Does Valve actively give that impression though? By omission, sure... they lack a disclaimer... but is it also actively induced?

I haven't seen any piece of theirs to support that... did anyone?

Sure, they're playing with fire there, because if we're lucky the Deck will bea success outside the Linux audience that has already learned not to expect official support...

But then again, they've at least been clear enough that the certification is done on their end (a "Valve garanteed") and about the criteria they use.

ps: I think it's a victory on its own right that some devs have actively engaged with the certification on a voluntary basis to provide fixes and improvements, ask for recertification, etc, after choosing not to release a linux native version of their game in the first place.

pps: It would be even more awesome if Valve made it POSSIBLE for devs to choose and signal to users that Proton is officially supported and/or that the Deck is officially supported... right now I think this doesn't even EXIST, and devs wanting to provide it would be left to signal the fact as a game news article and as a fixed post in the game's forum, at best.

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My commenting on it might jinx it, but I just have to...

When someone raised the Russia ban issue in this thread I kept reading the comments fully expecting that the whole thing would go downhill...

...but actually this is maybe the least tinfoilhat-ish exchange I've seen in several years regarding such heavy and controverted subjects, plus somehow it stayed reasonably on-topic throughout!

Who are you people, and what have you done to the internet?! :D

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Windows devs have so far refused to implement ext4 support despite it being an open standard... there are 3rd-party apps for that, but nothing great afaik.

PS: as crazy as it seems, WSL2 now supports ext4 despite the host windows OS not supporting it directly.

Yes, sd cards and pretty much any media can be formated as ext4 and then used on linux without any issue. On android, your mileage may vary.

As for mounting the Deck like an external storage via usb on a host computer, this is mostly an android/iOS aberration. In short, the same partition can't be safely mounted on 2 OSs at the same time, and those devices have unremoveable media and aren't ever actually powered off, so one has to actually mount it and serve as intermediary for the other, which carries significant overhead and limitations...

People expect that feature from appliances (what the Deck looks like) while on PC (what the Deck is) we have normal network shares... and those are much superior, but are consistently pushed aside from being an OS feature in android in favour of cloud solutions (same as with microSD slots being ommited in Google Nexus / Pixel phones "because Google Drive")

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For people who are curious to try Warpinator, it already exists as an android app too:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=slowscript.warpinator [External Link]

... and I can confidently say that both the linux and the android apps are very, very, very easy to use, stable and blazing fast for transfers when compared to pretty much any alternative! 10/10!!!

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just like it's possible with the Switch, the Steam Deck can act like the console for a TV + Controller...

...but a fullblown linux OS will shine through on the Deck in several ways where the ususal pared-down closed and console-specific OSs are almost always crap

do you have a PS5 controller? it will work
xbox one controller? works
3DO super nintento bluetooth retro gamepad? sure
a pair of Nintendo Swith gamepads slided together? you naughty heretic, of course it works ;P

a cheap targus usb-c docking station instead of whatever valve promoted but's out of stock? yep!

do you have a wireless keyboard and mouse pair to use via bluetooh or via a specific usb receiver? it will work, and actually many of the games where designed for this even before being designed for gamepads, so you'll be just fine playing, not just browsing the main OS screens

32" FullHD usb-c monitor with audio output? no problem, dude

my desktop died and I need work done ASAP!!! get the main sata3 ssd out of that tower and dualboot the deck from an usb3 casing, quick!!! the Deck is such a pushover I can even use my smartcard reader for secure auth, the printer/scanner and usb digitizer :D

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sounds like a part of that stuff could be submitted for inclusion in Feral's Game Mode and thus conveniently applied in any distro instead of just Pop_OS!

not sure about pop_shell messaging to signal which apps are in foreground to prioritize... it looks like that might require some extra changes in each DE or something

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IMHO offering a widely available way where an emulator can read from a real cartridge via usb instead of from a downloaded ROM actually creates a stronger legal defense and legitimacy for the emulator scene (with a caveat)

ROMs are extracted by one person from a cartridge and in several countries can be legally downloaded and used only by other people who already own a cartridge themselves

this would let them use their cartridge directly instead of grabbing ROMs online, so it makes the emulator software more obviously legal... and possibly the ROM distribuition less so?

in any case, third-party console manufacture already existed (eg: CCE's Dynavision Action for the original NES) when the original consoles where still in production, so I expect this new hardware is probably nothing out of the ordinary to prove legal now

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That's terrible, if it's true!

I don't get why they won't just partner with GemRB devs to help it work as the new official opensource engine for their remastered releases...

They should be able to work on the game resources without the source code and GemRB is already working on IW2 with playable status:

https://gemrb.org/Features.html [External Link]

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afaik the only way to not need the host OS support for the graphics API called from the guest (plus the interfacing support for it between guest and host) is using a gpu passthrough method...

a full gpu passthrough lets the guest OS take over full control of the specific hardware, so you need a second GPU hardware just for the windows guest... not ideal with current prices, to say the least, LOL (unless you have a spare one already)

there was work towards a gpu passthrough method where both host and guest could share the same hardware, but i'm not sure how that was meant to work and at what stage that work is now

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any Baldurs Gate series, any Icewind Dale series and any of the classic Fallout games (the isometric RPG ones) coming to Linux are an instant buy for me.

I still have the original media for a few of them from my windows days, so I can totally run them via Proton, wine or GemRB, but having them as native linux titles is something I just feel compeled to support!

Have I become an Ilinuxthid thrall?!

ps: what happened to Icewind Dale 2 on Steam?! whyyyyy only windows on GOG?! it's my favourite series by far, this just breaks my heart!

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