TL;DR: why does the Steam Deck have a small screen and run Linux? Oh, that’s why.
Kind of strange that this article is written like the author was a fool and then learned their lesson, but hey I’m not a writer.
Yeah, a lot of this stuff is pretty obvious.
This kind of article is good for general people to see though, because a lot of people who haven’t used the deck assume higher resolution screen is better and windows will be better than Linux.
Valve made all these points when the Deck first released, but I guess some people didn’t believe it til other devices ignored their warnings!
People forgot ps2 times where everyone enjoyed 480p 20fps gta games and enjoyed it, now everyone needs 8k 240fps, Nintendo proves again and again that’s gameplay that matters, not fps and resolution
Gameplay is important, but if the Scarlet and Violet launch have taught pokemon fans anything, it’s that QA testing is equally as important.
Just forbid developers to send patches like in ps2 times and games will be complete on day 0, there wasn’t very bad launches like cyberpunk or pokemon or others, it’s clear that developers abusing ability to make patches and launch games in “alpha test” state
I don’t get why the reviews complains about Linux on the Deck - why are they even touching the OS? It’s not needed at all for most cases.
Anticheat.
The casual friendly hyper-monetized nonsense that needs to install malware to “ensure fair play” (or sell loot boxes and spy on you) doesn’t run.
This is one of the few legitimate complaints. Good point.
The funny thing is that Valve actually manage to have some very good working anticheat running but most of the genius companies decided instead of using their own new buggy ( super breakable ) anticheat.
Interesting point. I wonder if this person spent hours trying to get that kind of junk working without an understanding of the OS (Their comfort level was hinted at through the article)
As a Madden addict (not ultimate team, which is a cool idea ruined by monetization, just real teams head to head), I spent a bunch of time trying to jump through hoops to play it on Steam Deck. I went as far as installing windows to a microSD and trying to run it off that (because making it the actual OS or letting it touch my drive was unacceptable to me) before giving up.
I ended up refunding, but I can see the motivation and frustration if something you’re really into doesn’t work when it should. (The previous version didn’t have anticheat and ran like a charm).
Ha. Been there, spending hours and hours trying to get some game working. I’m thankful it’s been so much better in recent years. So much more painful a decade or so ago.
That said, I never had to work around anticheat stuff. That sounds tough.
I wasn’t even trying to bypass it. I had a separate microsd I was going to run windows from just for Madden. But you don’t have a lot of options when they don’t think you’ve given them enough invasive access.
I did bend the knee and get it for PS5 eventually, so I guess they still won.
Why does a madden game need anticheat though
There have been exploits. You could break the AI to get an insta-sack for a while.
I don’t think anti-cheat helped with that though. The actual reason is ultimate team. They don’t want anyone exploiting them instead of paying money.
I can’t play like 5 games.
I don’t get it either, Linux is fine for gaming at this point. Now it’s such a small amount of games that don’t work.
I can’t play like 5 games.
And are those games worth playing? From what I’ve seen it’s mainly battle royale and sports games that have anti-cheat set up to deliberately break Linux compatibility
That really depends on the person, for me, it’s a deal breaker. If your game won’t work on Linux, I won’t play it.
Sadly, I don’t have this luxury with my work software. But I’m hopeful that things will change. I could probably make it work if there was just one app that worked on Linux.
Keep in mind that unless you are working in CAD, you’re almost guaranteed to have a good alternative that works on Linux
Not a small amount it’s a big amount. You have to stop assuming everything is on steam and working outside of steam.
Me playing Alan Wake 2 on my linux desktop:
What?
Can you share some examples that are not in steam that don’t work?
Especially after adding the game to the Steam Library and launching it either through Proton (if it’s a Windows game) or enabling the Steam Runtime (if it’s an ancient Linux game).
Genshin Impact doesn’t work.
Genshin works on my steam deck. You just have to add the installer to steam as a non steam game and then tell it to run in compatibility mode with proton.
Yeah! Been wanting to try
this.It installs to wine prefix.
It’s cross-platform, they
just don’t like Linux, LOL.Also worked on Bottles.
Thanks.Installs on Android on VM via geanymotion
on arch (Garuda Linux). Have not tested android
on steamdeck yet, next.😃
It does, since 3.8 it doesn’t activate mihoyo protect. Besides, there were community projects bypassing the anti-cheat
Huh interesting. Wasn’t aware of that (3.8).
