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[kingfey]

Jorge and Wes talk over the recent Steam Deck hands-on and everything we've learned from the event.

 

[Fredrik]

Good video
Sounds great. I think I’ll just install Windows, not a fan of locking myself in to a Steam garden on a hardware level, wouldn’t do that on my PC.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Good video
Sounds great. I think I’ll just install Windows, not a fan of locking myself in to a Steam gardern on a hardware level, wouldn’t do that on my PC.

Uh.

Perfectly fine with a Windows garden, then?

Linux is the more open platform, if anything. SteamOS 3.0 is just a gamepad-friendly frontend (for all intents and purposes) with extra features on top of it.

 

[kingfey]

Uh.

Perfectly fine with a Windows garden, then?

Linux is the more open platform, if anything. SteamOS 3.0 is just a gamepad-friendly frontend (for all intents and purposes) with extra features on top of it.

Windows is open platform. Don't know what you are talking about.

The platform allows you to download VM, and use other OS.

 

[Fredrik]

Uh.

Perfectly fine with a Windows garden, then?

Linux is the more open platform, if anything. SteamOS 3.0 is just a gamepad-friendly frontend (for all intents and purposes) with extra features on top of it.

I don’t feel like Windows is closed in any way at all, I can do what I want and install what I want and I can run Steam and get full game support without any conversion layer and I’ll get Gamepass, EGS, GOG etc without unofficial jank etc.
Only problem. Does Steam Deck have drivers if you install Windows? And how does it work on a small screen?

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Windows is open platform. Don't know what you are talking about.

The platform allows you to download VM, and use other OS.

That was mostly my point, yes. If you consider there to be a "Steam garden" on the Deck, then Windows is a much worse one - when even Windows is fairly open already.

I don’t feel like Windows is closed in any way at all, I can do what I want and install what I want and I can run Steam and get full game support without any conversion layer and I’ll get Gamepass, EGS, GOG etc without unofficial jank etc.
Only problem. Does Steam Deck have drivers if you install Windows? And how does it work on a small screen?

There is no unofficial jank, not any more than there is any "official" non-jank on Windows. You use third-party programs to access third-party games and software in either case. And everything I heard so far about Lutris was good. Heck, the unofficial Linux EGS client has more features than the official Windows one.
About the only thing you'll really gain from using Windows is Gamepass. And you'll get all the overhead from Windows background processes and services.

As for the latter questions - I expect it'll work with relatively few issues, the integrated gamepad probably identifies as a regular gamepad in the system and it's just down to AMD to provide the proper drivers, but... about the only game store you'll be able to comfortably use will be the one that actually bothers with UX for gamepads and touch - i.e. Steam.

 

[Fredrik]

That was mostly my point, yes. If you consider there to be a "Steam garden" on the Deck, then Windows is a much worse one - when even Windows is fairly open already.


There is no unofficial jank, not any more than there is any "official" non-jank on Windows. You use third-party programs to access third-party games and software in either case. And everything I heard so far about Lutris was good. Heck, the unofficial Linux EGS client has more features than the official Windows one.
About the only thing you'll really gain from using Windows is Gamepass. And you'll get all the overhead from Windows background processes and services.

As for the latter questions - I expect it'll work with relatively few issues, the integrated gamepad probably identifies as a regular gamepad in the system and it's just down to AMD to provide the proper drivers, but... about the only game store you'll be able to comfortably use will be the one that actually bothers with UX for gamepads and touch - i.e. Steam.

Linux is open but is SteamOS open? Isn’t it just running Linux behind the scenes but all you see is something like big picture mode? If you’d somehow exit that you’ll likely end up looking at a cli like when you exit a RetroPi, no?

 

[SomeGit]

Linux is open but is SteamOS open? Isn’t it just running Linux behind the scenes but all you see is something like big picture mode? If you’d somehow exit that you’ll likely end up looking at a cli like when you exit a RetroPi, no?

It has a KDE desktop and it's based on Arch, so you can just alt tab and use it, pacman should also be available so you'll likely be able to install any package from AUR.

 

[Fredrik]

It has a KDE desktop and it's based on Arch, so you can just alt tab and use it, pacman should also be available so you'll likely be able to install any package from AUR.

Oh cool I didn’t know this, that changes things, I assumed it would be command line madness when you exit Steam.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Oh cool I didn’t know this, that changes things, I assumed it would be command line madness when you exit Steam.

Yep, it was known since the IGN previews. Tab out of Steam, and you have this to look at:

So it's definitely just as open as Windows, it just presents the Steam frontend first since it's what works best in handheld.