Given many new handhelds coming on the scene and general disinterest of Microsoft to support the market, do you think SteamOS will take place of default OS the same way Android did on phones some time ago?
For the future of PC gaming I sure as hell hope so. People stick to and defend Windows as their go-to 'till the bitter end, likely not realizing Linux could be everything their Windows machine is and there is a real industry player with a lot of money making this reality right now. If we just let it.
If we would just give Linux the critical mass, we could free the last locked aspect of PC gaming, the OS itself. That way we would no longer be at the whims of Microsoft’s decisions because let’s face it, even Windows users hate the shit they do.
Linux, currently, cannot handle everything Windows can unfortunately. Windows also has a massive software support advantage. Valve are in the best place to try and give Linux to the masses, but that’s a lot of work and it won’t have much return for them. Windows getting worse is the way Linux will get more market share, but most people are not power users and will probably just use Windows anyway as it ‘just works’.
Windows, currently, cannot handle everything Linux can. Linux also has a massive software support advantage, running on vastly more hardware and architectures than Windows does.
Linux has already been given to the masses. People use it every day in super user friendly ways; they just don’t realize they’re using Linux.
The only reason people use Windows is because they don’t choose it. Imagine if every PC sold had a Linux option and a Windows option that cost an extra $100. What do you think people would buy?
The same hardware running Linux will easily outperform Windows (especially at the most common end user tasks like web browsing) by a long shot. In a few days NTFS turns 30 years old FFS (LOL).
Any given hardware accessory will “just work” when plugged in to a Linux PC but Windows will require a special driver that you have to go out and find on your own at the vendor’s website that will be bloated AF. It’ll also reinstall it if you change the USB port LOL.
Uh, no. I tried Linux (Mint). I hated it. It doesn’t even have a damn colorblind mode… The best you can hope for is a goofy workaround with some app that’s meant for devs testing colorblind modes, and that may or may not even work. Colorblind mode is a rock bottom basic accessibility feature, especially in 2023, and the most highly recommended distro for people coming from Windows doesn’t even have that.
And it rather shows that average or non-Linux-nerd users, and what they need from their OS, are not a priority at all, which means the system will never be friendly or appealing to them until and unless that changes.
I also personally hated the way it wanted me to install everything from a launcher, vs downloading exe’s from their owners websites that have a lot more info than the generic Linux launcher does.
I hated all the crashes, the requirement for tinkering at random times when I really just needed my PC to work reliably, and the way so many people in the Linux community look down on and/or insult everyone who asks for help with anything or has any gripe about Linux (thus assuring helpful feedback from average users won’t be reporter or heard, their problems won’t be fixed, and confusing UI will remain confusing and bogged down in jargon).
Linus Tech did a good youtube series on what Linux is like to encounter as a newbie. He had problems. When even one of the most popular tech/PC youtubers has problems right out the gate, how can you expect it to work for everyone else?
I want it to get better and become a real conpetitor to Windows, but it just flat out isn’t yet except for specific applications like servers, and pretending it is only insures it won’t ever be. The culture around it is holding it back.
Tl;dr: there are actually quite a lot of people like me who are aware of Linux and choose Windows or Mac instead.
The only reason people use Windows is because they don’t choose it. Imagine if every PC sold had a Linux option and a Windows option that cost an extra $100. What do you think people would buy?
I think they would buy windows, because the software they need to do their job only runs on windows.
I get it you like Linux, so do I. And I just have yet to have a smooth experience with it as a desktop and for games. We talking about the average gaming market here, nothing more, Linux is obviously very powerful and is the most used OS outside of desktops.
Most users have Nvidia cards that still do not play nicely with a lot of Linux setups, although that seems to be coming around now. Linux is a very customisable platform and it can be a lot better than Windows if you spend the time tweaking every aspect of it, but you are kidding yourself if you think Linux is better OOTB than Windows for most users. It’s fine for us to stick our heads into wikis and play around in the terminal, but most people don’t want to bother with all that.