The anti-cheat is so annoying. Really wish they just made it easier to play on Steam Deck. I am aware of the community projects but haven’t tried them yet. Id rather not risk a ban.
That said, I don’t play this game enough to want to install Windows anyways.
Been playing since May on Linux with an FPS unlocker and have no issues. Game requests all shaders on launch so there’s no stuttering
Thanks! I was not aware of this. Do you play this game? It looks interesting, but I’m worried it’s a game that will require me to keep paying to progress.
Not a ton. So it’s not a big deal to me or enough to tempt me to install Windows. But I do wish it worked better with a Steam Deck.
For me I really wish I could use GamePass on my steamdeck. Right now it is mostly collecting dust except for when I go on vacation. It’s still a great machine though.
You can always use the Microsoft provided tutorial to run GamePass through Edge
All browsers games that require installation, Nexon games, foreign games not available in USA or Europe, a game made in custom code or another language, all PC-98 games, CD games (unavailable to be digitally made), servers games like Pangya or NFSW. ETC, the list goes on and on, sure YOU think some of these games are bad or should be gone but that’s besides the point of how not to always use one software for games.
A lot of the games you listed would have the same issue on Windows. Additionally it likes like pc-98 can work on Linux.
I don’t see why CD games wouldn’t work on Linux. You can connect a disk drive just like you can in windows. And can then make an iso of the cd for convenience.
One game you listed, Pangaya shutdown.
I’m not saying everything works on Linux, but at this point the large majority does.
Others have pointed out other titles that are pretty popular that don’t work on Linux. So if that game is important to you, I don’t blame you for not using Linux. I use windows for work for the same reason.
But just be fair.
Star Citizen only works on Windows and also isn’t compatible with Steam.
Let them finish building the game first, then I think it’ll be fair to talk about compatibility.
That’s unfair. By that logic all EA games are also excluded /s
Hey, hey. Let’s not forget Bethesda games.
Star Citizen absolutely works on Linux. I’ve played it myself without issue when I got a drake Corsair
Looks like it works.
https://lutris.net/games/star-citizen/
Lutris can be used as a launcher for games and users can generate launch scripts to get games to work.
I use this only if something does work through proton alone.
Thanks!
I had 3.18 running on my Deck, just as an exercise in my own curiosity. 10-15fps on the lowest settings wasn’t great, but it worked. Credit where it’s due, that’s damn impressive for a PC that fits in your palm.
The only real blocker was that gameplay isn’t feasible on that tiny screen; the game just isn’t intended to played like that.
Dude, most of us have hundreds of games on our Steam accounts with only 1-2 not able to run on Linux. Either you’re a troll or have no idea what you’re talking about
Those 100s of games need modification or changes to the settings that impact your gameplay. That’s not how anyone should play Linux games and shouldn’t be restricted to because of company being lazy about Linux.
None of the ones I’ve played have needed any modification besides turning down graphics settings occasionally. Dunno what you’re on about.
What settings? What impact on gameplay?
For over a year now, I’ve just been buying games, hitting download, waiting, then hitting the big’ol green “PLAY” button, and the game starts up same as windows.
The whole point of proton is that it’s not up to devs to “support” linux, it doesn’t matter if they don’t even try to, proton has gotten so damn good at pretending to be windows that it doesn’t matter anymore.
Even my windows VR games work with it.
The windows versions of games in proton, sometimes run better than poorly made native linux ports.
Familiarity.
If an alternative isn’t 100% identical to a tool one is used to, one automatically has reservations, and the slightest inconvenience immediately turns into a blocking issue. On the other hand, one is typically inclined to ignore problems with tools one is used to.
There isn’t much one can do about this, other than trying to keep an open mind, and being aware of that bias.
Yeah but you don’t even need to see the underlying OS, just the familiar Steam client. I love Linux and use it on all my PCs and servers, but I never use desktop mode on the deck, no need to when all your games are on Steam.
I’d get a complaint like “some of my games don’t run”, but I honestly don’t understand what he means when he writes “Wrestling with Linux on my Steam Deck has been a nightmare since day one”.
They do mention emulators, and I honestly don’t know which ones are available on Steam - and you still need to copy the ROM files somewhere…
As a Linux user I find that rather easy to do, even on Steam Deck with immutable root FS, but I can understand how a Windows user might get frustrated by it.
