Valve Shares New Steam Deck Details, Proton Update Available For Testing

[dEnigma]

you live in some alternative universe where they use arch instead of manjaro?

No need to be so rude, especially considering the fact that you seem to be wrong AFAICT. They just use Manjaro as an example/recommended distro in their instructions (both in the video and on the documentation page) because it's "similar" to what will be on the Steam Deck, and easy to install. Obviously they don't tell people to go through the vanilla Arch install instructions to set up their system, then set up the GUI and so on, because they want to make it easy for (mainly Windows-first) developers to test their titles for the Deck. See that they already call it the "most involved part", even with Manjaro. Using plain Arch as a base for the instructions would be much more involved. (https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/testing#3)
The "Tech Specs" page also says "SteamOS 3.0 (Arch-based)", and nothing of Manjaro. (https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech)

Edit: I just realized that you could've just meant that they use Manjaro in this specific instance, and not for the Steam Deck. My apologies! Still, no need to be rude to the other poster, in light of what I wrote above.

[misuzu]

> Steam Deck will use an immutable root file-system, albeit can be changed for developers/enthusiasts wanting more control over the system state. The immutable root file-system approach is similar to the likes of Fedora Silverblue.

NixOS could've been a perfect fit for something like Steam Deck.

[scottishduck]

Unfortunately doomed to fail unless they switch to gentoo……

[oiaohm]

> Steam Deck will use an immutable root file-system, albeit can be changed for developers/enthusiasts wanting more control over the system state. The immutable root file-system approach is similar to the likes of Fedora Silverblue.

NixOS could've been a perfect fit for something like Steam Deck.

https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Packaging/Binaries

The no go here is patchelf. Ostree can get away with running non modified binaries same as flatpak(that uses ostree), snap and steam runtime. Problem here is nixos need to modify binaries. Immutable root is something ostree is good at. Majority of applications never notice that the root file system is locked to read only.

Please note immutable root file system of the ostree type does not mean users cannot make their own private forks. Yes it possible to keep the immutable root status and install extra programs with ostree. Its really simple to forget Fedora Silverblue has the tool rpm-ostree that lets you install rpm packages resulting in a private fork of the silverblue without disabling the immutable root.

Time will tell how restrictive or not restrictive steamos may be. immutable stability of updates and other features will be beneficial to something like a steam deck. Of course there are different ways to implement immutable root. Least restrictive is able to install anything as long as it a package. Yes the immutable is still there and is able to protect yourself from shotting youself in the foot by installing a package that attempted to uninstall core files like the GUI.

Do developers in general want to be repairing their system from self destruction normally no. Even majority of enthusiasts don't want this. Lot of people who use silverblue have found they don't want more control even that they are developers/enthusiasts. I personally believe there has to be a balance point with immutable root that will generally work.

[microcode]

you live in some alternative universe where they use arch instead of manjaro?

They literally aren't using Manjaro except as a suggested test distro until they distribute their new SteamOS distro. It just isn't Manjaro, at all.

[microcode]

Unfortunately doomed to fail unless they switch to gentoo……

ChromeOS build system is (was?) Gentoo based, but the Arch packaging tools are good too.

[oiaohm]

ChromeOS build system is (was?) Gentoo based, but the Arch packaging tools are good too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrome_OS

ChromeOS starts as Ubuntu changes to Gentoo. Also fun is the Crostini support on Chrome_OS for running Linux native applications out the box is debian 11 now.

So google here is bit of a mixed up item.

[drake23]

Just read about gamescope the first time... Is this already a part of proton/steam on Linux? And could the frame limiter be used outside of steam? Right now, I'm using libstrangle to limit frames which has problem with proton steam games ...

[reba]

Yo dawg,

I heard you like windows and wayland.
So we put a xterm in a xwayland in a wayland in a gamescope in a konsole in a wayland in a plasma in a kwin in a dbus in a bash in a tty (who needs sddm? And I hope I got this right ).



It compiled quite nicely after all the build-dependencies were in place.
Now, what to do with it?

Oh, and it amazingly runs your graphical programs directly from a TTY without any display manager in the background, which was quite unexpected.
Quickly call filelight or dolphin from a login bash without booting the whole desktop? Works! Even with mouse support.

[Danielsan]

1. The reason to use Arch is because you can throw whatever you want into it since Arch doesn't have any system organization like Debian does.
2. The reason to use OStree is because the line above.
3. The reason to recommend Manjaro is because now they are a commercial entity, so Valve can dealing with them.

The reasons to not buy or use the Deck is because the three points above.

Suse/OpenSuse provide all the infrastructure to throw newever drivers and repos in their distro, it comes with different flavors, also a rolling version, and plenty of engineers working on it, I cannot say the same for Manjaro.

It would preferable at this point moving toward SUSE/OpenSuse as base platform rather than Arch/Manjaro.