Between Snap, Flatpak and AppImage, I'll admit I think AppImage is my fav. Just because I love the simplicity of it.

"Here's an app, it's in a file, double click it to run it."

Beautiful simplicity. What I'd like to see is more distros improving their support for the format. Stuff like if you try to double click an AppImage file and it doesn't have executable permission, just asking the user, 'Do you want to give this AppImage file executable permission?' and stuff like a place to drag and drop AppImage files to add them to the application list.

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Every extra device out there running Linux games or Windows games via Proton is a good thing. It means the marketshare for Linux will keep rising and it will force more game developers to give serious consideration to whether or not it's worth it to skip Linux/Proton compatibility. This combined with the Steam Deck is going to be a good slow burn effect to gradually increase our marketshare.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI've been following Linux discussions for too long. When it said "large libraries" I was thinking "I don't get it. How could, say, one person's GlibC be much different in size from another person's?"

Feels refreshing when something turns out to be less complex than you were expecting eh?

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Quoting: melkemind

Quoting: iWeaker4You

Quoting: LanzAmazing that EA quality control allowed it to ship while breaking Proton/Steam Deck.

Because it app is targeted for Windows, not Wine / Proton

And that concerns me a bit because we might always have a moving target with supporting Windows games, especially if Microsoft ever makes a big platform change. I can only hope that, as steam deck numbers continue to rise, more game companies will make supporting Linux a priority, even if it's not their top priority.

I've said it a few times lately and I'll say it again: I'd like to see Valve push this to the next level.

We have Proton, and we have now Steam Deck Compatibility Ratings, and Valve's system for game testing.

And those are great, that's drastically improving the situation for gaming on Linux. It's putting useful information right in the hands of consumers, letting them know which games are working well and which ones aren't before they buy a game. That's leaning consumers towards games which are compatible and away from games which aren't, which is again good from our perspective since it creates a real incentive for game developers to get Verified if they want to see their games advertised as 'Great on Deck'.

That's all well and good, but we still have the major problem of:

"I can buy a game on my Steam Deck that is promoted as 'Great on Deck', that is Verified, works perfectly, then 2 hours later, the publisher can update the game to completely break it, making it impossible to run the game, Valve can reclassify the game as Unsupported, and technically speaking 'this is fine', I do not have valid complaint to make to the publisher or Valve, because the game publisher never supported Linux, or the Steam Deck, officially."

I think the solution might be to add 'Proton' as a 'Platform' on Steam. Alongside Linux, MacOS and Windows. Or grant developers/publishers the option of marking Linux as 'supported' if their Windows game runs great in Proton. But this would come with the requirement for the publishers/developers to acknowledge that if they promote Linux/Proton as a supported platform, they are required to ensure their game runs on Linux natively or via Proton, and if they fail to do so, consumers would be entitled to an automatic refund.

Put the choice in the publishers hands, let them decide if they want to guarantee that compatibility, but if they do, they have to maintain it, otherwise they'll be paying out a lot of refunds.

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> On Steam Deck, Valve control the drivers for you so it's fine.

This is partly why I love my Steam Deck.

Valve have shown how committed they are to ensuring things 'just work' on Linux, so having a device from Valve just massively simplifies gaming in a lot of ways. The thing just auto updates, and Valve can ensure the entire OS stack is configured right for best compatibility and performance, so I know I'm getting more or less the best possible gaming experience on Linux that is available. PC gaming on easy mode.

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Quoting: Kimyrielle

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: tgurrIt always really amazes me to see games like Victoria in such lists as I personally can't image how you can play such a an input and text-heavy game on a rather small screen. Games like Persona 4|5 on the other hand are a perfect fit from the start. It would be really great if we'd have some additional details from each game about how many users use an external connected screen and their playtimes on each in the form of native deck screen vs. external screen connected.

Well, I imagine plenty of people are playing some like that Docked. It's still on the Steam Deck, but you're not limited to the small screen :)

That was my first thought as well, but isn't it safe to assume that in most situations when you can dock, you'd be near your main gaming device (PC, laptop etc) as well, and could just use that?

You'd think so but the other day, I sat down at my PC to do some gaming, got distracted, picked up my Steam Deck, and ended up playing GTA Online for about 4 hours until the battery went flat while sitting in front of a PC, on, running, that can run that game at twice the resolution, and double the frame rate, with maxed out graphics settings. I don't know why, I just somehow got comfortable slouched back in my chair with my Steam Deck and forgot all about my PC.

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Love seeing game devs supporting the Steam Deck and inadvertently improving Linux support across the board in the process.

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I actually saw the Valve employee in the steam discussion who was answering questions on the previous update that added the boot video override folder, and responding to folks asking for a longer maximum length.

It's kinda funny.

Someone:
"Do Custom boots work over 10s? Prior to that, we were modifying the JS file. "

Valve Employee:
"What kind of lengths were people using for these? The 10s limit is a safety net that could be extended if we have a good reason for it."

Few responses like
"The old Valve Half-Life 2 intro is about 16 seconds long. Black Mirror is also 16. Prior to the update, we were changing i,1e4 to i,2e4 on the JS file which seemed to extend the duration to about 30 seconds. "

Now this update, they upped to 30 seconds.
Not 2 years later or something either, just a few days later, responding to the requests they're taking directly from the community and implementing them just like that.

Thanks Valve people, y'all awesome.

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I'd have bought one by now too if it was available in Australia. Sigh.

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The developers noted that the game runs faster natively than the Windows build. It's a nice incentive for developers who are keen to court the Steam Deck market to consider doing a native build, that a well optimised native build can outperform their windows build running via Proton.

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