Even gamers nexus’ Steve today said that they’re about to start doing Linux games performance testing soon. It’s happening, y’all, the year of the Linux desktop is upon us. ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ
Edit: just wanted to clarify that Steve from GN didn’t precisely say they’re starting to test soon, he said they will start WHEN the steam OS releases and is adopted. Sorry about that.
Powered by Steamos and Stamos are not to be mixed up
I jumped into Linux, via Mint, about a year ago when I refreshed my hardware. The transition was pretty easy, and I haven’t looked back. Steam runs fine and I haven’t had a modern game that didn’t work under default proton settings except for things I’ve run outside Steam and mods. Most of my personal PC’s workload is gaming and handful of web-based apps that are effectively OS-agnostic; Everything else has an easy equivalent in the apt repos.
I would say that my decision to embrace Linux as my OS was primarily influenced by my Steam Deck. Gaming on it has been simple and the desktop UI was easy to adapt to. I replaced my laptop with the Steam Deck, bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and a USB-C dock with HDMI out (all things I already had for the laptop). I now just hook into whatever TV is handy as a monitor when I need a computer on the go.
I was a tech enthusiast when I was younger, and am thus familiar with fucking around on the command line, but now I’m an old man who just wants his stuff to work and it just has… The barrier of entry for the Linux Desktop is effectively gone. We just need PR now.
Also, I think I’d replace Mint on my primary PC with SteamOS, given a simple way to do so. About a year ago, the desktop/beta SteamOS was not fully baked.
You should give Bazzite a go on your desktop, it’s very similar to SteamOS and the desktop experience has been great for me. I didn’t have a Steam Deck and transitioned to it, and the smoothness convinced me to get a Lenovo Legion Go and install Bazzite straight OOTB.
let’s goooo
I thought this had already happened?
I remember seeing ads on Steam for SteamOS years ago—wasn’t there a point at which you could download and run it on your own computer? What happened?
From what I recall, it wasn’t something you could easily use like a normal distro, and that version was based on Debian (so stable but outdated software). It only worked on some hardware, and you had to do a full system wipe.
More likely, this is them officially partnering with handheld or gaming laptop makers, using their latest Arch-based distro and allowing them to use Valve/Steam branding as a selling point.
I think modern steamos is based on a different distro then it was then. Also proton is good enough now to justify switching for a lot of people
Old steam os was an Ubuntu derived OS. Ubuntu has issues relating to the organization that runs it. New steam os is basically a coat of paint on top of Arch which is community based. The old os is deprecated.
The version on steam deck is fantastic, but they have been polishing it for desktop use for a while now. I can’t wait to have it available.
Ah, ok—was it also immutable like the new one is?
If I recall correctly, this has never happened the way it’s happening now. It was a matter of “hey, you can fork it on GitHub and make your own iso thing”, hence why there was a “holoiso” or something like that that (I keep forgetting the name) where people used if they wanted to install steamOS on a device. This one is straight supported by valve. Like “hey, here is our official steam OS that we use on our steam deck. Use it and we will support you”.
Iirc the original steamOS was Debian based and you really had to be an experienced Linux user to use and enjoy it.
With the new steamOS (arch based?) it’s a much more streamlined experience and opens up the user base because of it
My understanding is the big change here is that they’re specifically making it available to other handheld manufacturers, which is huge, because windows handhelds have not been great because of how much the bloat of Windows steals performance and battery life. They’re making steps to make SteamOS (I.e. Linux in general) the default OS for handhelds and non-console dedicated gaming machines in general.
If it works, it will put tremendous pressure on publishers to support linux, which is great.
A close friend of mine hates Linux with a passion. He always sends me meme about how terrible Linux is. He has the ROG Ally, he texted me the other day to tell me he had to put Bazzite OS on it because it was dogshit on windows. He loves it now. Lmao.
Oh, how the turn tables…
Every game I bought on Steam under Windows runs great on Steam in Linux Mint. The few games I didn’t buy on Steam (Deus Ex, Giants: Citizen Kabuto) run great on Wine, using the default settings.
