Quoting: PaulAlastorRight now, I'm still in a dual boot kinda mode between the "Innominabile OS" version 11 and the great, updated, little know, Debian-based gaming distro PikaOS: the last one is pretty good and very performant for my 5 year old build with an Amd Cpu and Nvidia Gpu. I'm staying put with Kde on it and, at least till now, has been a breeze. Then again, always IMHO, it is one of the trinity of next generation gaming desktop I personally love! :wub: (the other two being the Arch-based CachyOS and the Fedora-based Nobara Linux. Through the two YouTube channels I follow that talk, principally, about Linux gaming stuff, I also know these three distros have some collaboration among them).

Okay, first, I simply -LOVE- that you used the word "innominable" here! That's fantastic, friend!!! ❤️🍻

Second, I briefly had Nobara (Gnome) installed on my old gaming PC before I gave it to the Mrs when I got the new laptop (which also originally came with "Innominable OS 11"....which I did not enjoy at all)! I have a reasonably high opinion of Nobara! It's a distro that does an awful lot of the work for you....kinda like PopOS, but different...and Fedora-based to boot. Before that, I had Geruda. It was gorgeous in its
KDE "Dr4gonized" iteration, but this was also around the time that I was finding my allegiances shifting away from KDE and towards Gnome, and I was not particularly crazy about its very inconsistent Gnome implementation. It was also around the same time that I was beginning to cool on Arch and waerm to Fedora -Which is how I found myself on the sunny shores of Nobara.

But I do thing that Pop, Garuda, and Nobara are all very solid candidates for anyone who's not brand new to Linux. 🍻

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As of Dec 3rd 2024, I am using Fedora 41 (Gnome) on an Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2023 model RTX 4070M) gaming laptop, and using SteamOS (stable channel - KDE) on the Steam Deck.

Once I have more storage installed (probably a 2TB micro SD card) and a game controller for it, I'll probably switch to "laptop-primary" (probably almost entirely while docked*) for my PC gaming. Until then, I remain "Steam-Deck-primary" (docked preferred, but using a 50/50, or maybe 40/60 split of docked and undocked). I almost never use desktop mode on Steam Deck anymore, but did give it a fair amount of use in the past - including having produced a handful of podcast episodes from it just to say that I did.

I no longer make substantial use of Ubuntu-based distros anymore (and prefer Ubuntu DDE in the rare instance that I do - also no longer using KDE much anymore). But for about the first four years of my time as a Linux user (including my first two years after making it my primary "daily driver" OS), Ubuntu Studio (KDE) was my primary distro - which is basically just Kubuntu with a bundle of productivity / creativity software - such that Neofetch actually mistakes it for Kubuntu. And during that time I have gamed in Ubuntu Studio and it went just great.

So while I don't know that I'm necessarily persuaded that Kubuntu is the "best gaming distro in the universe" exactly, I will at least agree that "gaming on Kubuntu / Ubuntu Studio" is certainly a more than fine experience, and so they're fine distros for anyone who wants to game!

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*=elaboration: probably going to primarily use the laptop [docked] for "gaming at home", and primarily continue to use the Steam Deck [undocked] for "gaming on the go". I don't see myself gaming from the laptop undocked (aka "clamshell mode") very often, nor do I see myself putting a ton of time into continuing to use the Steam Deck docked once I can do the same thing from such a vastly more powerful device nearly as conveniently.

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Quoting: KlaasI've read that the new Sony handheld will only be able to remotely play games on a PS5 and it was said that it would be permanently online only. If that's true then that thing will be no alternative at all.

That's what I've heard about it too. So it's not gonna be a "PS Vita 2" nor a "Playstation Steam Deck", but rather, an optional aftermarket "WiiU gamepad" add-on for the PS5. So you're not gonna be able to play in the car or the coffee shop or the office.....but for the overwhelming majority of us who can't afford, or at least can't justify a "dedicated toilet PS5", this at least makes it so you can play from the throne....for those who might want to. Puts quite the spin on "play 'on the go'"! 😂😉

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So, I have very mixed thoughts on this.

While I am definitely happy with the Steam Deck, and am in no hurry to replace it, my loyalty is ultimately not to the Steam Deck per se. Instead, it is, primarily, to Linux in general, and to the state of Linux gaming in particular, and secondarily, to the "handheld PC" form factor at large, or put more crassly, the "Nintendo Switch of PCs" of the world.

To the second priority, this definitely helps the form factor, advances the medium, and proves that it's only continuing to gain more traction. So, on that front, I'm happy!

But to the first, I worry that its impact, shipping with Windows by default will ultimately be corrosive to the gains and changes in perspective that Steam Deck and SteamOS3 have brought. And that would be very disappointing to me (and likely most of the rest of us) indeed!

