With the Steam Deck delayed until February 2022, Valve has produced new developer documentation giving a helping hand to devs interested in testing ready for it using Linux.
They're not quite ready to put out SteamOS 3 Linux just yet (which is what the Steam Deck uses), or even an official developer image to install but "soon" something should be available in that way. Until then, they've come up with a way for developers to test everything on Linux a little easier.
It starts by going over the already expected essential things like gamepad input and resolution support but this time there's more detail on actually testing it on a Linux system. Specifically, Valve are now suggesting developers go for Manjaro KDE, as it's also based on Arch Linux and has the same Plasma desktop as you will find in the desktop mode with SteamOS 3 on the Steam Deck.
On top of that, Valve has created two new tools to help developers test their builds (either a native Linux build or a Windows build with Steam Play Proton) with the SteamOS Devkit Client Tool and the SteamOS Devkit Service. These tools allow developers to deploy game builds from a development machine to either a Steam Deck or another Linux machine for full testing. Valve also said to ensure developers use Proton Experimental when testing Windows builds.
Valve even gave a hint for developers wishing to buy a mini-PC with somewhat similar specifications to the Steam Deck, with their pictured suggestion being the MINISFORUM UM700 Ryzen NUC available on Amazon (US / UK) along with a picture using the banana scale:
This includes:
- AMD Ryzen 7 3750H
- Radeon RX Vega 10 Graphics
- 16GB of DDR4 RAM
While it has a stronger CPU, weaker GPU and less memory bandwidth they say "it will definitely run well on Steam Deck" if it runs well on something similar to that.
Nice to see some more clear documentation go up, although it's a little crazy to think this has only just gone live considering the Steam Deck was supposed to launch next month.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
rustybroomhandle Nov 13, 2021
Quoting: GuestQuoting: rustybroomhandleStill not complete though. They don't say which kernel to test against and which branch of Proton Experimental.
They're on 5.13 for the kernel, not sure about Proton Experimental.
Also, installing the Zen kernel will definitely be beneficial, as it's pretty close to the SteamOS specific kernel Valve will eventually ship.
As for recommending Manjaro, that's a big oooof. Much wiser to either install EndeavourOS if you're new to GNU+Linux or use Arch if you're an experienced user/dev.
5.16 would be the logical target.
And as has been stated, Manjaro is fine. It's close to their setup, easy to install, and has Steam installed already and that is pretty much all they need. They don't need to use the OS beyond running Steam, so it really does not matter how user friendly any of it is.
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Quoting: elmapulvalve said they aim to make every game run on steam deck, but there are still 3000 open issues on proton github, some of then are 2 years old (the same age as proton, so they might be even older issues that existed on wine)That's not a very good metric. Bug reports are per game, and people are encouraged to report games that work without issues too, so that list will grow and grow.
Most of the closed bugs are duplicate reports.
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Philadelphus Nov 13, 2021
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoAnd the technical purpose of the banana is....????Reminding you to get your daily potassium intake.
3 Likes, Who?
Quoting: whizseQuoting: elmapulvalve said they aim to make every game run on steam deck, but there are still 3000 open issues on proton github, some of then are 2 years old (the same age as proton, so they might be even older issues that existed on wine)That's not a very good metric. Bug reports are per game, and people are encouraged to report games that work without issues too, so that list will grow and grow.
Most of the closed bugs are duplicate reports.
that is a good metric because i see the numbers a lot of times to see if they changed.
the number of bugs being closed isnt changing too fast, unlike the number of new bugs being reported.
sure, people can open a bug report to report that something is working fine, but even if we filter out those (white list request) there are still too many bugs.
and if there are many duplicate reports, then the tag duplicate would be full of entries, unless no one is looking at this.
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Quoting: GuestWhere did Valve say they've sold two years supply of Steam Deck already?The first six months' supply went in less than an hour. They briefly had more granularity for the later units (taking it out to a year's supply), but fairly quickly put everything past that into the "after Q2 2022" bucket. Some people might not want to put the full amount down when their turn in the queue comes up, and I'm sure Valve will try to increase their production rate, but as it stands now every unit they can make for the foreseeable future has already had dibs called on it.
Because if that's correct, and those devices are not yet manufactured but already "sold", that's impressive!