Adopting Proton was the smartest thing Valve ever did. They’re going to get about 90% of gamers migrating from Windows to Linux, who don’t want to fiddle with configuration settings.
I just build a new gaming/creative pc, decided to make the jump to linux mint while i was setting up something new. And I honestly expected more hickups than i got, nothing which a quick search didn’t fix except for one. My xbox controller won’t connect over Bluetooth, it works when connected through a cable though. But I also noticed some stick drift, so I’m tossing it and order an 8bitdo which has those magentic sticks (forgot the name) and linux compatibility.
I have an 8bitdo controller. It’s ace:
- no issues with connection because it’s dongle (but does support BT)
- turns itself off with PC (always flakey on Xbox controller)
- hall effect joysticks so stick drift shouldn’t be an issue
- it’s detected as an Xbox controller so it works with most games
I’m hoping for a Christmas sale the next few days. But I cant wait too long. Besides the point stick drift is infuriating while gaming, I also have a cat. Anything that wiggles is fair play for those claws, and that cord be wiggling.
That sounds great, are there different models? What are you using?
There are. Some work with xbox’s, some have docks. This is the one I got: https://shop.8bitdo.com/products/8bitdo-ultimate-2-4g-controller-with-charging-dock-hall-effect-joysticks
Not the person you asked, but don’t get the dongle-only version. Upgrade to the version with Bluetooth. The former is cheaper, but it gives me trouble on Linux, and I’ve never seen people complain about the Bluetooth version (I think it’s called the 8bitdo Ultimate?).
This one? It says Bluetooth is only for Apple devices.
Nope, this one:
It should be compatible with everything.
Thanks! How does that “ultimate software” for PC work, is it necessary?
My brief time using it, it’s how you set up profiles (for sharing a controller or using specific layouts for different games), it’s how you tell the controller what buttons the back paddles map to, and it’s how you update the firmware.
It’s not really necessary, in my experience, unless you want to use the back paddles. Steam Input just sees the controller as a standard xinput device, so the back paddles are otherwise ignored.
Seconding the other person asking which model you’ve got. I don’t see Linux compatibility listed on the web pages for the few models I just looked at. I also didnt see them list an included dongle, but thats something I’d be very interested in. Also do they all detect as Xbox controllers, or only the Xbox style ones?
I run Fedora, No issues with dongle. All are detected as Xbox controller (atleast by Steam). This is the one I got: https://shop.8bitdo.com/products/8bitdo-ultimate-2-4g-controller-with-charging-dock-hall-effect-joysticks
I have an 8bitdo controller, and it’s given me nothing but trouble. It’s a dongle-only version (non-bluetooth, but cheaper), and it has some weird bug where the controller is recognized as both an xinput device and a keyboard. I’ve tried updating the firmware to no avail.
I’ve heard other people sing praises about the Bluetooth version, so I think people should avoid being a cheapskate on this one.
Oh that’s a shame. This is the one I’ve got and it’s been perfect: https://shop.8bitdo.com/products/8bitdo-ultimate-2-4g-controller-with-charging-dock-hall-effect-joysticks
The Steam controller 2 will be releasing soon if you want trackpads and extra buttons. I also think Valve is licencing to third parties. IIRC 8bitdo will make a Steam Controller
The Steam controller 2 will be releasing soon
I think I’ve just been avoiding news in general for a while. This is GREAT to hear! I still love my OG Steam Controller. Great little piece of hardware.
To fix your Xbox controller issue, you’ll need to do a firmware update on the controller itself. And that can only be done on windows unfortunately (unless you can figure out how to do it in a VM). Then when the firmware is updated, you install Xpadneo and you should be golden. How do I know? This is exactly what I had to do thanks to a random redditor who chimed in to help when I had this same issue. My controller now works on Bluetooth with zero issues.
I guess your the kind random
redditorlemmytor(?) now. That did the trick.Yay. So happy I was able to pass on the kindness. I love Linux
I never really gamed on PC except for Command and Conquer Red Alert and Age of Empires 2. I still got a Steam Deck and it replaced my PC and not just for gaming.
To anyone reading this thinking “once SteamOS comes out, I’ll switch”, you should know:
Gaming on Linux is already here. Pick a distro and game. You can take advantage of Proton right now. You don’t need to wait for one specific distro.
