Quoting: Eike

Quoting: Purple Library GuyHuh. Mine didn't give me a %Linux. I assume it's 100%, but it didn't say as far as I could figure.

I guess it's not displaying the statistics if it's too boring.

PLG needs to get a Deck to make their statistics less boring.

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Quoting: sarmadI still don't see how this can be legal. If you are buying a machine from retail then yes, they can't remove the license because the license is tied to the machine. But, if you are the manufacturer, not the retailer, then you should be able to manufacture a new machine and not assign a Windows license to it. I don't see how any legal contract can prevent you from doing whatever you want with your own product. Volume licensing is about buying volumes of licenses, but how you use those licenses shouldn't be Microsoft's business. If I buy 1000 licenses and I manufacture 1500 laptops, then the extra 500 laptops is mine and I don't have to pay Microsoft for an extra 500 licenses. I don't see how Microsoft can add a contract term that says "if you build more machines than the number of licenses you've bought, then you have to buy more licenses". I guess the only way for Microsoft to impose such a term is to be a joint owner of the hardware brand itself.

The way it used to work was that you had to buy a licence for every machine you sold because obviously Microsoft software was the only software OEMs would want to use, and so obviously all the other machines were using pirated Microsoft software. I'm pretty sure that the antitrust case was the catalyst for them stopping that practise. Then it became that if the volume licensing was, say, $75 per machine, then OEMs could get a discount to, say, $20 per machine if they "voluntarily" only sold Windows machines. Plus Microsoft would give them a bag of money (or further unit discounts) if they plastered "$OEM recommends Windows" everywhere.

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Quoting: emphyAny way to disable this creepy tracking?

Sure. Put Steam into offline mode.

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QuoteWere you surprised by any details in yours?

Not a surprise, but I did confirm that games streamed to a Deck using Remote Play don't count as "played on Deck" for Valve.

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QuoteYes, Valve changed the name of this again. It was Steam Replay, then Steam Year In Review and now back to Steam Replay again.

I really hope they include MAU in the Steam Year In Review this year.

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Quoting: legluondunetDo someone have info about Wine/Proton progress with support for anticheat games that we cannot play on Linux?
This is a barrier for gamers who want to switch to Linux and leave Windows.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/anticheat/

There's nothing we can do about it, other than growing our market share so that they have to care. The software is carefully looking for deviations from known Windows behaviour, and Wine isn't even Windows.

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The "Steam Compatible" branding guidelines seem more likely to me than SteamOS.

QuoteSteam Compatible requirements for input peripheral devices

Inputs

The buttons below must be dedicated, and not overloaded with different functionality

• Steam Button


• Quick Access Menu Button


• View and Menu buttons, with glyphs that match Steam Deck


• ABXY in a layout that matches Steam Deck


• Rear / Auxiliary re-bindable buttons (2 or more)

Required Features

• Gyroscopic controls


• Capacitive Touch Sensing Thumbsticks

Other

• The controller must be able to directly interface with Steam running on a device (without a Steam Link)

More hardware with gyro is still a win, though, to encourage game devs to consider mixed input.

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QuoteAlong with various security issues in the SteamOS system itself also solved.

Hopefully it won't be long before it's released to stable, then.

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QuoteFor some reason, Valve still won't just give us a "download all" button to then instantly queue everything up to begin downloading.

Steam is a significant chunk of global Internet traffic, and lots of users keep Steam running in the background. The reason for the staggered scheduled downloads is to prevent 100 million people all downloading at once the second a patch goes live. Perhaps they're concerned that if they put in a Download All function into Steam then people will automate that, and defeat the bandwidth smudging process?

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Quoting: elmapulsince the steam machines floped, i dont think that using this branding is a good idea.
since the deck was a success and the dock help tracks the demand for a living room experinece, the only logical name for an dedicated home console is:
the steam duck!

jokes aside im not sure there is demand for it without exclusives, but if valve can do that, it will create an warfare scenario for other console vendors.

There wouldn't be much demand for it with exclusives, either, and neither Valve nor Steam customers like exclusives.

The market would be "people that want an HTPC but don't want to set up an HTPC." That's pretty small - HTPCs are pretty easy to set up. It could make the primary interface Steam rather than Kodi for some folks, though, especially if they can integrate some Kodi-style functions into Steam.

They've learned some useful lessons from the Steam Machines, of course. They've got their own hardware expertise and pipeline now, so they aren't reliant on OEMs putting out more-expensive-but-less-good versions of their Windows machines. They've got Proton now, so they've got 80-90% of the Steam catalogue working without relying on game devs, rather than the ~40% that game devs managed last time.

I don't expect it to be a big seller. Even with Valve managing to keep the price low with Steam revenue and modest economies of scale. But it would be likely useful for Valve and would be another Linux gaming demonstration device, and maybe that's enough.

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