Quoting: const

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioThe moment I'm most excited about is when I finally sit down to plan, record, produce, and publish an episode (or even multiple episodes) of my podcast ENTIRELY from the Deck. That's when I think I'll feel like this thing has finally FULLY arrived for me - or perhaps better said, when I'VE finally arrived for it! :-)

Maybe my December 2022 or January 2023 episodes will be where I get started with that. I'll make sure to say something in the show notes, in the actual episode itself - or both whenever I finally get a "Deck-made" episode done. :-)

Should be no issue at all. Maybe SteamOS could hold you back a little, but getting usb passthrough in gnome boxes is trivial, so that option is always open.

Oh, I didn't think it'd be hard, necessarily, and indeed, I've already got Audacity and Ardour installed. It's just a matter of getting around to actually doing it. The only significant concern I'd have would be with latency, with my XLR-to-USB audio interface having to go through AT LEAST the dock before it hits the machine, if not also a hub even before the dock. In fact, I could be mistaken since it's a while since I've checked, but doesn't this thing already have PulseAudio installed? If so, that's what I'm used to using already, so it should all be like a glove, I'd think. :-)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

The moment I'm most excited about is when I finally sit down to plan, record, produce, and publish an episode (or even multiple episodes) of my podcast ENTIRELY from the Deck. That's when I think I'll feel like this thing has finally FULLY arrived for me - or perhaps better said, when I'VE finally arrived for it! :-)

Maybe my December 2022 or January 2023 episodes will be where I get started with that. I'll make sure to say something in the show notes, in the actual episode itself - or both whenever I finally get a "Deck-made" episode done. :-)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Mohandevir

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioBased on what I see in Steam Deck groups on social media, I would have no trouble believing that it could be as many as 40% of Steam Decks have Redmondsoft on them.

The Steam hardware survey seem to contradict that theory. Thing is, my experience is that the Windows fanboys in the facebook groups I follow are really vocal, but few are actually doing the move and many regret it aftward. It feels more like a vocal minority, imo, but I do not have any proof of that either.

Windows is just unfit for the task. Too much heat, drains the battery much faster and there is a lot more fan noise. On top of that, a desktop OS on a handheld... It's awkward, at best. SteamOS is a big part of it's best aspects. Users love it. Removing it makes the SteamDeck another boring PC... Or "How to transform a handheld into a laptop".

Edit: Not saying you are wrong, there might be a lot of dualbooting though, from what I read: "Xbox gamepass, Destiny 2, COD Warzone..." but since SteamOS doesn't support that, it's not a trek for the faint of hearts... Non techy users might not be really enticed by that solution.

I have had a similar thought occur to me previously that it's only 40% of the enthusiasts that are actually going to Windows, where the radical majority of the more "casual laity" are just sticking with what it came with, meaning, of course, Linux. It's not that these laypeople are actively choosing Linux like you or I or the people in the group would, but passively choosing it by consequence of simply demurring to actively pursue the alternative. However for the purposes of our aims of pushing Linux gaming forward, these disinterested "I'm just here for the games, man" people, I'd say are still probably 90% as valuable to us and our purposes as "we passionate much fewer" are, since Gaming on Linux is still advancing through them even if only by coincidence. I left this out of my last comment because even with the "long-winded" caveat, I was probably coming up on the limits of how long I should make my reply, figuring we could deal with it in follow ups like this one. :-)

Dual-boot situations occurred to me as well, of course, but [and I could definitely be talked out of this], for the purposes of "propelling or curtailing the advance of Linux gaming, I tend to consider them to be more akin to the Windows-only curtailing than to the Linux-only propulsion.

Lastly, as for the desktop situation, i will admit to ignorance over whether or not Steam has a "Steam Mode" client equivalent for Windows like we do in Linux. If so, then I suppose it becomes a distinction without a difference on handheld and TV / couch gaming at that point, except for the battery / thermals / performance things that you mentioned. I had presumed they had had such a client, but I could be wrong. But if they don't have a "Steam Mode" for Windows, and they'd have to do everything on the small screen in Desktop mode and the full-fat desktop Steam Client, then yeah, I could see that really killing the experience.