Last edited by CatKiller on 13 November 2021 at 8:23 pm UTC
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Quoting: elmapulthat is a good metric because i see the numbers a lot of times to see if they changed.No, it's not even a good metric for this, since Valve uses one bug report for each game. One game can have zero issues, or a hundred.
the number of bugs being closed isnt changing too fast, unlike the number of new bugs being reported.
sure, people can open a bug report to report that something is working fine, but even if we filter out those (white list request) there are still too many bugs.
and if there are many duplicate reports, then the tag duplicate would be full of entries, unless no one is looking at this.
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slaapliedje Nov 13, 2021
Quoting: GuestWell, hopefully the suggestion of using Manjaro is just a temporary one until SteamOS gets a new release. I have tried Manjaro a few times and think just pure Arch, while a pain to do an initial install, has a much more likely long lasting set up before something breaks.Quoting: zexmaxwellThe reasons I suggested EndeavourOS is because of how Manjaro have handled security issues in the past and EndeavourOS is closer to pure Arch.Quoting: GuestQuoting: rustybroomhandleStill not complete though. They don't say which kernel to test against and which branch of Proton Experimental.
As for recommending Manjaro, that's a big oooof. Much wiser to either install EndeavourOS *SNIP*
Full stop right there. lets not continue the old adage of "you should be using this" that the Linux community has. the main reason Valve picked this, is for 1, ease-of-use and 2, its more then likely what the DE is closest to Valve OS. at the same time, just because the coders hold the title of game Devs, doesn't mean they are well versed in the ins and outs of Linux environments.
I'm not suggesting any one distro is better than another, simply basing my recommendation on personal experience.
I think it's good Valve have the recommendation in place, even though I don't agree with it.
1 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje Nov 14, 2021
Quoting: slaapliedjeHa, quoting myself...Quoting: GuestWell, hopefully the suggestion of using Manjaro is just a temporary one until SteamOS gets a new release. I have tried Manjaro a few times and think just pure Arch, while a pain to do an initial install, has a much more likely long lasting set up before something breaks.Quoting: zexmaxwellThe reasons I suggested EndeavourOS is because of how Manjaro have handled security issues in the past and EndeavourOS is closer to pure Arch.Quoting: GuestQuoting: rustybroomhandleStill not complete though. They don't say which kernel to test against and which branch of Proton Experimental.
As for recommending Manjaro, that's a big oooof. Much wiser to either install EndeavourOS *SNIP*
Full stop right there. lets not continue the old adage of "you should be using this" that the Linux community has. the main reason Valve picked this, is for 1, ease-of-use and 2, its more then likely what the DE is closest to Valve OS. at the same time, just because the coders hold the title of game Devs, doesn't mean they are well versed in the ins and outs of Linux environments.
I'm not suggesting any one distro is better than another, simply basing my recommendation on personal experience.
I think it's good Valve have the recommendation in place, even though I don't agree with it.
Maybe it is the effort, but I usually find distributions that are a just a bit more of a hassle to set up are longer lasting for me (as in I am less likely to distro hop if there was some effort in getting it set up.) Every distribution has some sort of imperfection. Which is why there are so many of them.
Had Ubuntu stuck with their original goal of being Debian with a 6 month release and always the most current Gnome (which used to be a huge problem for Debian, even if you were running Sid), than it really would have been my favorite distribution. But NiH attitudes basically made me go back to Debian. It makes a lot more sense to base things on it rather than Arch, as rolling releases always have their own growing pains, by their very nature. But for sure, the packaging of things is WAY easier on Arch.
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Quoting: whizseQuoting: elmapulthat is a good metric because i see the numbers a lot of times to see if they changed.No, it's not even a good metric for this, since Valve uses one bug report for each game. One game can have zero issues, or a hundred.
the number of bugs being closed isnt changing too fast, unlike the number of new bugs being reported.
sure, people can open a bug report to report that something is working fine, but even if we filter out those (white list request) there are still too many bugs.
and if there are many duplicate reports, then the tag duplicate would be full of entries, unless no one is looking at this.
fair enough, i'm making an script to meassure this.
version 0.9 of the script is done:
https://github.com/Elmapul/proton-good-metric
i recomend reading the commit notes to better understand what it is:
https://github.com/Elmapul/proton-good-metric/commits/main
sorry for the sarcastic name =p
Last edited by elmapul on 15 November 2021 at 8:48 am UTC
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