Quoting: PenglingAm I the only person who can't even find the physical wallet cards anywhere? All of the places that they list as UK stockists don't seem to actually carry them!

Like so many geeks, I'm frequently told that I'm difficult to get gifts for on traditional gift-giving occasions (and I always say they don't need to worry about it, and on it goes :tongue:) - physical Steam cards actually being available would be kind of helpful.

That would be nice. My Sisters just buy me gift cards to Subway, the sandwich place. It really feels like a punishment at this point. If I got a Steam gift card I'd probably fall over in shock.

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Quoting: nlborlclIf only Apple wasn't so broke they could support OpenGL 4.6.

According to the Steam for Mac discussion board on Steam, Apple apparently can't afford to implement Vulkan either.

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Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: const

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: constMy take on some of the arguments here:

1. Chromebooks are pretty much an US thing. I know no one who owns a Chromebook here in Germany and when I looked for their prices, I know why. You get a pretty good Business Laptop for the price of a cheap tablet with a bad keyboard.

2. Not so sure about the Appstore. I can see that for single player titles, but for multiplayer? I really don't know. My guess is Apple Users tend to prefer console gaming.

Chromebooks are quite popular to hand out in schools here in Sweden.

Yes, they exist and are sold. I know that. Still, people living in certain regions might overestimate their impact. While around 30% of Laptops in the US are Chromebooks, it's 2% in Europe and close to zero in Asia. Current installations don't really matter either, since most of them are made to handle not much more then a browser. Yes, as Google opens up ChromeOS, beefier Chromebooks are sure to come, but chances they'll be popular here in Europe are much worse then in the US, where they are actually a trademark.

Which is why I mentioned that it was regional just like you mentioned the state in Germany. Over here Chromebooks have about 10% of the total computer market and is above Apple.

Wow! I never noticed Sweden had such a huge ChromeOS percentage [External Link]. Even statcounter is able to track similar numbers. MacOS and ChromeOS must certainly be in a real slug fest when it comes for 2nd place in the Swedish market. The real numbers month over month must be wild. In ten years when all those students are out of school and in the workforce, ChromeOS is going to explode.

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I'm fine with the way it is. But it would be interesting to see a graph that sort of starts when the Steam Deck was released.

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Quoting: gradyvuckovicThree surveys in a row with Linux over 1.90%. That's a very good sign. 2% in 2024 seems extremely likely. 2.5% by the end of the year? That would put Linux up where MacOS was not too long ago before it started dropping.

2.5% will definitely happen this year. Honestly I thought for sure Linux and MacOS were both going to eat into the Windows percentage. I never imagined Linux overtaking MacOS. I don't know how long this will last MacOS percentage world wide [External Link]. A roughly 5% drop for the last two months. I know nothing about anything Apple, but I do know that they brought in a custom ISA. So I'm guessing the older Intel machines are dying(or can no longer be updated) and they were replaced with Windows machines? Maybe there will be a resurgence in MacOS numbers when the older Intel machine are finally replaced.

Anyways probably some of the Apple enthusiasts out there can give some insight into the 5% drop. Like everything, there is probably a simple explanation.

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Steam Beta. It's pretty rare to see an issue.

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Quoting: Pengling

Quoting: basedReminds me of Windows parody flash games, man those times were golden

Now I wonder if someone will try to use it against scammers [External Link]? :tongue:

Would be hilarious to design the UI to look like Windows. Give remote control to the online scammer. When they move their mouse to the start button, the button runs away or just avoids the mouse pointer. Or as they scroll the mouse the background infinitely scrolls instead of the mouse pointer so it makes the brain perceive movement but the mouse pointer never gets close to the start button. Imagine the scammer just swiping their mouse off their desk trying to reach the start button.

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Quoting: pleasereadthemanualRight, so native applications for ChromeOS can run on Linux, because native applications for ChromeOS are written for Linux, meant to be used in containers.

Well, I guess ChromeOS is a Linux distribution then.

Yes, ChromeOS is Linux. See the documentation here [External Link].

It seems like Google has done something similar to Valve(Valve followed Google I mean) with the Steam Deck Big Picture UI. The way I understand it, they have a custom Window Manager that just opens 1 Window to draw Big Picture. And Google has made a custom Window Manager as well and it originally only loaded Chrome (from what I understand).

I haven't taken a look at ChromeOS at all, but I'm sure the Window Manager is just a Wayland compositor. The difference here is that Valve also packages a Desktop Environment and sticks with a more stock distribution. Google could have done the same but their whole marketing plan is "security" which is why you are reading about everything being containerized. You could get a similar experience with distrobox on your Linux Desktop. I have distrobox loaded on my Steam Deck with an Ubuntu container, when I'm in desktop mode, I just run everything from the Ubuntu container. You can map the applications in the container so they appear as if they were installed by the host OS, gui applications and all.

You can ignore this rant part.

Spoiler, click me

<rant>
If Google started with a stock Linux distribution from the start, the devices would get repudiated for not running Windows applications. Which is the same excuse people use for not switching to Linux now. Instead they sell low cost devices and people buy a ChromeOS device with the idea in mind that they will only do ChromeOS things on it. Which is how new comers to Linux should approach Linux. Instead we get crocodile tears about Office and Adobe and "they should make a more friendly desktop for Windows users". You don't hear people crying about ChromeOS being unfriendly and different do you?</rant>

Google has also been very careful not to allow hackers to run away with their devices. Any normal dev will just wax ChromeOS and load Ubuntu onto the device without a second of hesitation. Instead they control how you get access to the linux side of things; see Crostini [External Link]. To me it looks like Google wants to sell devices at a loss so they can saturate the market and out compete on price. Mean while make their money harvesting data and delivering ads. "You're getting a device with security in mind. *wink*"

ChromeOS is Linux. Whether ChromeOS is Desktop Linux and does it have or make a compatible userland available to the user is really the question. It for sure looks like it's going that way. ChromeOS + a Steam ready container with Proton? sounds like a slam dunk for Google.

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Quoting: PeffseHeh, just as an experiment I installed Debian on a spare drive a few days ago. I fought through the display manager not allowing me to click the password field, reinstalled Debian when I chose an incompatible desktop (KDE Plasma), reinstalled Debian when I chose a wrong desktop again (LXQT), reinstalled again (Cinnamon), reinstalled again (GNOME), finally settled on LightDM and LXDE as the only combo that worked. Ran a string of CAT6 across the room because wireless wasn't working. Immediately tried installing Steam. Package not available. Manually added Steam's repo, attempted install again. CPU not supported. :neutral:

It was all for fun, but dang what an anticlimax.

What kind of system were you testing out?

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Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: Highball

Quoting: ArehandoroSteam OS Holo has -2.46%, is that a typo or are people removing Steam OS to to install other distros?

It just means less Steam Deck machines were apart of this recent survey.

That statement is too strong. Proportionally fewer Steam Decks were sampled, yes, but they could very well have sampled more Steam Decks than last month as well as even more non-Deck machines.

This is correct. This is what I was trying to convey. Thanks for the assist @CatKiller.

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