Linux

Windows is actually fedware these days. (Fedware that also scams and aggrevates the feds themselves) if you post here you owe it to yourself to dump that hot garbage as soon as you can.

I saw a post on bluesky saying Steamdeck can't be widely adopted because of linux. I asked why is that the case? He says "Linux doesn't run as many games as windows ". I said "only a few and the anti cheat ones". He kept arguing. I asked him about nintendo and he goes "It has the games to back it up" and I blocked him lol.

Millions of games are not enough because its FOMO.

I've been using Linux exclusively for ~14 years now. Heavily gaming on Linux only for the last ~8 years.

It was possible (though sometimes headache inducing) to play most games back then (Wine and soon Proton to thank) the biggest change IMHO came with SteamPlay since it turned the headache into one click on most games (thanks to the amazing work of wine/proton developers and the tinkering of the community).

When the SteamDeck released people seemed surprised at the breadth of games that were running on day one. To me it was not really a surprise since I had been Linux gaming with SteamPlay all the time and was almost expecting games to "just work" (though I still would and still am checking ProtonDB before purchase).

What the SteamDeck changed in my view was

1. Showing "everyone" that Linux Gaming is a thing that's happening and been happening for a while. So maybe check it out?
2. That a Handheld that doesn't have to work around Windows but uses a purpose built OS just makes a lot more sense

I feel that the SteamDeck with SteamOS has really put Linux, especially Linux gaming on the map. Even though I want to be like "Linux Gaming has been a thing forever, I was doing it before it was cool" ;) I have to recognize that fact. In the past years I've seen so many people setting up Linux especially by the way of SteamOS (using HoloISO, Chimera ...) just to play/mess with it which is also why I think an Official SteamOS release will make a huge difference.

Tl;dr: Gaming on Linux was a thing before. But the SteamDeck/SteamOS 3 made a huge impact nonetheless.

Let me preface by saying I love everything Valve has done for Linux gaming and I'm fully aware that Linux wouldn't be where it is now without Steam. With that said... I really don't get the hype for SteamOS on other devices. I mean, it's serviceable if all you do is gaming but it's honestly one of the worst desktop experiences I've ever had (and I've ~~used gnome~~ had many): You need to go into desktop mode to do pretty much anything a regular computer should be able to do and, when you get back into Steam, it closes everything you opened while in desktop mode. This means you have to rely on hacky software to do things you would just be able to do if Steam was better integrated with the desktop. For example, why do I need to install a plug-in to import all of my games from different stores into Steam when I should just be able to alt-tab into whatever launcher I want? No, I will not import other launchers into Steam's launcher and then launch the launcher from the Steam launcher to launch the game — I'm not a crazy person. It feels as if Steam is doing everything in its power to keep me from leaving it and punishes me for daring to try, which honestly reminds me of a certain fruit company. Now, Valve obviously designed SteamOS to be used with a controller and only for games bought from Steam (which is delusional but I digress), so let's assume you are that person: you have your entire game library on Steam and you use a controller as your main input device so you don't see the need to ever leave Valve's walled garden. Then you'd still be better off with any one of the other 37 thousand distros that come with Steam preinstalled because then you at least have access to the desktop Steam UI.

tl; dr: SteamOS kinda sucks, just use a normal distro. Yes, even if you exclusively buy games from Steam.

When SteamOS releases on all devices people will say "I'll switch when every peice of Windows software is compatible" or some other unreasonable and impossible accomplishment. Even if every peice of Windows software was compatible people would say "ill switch to Linux when it looks and functions identically to Windows".

I recently switched to fedora and I didn't think it would be difficult, but it was even easier than I expected. Every game I've tried to play has worked perfectly.

In my case it's a sign I might should try out PC gaming again. I've been console exclusively for like 15 years now because so few games used to work. But with Steamdeck's popularity we might actually start seeing more than 10% of games getting native ports 🤞