Gaming

I preordered one and got it on Monday after having the Steam Deck for almost a year now and being pretty much exclusively a Linux user (at home) for more than that. The hardware is impressive but I was less than happy with it shipping with Windows 11. I mainly got it to reverse engineer the RGB and add it to OpenRGB, after that my plan is to run some flavor of Linux exclusively on it.

Out of the box, the Windows 11 setup experience is absolute garbage as usual. Want to avoid logging in with a spyware account? You need to break out an external keyboard and USB dock, look up the key code to open a terminal online, then enter some cryptic command to reboot the system with the shitty Internet requirement disabled. Basically just to be able to bypass the Microsoft account bullshit like you could in Windows 10. Upon logging in, ROG software pops up and immediately starts making you agree to TOS nonsense. The OOBE is atrociously bad here.

That said, installed Steam to test and even in Windows the Big Picture experience is pretty solid. Can't do the fancy stuff like TDP control through Steam like you can with the Deck, but it's definitely a better interface than the ROG nonsense. Played some Risk of Rain 2 to test, ran quite smoothly, smoother than on the Deck for sure.

Then I tried installing ChimeraOS to a micro SD card using a USB flash drive for the installer. I was able to get into BIOS rather easily (hold Volume Down while the start animation plays) and disabled Secure Boot. Then I installed ChimeraOS to the SD card with an Ethernet connection for network. Unfortunately, after it installed I discovered the Ally can't boot from micro SD cards, so dual booting is going to be difficult. I was able to boot the card in an external USB reader, so the card was fine. No WiFi in ChimeraOS but maybe I needed to install updates/firmware, haven't had time to experiment.

Mostly have been working on reverse engineering the RGB. There are some built in modes and the ability to sync with other Aura devices. This can be controlled through the Armoury Crate software. I was able to get basic per-LED control working in OpenRGB but need to figure out how to control the built in modes before I'm done and ready to push it.

Other main gripes - no touchpads. Controlling a mouse pointer with a joystick is pretty terrible in comparison. Only one rear button per side rather than two. Not a 16:10 screen. The rainbow looking strip on the back is not RGB as I thought from pictures, it's just a holographic strip. The only RGB is around the sticks.