The one quibble I'll make, and this may not even be a point of contention between us, necessarily, is that here in Linux, I absolutely LOVE that we have desktop mode. Sure it COULD work as a super quirky little laptop with a kickstand and an external KBM, but I basically never use it this way. However, hooked to a USB-C dock on a pair of 1080p monitors and a KBM at a computer desk, or even outputting 1440p on a 49" 4K living room TV using a USB-C dock and wireless KBM, I find the desktop experience really good, and the fact that on top of everything else the Steam Deck is, it's also a full-fat Linux desktop PC that keeps the KDE I love, but gives me an alternative to Ubuntu to play around with that all my other Linux PCs are based on (two on Ubuntu Studio, and one on Ubuntu Web Remix) is I'd say no less than a full third of what makes this thing so valuable and exciting to me! :-)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

SHORT WINDED: Very good news! Although there is a lingering curiosity for me: do we have an approximate knowledge of what percentage of Steam Decks out in the wild are still running SteamOS and what percentage are running Windows?

--------------------------

LONG WINDED: Speaking in paradox, or, "out of both sides of my mouth" as the saying goes....

....on the one hand, I am actually happy that Steam Deck is open and flexible and exploitable enough that should someone WANT to install Windows, they can. Having this option available will also increase overall buy-in on the Deck at large and improve the long-term prospects of the Deck enterprise and its inevitable successors, and just the greater portible computer / console movement at large, since there is no barrier to entry for those for whom Windows is a non-negotiable.....

....on the other hand, the FEWER people putting Windows on their Decks*, the HAPPIER I am. Or perhaps, more saliently, the MORE people putting Windows on their Decks, the SADDER I am, because one of the biggest points of excitement for me about the Steam Deck coming into it was just what HUMONGOUS potential it had for the advancement of Gaming on Linux at large!

I mean, the growth of gaming on Linux has already been simply explosive already, even with just small, loosely connected [at best], disparate nerds working without any kind of flagship device to coalesce around. I mean, I guess they were coalescing around Steam Proton, but now we have a distro and a device to put all our energies behind, which is...just HUGE! If we got to, what is it, 80% of native Windows games playable on Linux in, what, just 5yrs or so WITHOUT a coalescence point, just imagine what we could do WITH one? But... the more people who put Windows on this thing, the more that is undercut and the more the potential impact of that is softened. So, the fewer Windows Steam Decks, the better.

However, through anecdotal observations, it seems that Windows is a lot more prominent than I had been hoping. Prior to the Deck's release, I "came out of retirement as a blogger" to write about it, and I had posited at the time that only very few would likely do it. It seems that I was sadly mistaken on that point. Based on what I see in Steam Deck groups on social media, I would have no trouble believing that it could be as many as 40% of Steam Decks have Redmondsoft on them.

But again, I have not found any way of actually knowing. So I thought I'd ask the group! Thanks in advance for any insight you might have!

Cheers!!

*= "Windows on the Deck": I chuckle inwardly at the thought of someone from the past seeing this, not knowing what we're talking about, and struggling to envision panes of glass being installed in the wooden outdoor spaces usually found affixed to the backs of houses. 😂

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Sorry for seeing these replies so late, everyone! I turned on notifications, but apparently, I still wasn't seeing them!

So it sounds like everyone is pretty much confirming / echoing / elaborating upon what my understanding had been - that it's an AMD Linux driver issue that will EVENTUALLY be fixed, but no ETA.

Feh.

Oh well, at least this does all serve to confirm (or at least, reinforce) what I had believed to be the case, and I do have confidence that we'll eventually get there. Til then, I can live without it - even though it will be my "wishlist #1" that I'll be looking for every time they announce and delineate an update.

Thank you so much, everyone! And again, sorry I'm so late in seeing and replying!

Cheers!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: dosYay! This release finally includes my ALSA patch [External Link] for an incredibly peculiar issue I debugged when I noticed that the native build of Day of the Tentacle Remastered doesn't play any sound on Deck and I wanted to find out why. It turned out it was because of... Btrfs [External Link] :D

Yeah, that bullet point jumped out at me too! The original Lovely Planet doesn't have sound either and I was hopeful this would fix it. I guess we'll see! Fingers crossed! So far, it's the only game that I've personally tried playing that doesn't have sound.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Purple Library GuyIsn't ray tracing kind of a hog that would bring something like the Steam Deck to a grinding near-halt?