I hope Linux does get more adoption so that support is further improved and I hope it reaches that tipping point where most people can pick up for their everyday machines.
I specifically phrased it “could be” as people tend to believe there are 3 preferences, Mac, Linux and Windows. Linux is not one user experience, it could work exactly like your favorite OS. In the face of SteamOS already being a viable option for the average gamer as Valve is basically strong arming it to be, on Steam Deck you’re not exactly doing PC gaming any good deliberately installing Windows on it. SteamOS just works.
I also think you’re very misguided in thinking it won’t have any return to Valve. Microsoft has to be looking at Google Play Store and whatever the Apple Store is called with a lot of envy with how they’ve managed to lock the entire ecosystem under their stores. This is the end result for Windows as well and its likely anti-competetive clauses are a very bad sign for a company like Valve. Looking back I’m actually impressed just how far back Valve saw this happening. Decoupling PC gaming in its entirety from Microsoft’s vendor lock-ins is in the best interest of all of the companies in the gaming industry, but it takes a rich private company like Valve to start doing the hard work for long term benefits instead of always chasing the short term profits.
Even if tomorrow Microsoft launched something that pulled ahead of SteamOS, it would still be in the gamers’ best interest to stick with the open platform. With a consistent, large userbase on an open platform it will eventually eclipse anything Microsoft could ever muster.
Valve is doing this for strategic reasons and also because they wanted to start the handheld PC market (Steam Deck). Strategic reasons: Microsoft could at any point buy several important gaming studios or distributors, distribute a lot of games (maybe exclusively) via their own store (they even announced that several years ago, but they didn’t do it in the end). MS could even implement small things which make Steam perform worse on Windows, as its 100% controlled by MS. If you compete directly with Microsoft on the Windows platform, you will eventually lose because MS can do some very tiny tweaks which happen to make your product be more annoying or slower to use than Microsoft’s own. That way they’ll still fly under the radar for anti-competitive behavior. So Valve has to ensure that their main business model (selling/distributing games on Steam) remains future-proof, and that means more independent from Microsoft’s agenda. To do this, they need to push a fully neutral, but viable alternative to Windows for gaming. Which is Linux.
The reason Valve is so heavily investing in Linux is that they know that Microsoft could - in theory - flip a switch and kill their business, especially because Microsoft themselves is a competitor to Valve in the form of Xbox and Gamepass.
It’s a defensive tactic, not a money-making venture.
That is indeed a good reason, but while it’s possible for Microsoft to do that, it’s extremely unlikely to ever happen.
And realistically Microsoft has a very good moment coming up in the next few years to effectively kill Steam: Valve only delivers pre-compiled files and does not have access to source code. Therefore Valve is not only stuck with a “Windows-like environment”, they are also shackled to x86. With Apple’s M-processors reigning supreme in the laptop space with insane values for performance-to-powerdraw (and in turn heat radiation and cooling requirements), the days of x86-by-default laptops are probably numbered and more manufacturers may want to switch to ARM, to avoid unfavorable comparisons to MacBooks. With Windows for ARM Microsoft can finally kill of all traces of Win32 in WinRT, as they tried for years and force everyone to use UWP-apps from the store exclusively on ARM. Apple does leave apps behind, when updating their operating systems on a regular basis, a similar move by Microsoft wouldn’t look totally unreasonable. The switch could even happen gradually, like Apple’s Rosetta translation layer, which runs x86 apps on arm great right now, but I don’t think it will be maintained forever and support for x86 apps on macOS will end one day. Microsoft could do the same for Windows for ARM. If this happens Valve will probably have the opportunity to install games as UWP-apps, but their back catalog of Win32 .exes becomes effectively worthless. But if Win32 .exes run great through some translation layer on linux, valve can continue to sell and support their back catalog on current hardware.
Linux, currently, cannot handle everything Windows can unfortunately.
