Yeah, Sony lost me when they broke my Linux install and degraded the DVD playback functions, within six months of me buying my PS2. Similarly, the last "good" smartphone I had, was the Palm Treo (650p\680p\Centro); since then, I've never had a single phone that granted direct hardware access & allowed unloading/sideloading the OS by default.

Manufacturers want deep control these days; way beyond mere root permissions.

And Holo ISO if you don't want to fully configure.

The internet connection is my limiting factor. 15GB or on lunch/break. 😭

Portal is crisp and clean.

I heard Fallout 4 is good.

OOTP could run on an XP machine from 2003.

Remember Game Gear? Pepperidge farm remembers

Adding what exactly?

Yup, there are a number of features for Valve to do this right:

supporting linux frees them of the eternal windows shackles that pc-gaming has become, diversifies steam as a multi-platform service (not just pc gaming juggernaut) without encroaching on anyone else's terrain, and gets their user's enormous libraries out into the world, potentially enabling new kinds of games in the future.

Well, but the same is true for brands selling desktops or laptops with windows, where they only make money once on the hardware (and maybe some additional money by installing subscription crapware like mc afee etc.).

You could, but what makes Steam Deck special is that it's SteamOS is built specifically for that hardware, enabling functions you wouldn't normally see in gaming PC hardware.

The difference is that if the device comes with Steam OS, then it's ready to go out of the box and you're assured the hardware has good Linux support.

If it's originally a Windows device then you may have to jump through additional hoops to get everything working. Also you'll have to deal with allowing other OS's in the BIOS if it's locked.

Also you've paid Microsoft for a license you won't use.

The flip side is that there's work to make a native Steam OS build for 3rd party portable devices:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/the-linux-coders-turning-the-rog-ally-and-other-handhelds-into-steam-deck-clones/

and

https://chimeraos.org/

I suppose. But then why not steam deck?

And how is the linux version of rosetta 2 doing?

What? You mean how is the linux version of mac version of qemu? Alive and kicking! Same for box86 and box64. Binary tralsators existed before Apple started making x86 computers.

Don't Apple's chips have specific hardware support to make Rosetta 2 as effective as it is? I've been really hoping other manufacturers find a way to do something similar.

I'm pretty sure its just a linux distro anyone can use, maybe even open source.

Manufacturers will choose the sweet microsoft money tho they get per device with windows preinstalled.

I think GPD offers SteamOS copies for their devices.

Less "not optimized", & more "not supported"; IE, accelerations that don't turn on, because companies like Intel, Broadcom, Samsung, & NVidia, have a long history of only giving preferred partner devteams, prerelease hardware access, much less any peeks at unobfuscated firmware.

They have better performance, so if you play plugged in or play a game that's not great in Proton you might benefit.

For unplugged, nobody has yet beat the 5W performance of the Steam Deck