Quoting: deathxxxNew Big Picture is laggy and buggy. Missed so much options.
Cannot use controller for Elden Ring.
Back to normal.

This was my exact experience with it. Though I did notice that this happened when much was going on in the client, specifically when downloading a bunch of updated shader caches or patches. At one point the portraits lost their outline to identify what I had selected in the home screen.

All in all, I see this as a perfect fit for a "steam session" on a set top/media/general gaming box.

I was one of those odd chaps that did like (and used whenever it fit) BPM, I especially liked the ability to open the overlay, press left bumper for the browser (to search for guides, for instance) or right bumper to open chat, and have the main game screen if you needed something else. All at a much simpler home→LP/RP→home, I absolutely despise some residual bugs that were never fixed (and at this point most likely will never be fixed) like PDF rendering in the Steam browser, at times some over drawn elements (achievements/notifications) not disappearing, the overlay not drawing correctly, artefacts when using Vulkan, etc.

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The case of a Stable ABI has been beaten to death in the kernel mailing list, and the stable ABI has been (to a certain degree, as you noticed) in user space by means of glibc and other infrastructural libraries. The ability to ship an application with all its required dependencies bundled, in such a manner like Flatpak and AppImage alleviate much of the "dependency hell", granted, they still rely on the relative stability of the main C library.

The case of SteamOS is special, in that it is catered by Valve, is an immutable system, and they can simply ignore to apply a given upstream update that can provoke such breakage, sure this means they have to test every single pertinent upstream update against their base and every piece in their platform that require it (and also users of Steam on Linux serve as a huge test bed in this regard). If Valve stays with a given version, it is even likely that some distributions will as well, or at least acknowledge the breaking change and either work around or decide to implement it and let their users deal with it.

I still think that targeting SteamOS as the main Linux compatibility should suffice for most apps/games, and it is actually why most high level proprietary applications (such as Maya, Davinci, and many others) settle on specific distributions and versions... It can be no different. Also embracing native support from any company will most likely avoid the breakage of stuff we saw with EAC and glibc, as their development teams, at least in theory, would be aware of such developments, and could correct/address things accordingly. Sure, assuming they know how the "Linux landscape" operates, and keep an eye on any of the big projects upcoming releases (glibc, openssl, xorg, wayland, nVidia, mesa, kernel, etc).

Sadly I do agree that win32 seems to be the most stable target (comfortable, as well), though less than ideal. Wine itself is known to break compatibility from one version to the next or even within patch versions, attempting to fix one app and breaking a bunch of others in the process. Fortunately things have gotten much better over the years, but even today with Proton, if you managed to get a given game working in one version of Proton (and have not played it for a while), it may break the next time you start it with a newer stable version of Proton, and what's worse (for those who do not know about this, is source of endless frustration), the prefix can be even left in such a state, that reverting to the working version of Proton causes the game/application to stop working altogether! (easy fix by removing the prefix, and allowing the newer or older version of Proton to recreate it, most often than not fixes the issue... Maybe a feature request for SteamOS and Deck at one point, an option within the GUI for simple purge of Proton prefixes, maybe even as part of games properties under the files section).

I am almost sure that as the Deck becomes more relevant in the course of the next year or two (even if an upgraded iteration appears), and more companies take interest on getting the most out of it, we'll see growing native adoption and further optimization, as also games become more complex and taxing on the underlying hardware. The point is still valid, though for those old games and apps that (such as 20+ year old games today that are difficult to get working), using the Windows version will most likely yield the best results, even if it won't work on modern versions of Windows.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: rcrit

Quoting: MarlockThis is a widespread notion but I honestly don't get it...

If we were talking about some cryptic app that only exists in AUR I would be agreeing, but we're talking about Mesa here.

How's adding Kisak's (Stable) Mesa PPA in any way difficult on Ubuntu and derivates?

What about for non-Ubuntu and derivatives?

So, you're saying it might be true of distros that are neither rolling release and/or Arch derivatives, nor Ubuntu and derivatives?
Are there distros that are intended for ease of use that also don't fit either of those baskets?

Yes, OpenSuSE (not Thumbleweed, though if you wanted a Rolling release, it could also fit the bill), and though mostly not considered as one (due to fame and some past facts, rather than actual, current facts), Fedora and its derivtives (though I've found these to be less polished than vanilla Fedora, so I tend to install and bend it to my will).

At any rate, I've been running nVidia on Linux for a LOOOOONG time now (yes 20 years, yay!), and certainly can relate to much of the flak it gets, but seriously, for all that past time, any other provider performed subpar, until very recently, by comparison (in the realm of the last 5 to 6 years), when AMD really started to perform well on Linux.

I bought a new nvidia graphics card in 2022 for use exclussively with Linux. I have seldom seen what many people complain about nvidia from the user's perspective. From a [Linux and infrastructure] developer's perspective, I know it is hell working with them. Maybe I've grown used to what to expect from using it, yes I have been annoyed recently by some driver quirkness that was not present in my past card or was not apparent in it, yes AMD (and Intel for that matter) offer a MUCH smoother desktop use, and I am fine with that as well.

It is good to know they've addressed some issues with this release, hopefully they keep on their track of going in the right direction with opening more of their graphics stack (alas I doubt it knowing they share as much as 95% of their code with the Windows drivers, or so they said a few years ago), which will in the end benefit us all.