I’ve personally been gaming on Linux exclusively for about 3 years. Windows games, not Linux games.
Tbh the vast majority of people who say “ill switch to (insert Linux distro here) when (insert accomplishment here)” will most likley never switch
Fair enough. I tend to agree, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, because, you know, FOSS and freedom.
For all the not super technically inclined people out there, I would recommend Linux mint with cinnamon, you’ll feel right at home and won’t face any real issues so long as you don’t want to play LoL, a few other big multiplayer games have anti cheat systems that don’t like Linux.
“Pick a distro” is why they’re waiting for steamos, presumably.
This is fair. I should have given my own suggestions.
Mint is probably the choice at the moment for new folks. Also, this will be controversial, but feel free with Ubuntu. It will get you started, and that’s great.
Edit: I added some (open-ended) suggestions to my original comment.
I actually think mint is a terrible choice for beginners because it’s not kde, which is by far the best for windows people, and it isn’t immutable, which is a gamechanger for not having to maintain your system
I see the point about KDE, though I don’t think the learning curve on Cinnamon is hefty. I also think that KDE being so configurable can seem overwhelming to new folks.
As someone who gives kde to new folks all the time, most of them never configure anything and this isn’t a real problem any of them face. I mostly give this to the elderly and tech illiterate.
I think that is perfectly valid and I’ll happily recommend steamos to newcomers. I’m only a little worried about it being locked to flatpaks by default though. Hopefully that will change, but for most users it will be a good start.
locked to flatpaks by default makes sense long-term, I think.
Might be a little difficult in the beginning though.
Locked to flatpaks? aren’t they worried about the disk space?
The marginal extra disk spaces used by flatpak really isn’t a concern for most users, much less valve. If you do everything in flatpak and your apps only use current runtime versions, the additional space used by flatpak is in the megabytes, since libraries like libc are going to be on your host no matter what.
One flatpak uses a lot of extra disk space, but for each additional flatpak you add to a system the disk space difference is much smaller because they share dependencies. When it’s system-wide for all user-installed packages, the difference is quite small.
I was under the impression the didn’t shared dependencies thus eating space.
They don’t share dependencies with the base system, but they do share dependencies with each other, so long as those dependencies are at the same version, which most of them are because flatpaks generally stay quite up to date.
I wouldn’t say SteamOS for new folks, tbh. Flatpaks are very different from the typical Linux flow.
The typical linux flow is not important to learn for most and flatpak is easier for the vast majority of people to understand and deal with
furthermore flatpak is rapidly becoming the typical linux flow
Sons is mostly playing Valorant right now on Windows 11. I’m an old dude familiar with FreeBSD, and Debian. No clue about running games and stuff though. Would he be able to switch?
Yes, anti-cheat specifically is a problem. That’s you fighting against the corpos, to be clear. Not really an issue with gaming on Linux itself.
Some Linux Competitive Multiplayer games that generally “just work” and perform well under Linux: Insurgency Sandstorm, Hunt Showdown, Hell Let Loose, Dead by Daylight, Battlebit
It’s the only category of games that doesn’t work, they use kernel windows modules for anti-cheat and they don’t have any plans to support
To be 100% honest, probably not, and you may need to confirm with someone who knows Valorant. The big issue is anti-cheat, the detectors in use for major multiplayer games tend to lose their minds when they see Linux as they’re typically only built for Windows. Other than anti-cheat, it wouldn’t surprise me if it played better on Linux. Some of the low level magic has improved a lot in recent years, but official support is mandatory for multiplayer.
No riot game works on linux
Given their rivalry with Valve (I’m sure Riot see it as a rivalry at least, Valve probably don’t) I wouldn’t put it past Riot to want to avoid SteamOS and Linux by extension until significant market share is available.
It’s actually surprising how easy it is to use.
My wife was playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on her windows laptop (GOT version, DRM free) and I just wanted to see if I can run it on my Linux laptop.
Just copied the game folder from her laptop to my external SSD, plugged it into my laptop, ran through proton. Everything works without any issues. Simple as that.
