Running Linux On The ASUS ROG Ally Gaming Handheld

[Linuxxx]

I'm always willing to entertain new benchmark requests especially from premium readers.... But let me know what you have in mind for the feasibility of some special Steam Deck benchmark article for $100. If it's something that straight-forward and interesting I can generally handle it and meeting my benchmark requirements.

First of all, sorry for the late reply, had one of those immensely busy days again...

And yeah, thank You very much for being open about my idea!

It's really simple & straightforward:

Valve will soon release the major SteamOS 3.5 upgrade in preview form for the Steam Deck, so the first point of comparison would be between it & the current stable 3.4 version with default settings between the two.

On top of that, I'm planning to write an article this weekend where I will collect all of the tweaks I apply to my personal Steam Deck, which can be replicated with a single copy & paste operation in a terminal.

Therefore I'd like to see a third run with all of my tweaks applied to SteamOS 3.5, just to see the combined impact of those.

All done with just a handful of games available via your PTS on the stable Proton 8.0 release.

So, just to recap in a few bullet points:

- Three benchmark runs, comparing SteamOS 3.4 & 3.5 & tweaked 3.5.

- Proton 8.0 with a few games available via PTS.

- Just one run with a 720p resolution at medium settings should suffice.

- Everything else (like power limits) left at defaults.

After SteamOS 3.5 gets released in preview form and my article goes online, we can finalize the selection of suitable games.

I will immediately send You the 100$ once we've agreed on the terms.

Thanks once again!

[Lanz]

I just can't see the appeal of this device without the digital input that the Steam Deck's touch pads offer. :/

[mikus]

Any plans in trying to use ChimeraOS on this?

There was someone running ChimeraOS on a ROG Ally weeks ago if you search youtube. Power management issues as you'd expect from anything Asus, but otherwise worked. Assuming people fix whatever Asus screwed up in hardware for drivers, I'm sure it'll work better eventually.

I've used mediatek 79xx chips under linux in ap mode or client just fine with testing under older 5.x kernels on openwrt and my arch system using bleeding edge 6.3 kernel/drivers.

[mikus]

I just can't see the appeal of this device without the digital input that the Steam Deck's touch pads offer. :/

I had a steam controller and hated the goddamn touchpads on it. Some early reviews of the Ally cried a lack of them, and as a hybrid desktop I might imagine so.

Simply a lack of a game-like UI built for analog and d-pads is Windoze's biggest issue without something like touchpads as a mouse. A constant theme in the Ally reviews is just that, which is why Asus built their UI themselves around Microsoft's distinct lack of, but when has that *ever* worked out well short or long-term vendors support or even improve upon them. This is where Steam Deck excels so far and Windoze and their vendors (GPD, the many clones) fail.

Best thing Valve could do is patch SteamOS to fully support the Ally, just to piss in the eye of Microsoft, as assuredly it'd work with minor tweaking and Arch Linux modern kernels it's built around. Someone will if not Valve, it's too good of hardware at the price point.

[andrei_me]

fluke thanks for your work improving Asus products support in Linux 👏👏👏

[mikus]

I guess I should write something here since plenty of folks will stumble on it...

1. The entire range of ROG laptops (including Ally) in 2023 have missing _DSD props in ACPI, so the Cirrus sound amp won't work (yet), typically this is wired to bass
2. Still on audio - most of these are going to need quirks added to the realtek-patch.c. That's not unusual at all but requires folks with these devices to put a little work in (see my guide on https://asus-linux.org/blog/sound-2021-01-11/, this needs updating however)
3. The N-Key device is a new ID so I need to add this to the hid-asus driver (soon)
4. There are possible new keycodes in the USB packets, I have been given the captures from wireshark for this
5. I will add support for the RGB in to asusctl
6. The mediatek as per usual will be problematic for a while.

The biggest pain is going to be audio and mediatek.

The sound amp is getting actively worked on - https://lkml.org/lkml/2023/5/24/994

Decent Linux support really should have been day -1 things for a hardware vendor today. I know it's not Asus' core business to support Linux, but they can't act like a silly beast sticking its head in the ground to ignore the fact Linux is the mule of the hardware industry these days when their market to beat *is* the Steam Deck.

First question people ask is how to replace the terrible Windoze and Asus UI with Steam Deck. Is Asus surprised?

Asus has long been betrothed to Microsoft and usually offers only the worst Linux support usually for hardware, but I can't imagine they'd go through the effort to do Microsoft's job for them in creating a usable UI for the OS either, yet did. This never ends well as the vendor support cycle is never long enough, and eventually replaced as a mockery in the next Windoze build.

I'm sure MS subsidized this just to keep themselves relevant in gaming today like the ghost of Steve Ballmer still lingering. I guess folks can hope for windoze 12 with a native gaming mode. I'll cheer to more hope for Proton and native Linux gaming.