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Quoting: ThadThe one I'm really looking forward to is Ghost of Tsushima.

No announcement yet but I think it's inevitable. I don't see us getting it this year, but maybe in 2023?

This gem is one I'd be willing to buy again.

I will pass on this, though, at least at release.

Bought it on release on the PS4 too, and I own the collection both on PS3 and 4. I have a PS5 and have this already in it (amazing game and the Dual Sense ... really adds to the immersion). Yes, they are all mechanically identical (which is why I like them in the first place) and really like these kinds of titles.

I played the hell out of God of War (despite owning it also on the PS4, at release and recently re-playing it as well on the PS5). I loved the experience on the PC.

While I am really, really glad Sony has made this decision, I regret they are going Proton instead of native+Vulkan (since coming from Unix and a very similar API [SGL]). I know, I know, it is a numbers game, and targeting Windows maximizes potential sales and at least ensures playability on Linux through Proton, via the verification system.

My only gripe is that I am still unable to get a Steam Deck in my region, and will probably never be able to buy directly from Steam, but rather third party resellers, once Valve allows that.

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Quoting: MohandevirAside from the occasional SteamOS configuration (like Emudeck and desktop apps updates), personnally, I don't use the desktop mode at all... I bought a docking station for nothing, even if I tought It was a must have. Truth is, if I need to do some heavy lifting, I have another desktop/laptop for the task. And this one too is collecting dust, anyway. I wouldn't have tought, but my Steam Deck is really just a bigger, more comfortable and more powerful, handheld only, Nintendo Switch... And I'm pretty fine with that. Oh well... :grin:

Edit:
This said, I tried connecting an external ssd through my docking station... I had to configure fstab and I had to turn off the Steam Deck completely everytime I wanted to dock/undock the Steam Deck, else I had to redo the whole Steam configuration (it didn't remember the external ssd)... It was not really plug & play.

Did Valve do something about it?

It was quite... Unserviceable, imo.

I thought SteamOS handled this as in other Linux distributions in the way they handle automount??

Be that usually removable media gets mounted to /run/media/$USER/{drive_label}, so you can simply point Steam to that location. Removing the drive, though, would require you to shut down Steam, unless functionality similar to the way SD cards are handled could be leveraged here (or an unmount removable media toggle is baked into Steam Deck UI's menus), since the functionality is already there when the media is available to populate the library. I use a similar approach on my laptop where I have a few games installed on the machine's internal storage, and have a separate 1 TiB SSD installed on a USB-C hub that holds the bulk of my "on the go" library. If I attach the hub and then open Steam all my games are there, but I cannot unmount the drive unless I close Steam. But since SteamOS can dynamically populate the library in SD cards... Maybe that functionality could be 'ported' to other removable media? I genuinely do not know.

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There are far between and few actually useful launchers for the games I mostly play. Of the ones in native games that I do actually like they exist (at least for first launch) are Feral launchers. Allowing you to choose the resolution and display to use (for me and multimonitor set up is VERY welcome), and the fact you can slect to not show it upon configuration and bring it up via hot key (ctrl) as the game syarts is a plus for me. Another saga if games with somewhat useful launchers are Bethesda TES games, whif it not necessary as such, if you have mods it does indeed is 'useful', but for MY use case (as I play plain base games anyway) is not as useful.

The worst kind are those that 'link' services, alrhough I must confess of those the most unintrussive one (at least up tonabfew days ago when I last played a game that required it) is Origin. Still I do not 'love it' as such, but for the EA games I have, it works reaaonably OK (Jedi Fallen Order and It Takes Two).

I still would rather not have a launcher at all...

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What's the state of affairs with nvenc for 20 and 30 series? I recently got a 30 series card, but have not delved into capturing or HW encoding. IIRC H264 with nvenc benefits from high bitrates, but it's been a long time since I last messed with this with my old 1080.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeI was shocked when Pools of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor just worked out of the box with the CD check. I don't think it will even work on Windows 10.

I love that game, but is a bag of worms in terms of bugs, and usually was easier to get it working on wine than Windows ever since the days of Vista.

Alas, there are many older games that do require CD check that you have to use a noCD cracked exe

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Totally loved this Linux-centric Steam Deck jam spear headed by Jason. All the points raised and the way, when it came to it, the discussion went was really well balanced. I hope you 4 will do it again and maybe once a month? (Or whenever another event as impactful to the Linux community at large as the SD release comes along).

My only gripe is that the device is so limited in its availability, that I'll be getting a PS5 before I am able to even reserve one of these! Alss the same happened for the first two years of the Steam Controller before I was able to get one off Amazon (Steam never had it as available in my region).

One question I'd ask the bulk of you, though on that note, what if Valve signed a distribution agreement with Amazon for global delivery of the Deck instead of having it so tightly locked to certain regions? I am aware that the current situation has more to do with manufacturing yield than anything else, given the shortages we've been having for the past couple of years, but still, damn I am angry at Valve to have us cut off (BTW I live in Mexico, so it is particularly frustrating to me to be so close, yet so far)

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Hopefully these small quality of life changes prompt some devs to fix their notoriously bad bugs with sync and cloud saves (yes I'm looking at you Metro: Exodus!)

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