I was pleasantly surprised. We could even join via LAN and had some co-op fun. After trying it out I think I’m buying the game.
Exactly this. Many people have a lot of apprehension until they actually try it.
ran through proton
See, this is after where most gaming folks hop off.
In all fairness, if you just run Lutris (pre-installed on Bazzite), log into GOG from there and install and run the game through their wizard, it also “just works”.
That might be easier for most.Probably true, it depends. There are Steam folks and then there are GOG folks.
I prefer GOG tbh because it’s DRM free, but for some games I still need Steam, unfortunately.
What you just said is so much more difficult than running games through proton isn’t it??
For me, yes. But this is all using hands-holding Windows-like UIs, please realise that the recent-ish influx of Linux gamers understand this much, much better than terminals.
Although, I’m not sure how to install Proton as a CLI package on Mint, for instance.
aptdoesn’t list it, but Steam and Lutris do install it internally…You just go to steam settings > compat > enable for all games and then it just works for all games on steam
I’m not sure if you’re reading my messages but I’m saying I’m not sure how to do Proton outside of Lutris and Steam. And that CLI outside of a launcher sounds more convenient, but gave Lutris instructions for someone running a game not from Steam.
okay, that is different, sorry.
for that
step 1. install wine-tkg
step 2. right click a .exe > properties, set wine-tkg as the default
left click on .exe’s to open
done
I haven’t used Windows for more than a decade, and I am genuinely surprised reading your post that the game works in this manner even if with proton/wine layer.
I can’t help but think that this is an exception, and would attribute this behaviour to how the game is made. I wonder what other software function this way.
I don’t even check ProtonDB anymore before buying a game. It just works the vast majority of the time, even without additional configuration.
In my experience pretty much everything works this easily. Steam games are a click away, Linux support or not. For things outside of steam you can either copy the install folder from a Windows install or just run the installer through Proton.
I’ll switch when 10 finally dies, they state Oct 2025 but if even less people go to 11 they won’t really have a choice but to keep 10 up and running. Make 10 the last Windows OS ever. Never go to 11.
But… Why not now? I can’t think of a single reason.
Personally, my last holdout on my desktop is VR, and I’d rather not dual boot.
My laptop has been running Linux for years now, although I’ve been having some issues with it lately, possibly due to repeated in-place upgrades, so I’ve been thinking of switching away from mint to a rolling release distro. Although, I have to say, NixOS’s philosophy is really compelling.
I have a friend that regularly games in VR in Linux. Admittedly, he’s always faffing around with it to make it work. But he’s also a bit of a chaotic person that runs Arch, so that could just be him and not a failing of the current level of support.
Out of sheer curiosity is he using a fancy Steam VR kit like an HTC Vive or something?
I’ve fully switched over to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed at this point but I’m so bummed out my Samsung Odyssey is relying on heroic support from Monaco dev(s?) to even have a hope of it running.
But Windows is killing WMR too and they don’t care, so OS really isn’t an issue here. I’m keeping my Win10 partition there getting dusty though, because it still has WMR on it. =\
Samsung Odyssey w/ GTX 2060.
He’s using Monando built with Envision without the steamvr-monado Plugin because “it slows everything down”.
Whaaat that’s crazy interesting! Thanks for replying!
I know there’s been a lot of progress made with Monado on these units but the controllers are still no-go from my understanding. Is he using the controllers or just the HMD? :O
I might just have to spend a weekend figuring out how to build Monado hahaha.
Make sure your hardware is compatible. Otherwise you have to deal with kernel upgrades to get latest drivers, which is advanced linux stuff. My gpu (B580) is compatible with 6.12 and newer kernel. And I wasn’t able to install newer kernel on linux Mint 22. Ended up installing Windows. And… It’s not that bad. I haven’t seen it for a while. Everything works better in my case. And you can uninstall all you don’t need including edge. But I will go back when kernel I need will be shipped with distro.
This is generally true, but I’d also caution that the B580 is a brand new card with (somewhat lacking) Linux support.
In general, if you aren’t using bleeding edge hardware, you won’t have such issues. This is especially true of AMD hardware, which tends to be extremely Linux friendly.
