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Unsurprising, but knowing Microsoft they'll still fuck it up somehow.
They can hardly avoid screwing up, really.
The whole draw of Steam Deck is that it's a carefully curated experience where everything from the OS upwards is crafted to play nicely together and "Just Work" to bring that console-like experience to PC gaming.
Whatever Microsoft are putting together isn't going to have that end-to-end consideration. It will be nothing more than a skinned launcher on top of Windows 11, and no matter how shiny that launcher looks you won't be able to hide from Windows for long. All the normal Windows bloat will be there, and I wouldn't be surprised if you spend as much time messing around in actual Windows as you do playing games.
"I can't wait for my PC to load the classic Windows UI elements, the Metro elements AND THIS NEW UI all at the same time regardless of what applications I'm running. It's not going to put unnecessary strain on the hardware or introduce annoying bugs and instability at all!" -Somebody, probably.
They tried doing something that would have fit with Windows 8 and they ROYALLY screwed that up.
I don't know how you don't think about how people that use Windows Server and how they have difficulties reaching the start menu. Seriously, trying to go into the top left or side with your mouse makes no sense. They have so many project managers, QA and process and somehow they screwed up that hard.
They tried doing something that would have fit with Windows 8 and they ROYALLY screwed that up.
Honestly, they were onto something, but instead of polishing it, or even just starting over, they just abandoned it entirely, never to be revisited.
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My crystal ball says Gamepass device. Comes with a free subscription for the first 6 months..... Hard to see, it might be a free year.
I a calling it now they slap metro from windows 8 on it and call it a day and stills has forced reboots
You'll get a knock on the door when you are gunning down innocent people in GTA6 because Windows Recall got pictures it sent to the FBI of your violent behaviour.
No thanks, ill stick to steam OS
But I neither want a "like" experience nor windows 11 โ pass.
Don't need Windows anymore, thanks to Proton. Bless Lord Gaben.
Wine*
But anticheat still gets in the way
Meh, I'm fine not playing games that require kernel level access to my system to prevent cheating, or games by devs that are able to set the anticheat to allow Linux users to play but just don't.
If my device is dedicated to just games, sure, otherwise they can pound sand. Take a look around the world today. You think an org is just going to be like "ya this is for anti-cheat" and stop there? I laugh.
That's true, I suppose. I hadn't really put that in the front of my mind, but none of my devices that are strictly for gaming are capable of running pc games. And all my PCs are multi-purpose, work, creative and gaming. So while that applies to me as well, I think even if I did have like a SteamDeck that was just for gaming but potentially capable of running other more "productivity" oriented programs, that specific scenario still wouldn't really be at the forefront of my mind.
Like...Valve is still an American company, and they can still be coerced by the government to put shady stuff into say the Steam app, or into SteamOS.
Gotta wonder if maybe we should all just go back to monkee ๐. Smash all our tech and live in a tree.
Wine definitely deserves credit but without Valve's support of Proton, Linux still wouldn't be viable for most gaming.
VR sucks in Linux tho
I mean ms killed off mixed reality (windows vr headsets) in latest win11. So I've got a useless headset now ๐
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Grumble. Proton is great, but let's not pretend Lord Gaben did it all, proton is built on top of wine.
Yes and before valve got involved gaming on wine was a hit and miss (mostly a miss). Whereas now basically 100% of the games i play just work with no to minimal tinkering. They put in a lot of effort to get all the kinks out. And steam input is also a huge factor in this. Downplaying their involvement is akin to downplaying wine's achievements because it's built on top of linux.
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Swapped to Linux mint a week ago, and is it just me or does it unzip files like 20x faster
I'm not sure, but I think the windows progress bar thingy includes the time spent actually writing to disk, whereas on Linux (or i guess cinnamon) only shows when it gets to disk-cache. If you are full on RAM or tried shutting down immediately afterwards it should take a bit longer since it has to actually write it to disk
Thats my guess anyway
It probably does because Mint uses less CPU than Windows. That's just speculation on my part though.
It's honestly insane. I zipped up a bunch of files (mainly emulation and modding) to total around a terabyte. I moved it to an external hd and then to Linux, and it only took about an hour to unpack it. I've never had something unpack so fast
For a smaller scale example, I had a ~2GB file that unzipped in about 10 seconds as well
Sure, it took me 15 minutes to scrounge around online trying to figure out why my .rar file wasn't unzipping properly, but after that I saved all that time and then some
I'm glad it's working out for you. I've never realky worked with .zip files larger than 8gb but I have some tar.gz folders that are 80-90gb in size. I haven't had to unpack one yet tho.
Microsoft desperately needs this to keep people on Windows.
But Valve doesn't actually need the Steam Deck to retain their profits as they make most of their money trough their platform.
So I hope that they don't just let SteamOS and SteamOS devices go away like Valve's other stuff; the Link, Controller, SteamOS1, etc.
Same. Steam Deck is for gamers. Windows is for data mining, tracking, subscription pushing, and oh ya, also gaming I guess.
I just made the jump to Ubuntu. You don't need a Steam Deck or Steam OS. Steam works just as well on any Linux OS. Proton is the real star because it deals with the compatibility issues so well.
That is true. But without the Steam Deck, Proton support would also be lower. And that's the main reason why I hope that they continue their current path, because I also get a lot of enjoyment out of Proton on Ubuntu.
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I hate windows 11
Since their phone OS was such a success?
Good News for the Linux gaming world
Windows still hasn't decided what it's configuration windows should look like, there are still dialogs with the 30 year old W95 design language. I doubt that they were able to put together a seamless gaming UI over that past x months or years.
Microsoft just needs to do what valve is doing to wine and make all the old windows shit work with it, and build a whole new OS that is actually good. Such a steaming pile of band-aided together bullshit and UIs and data collection engines.
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Still not going to get me to try any Windows handheld. Steam Deck or die for me.
So say we all. Just finished a couple hours of golf with your friends with several friends... on my deck, with my headset, with discord. On my couch.
Nah, fuck Windows 11. Iโm in the beginning stages of a win10 migration to Mint, and as soon as I understand how things actually work beyond the install, MS will be completely out of my life.
I just set up an Ubuntu dual boot last week. Valve has really made Linux gaming easy. Just one checkbox to enable Steamplay. I don't see myself going back to Windows any time soon. Good luck with Mint.
No idea where you are in your trek, but if you can find the time learn how to use virtual machines (or use an old laptop) so you can test stuff without fear of breaking a machine you rely on.
When I want to use a new package or make a change to my setup I will do it in a virtual machine as many times as it takes until I get it right, then use my notes to do it on my daily driver. I went from a Windows only user to daily driving Linux in about a year thanks to keeping good notes.
I have definitely considered this. Which hypervisor do you use?
Virtual Box is probably the easiest to get started but lately I have been using LXC containers because they are a very similar to VMs but with less overhead.
Would you like to open that in the browser? In the app? On the desktop? Would you could you on the desktop?
Cannot unhear green eggs and ham.
Would you, could you with a browser? Would you could you with a mouser? Or a 45?
Ahhh yes.. So steam deck like.. It has a control and a screen and everything.. That's basically the innovation in that device.. For sure..
Can't wait to play league of legends on joysticks and run it down
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this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025
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