Now, I know that Steam making Steam OS available universally, and the inevitability of Linux drivers eventually coming along for the device will soften that blow a little bit, at least for us Linux devotees - those of us using Linux by choice. But for the majority of Steam Deck users, the mass of people using Linux on the deck simply because it works well enough by default and they just don't want to dick with setting up Windows may evaporate, and I still feel at least a small measure of anxiety that the balloon we joyfully watched the Steam Deck inflate may begin deflating again now that there will be a big name supporting the big OS, and providing an alternative in the space to making Linux work.

Now, it may not turn out so bad as that. But I still feel that anxiety.

Plus, with it being Windows and very likely being quite a bit more expensive than the Deck (if I have that kind of money, I'd rather upgrade my big rig out of its current 2017 spec), plus, with my being pretty happy with the Deck, and not in any big hurry to replace it, I can definitely say that this device will not be for me personally.....

.....that said, I certainly can't deny that this thing looks slick as hell! Very good looking! And, as I said earlier, this does move the form factor forward, and may provide some influence into what the eventual proper Steam Deck sequel and potentially other future Linux handhelds may look, feel, and spec like. And that much, at least, I can't help but celebrate.

And that's my take! :-)

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I apologize if this has already been addressed somewhere and I just missed it, but I would hope (and imagine) that somewhere in this new game the original will also be bundled in? I love that they're doing this, but this is one where I never got to play the original, and would like to! :-)

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KDE is my preferred DE as well, the one I use on both my main "Big Rig" gaming PC and my main laptop, as well, of course, as the Steam Deck. So I'm always excited to see it continuing to improve and evolve. As for my experience docking the deck in Desktop mode, I have lost the main panel once or twice, so I'll look forward to not having to deal with that anymore! :-)

One question: didn't I hear that Plasma 5.26 added support for animated wallpapers? That's a feature that I will definitely plan to start using once I know I have access to it! :-)

Lastly, a p.s.: my two Linux devices that are NOT using KDE are both using Xfce instead, because there were available skins to make them look nearly identical to Windows 95 and macOS9 respectively that I decided to go for on my two backup laptops running Manjaro and Fedora respectively. Though I don't really use Mac or Windows anymore, having come up on a mix of the two, the nostalgic in me will always have a soft spot for them, and as such, I love having the option to run modern Linux OSes in a retro Mac / Windows aesthetic! :-)

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More out of sheer curiosity than anything else, what (if anything) do we know about Ayaneo OS thus far? Do we know what distro family it's based on? What DE it'd use in desktop mode (presuming it has one) and so on.

Unless it's just an insanely superior value proposition, I'd have a VERY hard time seeing myself leave Steam Deck for it. But I will admit that I'd be curious to know more! :-)

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Nice! The first fruits of what I have been waiting for with Steam Deck!! ♥️🥂

Can't wait to see this pick up steam (no pun intended...althoooouuuuugh)! 😂

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Quoting: Mohandevir

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadio

Quoting: BlackBloodRum

Quoting: einherjarIt worries me a bit, everytime I read "how to get xy to work again on Steamdeck".

If it does not become a "just works" experience, it will fail over time.

You can't really blame Linux for this. If a game was updated and it stopped working on windows, would you respond "Windows will fail if it doesn't become a just works experience"? No. You'd say the game devs need to test their game more and fix it.

My point here is that we shouldn't be so quick to blame Linux, it's perfectly possible the game is doing something weird which is breaking the compatibility. The fact is, this was just working, but the devs updated it, which has broken it.

We're not physic and we don't have access to the next update, so we can't "fix it" before it's released. Only the game devs could do that.

It seems to me that he wasn't blaming Linux, but blaming Steam Deck - which to be fair, is the buggiest game system I've ever played on a whole host of fronts.

Now, three important caveats:

1) I don't blame Linux either.

2) in terms of Valve issuing a steady stream of fixes, reducing the impact of bugs, Steam Deck has come a LONG way since I first got my device in April, and I have confidence that it will only continue to further improve and hopefully still at the same quick speed with which it has been happening so far.

3) Even with all the above standing, I still regard the Deck as my favorite (or certainly at the very least, my "most esteemed") system of all. I've purchased something like 100 new Steam games since April, while purchasing zero new games for XBox Series X, or Switch (which had been my main system prior), and -maybe- one game for PS5 (can't remember if this game was purchased just before or just after I got the Deck). I've also produced an episode of the podcast from it in desktop mode. I love the thing!

But even so, ein's point, which I will [hopefully faithfully] paraphrase as "the bugs will eventually erode esteem, then confidence, and finally willingness, leading to an eventual die-off for the device", I think rings 100% true!