Some game developers (AGS) won’t turn on EAC for their games (Lost Ark).
PC gamers moving to console? What’s next the existing consoles adopting keyboard+mouse?..
There is no downside to this
Consoles have accepted keyboard+mouse for years now! Microsoft started with the Xbox one and Sony started with the PS3; Though there were select games for generations prior that supported k+m through their own implentations
Whelp I tried to switch several years ago to PopOS! as daily driver. Everything was fine and dandy until I tried to use the side buttons of my Razer mouse or my Keychron M3. Short story: not plug-and-play-able. This is a non negotiable feature for me. Maybe I’ll find some motivation between the years to tinker again…
This is not a Linux issue, I’m sure you know that. It’s the manufacturer who doesn’t want to support Linux. Also, many things work now. I have a reddragon mouse and all of the side buttons on it work just fine. As for keychron, I have the V6 and V5 and I use VIA to program the buttons and everything else on it and it works with 0 issues. Maybe give that a shot?
I don’t understand this tbh. It’s here already. SteamOS will likely be just like the deck - immutable arch running the existing steam package.
You can totally do this today and it works great. Don’t want to mess with arch and that confusing command line? Use something easier like mint and install the flatpak - then you don’t even have to futz with nvidia drivers. Or use bazzite?
What does steamOS offer that we don’t already have? (Serious question)
I think it’s mostly a matter of having it preinstalled.
The perception is that if it’s pre installed, then it is designed for the device.
these people need permission from a massive corporation calling it something other than Linux so they can dodge the cognitive dissonance of hating Linux
Or rather, there’s someone who isn’t going away anytime soon and someone who you can go to if their shit screws up, someone with an actual address and support number, and it’s not just a Github issue tracker page that hasn’t been seen by the owner in months.
Some people want that peace of mind. Some people aren’t built to scour the internet for hours to maybe find solutions to their problems.
…do people really do that with Microsoft, or do they just throw the errant device in a closet and get a new one at best buy?
I’m confused, do you think Canonical, RedHat or SUSE are going away in the near future? Or that they don’t have support?
Or that they don’t have support?
Not specifically the whole Linux/Proton/Game stack. That’s Valve’s bread and butter, not Canonical or Redhat.
Go ahead, call Redhat and tell them you can’t get Skyrim to run, see how far that gets you.
Are you trying to imply having an “official SteamOS” means you will be able to call Valve to have them troubleshoot your game? Because you can’t do that with the current official SteamOS on the Steam Deck. I don’t think you thought this through.
https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWithSteamDeck. There is a live agent option too for customized help.
I wouldn’t buy a $500 device where the manufacturer guarantees certain games to work but then doesn’t help me get them working if I need them.
A few things:
- It gives manufacturers a blueprint for their devices. You will see a lot of handhelds running SteamOS from different manufacturers. You will also see a lot of small “gaming boxes” with SteamOS to plug in your TV. That’s great!
- Game Developers will have one distribution to test their games on. One of the bigger problems linux had before SteamOS was the big clusterfuck of different distros. Great for users, but a big headache if you’re developing for it. Now you can say “it runs on SteamOS”, test on SteamOS and you don’t have to deal with bug reports from people running RedStarOS
- It’s Valve. It’s a company. They are the biggest store selling games and they are building their moat to protect themselves against Microsoft, Apple, Epic & Co. That not exactly great for users, but also explains why Valve is doing this linux push. To prevent Microsoft from abusing their Windows monopoly to crush them
This is so great to see, and the timing is perfect.
My son already calls the PC Steam, as in “we played game A on Xbox and game B on Steam,” so maybe by the time he has a PC in his room Steam really will run the whole platform.
Hell yeah, brother.
