & Co. That not exactly great for users, but also explains why Valve is doing this linux push. To prevent Microsoft from abusing their Windows monopoly to crush them
    • bitwolfEnglish
      11•13 hours ago

      I think it’s mostly a matter of having it preinstalled.

      The perception is that if it’s pre installed, then it is designed for the device.

    • Mactan
      15•14 hours ago

      these people need permission from a massive corporation calling it something other than Linux so they can dodge the cognitive dissonance of hating Linux

      • TimeSquirrel
        6•14 hours ago

        Or rather, there’s someone who isn’t going away anytime soon and someone who you can go to if their shit screws up, someone with an actual address and support number, and it’s not just a Github issue tracker page that hasn’t been seen by the owner in months.

        Some people want that peace of mind. Some people aren’t built to scour the internet for hours to maybe find solutions to their problems.

        • Mactan
          11•13 hours ago

          …do people really do that with Microsoft, or do they just throw the errant device in a closet and get a new one at best buy?

        • @stevedice@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1•10 hours ago

          I’m confused, do you think Canonical, RedHat or SUSE are going away in the near future? Or that they don’t have support?

          • TimeSquirrel
            0•5 hours ago

            Or that they don’t have support?

            Not specifically the whole Linux/Proton/Game stack. That’s Valve’s bread and butter, not Canonical or Redhat.

            Go ahead, call Redhat and tell them you can’t get Skyrim to run, see how far that gets you.

            • @stevedice@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              1•4 hours ago

              Are you trying to imply having an “official SteamOS” means you will be able to call Valve to have them troubleshoot your game? Because you can’t do that with the current official SteamOS on the Steam Deck. I don’t think you thought this through.