I did use desktop mode to install emudeck. The install process is fully automated, but yeah you have to find your way around a unix FS to download and play roms I guess, but creating a folder and moving files around with dolphin is not that complicated, and he’s a writer for a tech news site…
You also need to transfer the ROM files, what either means using a USB drive, takig out the SD Card, or using some form of network file transfer. The Steam Deck comes with sshd preinstalled, so gaining sftp access is just a matter of enabling it, but most guides to do so just mention how to do it on the command line… And for some weird reason Windows users seem to be afraid of terminal windows… (I just had to google if there even are graphical frontends for systemd… The answer is of course yes.)
I’ve installed EmuDeck a couple of times and I don’t think I’ve had to use the terminal. And if I did all I was asked to do was type my sudo password
I’m talking about sftp access. The sshd is disabled by default, and the deck user doesn’t have a password set either. If you want to push your ROM files over to the deck over network, you need some way to tell systemd to start sshd - the usual one being
sudo systemctl start sshd.
Personally I like my ROG Ally because with NTFS file system I can run all of my games, including the ones on my Xbox game pass, which is not something I can currently do with Linux-based handhelds.
That being said, I spent literally like three hours decluttering the OS because it ships with a stock Windows 11 which is full of bloat and bullshit. Spent a while with Win10privacy disabling/uninstalling all the useless crap. Why does my game console have Teams? Why does my enterprise computer have the Xbox app? Stupidity all around.
If Chimaera had better support for the ROG I’d look into dual booting, and with the chip being AMD, I have full confidence that eventually I can probably put Linux on that handheld and it will run better and last longer than it does with Windows, because of all the optimizations written into SteamOS being forked for other projects. Right now, there are some things that don’t work with Chimaera on other handhelds. I think there’s some gimmicky hacks I need to implement for the ROG for baseline things like speaker audio and bluetooth support.
We will see how much support Microsoft provides for their handhelds long-term, in terms of optimizing the OS. So far, they’ve done fuck all though. SteamOS gets better performance patch after patch.
great comment summing about the current deal.
No doubt deck is limiting in these ways and this fact should not be down played.
Once you accept the limitations, it is a great product and you are voting with your money for further development of linux as platform for gaming, which is I think why many people are exited about it. Gaming enshitiffication over last 5 years is out of hand. Got to fight back.
The Deck is incredible, and if I didn’t get the ROG two weeks before the OLED was announced, I would have probably gotten the OLED and eaten the loss of my Game Pass games.
I’m not following what your first point has to do with the filesystem?
Xbox Launcher/Gamepass games only install on NTFS. They don’t work on EXT4 or BRTFS.
They also only work on Windows right? So the FS is kinda moot
Did you even read my comment at all?
ROG Ally runs Windows.
With the SD card you can have it exFAT but if you want to use it for Xbox launcher games it has to be NTFS.
But as a comparison to the Steam Deck, it doesn’t make any sense.
It’d be like saying that a bonus of the Steam Deck is that you can use ext4 for everything.
I dual boot Windows 11 on mine, and it makes me feel like a deviant on this site. I just slapped Playnite on it, and it became fine enough for GP games.
Unless the game isn’t on steam, then you do have to touch the OS
it came with some unexpected problems. The biggest one came from the feature I was most excited about: Windows.
With the increasing popularity of these different form factors and device types, it seems like people are finally starting to realize just how horrible Windows is… especially for gaming.
I just wish Valve spent a bit more time squashing bugs. I’m on my third deck after the first one had a dead screen and the second one bricked itself through a mandatory update. The third one is better, but even tonight on stock software, the deck refused to play nice with two Xbox One controllers and a Switch Pro controller during 4 player games of Towerfall. Great game, just wish we didn’t spend so much time with controllers disconnecting, menus freezing onto the screen, and pairing issues. It’s so close in some regards to contemporary platforms. But it’s so frustrating whenever I need it to work in party settings, and it falls flat on its face where my windows laptop just…doesn’t. :/
Yeah that’s where windows shines is devices. Windows supports more random devices than Linux. Linux might have the most drivers for devices but they are half baked most of the time and with windows you know that’s the supported and tested platform for it. Linux needs serious buy in from vendors before it becomes big and the only way to get that is a large audience. It’s a catch 22 that Linux folks won’t admit it exists.