This is the fifth person I see misinterpreting what Steve said about doing Linux performance testing, they aren’t going to start doing this soon, they will only start doing it WHEN SteamOS is released for desktops! It was very clear on the video FFS
I’m also really fucking excited for that tho, I recently switched to mint and helldivers 2 actually feels smoother than on windows, it has been such a good experience!! I cannot imagine how much better things will get with more people jumping to Linux and thus game makers actually pay attention to us
My apologies. Fixed it in the main post with an edit
Thanks you! And sorry if I was too aggressive, reading it again it sounded way more aggressive than I expected, I just wanted to sound energetic instead, my bad
Of course, and no worries. We are all good :)
I’m excited, but I wish gpu manufacturers would jump on board with physically compatible cards with ffs or smaller form factor business machines. HP, Dell, et al like to limit space for traditional GPUs in those machines. If there was a half height mid/low grade gpu with components on the reverse side that would be a great couch gaming machine.
If I recall Intel’s GPUs are a little slimmer right? But I’ve heard middling results with compatibility and such.
I have the sparkle brand intel low profile single slot in an hp sff PC and it barely fits and leaves about 3/8" space between the power supply. It has all the room in the world in the backside. One slot over is a 1x pcie slot if only hp had switched the two or the video card had straight through and out of the case cooling.
I’ve been daily driving Linux since 2017, I started with Ubuntu and it’s been great. I recently got a Lenovo T14 Gen 1 and put Linux Mint 22 on it, and I’ve been playing some games on it and it’s been pretty nice for such a portable laptop.
New to the Linux community here; why is a valve owned Linux OS better than any other massive company OS. Like if Microsoft released their own Linux OS, would it be good suddenly?
At the end of the day, we don’t want our OS’s big company owned right?
Not answering your comment directly, and I don’t even use Linux, BUT…
One reason a lot of us don’t use Linux even if we really want to us because it’s biggest strength is also one of its biggest weaknesses, that being it’s modularity.
There isn’t a single packaging system, window manager, file system, shell, etc etc.
This makes it hard for companies (and devs in general) to target Linux for releases. For example you want to release something for Windows, you build a single exe, apple is a dmg (I think) etc so you just build for one single platform with a consistent API.
When you want to build for Linux there can’t be just one build/package. This has actively been cited as reasons why some commercial software doesn’t support Linux, as it takes far more effort to support all major permutations of platform and package management.
So back to your question, why is Valve’s Steam OS going to help? Because it’s going to be a single platform with a single way of doing things. You can always go and replace the bits like any Linux distro but out the box it will be easy enough for vendors to support, it will hopefully also get more adoption because it has commercial support.
Look at Android as an example (I know it’s not entirely the same), but that is just a customised version of Linux, but as it’s consistent and has a single way to manage packages it’s widely adopted.
I am pretty sure Linus himself said how one of the reasons why Linux desktop doesn’t have mass adoption is because no one can agree on how things should be done, so we have hundreds of libs all doing the same thing in a different way. Valve will pick what they think is best (even if it isn’t technically the best) and through that we all have a singular point of effort and adoption to centralise on.
Valve dosnt really “own” SteamOS. They maintain and update SteamOS, but SteamOS is free and open source
Plus just about everbody who knows anything about steam would tell you they are probably the most consumer friendly billion dollar company ever, and have been for decades. So yes even if they owned it like microsoft owns windows it would still be better
Like IBM and Red Hat!
The source is always free so you could fork it if you disagree with them. Also it means broader support for Linux gaming
It’s way easier to move from one Linux distro to another if Valve starts enshittifying SteamOS (which would really suck) than it is to move from Windows to Linux. Either way this is a good stepping stone that’s well supported.
I am not gonna use SteamOS. But if a bunch of regular folk do, then it might convince peripheral and game makers it’d be worth putting in a modicum of effort to support linux. That’s why I’m excited for SteamOS.
If it’s like the steam deck version, it’ll be based on Arch with a bunch of steam-specific patches/configs to make games run more easily (with the added bonus of making non-steam games run pretty well too). Steam exists to sell games, and if they want to make it easier for me to play games, that’s fine by me.
Not sure what a Microsoft distro would look like, but if they make a distro that’ll run Xbox games with gamepass, I’d give it a shot.
Another nice bonus for either/both of those situations is that it wouldn’t be too hard to incorporate those changes into other distros. That way people who want more of an “install and go” experience would have their official distros, people who like to tinker could work on importing the official code into their unofficial setup, and people who use arch btw can install it from the AUR.