I mean it could, companies just don’t port their software because there’s not enough market share to justify it. And there’s not enough market share because the software isn’t there. and the software isn’t there…
No, Steam doesn’t support arm. So my hacked Switch runs cobbled together emulationstation + xfce + antimicrox + onboard. I don’t like Horizon OS and only SuperTuxKart works flawlessly on Android for me. In SuperTux, the sound desyncs from the game. Minetest doesn’t support gamepads, and I couldn’t find any Android alternative to AntiMircoX. I also just don’t like how 99% of Android apps “need” Google Play Services.
Linux is what I need, but there isn’t any decent interface that isn’t SteamOS (x86 only) or RetroArch (everything must use libretro) or batocera.linux (their version of emulationstation completely shits itself when ran outside of batocera, and I really don’t want to recompile batocera)
There are several x86/x86_64 on ARM emulators in development to solve this problem. The main two are box86 and FEX. Both are able to run Steam on ARM Linux already, with varying degrees of playability. There is also qemu which has been around for much longer, but qemu doesn’t do much in the way of optimizing for speed while these newer emulators forward system and library calls on to native code where possible and use dynamic recompilation for speed.
I was able to play Half Life 2 from Steam on my PinePhone Pro when it first came out using box86. It was sort of playable.
I hope so, but only if the option to install other OS’s remains an easy option. I love android but installing a different operating system on my phone is so much of a pain in the dick that it’s not even worth it.
I feel like I’d probably avoid a handheld if the option to install windows wasn’t there, even if I don’t end up using it much.
If my choice was a default windows install with the option to install steamOS myself, or a default steamOS install with no other options, I’m choosing the windows install every time.
Note: You can actually play Halo on a Steam Deck. I’ve played it with friends over the internet and two of us were on a Steak Deck and Linux desktop. The other two were on Windows. It worked well.
(But, yeah, there still are a few other games that don’t have anti-cheat enabled, such as Fortnite and Destiny 2.)
Most of the SteamOS features are also available on Windows by launching Steam in big picture mode.
No they aren’t. They’re vertically integrated. I don’t think you understand what the SteamOS features actually are. It’s more than just a GUI.
Every negative review of the Ally emphasized windows (and Asus armory crate) as some of the main negatives of the device. Windows gives a worse UI experience, has much higher passive power usage (which prevents you from getting actually good battery life times on low power games like Stardew), and makes things like the deck’s suspend mid game impossible to implement reliability.
You also mentioned that Big Picture mode having most of the features, but it’s missing the QAM and all the nice tools included with that. Asus Armory Crate is supposed to cover some of those, but has had a lot of negative feedback online for not working correctly or having significant downsides like massive deadzones. There’s also a ton of nice features available through decky plugins that are very convenient to use mid game through steamOS.
Not to mention that having windows at all adds to the cost of the device. Average windows license cost for hardware manufacturers is around $50 if I remember right, and they charge more for more powerful hardware. That would be a huge price increase for something like the $400 Steam Deck.
I think SteamOS has a lot to offer, and the only downside (anticheat compatibility) will become a non-issue if steamOS becomes popular enough and companies start targeting it. I really hope to see it available on other devices.
Probably not while ARM handhelds are so popular. I think that it’s a good choice for intel and AMD for now, though.
This is a weird comment to me, SteamOS could have an ARM build, Valve would just need to release a ARM build of their distro (and Steam for Linux).
There’s definitely ARM for lots Linux software and distros, so assuming Valve hasn’t done anything particularly weird, aside from the build infrastructure, that’s probably not even that big of a job.
They would then also “just” need to develop and ship an x86 to arm translation layer, like Rosetta 2.
There are several other emulators that already exist for Linux (that they could contribute to/improve).
Ignoring that for a second though, this is a problem for Windows handhelds as well. If Valve was going to build up the ARM “PC” gaming market though, they’d need to start with making ARM Steam builds available.
Edit: I’m guessing those ARM handhelds aren’t making Valve money and are probably more for emulation themselves (i.e., for Valve to do this, they’d need things in place to where it would benefit them via sales in Steam).