Yeah, I know, I’ve dabbled with Linux on and off for nearly a decade at this point, hehe. It’s just annoying when I just want things to work for a fun little post-thanksgiving match with the younger generation. It’s a bummer when it turns to troubleshooting for 15 minutes while everyone sits there. I really wish Linux was a bit more…er…professional, in that regard. Some stuff still feels a bit homemade even on first-party devices all these years later.
I just want them to focus on the basics right now, like bluetooth Xbox controllers. VKB flight sticks eventually, haha.
Yup, I think the core design philosophy is the fault and thus the janky always behind the times Linux os will never be a leader. It’s because there is no driving force to make something coherent, well polished, and unique in a productive way. When your design philosophy is everyone design and implement by committee nothing will feel like it has a goal.
I use a Bluetooth Xbox series controller all the time with my deck and my Linux desktop. What kind of trouble does it give you?
The Xbox controller(s) won’t pair, they essentially have to be added each time or wait 5-10 minutes. The switch controller was worse, disconnecting about every 10 minutes.
Sometimes, the Xbox controllers would duplicate their movements or even switch from p1 to p3, but perhaps that was the game. Both are Xbox one and switch pro controllers, but these are what…6, maybe 7 years old at most?
They usually have worked wired, so I think Bluetooth is just a shitty standard in general. But there’s some weird quirks that even windows doesn’t have. Just a bummer when I assume everything will work without cables and then it devolves into lots to troubleshooting and restarts in front of guests, lol
Interesting, i havent had any of those issues with my controllers; Granted on my primary rig I use the USB dongle for my Xbox Series controller, but I use Bluetooth fine on my Steam Deck when I’m playing docked. Sucks to have trouble when you’re trying to show off for sure though lol
My experience may be dated, but I’ve always had issues with controllers on Windows and Linux. Less so with Linux these days because my controllers are dated and the drivers are in the mainline kernel.
The biggest issue was solved with steam and it’s controller interface / community layouts.
What controllers are you using that don’t work on Windows? One of the most commonly used PC controllers are Xbox controllers and they work amazingly on Windows. On Linux they suck and have constant issues. For the cheapest options something like Logitech works better on Windows and typically just use the same API as the Xbox controllers.
Nintendo controllers 😬
Ah, yes, using non-PC controllers on a PC does sound like a nightmare.
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Yeah, as soon as I read that I stopped. The writer is an idiot
Yeah, but… think about it for a second: we’re now in a world where a Linux-based OS is, in certain contexts, better for playing games built for Windows than Windows.
As a person who’s been running Linux on his devices for almost 30 years now, that’s incredible and I absolutely understand why folks would’ve initially been skeptical.
not defending the author, but there were plenty of people with a “no windows no buy” mentality prior to the steam deck release.
It is surprising to still see them around.
Were Valve to let its competitors implement SteamOS on their devices
…
That would be great though, not sure if that’s possible yet
I think the original comentor was bemoaning that Valve isn’t keeping anyone from installing SteamOS on their device. There are already enough community projects to jump off of.
They said that they would release it properly and I don’t believe they have yet.
Correct, though they still claim to have intentions to do so once it’s ready
More recently, they’ve also said they are happy to work with any manufacturers who want Steam OS for their devices, and encouraged them to reach out to Valve and they’ll work together to get things working.
My assumption is that the real reason we aren’t seeing more movement on it, is that a lot of the other handheld makers are using full Windows compatibility as a marketing point, and I also doubt Valve is going to help get other game stores working on Steam OS. It’s not that weird if Valve makes a handheld that only officially supports Steam, but it might seem a little weird if Asus or Lenovo released a handheld that only officially supported buying games on Steam.
I suppose a device that could dual boot Windows and Steam OS could be a solution, but knowing how Windows updates can sometimes randomly bork dual boot setups, I could see that being a potential problem as well.
Ideally Epic, Humble Games, GOG, and the remaining publishers that have made their own stores and launchers should get their games and launchers working under Linux/Proton, but I think the current plan is for hardware companies to make a bunch of mediocre Windows handhelds, and hope Microsoft gets off their ass and makes a version of Windows tailored for the form factor. But there really isn’t much motivation for Microsoft to do that, because they’d probably rather just launch their own Xbox handheld and keep that for their own gaming walled garden. Gamepass already gets them onto pretty much every other platform, so why should they care?
Excellent case of “We told you so” 😂
Dude pretty much went
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