I'm not gonna lie, this looks kinda cool... Hopefully they officially support the Steam Deck, when the game is finally released.

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If this thing could also make phone calls out of the box without an external attachment I'd buy it and ditch my old Android phone in a heartbeat.

Ditto for me (well, as long as it worked with my service provider)... To this day, my partner and my daughter think it's the funniest thing in the world as I swear at my iPhone all day and complain that I want a damn BlackBerry.

My partner reckons she'd be rich if she had $1 for every time I said "Just give me a damn BlackBerry!" every day. :grin:

Some Linux firmwares (that can be used on specific Android phones): Droidian, Ubuntu Touch, SailfishOS, PostmarketOS.

Ubuntu Touch was amazing, and I actually used it as my "daily driver" for a while.. I still have a "like new" bq Aquaris E5, which coincidentally, I charged up tonight (I pull it out of the box every six months, run it down and charge it back up again).

I'd still prefer a BlackBerry, but in the touchscreen era, Ubuntu Touch has been my favorite so far.

but boooo kickstarter yet again

I'll keep an eye on it though and see if it makes it to proper market.

Yeah, I don't do crowd-funding anymore... Too many projects "taking the money and running".

Never once did I back a project with the view of "buying" something; it was always about backing an idea that I legitimately believed in... But time after time, I watched as many projects that I backed - including some major ones - took the money and ran.

So as tempting as it is, I wait until they hit the market these days.

Option 3. You wait for StarLink Direct to Cell and either use a officially supported device, or you hope one of us makes a "Modem Wifi Brick" like in Option 1.

If this ever becomes a reality in Australia, I'll be changing my cell phone over immediately, and probably the bazillion phones on my account, too (I have all the family on my account).

I already have Starlink for my home broadband, which is fantastic by the way... I'd love to run my cell phones over the network, too.

Droidian, Ubuntu Touch, and SailfishOS each provide good interfaces for touchscreen phone use. All the basic functionality is available: Camera, Phone Calls, SMS Messaging, Internet Browsing, Media Players, Photo Gallery, Calendar, Contacts Manager, Local Weather, Ebook Readers, Calculator, and other basic software.

A lot of Android apps are just web-apps and can be replaced by engaging with a website rather than an app. As such you don't need to install certain Android apps to have access to that functionality.

This.

I was using Ubuntu Touch as my "daily driver" back in ~2017 and whilst it wasn't as polished as Google Android (which is what I came from), it was pretty good... Usage times weren't too bad and most stuff could be replicated via a web site.

There were some holes in the functionality of course, but they weren't so enormous that the phone was unusable.

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I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Tizen... Isn't that Linux-based?

Even more surprising is the fact that Samsung haven't pushed this (Tizen) harder... The market is effectively Apple or Samsung these days, so they definitely have the market share to push back against Google and go out on their own.

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So the incompetent developers are lazy and have absolutely no confidence in their own product... Got it. :wink:

Kernel level anti-cheat is just a silly idea, and it's not bullet proof even on Windows.

100%.

Only the other day I was reading that a guy participating in Fortnite: Battle Royal's professional tournaments was suspected of cheating.

So clear it's no better under Microsoft Windows-based operating systems.

This is just developers being incompetent and lazy.

Real anti-cheat should be server based, and should depend on a combination of AI + game recordings + community reporting + human reviews. That's the way to do real anti-cheat systems; anything sitting on the user's computer is breakable.

Exactly.

The problem is, companies like Epic Games don't want to spend the money on that sort of stuff... Despite the fact that in many cases, they're making big money (Fortnite: Battle Royal alone is making billions a year!).

They would still have the regular open Steam OS to dual boot, but if you want to play a certain game that is blocked on open Linux you just reboot into the locked version.

This is actually a clever idea, and one that I would be open to... I wonder if Valve Software have considered doing something like this?

All they'd need to do is have a "hardened" mode that severely restricts what can or can't be done on the Steam Deck (e.g. restricts the user to only the software installed via the Steam Store), and force it to be a completely isolated instance (i.e. so that the desktop is inaccessible, and there is no way to run external software)... Problem solved!

Overnight, it'd instantly open up some of the biggest games for SteamOS, which would likely increase its marketshare tenfold.

You could argue that this is too much control or not enough "openess"; but I think the ends justify the means and if this is going to get more online multiplayer games available on the Steam Deck (particularly bigger titles like Fortnite: Battle Royal), then it's a win for everyone.

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Still waiting on my console-like Steam Machine... After getting a Steam Deck for Christmas, I'm convinced that a console-like Steam Machine will be perfect for my next console.

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It's a Lenovo product who in my experience, have always been horrendously unreliable when it comes to build quality... I'm also skeptical about how much effort they'll dedicate to the SteamOS version over the Windows 11 version.

But, I suppose it's a step in the right direction and possibly a sign of things to come from more reliable manufacturers... Maybe.

The advantage is probably that Lenovo has a bigger distribution network for physical goods that actually reaches places where Valve can't or won't sell their Steam Decks.

That's assuming Lenovo actually put any effort into pushing the SteamOS version... Which historically, hasn't been the case with third-party manufacturers.

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So in other words, there's a heck of a lot of "shovelware" being uploaded to Steam...

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Proton has now proven itself capable and has been accepted as such for anything outside the anti-cheat MMO’s.

Most of these actually support Linux-based operating systems natively... It's just the incompetent developers like Epic Games that have no faith in the quality of their own work who are stopping this from being used en mass under Linux-based operating systems.

Anticheat BS might solve itself when behavior based AI solutions roll out or anyone builds an equivalent to the userspace observer Microsoft announced and hopefully our market share grows further.