Even with as highly as I regard it myself, I will confess to having found multiple instances where I ended up deciding against a quick play session because of anxiety over whether or not that quick play session would be spent futzing with dropped (or scrambled) controller connections while docked, or a frequent game-breaking blinking screen issue while docked, or a game just deciding not to load....or hell, even something so simple as a game I've set to run in 1080p or higher while docked just "automagically" deciding to run in 800p for no good reason and not letting me kick it back up without having to reboot the device...and so on, and so on, and so on.

With a grabby, budding gamer of a toddler, I don't get much opportunity to play undocked unless I'm out of the house or it's after his bedtime, and so for that reason, plus an "I would just prefer to play docked in a vacuum anyway", I do most of my Steam Decking docked, which has been a joy when it works right, and a nightmare when it doesn't...and I've experienced more than my fair share of both.

My enthusiasm for the thing, and all its myriad freedoms and potentials leaves me with a huge bank of goodwill towards it. But if that bank continues to only deplete a little each and every time I go to use it (or decide not to even try for those same reasons), it will eventually, inevitably run out, where the Switch, for all the ways that it's outclassed, and outshined by this thing, and for all the ways I outright hate the evil corporate entity behind it....always "just works"...may someday lead to a situation where I just start reaching for that controller again instead.

In short, I think ein is 100% right. If it's impacting even someone like me who is so passionate about the thing, it'll certainly impact the people so much less passionate than me. And this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Linux.

Of course, the saving grace here is that I still do not believe this eventuality to be "inevitable", or even necessarily "likely", as Valve already has a tremendous track record of improving all these issues as we go, and at least at this juncture, I still maintain a healthy optimism that this trend will only continue. It sucks that the glory has been smeared coming out of the gate, but I'm still reasonably confident that we'll get there before it manages to kills itself off, or turn people like me off to it.

Cheers!

What I find peculiar, about the state of The Witcher 3, is witnessing all the work CDPR as put into CP2077 to support the Steam Deck and coming to the realization that it doesn't seem to transpose to The Witcher 3. That's why I'm hopeful something is in the work between Valve and CDPR to solve the issue; they seem to work closely when such things happen. It's just that it should have been worked out before release. Unfortunately for the Steam Deck, the PC gaming market will not wait for such issues to be solved.

Sure. And that's the trade off with PC gaming in general, isn't it? Much more freedom, much more flexibility, and generally speaking, much more horsepower (though, with the Steam Deck, that's only really true vs the Switch, or at the very most, vs the base XB1 / PS4), at the expense of much less convenience, and fluidity / reliability of operation (aka, much less "it just works"). And though the Steam Deck looks, feels, and presents itself like a handheld console, it is, technically, a computer instead - a less powerful (though commensurately less expensive) gaming laptop in a console-like shell, which, if you're going to "game more than compute" is probably the superior form-factor of the two (though certainly inferior if you're going to "compute more than game").

So, in terms of my complaint in my last comment, I feel like I owe everyone a tremendous apology for introducing confusion:

I don't really hold things like "oh, Witcher 3 needs a command to make it work right" against the Steam Deck, and that's also not exactly what I meant when I said the Steam Deck will die off without fixes, though, given the context, and a lack of clarification on my part, it's perfectly reasonable if that's what was inferred. Mea culpa for not properly clarifying, and I'll further elaborate on this below.

Also, given that I think the dynamic of "freedom / flexibility / horsepower vs convenience / 'it just works'" between PC and console is something I think the broader body of gamers at large are generally aware of already, I doubt it'll turn a huge number of people off from it either, since they'd have at least a vague expectation of it coming into it - especially those coming from the PC side of the divide.

Instead, what I was on about, and what I had used the springboard of ein's comment to vent my pent-up frustrations about in the last comment was simple system issues in general, not exclusive to docked mode, but dramatically exaggerated in docked mode. Things like controllers just disconnecting, or malfunctioning (case in point, suddenly the joypads and joysticks stop working while the letter buttons keep working, or controller 1 magically becoming controller 3 at the drop of a hat mid-game, and so on). Things like arbitrarily changing and disregarding resolution settings, or games just mysteriously deciding to not boot (equally a problem docked and undocked). THOSE are the kinda things that if left unfixed, I think, eventually WILL kill the thing off through crumbling user interest and goodwill.

Or, as I had alluded to before - HDMI signal just dropping out in completely unpredictable (and often times clustered) bursts - though, this last issue, I'm hoping, is not a Steam Deck problem per se, but a problem with the cheapie 3rd party dock I'm using for it. On another [also cheapie] dock elsewhere in the house, hooked to two 1080p monitors, I have had zero signal cut out issues, while on this dock and a 4K TV, I experience the problem frequently; at least one burst of cut out events every single time I play for more than 20 minutes. Often times it gets so bad that it stops transmitting signal altogether (I.e. "no signal found" message and default wallpapers from the TV) until I unplug and replug the Deck.

