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.

[–] rikudou@lemmings.world 7 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I'm pretty sure Valve would be very open to allowing SteamOS

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.

[–] brawleryukon@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

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?

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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.

[–] juja@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

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.

[–] thantik@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

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.