Or they could just pay people to work alongside the anti-cheat (which already works under Linux-based operating systems)... A quick search shows that the typical number of concurrent players on Fortnite: Battle Royale over the last 30 days was 2,149; if you have a person monitoring say, ten gamers each, that's just 225 staff.

Not a lot of staff for a company the size of Epic Games, that is making billions of dollars a year just off Fortnite: Battle Royale (i.e. not even including all their other games).

Or they could just go the easy route and make multiplayer locked to same-platform multiplayer (i.e. Steam Deck users can only compete against others using Linux-based operating systems). I know that Fortnite: Battle Royale already supports this (it's in the game settings), and I suspect others do; so it wouldn't be difficult to implement this as a forced restriction under Linux-based operating systems.

(but there will probably be a couple more papercuts in the UI/UX that will remain in there for a looong time because Valve sure loves some of those)

What do you mean "Valve sure loves some of those"? In its default configuration, I am yet to see any of the bugs, design flaws or quirks typically associated with a Linux-based operating system in SteamOS; for all intents and purposes, the Steam Deck is of the same (software) standard as a handheld console from "The Big Three".

i highly doubt it will sell as much as a PS5 or the newest-gen Xbox...

Maybe if a new Steam Machine was released in its current state... But if Valve Software were to somehow convince developers to actually use their anti-cheat software (most of which natively support Linux-based operating systems), then "The Big Three" should be awfully worried about the future of console gaming.

but even 10% of that is already a huge success for linux, for PC gaming, for more open gaming platforms, etc

it will set a second tier of PC-gaming hardware perf targets for most games and will make game devs even more prone to paying attention to linux and SteamOS compatibility, ease of use of PC games with fully-remappable controllers, etc

Can't argue with this, because this is exactly what would happen... And it'd go a long way to solving the "chicken and egg" problem.

MS did try this, if you're old enough to remember when Win8 was launched and they tried to make all windows apps into UWP apps instead of .exes

And that was when Gabe went public to criticize them for the attempt, and started investing heavily on linux to build a viable alternative on it

Exactly.

SteamOS and the Steam Machines were originally intended to be a "safety blanket" for if Microsoft did something "out there" and significantly hurt Valve Software's business model (which at the time, looked like it might be the case in the near future)... But Gabe quickly saw "the big picture", and it evolved into a long-term project to be less reliant one third-parties like Microsoft.

First and foremost, this is about being self-reliant for Valve Software; the fact that they're doing this using a Linux-based operating system (which is the most logical choice, anyway) is just an added bonus for us Linux gamers and gamers in general.

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i womnder if there is demand for it...

A desktop PC-like Steam Machine would be of little appeal to me, because I have a gaming laptop that does a pretty good job; but if Valve Software were to offer a console-like Steam Machine that offered native HDMI output, I'd likely buy three of them tomorrow (one for each family member in our house).

I've had my Steam Deck since Christmas and the experience is so flawlessly done that I now want this on my projector (or in the case of the other family members in my household, television)... Yes, I can do that with a laptop or desktop PC - I already have laptops configured as home theater PCs and connected to my projector / one of the televisions; but the experience just isn't as "polished" as that of the Steam Deck, even with all the time I've put into configuring every last aspect of the home theater PCs.

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Quoting: PyrateI think it goes without saying that if Valve intends to capture a not insignificant portion of PC players (desktop or otherwise) to their SteamOS, their best chance ever will be around October next year when Windows 10 security updates stop.

Why would that change anything? It'd be no different to when Windows XP reached end-of-life, or Windows 7, or Windows 8... People will just move over to Windows 11 or whatever they're up to now, just like the gullible sheep they are.

Quoting: _MarsMultiplayer games will lower sales

Valve really need to address this... Most (all?) of the "anti-cheat" systems natively support Linux-based operating systems - but almost all of the developers behind them flat-out refuse to implement their own "anti-cheat" systems for gaming under Linux.

And that means that some of the biggest games currently available don't work under Linux-based operating systems in part or at all.

Valve Software have done some fantastic stuff with SteamOS and the Steam Deck, but it's high time they start looking for way to convince developers to actually use their "anti-cheat" systems under Linux-based operating systems... And this will be a pretty big requirement if Valve ever want a new-generation Steam Machine to compete directly with "The Big Three" console manufacturers.

Quoting: Vortex_AcheronticI fear the console marked could be a much tougher front than the handheld marked was as the Steam Deck launched.

If Valve launched a new-generation Steam Machine "as is", absolutely... But if they found a way to convince developers to actually use their "anti-cheat" systems under Linux-based operating systems, that'd be one hell of a competitor, even if one technically does not own any of their games.

Quoting: elmapul5. it need to be a silent device as well

That's not hard - my laptop and my PlayStation 5 make very little noise when working under a load... As long as you have great ventilation in both the console and the environment, it's not a problem.

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Anyway, I hope there's some substance to this, because after the current generation of consoles, which has been unbelievably disappointing, I honestly don't think I'm going to bother with a PlayStation 6"... And I've had them all to date, along with most Segas and Nintendos.

With a new generation of a Steam Deck, I'd lose the ability to "own" my games - but overnight, my potential console library would be in the low thousands at worst, under a cutting-edge, Linux-based operating system that is always evolving.

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Quoting: PyrateAnd I only received that prompt a couple months ago, despite being on Linux since last March.

It's really sporadic how often it pops up, and is not reflective of Real World usage... I've been gaming under Linux-based operating systems for close to 20 years, and I could (quite literally!) count on one hand the amount of times I've seen the survey - what's worse is that most of the times I have seen the survey has been on a "fresh" system or after installing Steam for the first time!

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