Quoting: rustybroomhandleAhhhh, the "Compatibility Review Process" section was not like that when I last looked at those docs. And this does go against what it sounded like initially, where they hinted at testing the entire library.

One thing that I thought was sensible, given the amount of data that Valve have available about their customers and sales, is that they're feeding the "customers like you love this game" data for customers who've reserved a Deck into their heuristics to decide what to test; the games that people are likely to want to play on the Deck get some priority.

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Quoting: rustybroomhandleI don't think their communication reflects this clearly.

There are three different ways a game can be added to the queue to be reviewed:

• You can manually request a review for an upcoming or a back-catalog title by using the "Steam Deck Compatibility Review" link in the Technical Tools sections of your app landing page. (Note: not all partners have access to the review request tool yet. We're increasing the number of partners with access over time.)


• When a back-catalog title meets certain automated heuristics, it will automatically be added to the review queue with no need for you to submit a manual request. You'll receive a notification when this happens.


• When Valve identifies a game as important to Steam Deck customers, we may sometimes add games to the review queue with no need for you to submit a manual request. You'll receive a notification when this happens.

Steam Deck Compatibility Review Process [External Link]

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Quoting: rustybroomhandleOh! Something that jumped out at me during the talks was about the verification process. Originally when they announced Deck Verified, it sounded like they were proactively testing all games, but something said in the Q&A made it sound like developers have to manually submit games for review. If this is the case, I predict the likes of Ubisoft won't even bother.

Valve are doing it themselves, without requests, as they see fit - because a game is popular or whatever other criteria they want to use - and retesting whenever they feel like it - because of bug reports or whatever. In addition, developers can specifically request that Valve test or retest their games should they want the additional visibility that comes from having the green check mark.

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Quoting: AnzaTerminal did have a warning, but wording kind of still encouraged to proceed without reading the output.

The current wording is problematic. It makes it seem like the same kind of bullshit gatekeeping that they're used to from Windows, so of course Windows Power Users are going to want to just force their way through it, just like they would on Windows. "Please break my system" would be my preferred wording: it's always good to be polite.

Quoting: F.UltraPop!_OS will now refuse to uninstall essential packages even with the do as I say! prompt unless a special file is present on the filesystem but we all know that this will only lead to the "next Linus" to put that file there because "that is what you have to do to have Linux work".

Yep. They're just going to view sudo touch <filename> as one more esoteric incantation that they'll do - without understanding - as a way to get round what they view as unreasonable restrictions.

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Quoting: TheRiddickI would like to know if Steam Deck intends to use Wayland?

IIRC, they said that the Steam Deck doesn't currently run Wayland for the desktop session, but they expect that it will at some point in the future (although not necessarily by launch).

Also why didn't they choose a display with VRR support I wonder?

I'm not sure there are many cheap high-quality 7-inch panels that can do VRR.

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Quoting: GuestWhere did Valve say they've sold two years supply of Steam Deck already?
Because if that's correct, and those devices are not yet manufactured but already "sold", that's impressive!

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.

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Quoting: mr-victory

SteamOS with have a read-only immutable main filesystem by default. Updates will be distributed as a whole image and so it will replace it.

Wait, what? The first thing I thought of when I heard about SteamOS 3 being Arch Linux based was updating the OS with pacman! And does read-only FS mean I can’t install stuff like another web browser for desktop mode?

Chrome OS, Chimera OS (previously Gamer OS), Ubuntu Core, and Fedora Silverblue all do the same thing, as do Android and PlayStation. It's the sensible thing to do for an appliance.

Valve specifically called out flatpaks as being installable without having to put the underlying filesystem into "developer mode" and said that they'd have more details for everyone later.

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Quoting: elmapul"This sounds like a really great project, and hopefully one game developers will appreciate."
one or some?
one developers?

There's an implicit that.
"...hopefully one (that) game developers will appreciate."

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Quoting: elmapulso let me get that straight...
they cant produce enough steam deck devices to cover the needs of developers who want to develop for then...
but they expect to produce enough devices to the people who want to buy then?
there are 50.000 games on steam, and considering some devs made more than 1 game, less than 50.000 developers/publishers, i can understand that big companies that need tons of developers to make/port their games are an priority, but how many devices is valve producing?

They don't charge developers for dev kits; they do charge customers for retail units, and they've essentially sold two years' supply already. If they cannibalise their retail units to send to devs, they're costing themselves $400 a pop and making their customers (who also give them money for games) unhappy. They had intended to have a second batch of dev kits available by this point, but there's a component shortage on at the moment, so they're giving some information so that devs can make do.

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Quoting: rustybroomhandleThat NUC is frickin' adorable tho.

There are some others that come with Linux pre-installed that GOL has reported on before, if you're interested in that kind of thing.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/05/slimbook-think-they-have-the-one-for-you-with-their-new-compact-mini-pc

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/11/the-tuxedo-nano-pro-is-a-powerhouse-in-a-tiny-box

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