[NeoMorpheus]

Decent Linux support really should have been day -1 things for a hardware vendor today. I know it's not Asus' core business to support Linux, but they can't act like a silly beast sticking its head in the ground to ignore the fact Linux is the mule of the hardware industry these days when their market to beat *is* the Steam Deck.

First question people ask is how to replace the terrible Windoze and Asus UI with Steam Deck. Is Asus surprised?

Asus has long been betrothed to Microsoft and usually offers only the worst Linux support usually for hardware, but I can't imagine they'd go through the effort to do Microsoft's job for them in creating a usable UI for the OS either, yet did. This never ends well as the vendor support cycle is never long enough, and eventually replaced as a mockery in the next Windoze build.

I'm sure MS subsidized this just to keep themselves relevant in gaming today like the ghost of Steve Ballmer still lingering. I guess folks can hope for windoze 12 with a native gaming mode. I'll cheer to more hope for Proton and native Linux gaming.

You pretty much nailed it, Asus did this device in spite of SteamOS/Linux on behalf of MS.

I wonder if they even bothered in approaching Valve at all, to discuss working together to have their own version of SteamOS.

That said and a bit off-topic, I wonder how difficult is to port Playstation games to Linux, instead of porting from Windows?
Since PS runs BSD.

Dont get me wrong, Proton is fantastic, but i would prefer properly ported games instead.

[mikus]

That said and a bit off-topic, I wonder how difficult is to port Playstation games to Linux, instead of porting from Windows?
Since PS runs BSD.

Dont get me wrong, Proton is fantastic, but i would prefer properly ported games instead.

Game development seems like a dark art, everyone picks a camp (xbox, ps, switch, pc) and specializes in them. If you're an X person, you probably don't know crap about Y. Only the most sycophantic (or paying) get the vendor support in forms of Dev Kits and access to secret hardware optimization. If you're in fight club, you're not allowed to speak of fight club, or get support on stackoverflow.

Even worse was when things were using PPC or Arm vs x86, again requiring far different development and optimizations per platform. At least most real systems (ahem, NOT nintendo) run x86 anymore and real gpu's that make porting far more possible in theory, but still far from easy in reality.

No wonder video games suck variably between platforms, every one is like a bag of severed dog cocks, you never know what you're going to get, and you damn well won't like any of them.

[Linuxxx]

That said and a bit off-topic, I wonder how difficult is to port Playstation games to Linux, instead of porting from Windows?
Since PS runs BSD.

PlayStation doesn't run any of the standard BSDs, though.

It runs Sony's special FrankensteinBSD...

[fluke]

Decent Linux support really should have been day -1 things for a hardware vendor today. I know it's not Asus' core business to support Linux, but they can't act like a silly beast sticking its head in the ground to ignore the fact Linux is the mule of the hardware industry these days when their market to beat *is* the Steam Deck.

First question people ask is how to replace the terrible Windoze and Asus UI with Steam Deck. Is Asus surprised?

Asus has long been betrothed to Microsoft and usually offers only the worst Linux support usually for hardware, but I can't imagine they'd go through the effort to do Microsoft's job for them in creating a usable UI for the OS either, yet did. This never ends well as the vendor support cycle is never long enough, and eventually replaced as a mockery in the next Windoze build.

I'm sure MS subsidized this just to keep themselves relevant in gaming today like the ghost of Steve Ballmer still lingering. I guess folks can hope for windoze 12 with a native gaming mode. I'll cheer to more hope for Proton and native Linux gaming.

Errr.... what? What is going on with all the conspiracy theory stuff here...

It's all down to "we need this product" and "we don't have the resources" and "we need it fast or we'll miss the boat".

FYI, I have active contact with an engineering team there, and I am under NDA for a lot of things. The folks I am working with have an active interest in Linux and help me when I need help (I am the main driving force of Linux support for ASUS gaming laptops). Asus have also very recently loaned me 3 (very different featured) laptops so I can better support them in Linux.

I have been working with a couple of others in the Asus-Linux community I've built over the last few years on the Ally and we now have sound working, a patch is in the works for keyboard button support, and I'll be asking for info on the gamepad mode. Since this is a device largely built using laptop tech and the associated ACPI it also already is supported in kernel for eGPU and fan curves.

Other than that I have right now:
- 8 patches for extra features on these laptops
- working on better support of egpu
- finalising the "screenpad" dual screen support
- adding a patch for tweaking the dGPU limits and CPU PL1+PL2 limits
- Adding suuport for all this in asusctl

My eventual aim is to get to a point where I can get advanced info on a selection of ASUS products and get support prepared.

So, enough with the MS conspiracy theory stuff.