Of course, I realize that 2x1080p is only half the total pixel load as 1x2160p, so it might be a permanent bandwidth issue, and nothing that can be fixed, even though I can also sometimes go a couple hours with no such events at all, which makes that explanation seem unlikely to me (and made even further unlikely given that I don't experience the issue exclusively, or even any more frequently at higher resolutions), and indeed, every time the situation has decayed to the point of "no signal found", and unplugging / replugging, I've never seemed to have it recur at all after that point for the rest of that given play session.

So it's like you just have to let it have its tantrum, cause all its chaos, and then you're fine, implying to me more of a software issue than a hardware one, which of course means a potential future fix awaits...if it's not just a bad dock to begin with, which is ultimately what I'm hoping will be the case, because it's the easiest thing to discard and replace. I know I could always test this out by a) hooking the Switch to this dock instead, and b) replacing this dock with the other dock in this 4K x 1 context to see in which contexts the symptom does or does not replicate, but I've just been too lazy to do that.

Again, my confidence level of conditions improving to the point of long-term happiness remains very high. But as things currently stand, I do worry about my passion and engagement and support gradually eroding away just a couple small crumbles at a time. Not any time soon, most likely, but barring the [admittedly likely] course corrections / mitigations, does seem to be "eventually inevitable down the long-road".

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Quoting: BlackBloodRum

Quoting: einherjarIt worries me a bit, everytime I read "how to get xy to work again on Steamdeck".

If it does not become a "just works" experience, it will fail over time.

You can't really blame Linux for this. If a game was updated and it stopped working on windows, would you respond "Windows will fail if it doesn't become a just works experience"? No. You'd say the game devs need to test their game more and fix it.

My point here is that we shouldn't be so quick to blame Linux, it's perfectly possible the game is doing something weird which is breaking the compatibility. The fact is, this was just working, but the devs updated it, which has broken it.

We're not physic and we don't have access to the next update, so we can't "fix it" before it's released. Only the game devs could do that.

It seems to me that he wasn't blaming Linux, but blaming Steam Deck - which to be fair, is the buggiest game system I've ever played on a whole host of fronts.

Now, three important caveats:

1) I don't blame Linux either.

2) in terms of Valve issuing a steady stream of fixes, reducing the impact of bugs, Steam Deck has come a LONG way since I first got my device in April, and I have confidence that it will only continue to further improve and hopefully still at the same quick speed with which it has been happening so far.

3) Even with all the above standing, I still regard the Deck as my favorite (or certainly at the very least, my "most esteemed") system of all. I've purchased something like 100 new Steam games since April, while purchasing zero new games for XBox Series X, or Switch (which had been my main system prior), and -maybe- one game for PS5 (can't remember if this game was purchased just before or just after I got the Deck). I've also produced an episode of the podcast from it in desktop mode. I love the thing!

But even so, ein's point, which I will [hopefully faithfully] paraphrase as "the bugs will eventually erode esteem, then confidence, and finally willingness, leading to an eventual die-off for the device", I think rings 100% true!

Even with as highly as I regard it myself, I will confess to having found multiple instances where I ended up deciding against a quick play session because of anxiety over whether or not that quick play session would be spent futzing with dropped (or scrambled) controller connections while docked, or a frequent game-breaking blinking screen issue while docked, or a game just deciding not to load....or hell, even something so simple as a game I've set to run in 1080p or higher while docked just "automagically" deciding to run in 800p for no good reason and not letting me kick it back up without having to reboot the device...and so on, and so on, and so on.

With a grabby, budding gamer of a toddler, I don't get much opportunity to play undocked unless I'm out of the house or it's after his bedtime, and so for that reason, plus an "I would just prefer to play docked in a vacuum anyway", I do most of my Steam Decking docked, which has been a joy when it works right, and a nightmare when it doesn't...and I've experienced more than my fair share of both.

My enthusiasm for the thing, and all its myriad freedoms and potentials leaves me with a huge bank of goodwill towards it. But if that bank continues to only deplete a little each and every time I go to use it (or decide not to even try for those same reasons), it will eventually, inevitably run out, where the Switch, for all the ways that it's outclassed, and outshined by this thing, and for all the ways I outright hate the evil corporate entity behind it....always "just works"...may someday lead to a situation where I just start reaching for that controller again instead.

In short, I think ein is 100% right. If it's impacting even someone like me who is so passionate about the thing, it'll certainly impact the people so much less passionate than me. And this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Linux.

Of course, the saving grace here is that I still do not believe this eventuality to be "inevitable", or even necessarily "likely", as Valve already has a tremendous track record of improving all these issues as we go, and at least at this juncture, I still maintain a healthy optimism that this trend will only continue. It sucks that the glory has been smeared coming out of the gate, but I'm still reasonably confident that we'll get there before it manages to kills itself off, or turn people like me off to it.

Cheers!

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