Well, it certainly would increase the system load, that's for sure! But having the option to enable it / disable it on a per-game basis would be pretty massive! The Digital Foundry guys tested it (in Windows, of course), and it certainly made an impact, but if memory serves, it wasn't one that brought the system to its knees. I don't remember it being one that couldn't be offset by other settings, or by perhaps leaning more heavily into FSR to compensate.

Now, I'm certainly NOT suggesting a scenario where RT would be mandatory - permanently turned on for all users for all games all the time. Of course not. But I certainly would love to see the [user-selectable] option given for those of us who are more "eye candy junkies" than "frame rate purists" - especially considering the hardware for it is already there. :-)

Anyway, does anybody know anything about when we Linux -committed can expect to enjoy the option? :-)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I love all of this! But there's one update I'm waiting on that I'll admit to being disappointed not to see here. Now, it's possible that we already have this and I've just missed it, or it's possible that I'm just misunderstanding the situation altogether, but my understanding is that while the Steam Deck hardware itself technically supports ray tracing, due to something with the MESA drivers, RT is not functionally available on SD using SteamOS. Apparently it works in Windows, but I have no interest in going that route.

So, any word on if/when we Linux faithful will see rays on the Deck? And if it's available already with some tweaking, can anyone point me to a resource that walks me through it? While I have absolutely loved my experiences with Linux so far in general, I'm still pretty "noob" and don't really trust myself to try tackling it myself (or necessarily even know where to begin). :-) All I know is that the last time I played Cyberpunk, it still would not let me turn the RT toggle on. :-(

Thanks so much, everyone!!! ❤️

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Hi! It's my first post on GamingOnLinux (though I've been reading articles for a while)!

So, I am a proud and happy owner of a Steam Deck, and my Gaming PC (after a little tweaking and "elbow grease" on my part) is also running as well as the now humble GTX1070 and 7600K inside it can manage using Ubuntu Studio 22.04 - even though, as probably already hinted at by which distro I'm running, the "gaming PC" gets MUCH more use and time and care as a "glorified podcasting machine" than it does an actual gaming platform.

I've been curious about Fall Guys for some time. It seems like a really neat game. Initially, prior to the release of the Steam Deck, I had been awaiting a Nintendo Switch release, since up til the release of the Steam Deck, the Switch was my most heavily played system. But after the release of the Deck (which just ironically coincided with the long-awaited announcement of said Switch port), I no longer cared about having it on Switch, under the philosophy that I could just play it on the Steam Deck instead!....

....and then I read today's article. :-(

If you would, please indulge me in a pair of what are probably really stupid questions:

1) it leaves Steam on June 21st. They say current Steam Rocket League players (me - one of my most frequently played games, even) will be grandfathered in, and bs able to keep playing Rocket League (apparently indefinitely). So, if I buy Fall Guys on Steam prior to that cutoff date, would I likewise get grandfathered in? Or is it a situation where if I spend the $20, I'll only be able to enjoy it for a month before losing it?

2) through nothing but sheer laziness, I have not [yet] installed the "Heroic Launcher" on my Deck, which as I understand it, is a great backdoor to the Epic store (among possibly other things). So, say I fail to secure myself via Steam, why wouldn't Heroic be a good rescue for this?

I know Epic is dumb [technical term] for ignoring Linux, and we Linux gamers. But this article is making it sound like "Fall Guys is limited time for us and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it", when it seems to me that we already have potential long-term workarounds for this....

.....and I was just hoping someone would be ready, willing, and able to help me untangle this. I mean, it's not like this is a "fates of nations" situation for me at all. But it is a "fates of $20" thing, as depending on the outcome, I'm either gonna buy it on Steam as quickly as I can, or never buy it on Steam ever, and just look into playing it on my XBox Series X or PS5.

Appreciate the guidance, and thank you in advance! :-)

Cheers!

View this comment - View article - View full comments