I am very excited by the Steam Deck and have paid for my place in the queue (hopefully some time this year). I am a long time desktop Linux user, however I also game and have either had to dual boot, or more recently, game inside a Windows VM because of DRM and unsupported games.
The biggest issue I can can see with the Steam Deck, or more specifically, Linux on the Steam Deck, is Microsoft's Game Pass. It simply will not work on Linux, and at the moment, I spend more time playing game via Game Pass than I do via Steam. Microsoft have a very clear direction with their recent purchases of publishers and studios, and I worry that the lack of any sort of Game Pass support (without installing Windows) will hamper the Steam Deck.
Of course, Valve are probably hoping that the Steam Deck will discourage Game Pass subscriptions since it eats into their market, but as long as Microsoft are also willing to sell games on Steam, I think having both options is the healthiest for PC gaming overall.
I'm not arguing that people wont buy the console, I'm arguing that if they buy a console that has support for a different operating system, one which plays all of the same games and more, and also enables them to use services that they already pay for, then they're going to install that other operating system.
A relatively small number of people are buying the steam deck to use Linux, most are buying it to play games on.
I don't think the majority of steam deck users will bother installing windows on it. But it'll very much depend on the state of SteamOS 3.0 and proton.
In any way, it's a good think that you can install Windows on it. Finally being able to buy fancy bespoke hardware that isn't dependent on some cloudshit makes me happy.
First people complain that no one will use Linux because theirs no hardware. Then they complain they can’t use Linux because of the software support. We now have both and now people won’t use Linux because Microsoft acquired studio’s games will only run on Windows? That moving goal post doesn’t look good for the Switch or PlayStation platforms then.
I've used Linux as my daily driver for near enough 20 years at this point. I'm not arguing that people wont use Linux because Microsoft have bought some studios, I'm arguing that they might not use Linux on a device designed specifically for gaming if they can't play games using services that they've already paid for.
I mean, there are a lot of reasons not to use Linux still, just because Valve solved a few of them doesn't make any of the others illegitimate. I mean, christ, the desktop user experience is still pretty goddamned terrible, and the only reason I'm personally considering switching in the near future is that Microsoft is working hard to make Windows even worse.
Plasma has given me everything I could need. For 80% of people that’s going to be a web browser. Outside of that I had no problems migrating my work flows to Linux native apps. There are plenty.
> For 80% of people that’s going to be a web browser.
Why do some people think this is a point in Linux Desktop's favor? Anyone who just needs a web browser could use ChromeOS. Those of us who use a desktop for other things have legitimate criticisms and this is an unfair (and lazy) dismissal.
Because it’s a point for general usability arguments for the mass public. It’s a feather in the cap of ChromeOS which is a variant of Gentoo, so why can’t it be that for other Linux OSes. Linux software already provides anything outside of a browser…does that need to be touted a long side of it also?
The desktop user experience suck on all platforms. Macos is ridden with bugs and inflexibility, Windows is just confusing to me, and Linux depends on which of the hundreds of experiences you pick.
I game on Windows, work on Mac. Used fedora daily through uni and before.
I don't disagree, especially nowadays, but for decades Windows and MacOS have had clearly superior desktop experiences. That's only changed relatively recently and it had a lot less to do with improvements on the Linux side than it did with the commercial OSs getting much worse.
I use Fedora Silverblue on two laptops right now. The experience is hardly what I would call "good"[0] and yet it's still the most reasonable I've had with Linux in a long time.
[0] GNOME sucks, Kinoite has a lot of issues so kinda stuck with GNOME. rpm-ostree can't handle groups and fails when given large numbers of packages to install. Restricted codecs and ffmpeg need to be installed using rpm-ostree. Stuff like that.
The biggest issue I can can see with the Steam Deck, or more specifically, Linux on the Steam Deck, is Microsoft's Game Pass. It simply will not work on Linux, and at the moment, I spend more time playing game via Game Pass than I do via Steam. Microsoft have a very clear direction with their recent purchases of publishers and studios, and I worry that the lack of any sort of Game Pass support (without installing Windows) will hamper the Steam Deck.
Of course, Valve are probably hoping that the Steam Deck will discourage Game Pass subscriptions since it eats into their market, but as long as Microsoft are also willing to sell games on Steam, I think having both options is the healthiest for PC gaming overall.