this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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125
MSI teasing a handheld gaming PC like the Steam Deck (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 72 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

I hope they ditch Windows and use SteamOS or any Linux variant at this point.

The Steam Deck’s OS is one of its best features and Windows is not viable for handheld devices.

And what’s better is that it’s free! There is no reason to slap on an extra $100 to pass onto the consumer because you had to pay some corporation a license for using their OS, giving them more market share they don’t deserve.

One of the best and most needed features of a handheld has to be the standby feature too. The ability to “lock” the device mid-gameplay and come back to it is not only good but necessary. Windows doesn’t have anything like this but SteamOS on the Deck does!

And if they want to one-up the Deck, PLEASE give us more than one USB port. Even if it is USB Type C and a USB A port, that’s better than one port that has to be shared for charging and everything else.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago

SteamOS is definitely at a point where I could see it being used on other handhelds now. Valve wants to eventually open it up to be installed on any device, so it might be a smart move for MSI to talk with Valve to support SteamOS on their new handheld.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Windows has its strengths, but my god, handheld devices aren't one of them. I've not seen a single one of these windows handhelds that don't have weird janky software problems with the overlays and quick settings menus they have, suspend/resume, etc.

Linux is just the natural pairing for devices like these, and I'm pretty sure Valve would be very open to allowing SteamOS or a fork of it on MSI's devices.

The entire reason Valve tried Steam Machines and is now doing the Deck is to try to get out from MS's grasp. The more devices running Linux the better from Valve's perspective.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I'm pretty sure Valve would be very open to allowing SteamOS

Well, not really, otherwise they would prioritize making it easy to install for 3rd parties. IIRC, there's close to no documentation. Of course MSI (and everyone else) can fork it, but I don't assume many companies would want to sell a device with an OS without official support from the creators.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

There'd almost certainly be a different level of support given to a name-brand OEM who approached Valve to use their OS in a shipping product compared to what Valve's giving to the community at large.

They clearly don't think the software's ready to just be installed on anything quite yet, but if MSI approached them with a fixed hardware platform and said they wanted to ship it with SteamOS, you don't think Valve would work with them to make that happen?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I think that's more to do with them not wanting to provide support and not deal with the headache of people installing steamOS on Nvidia hardware, which doesn't always play nice with Linux (insert that pic of Linus Torvalds).

I mean the new steam deck UI-inspired big picture mode got delayed months (for everyone) purely down to quirks with Nvidia. Imagine a whole OS, with everyone going online and blaming Valve for it or calling Linux junk.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I remember reading a post here about steam looking to make steamOS available for other handhelds. I think it would make sense for them to get other handhelds to use steamOS , as that may drive up steam usage and sales.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

And unlike Android, that has had everything stripped from the native userland experience - the SteamDeck is a real OS. It's an "actual" Linux device that is popular. Which shows that Windows isn't the end-all-be-all to Gaming.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

It's so much more performant.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Steam deck os is good, but it's important to remember that it's highly designed around the specific steam deck hardware. Using it with other kinds of hardware doesn't work so well right now. The standby mode in particular.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Luckily there are better options than SteamOS for other hardware, such as ChimeraOS and Bazzite - you get pretty much the same features as SteamOS + optimizations got non-deck hw + extra goodies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Arch would be nice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Arch is a fucking terrible OS, and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. You spend days configuring shit just for it all to break when you update because “haha I can update whenever I want and get cool stuff before any of you newbs!”

Yeah, go ahead and downvote me if you want, because SteamOS is based on Arch. I bet you’re not willing to each the things that look like alien maggots that chocolates’s based on.

Fuck Arch.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No doubt it will be another handheld running Windows though instead of Linux

I will game on a Windows based PC, but Linux is a must have on hand held - Windows is too resource intensive, developers are not going to be able to get the same OS optimization out of Windows that they can with Linux

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is why I chose the deck. Least powerful in the segment on paper but those Windows handhelds are not going to age well lol.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

Better support plus it drives Linux as a gaming OS which I'm a fan of. The more consumers choose to game on Linux the more adoption it will get. Look at windows 11. What horse shit. 12 isn't shaping up to be much better.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Competition is always good, but I wouldn’t buy an MSI product even if it was the only choice

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, you buy the Deck for the piece of mind with Valve and their support. I wouldn't buy any others just because it's like they are cash grabs on a current trend the Deck set off and none of the companies making them have the best track record for product and customer support.

Perhaps MSI's handheld will be different if they have been developing it for a while, but MSI's quality has always been cheap, so I imagine it will end up being an Ally kind of device.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I do trust Valve more, when it comes to this, but my main reason is that a lot of things MSI make are piss poor quality, and so is their customer support. From the few experiences I've had with them, I would not recommend any of their products, and unfortunately that opinion also aligns with my friends

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Now if EVGA made a handheld on the other hand....

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I'd buy 5

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I miss EVGA :c

Their products weren't completely flawless all the time, but they really made it right, when something went wrong. I had two 1080 FTW2's. One just died and never came back to life, the other caught fire. I imagine both died because of the previously announced thermal issues, that they were recalled for. They were both replaced, and one of the replacement was also replaced again, but since they ran out of stock, they gave me a 1080ti instead. No questions asked. Just explained the situations, and a week later the new card was at home

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Is it a problem with their laptops or something? I've had MSI Motherboards and GPUs and haven't had any issues.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Aw dam, everybody's jumping on this bandwagon now, aren't they? Alienware took a crack at it, then ASUS, and now MSI.

Everybody laughed at GPD for making a handheld PC, and then Valve pulled it off and now everybody wants a piece of the pie

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Good, let them. Let every company take a swing, and let 2-3 actually get a serious foothold that survives as a real option, and becomes a reliable machine.

Theres only been 3 consoles for too long. I love that valve has made the steam deck into a computer console, and want to see more options and variations.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

It was the same thing back when Nintendo released the Gameboy and people started making portable genesises and tiger portables

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Is the market not getting saturated at this point? The non old steam deck is ridiculously cheap.

How many companies can make this work at a profitable level?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It better have trackpads.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I would give up teackpads for a smaller device. or a single trackpad on the back