Valve Announces Steam Deck As Portable SteamOS + AMD Powered Portable PC

[evasb]

Now Epic Games can do their move and port Epic Store for Linux to people play in their Steam Decks.

[mdedetrich]

Tech specs: https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech

Assuming the ram is single channel, for a device this small.

I highly doubt that its going to be single channel memory since that is a massive drop in performance for no real reason

Can't wait for the gnome haters, not too surprised that they went with Arch + KDE plasma. Arch is rolling release which can help deal with the outdated graphics driver problems (i.e. you get kernel updates sooner) and KDE (much to the dismay of others) is actually one the leanest desktop environments when it comes to CPU and memory, that thing is heavily optimized.

[LeJimster]

Even though it's arch based I wonder if they will manage the updates. I wonder if they will manage things like Manjaro do and hold off a little on the very latest packages, giving them time to test things before each update.

Anyway, it's exciting to see SteamOS is still alive in a different form. Could we be about to see the mythical 1% of Linux gamers on Steam figure get smashed this xmas?

[lumks]

Even though it's arch based I wonder if they will manage the updates.

They will probably do is like GamerOS/ChimeraOS that also is Arch based, but does have auto-updates and a nice design to it. I doubt it will be plain Arch or even the Arch Repos in any way.

[mdedetrich]

Even though it's arch based I wonder if they will manage the updates. I wonder if they will manage things like Manjaro do and hold off a little on the very latest packages, giving them time to test things before each update.

You have just answered yourself, its likely that they went for Arch precisely because they are relying on sooner updates specifically from the kernel. They are using AMD graphics which means graphics driver improvements are tied to the linux Kernel version. Arch is arguably the best distro for this usecase, its incredibly fast when it comes to testing changes from upstream as soon as they are released as stable and they have a huge amount of users to test.

Fedora would have been another contender but unfortunately they married to Gnome and tbh Gnome is kinda bad (particularly if you look at memory usage which matters for a device like this).

[landeel]

I'm very curious about Proton compatibility, specially with games with anti-cheat, which they claim will work.
Of course Valve has done a lot, but right now it's still so very far from perfect.
Do you guys think it will be improved by the end of the year?
Does Valve have a secret fork they're not showing us?

[lumks]

not too surprised that they went with Arch + KDE plasma.

I actually think that the reason for KDE is because

1. Valve people use KDE Plasma a lot
2. KDE is still heavily on the X11 side
3. Plasma is more like Windows

I actually think that they do not want to fiddle around with Wayland-first desktops like GNOME and xwayland, while steam itself is basically X only at this point. So is wine and so proton. While it works on xwayland there is no reason to have another layer in between. Nothings wrong with that I think.

[mdedetrich]

I'm very curious about Proton compatibility, specially with games with anti-cheat, which they claim will work.
Of course Valve has done a lot, but right now it's still so very far from perfect.
Do you guys think it will be improved by the end of the year?
Does Valve have a secret fork they're not showing us?

To set your expectations, if you are planning to use this device to play AAA multiplayer games that typically have anti-cheat systems you are not likely going to have the smoothest experience and you are also not really the target market.

I plan on reserving/buying this device, but its more for indie games like hades (i.e. platformers, arpg's etc etc)

[doomie]

!!! They got soooo many things right here. Please tell me this will result in a release of Steam Controller 2.0 ... I mean split screen play on a TV wants such a thing. Please yes.

Nintendo sells on exclusives, which in a sense this absolutely has in the handheld space. Does this also mean incoming optimizations for AMD hardware on linux? Is the OS locked down so you can't run GOG games under wine?

"...Desktop: KDE Plasma"
Yeah... they made the right choice. :3

[mdedetrich]

I actually think that the reason for KDE is because

1. Valve people use KDE Plasma a lot

Maybe but this would be concerning if its a primary factor because they should pick the DE that is best for the users, not what Valve happens to use internally. Those are 2 very separate things, i.e. a highly customized DE for development/engineering is not the same thing that general users want for a gaming platform

2. KDE is still heavily on the X11 side

Valve has been heavily pushing Wayland/XWayland so it would be quite surprising if they ship this thing with X11. Even if they ship it with X11 and plan to upgrade to Wayland later, this is really setting them up for lot of upgrade pains which happens all the time with such updates (particularly since they are giving you a raw Linux device which they advertize can be tinkered with)

3. Plasma is more like Windows

This I somewhat agree with but TBH its a pretty minor point considering you are going primarily spend almost all of your time in SteamOS on this thing. Hooking it up to a display and using it like a computer is nice but in reality its a gimmik/perk and not the main point of the device