this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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I hope they ditch Windows and use SteamOS or any Linux variant at this point.
The Steam Deck’s OS is one of its best features and Windows is not viable for handheld devices.
And what’s better is that it’s free! There is no reason to slap on an extra $100 to pass onto the consumer because you had to pay some corporation a license for using their OS, giving them more market share they don’t deserve.
One of the best and most needed features of a handheld has to be the standby feature too. The ability to “lock” the device mid-gameplay and come back to it is not only good but necessary. Windows doesn’t have anything like this but SteamOS on the Deck does!
And if they want to one-up the Deck, PLEASE give us more than one USB port. Even if it is USB Type C and a USB A port, that’s better than one port that has to be shared for charging and everything else.
SteamOS is definitely at a point where I could see it being used on other handhelds now. Valve wants to eventually open it up to be installed on any device, so it might be a smart move for MSI to talk with Valve to support SteamOS on their new handheld.
Windows has its strengths, but my god, handheld devices aren't one of them. I've not seen a single one of these windows handhelds that don't have weird janky software problems with the overlays and quick settings menus they have, suspend/resume, etc.
Linux is just the natural pairing for devices like these, and I'm pretty sure Valve would be very open to allowing SteamOS or a fork of it on MSI's devices.
The entire reason Valve tried Steam Machines and is now doing the Deck is to try to get out from MS's grasp. The more devices running Linux the better from Valve's perspective.
Well, not really, otherwise they would prioritize making it easy to install for 3rd parties. IIRC, there's close to no documentation. Of course MSI (and everyone else) can fork it, but I don't assume many companies would want to sell a device with an OS without official support from the creators.
There'd almost certainly be a different level of support given to a name-brand OEM who approached Valve to use their OS in a shipping product compared to what Valve's giving to the community at large.
They clearly don't think the software's ready to just be installed on anything quite yet, but if MSI approached them with a fixed hardware platform and said they wanted to ship it with SteamOS, you don't think Valve would work with them to make that happen?
I think that's more to do with them not wanting to provide support and not deal with the headache of people installing steamOS on Nvidia hardware, which doesn't always play nice with Linux (insert that pic of Linus Torvalds).
I mean the new steam deck UI-inspired big picture mode got delayed months (for everyone) purely down to quirks with Nvidia. Imagine a whole OS, with everyone going online and blaming Valve for it or calling Linux junk.
I remember reading a post here about steam looking to make steamOS available for other handhelds. I think it would make sense for them to get other handhelds to use steamOS , as that may drive up steam usage and sales.
And unlike Android, that has had everything stripped from the native userland experience - the SteamDeck is a real OS. It's an "actual" Linux device that is popular. Which shows that Windows isn't the end-all-be-all to Gaming.
It's so much more performant.
Steam deck os is good, but it's important to remember that it's highly designed around the specific steam deck hardware. Using it with other kinds of hardware doesn't work so well right now. The standby mode in particular.
Luckily there are better options than SteamOS for other hardware, such as ChimeraOS and Bazzite - you get pretty much the same features as SteamOS + optimizations got non-deck hw + extra goodies.