A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
[Selling] - If you are selling your deck.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
Good to see someone using Linux for their platform on these handhelds. The big reason I don't want to try the Ally or whatever the others are doing is I can't imagine Windows is making the experience better.
I don't really have evidence to support that, but more Linux investment is better overall.
As a long time hand held user, Windows is dog shit (I mean, in general, too)
I stopped buying handhelds because of how many problems they had, until I got a steam deck. Now I'm back to being super interested in the market.
GPD Win's were cool for what they were, but so many trivial issues related to windows.
Competition always is good to have! Glad to see someone finally adopting this awesome OS. It’ll be interesting to see if they implement any new features that are specific to their device.
Dual USB type C is freaking sweet to see!!! More handheld PCs need that.
Honestly if it runs steamOS, I don't even think it could be considered competition. They're on the same team.
Because of how good Proton has become, I'm considering dropping Windows and switching to Arch for gaming at my next upgrade.
Two players developing improvements to Steam OS and Proton can only make things better.
I was thinking of using Bazzite. I use Arch for my work install and have been using Arch for personal use since 2015 with Windows dual boot for gaming. Bazzite/UBlue has really surprised me and if I didn't have an Nvidia GPU I think I would've already migrated completely away from Windows with Bazzite. Container based OSes with immutable root are the future IMO.
Bazzite is great, I've used it for a good while and it's never let me down. Have it on my deck right now, in fact!
I'm tempted to switch to my deck to Bazzite, but I also have everything set up exactly how I want it right now and it seems like a huge pain to set everything up again.
I also know that anytime valve announces a new deck feature update I'll immediately want to check it out.
Totally fair. On the updates, it's a fedora based rolling release of sorts so you get kernel updates way earlier and steam updates just as regularly as vanilla on top, pretty sure it follows the preview branch by default. I remember back when I installed it I had the new color vibrancy slider months before 3.5 hit and the new mesa with smaller shader cache sizes and whatnot too.
Oo, this is the first I've heard of Bazzite. I'll have to go check it out!
Lmk if you happen to need any help with it, I'm no expert but would love to lend a hand!
If you want to switch I really recommend looking up what apps you need and if there's a cross-platform alternative try using it before switching OS. It makes it so much easier if you're used to the applications.
I made the switch around a year ago and only have a handful of games that don't work.
I've played with Linux for the last 15-20 years, so I knew what I was getting into, but also things are in a way better state now than they used to be.
Competition between devices, is what I mean.
But I do see your point and there is another point of this being a cheaper alternative. Either way, I’m just glad to see more choices for SteamOS than one handheld, no matter how solid of a device it is.
None of the other handhelds were competition either. Ultimately they'll all be used to sell games on Steam.
That's partially true, but Valve's long term goal with SteamOS is to break their reliance on windows.
Windows previously had plans to require all new software to be installed through their Windows store, which would have destroyed Steam. Thankfully Windows backed off from this plan, but they are instead pushing windows S mode for new computers. If you buy a budget PC it will probably come locked down where it can only install Windows apps. This can be disabled, but requires you to have administrative privileges on the computer (which many kids/etc won't have). It also requires you to log into the windows store with a Microsoft account to disable it, so they require you to take all the steps to install windows store content before you can choose to not use their store.
It's not going to happen overnight, but I suspect the long term windows plan is to force more people (especially kids) into getting software and games through the Microsoft store. People like to buy games from the same place, so if you get kids started building their PC gaming library in the Windows store they'll be more likely to stick with it even once they have other options.
So companies selling windows handhelds will still help valve out short term, but their long term goal (and the reason they invest so much into Linux) is to no longer be dependent on Microsoft windows to sell games. It's also why they're pushing for Steam on Chromebooks, to both get young users invested in steam and as another windows alternative.
Yes and I'm sure they'll add a 30% tax for the privilege of installing software from their repository. Fucking shmucks just been letting people install whatever software they want for decades when they could have been exploiting them for money.
https://ayaneo.com/article/806
Here is from their website which also says "AYANEO NEXT LITE comes pre-installed with the SteamOS gaming system for the first time".
It's interestingly an 800p display also.
Someone is actually paying attention LOL
Of all the things I would upgrade on the deck, resolution isn't one of them. I have never seen a game look blury on that tiny screen. That said, a lot of them are using higher res panels probably because it is what they can find in bulk.
Text intensive games are hard to read at times on the deck. Magnifier helps, but not ideal. Games like Against the Storm or some digital board games would benefit from higher resolution.
I always felt that was down to screen size more than resolution.
A digital board game is almost always going to feel claustrophobic and difficult to read/take in on a small screen tbh. They have to be designed with that audience in mind, like Civ Revolution 1/2. The information has to be more separated out (meaning way more clicking/tapping/swiping/etc.) or extremely pared down (simplifying the game).
Any word on what the hardware specs are? Someone there used their brain and loaded up SteamOS, but the hardware needs to be worth the jump or it’s just a steam deck clone.
They specifically said "it's not a powerhouse". It's supposed to be a lower power device with a big battery, capable of playing less demanding games for a long time. SteamOS also makes a lot of sense for this goal, since windows handhelds get pretty terrible battery life in low power games. The price is supposed to be low as well, although it's not clear yet if that's just low by Ayaneo's standards or if it will actually be cheaper than the deck.
Sweet. It will be a great opportunity to see what SteamOS can do on non-valve hardware.
Note: There is currently no confirmation that Valve is involved with supplying the SteamOS image to Ayaneo.
Probably running modified Chimera, is my guess.
But honestly, I kind of hope Valve is involved, beating windows at this part of the market is going to do great for Linux and maybe set a precedent for other handheld makers.
They definitely should be cooperating just for the sake of ensuring updates to drivers, etc, are pushed upstream and maintained properly. It makes OS updates much easier for them when they don't need to recompile and tweak stuff every single time they pull Valve's most recent kernel updates and whatnot
Was about time! 😆
Interesting choice to include Aperture Desk Job onscreen in this shot
Why do you say that? It works on PCs. All you need is a controller. The game adapts to the controls you have and the ones you lack.
For example, on my Steam Controller, when it asks you to press the four buttons on the back, pressing the two paddles on the SC emulates the Deck's two on one side and two on the other.
Except it's not. It's been clarified that it's using HoloISO.
Close enough.
Finally a Deck rival I might actually be interested in.
heck yeah
What happens to AyaneoOS then?
From what I heard, they decided to use SteamOS instead. They wanted to avoid "fragmentation", although I'm not sure that would really be a concern for Linux.
I imagine steamOS is going to be a more polished experience than AyaneoOS would have been, and hopefully have better support/updates.
what likely happened is they l9oked at the work they would need to do, then looked at the outcome they would get, compared that against SteamOS and concluded that slightly rebranding it would be the better option (think custom boot splash, maybe more launchers pre-installed)
Great news and I'm sure that more will follow.