Because it’s open source and based on the Linux kernel. It’s owned by them but you can do what you want with it. You can’t with Windows.
So if a game works on the Steam OS, it works on pretty much any distro
I game with Steam on Linux, but I’m not using Steam OS
Also, that means that every effort made by Valve to improve compatibility is beneficial to everyone.
Edit: Also, even if it were closed source, I think it would still be good as it gives us alternatives to Windows. But
Like if Microsoft released their own Linux OS, would it be good suddenly?
It’s worth noting that steamOS, like any Linux distro has its issues and a bit of a learning curve. Especially if you want to go off the beaten track, it’s pretty much just using a stock arch distro.
As for if MS switched to Linux, no it wouldn’t be good because the issues with Win11 overwhelmingly aren’t a matter of incompetence or anything inherent to the code, but of conscious anti-consumer business decisions. There’s nothing about Linux that would actively stop MS from cramming telemetry, bloat, etc. In their distro.
SteamOS is better than, for example, macOS and Windows because of licenses.
Since you’re new (welcome!), I should let you in on a little secret: pretty much the entire free software movement is built around licensing. I know, it’s boring and seems insignificant. But the outcomes are profound.
Because SteamOS is built to function within the free software ecosystem, it means users are never beholden to the decisions of one centralized entity (usually the company that owns the software patents.)
If Valve ever decides to, say, include candy crush ads in SteamOS’ start menu (they’d have to make their own start menu, since right now SteamOS uses one that’s already made by the free software community), then users can choose to remove that part of the menu or replace the menu altogether without having to start from scratch.
For wealthy people who can always pay the “proprietary tax,” this might seem like a non-issue. Practically speaking, these people only want their software to work without hassle. They don’t care about the true cost of that software, such as only one entity being able to modify/distribute the software. It’s not until, say, photoshop starts charging a subscription (which they can always increase the price of) that people start to see the value in free software and the importance of licensing.
Because valve is a private company. They don’t have to answer to shareholders. That means, they don’t go through enshitifaction, they care about their product and their customers. Are they perfect? Absolutely not, are they good? Better than every single company out there that tries to be like them. Period.
I’m glad people bring this up.
Private companies are not intrinsically better than public ones, but at least they have the capacity to be.
Valve is one of the very few examples of a company that sees the value in working with customers, not against them. This would be impossible if Valve were publicly-traded.
Exactly. They’re (as far I know) the only company that emailed me to tell me that I can take to court directly without an arbitration. Not that I’ll ever be able to afford it, but seeing how confident and pro-consumer (I fucking hate the word consumer lol) they are is amazing.
To be fair, that was in their own financial best interest. Since arbitrations are charged a fee per customer someone figured out that you can do an effective “class action” against valve by having many people submit the same arbitration claim against valve and costing them so much through the arbitration fees that it it was almost impossible for them to cone out on top regardless of the outcome of the arbitration (iirc).
They changed to allowing lawsuits because they can request those to be merged, and therefore its cost-effective for them to fight them.
Since arbitrations are charged a fee per customer someone figured out that you can do an effective “class action” against valve by having many people submit the same arbitration claim against valve and costing them so much through the arbitration fees that it it was almost impossible for them to cone out on top regardless of the outcome of the arbitration (iirc).
It’s not even that they’d have to pay for it; usually the filing party has to pay. Valve tried to be the good guys and while they did push for arbitration they said that they’d pay your arbitration fee for you, basically allowing you to file a legal complaint against them at their expense.
And then some fucking legal company figured out it’s a neat loophole on how to bleed them through arbitration where the point isn’t really the result but the costly process. Guess that’ll teach Valve to try to be better than others. :|
Microsoft is deeply entrenched and has undergone decades of enshittification. SteamOS is at only the beginning of this cycle. And since SteamOS is linux-based, it’s likely to have ramifications for the whole GNU/Linux ecosystem. Furthermore, if there are two vastly different OSes that developers and graphics card manufacturers need to seriously target, they’re more likely to write more platform-agnostic software that everyone can benefit from.
I would love them to partner with like micorcenter and have systems that are completely supported like an apple store.
