this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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Steam Deck
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I don't get why the reviews complains about Linux on the Deck - why are they even touching the OS? It's not needed at all for most cases.
Anticheat.
The casual friendly hyper-monetized nonsense that needs to install malware to "ensure fair play" (or sell loot boxes and spy on you) doesn't run.
This is one of the few legitimate complaints. Good point.
The funny thing is that Valve actually manage to have some very good working anticheat running but most of the genius companies decided instead of using their own new buggy ( super breakable ) anticheat.
Interesting point. I wonder if this person spent hours trying to get that kind of junk working without an understanding of the OS (Their comfort level was hinted at through the article)
As a Madden addict (not ultimate team, which is a cool idea ruined by monetization, just real teams head to head), I spent a bunch of time trying to jump through hoops to play it on Steam Deck. I went as far as installing windows to a microSD and trying to run it off that (because making it the actual OS or letting it touch my drive was unacceptable to me) before giving up.
I ended up refunding, but I can see the motivation and frustration if something you're really into doesn't work when it should. (The previous version didn't have anticheat and ran like a charm).
Ha. Been there, spending hours and hours trying to get some game working. I'm thankful it's been so much better in recent years. So much more painful a decade or so ago.
That said, I never had to work around anticheat stuff. That sounds tough.
I wasn't even trying to bypass it. I had a separate microsd I was going to run windows from just for Madden. But you don't have a lot of options when they don't think you've given them enough invasive access.
I did bend the knee and get it for PS5 eventually, so I guess they still won.
Why does a madden game need anticheat though
There have been exploits. You could break the AI to get an insta-sack for a while.
I don't think anti-cheat helped with that though. The actual reason is ultimate team. They don't want anyone exploiting them instead of paying money.
I can’t play like 5 games.
I don’t get it either, Linux is fine for gaming at this point. Now it’s such a small amount of games that don’t work.
And are those games worth playing? From what I've seen it's mainly battle royale and sports games that have anti-cheat set up to deliberately break Linux compatibility
That really depends on the person, for me, it’s a deal breaker. If your game won’t work on Linux, I won’t play it.
Sadly, I don’t have this luxury with my work software. But I’m hopeful that things will change. I could probably make it work if there was just one app that worked on Linux.
Keep in mind that unless you are working in CAD, you're almost guaranteed to have a good alternative that works on Linux
Familiarity.
If an alternative isn't 100% identical to a tool one is used to, one automatically has reservations, and the slightest inconvenience immediately turns into a blocking issue. On the other hand, one is typically inclined to ignore problems with tools one is used to.
There isn't much one can do about this, other than trying to keep an open mind, and being aware of that bias.
Yeah but you don't even need to see the underlying OS, just the familiar Steam client. I love Linux and use it on all my PCs and servers, but I never use desktop mode on the deck, no need to when all your games are on Steam.
I'd get a complaint like "some of my games don't run", but I honestly don't understand what he means when he writes "Wrestling with Linux on my Steam Deck has been a nightmare since day one".
They do mention emulators, and I honestly don't know which ones are available on Steam - and you still need to copy the ROM files somewhere...
As a Linux user I find that rather easy to do, even on Steam Deck with immutable root FS, but I can understand how a Windows user might get frustrated by it.
I did use desktop mode to install emudeck. The install process is fully automated, but yeah you have to find your way around a unix FS to download and play roms I guess, but creating a folder and moving files around with dolphin is not that complicated, and he's a writer for a tech news site...
You also need to transfer the ROM files, what either means using a USB drive, takig out the SD Card, or using some form of network file transfer. The Steam Deck comes with sshd preinstalled, so gaining sftp access is just a matter of enabling it, but most guides to do so just mention how to do it on the command line... And for some weird reason Windows users seem to be afraid of terminal windows... (I just had to google if there even are graphical frontends for systemd.... The answer is of course yes.)
I've installed EmuDeck a couple of times and I don't think I've had to use the terminal. And if I did all I was asked to do was type my sudo password
I'm talking about sftp access. The sshd is disabled by default, and the deck user doesn't have a password set either. If you want to push your ROM files over to the deck over network, you need some way to tell systemd to start sshd - the usual one being
sudo systemctl start sshd.Personally I like my ROG Ally because with NTFS file system I can run all of my games, including the ones on my Xbox game pass, which is not something I can currently do with Linux-based handhelds.
That being said, I spent literally like three hours decluttering the OS because it ships with a stock Windows 11 which is full of bloat and bullshit. Spent a while with Win10privacy disabling/uninstalling all the useless crap. Why does my game console have Teams? Why does my enterprise computer have the Xbox app? Stupidity all around.
If Chimaera had better support for the ROG I'd look into dual booting, and with the chip being AMD, I have full confidence that eventually I can probably put Linux on that handheld and it will run better and last longer than it does with Windows, because of all the optimizations written into SteamOS being forked for other projects. Right now, there are some things that don't work with Chimaera on other handhelds. I think there's some gimmicky hacks I need to implement for the ROG for baseline things like speaker audio and bluetooth support.
We will see how much support Microsoft provides for their handhelds long-term, in terms of optimizing the OS. So far, they've done fuck all though. SteamOS gets better performance patch after patch.
great comment summing about the current deal.
No doubt deck is limiting in these ways and this fact should not be down played.
Once you accept the limitations, it is a great product and you are voting with your money for further development of linux as platform for gaming, which is I think why many people are exited about it. Gaming enshitiffication over last 5 years is out of hand. Got to fight back.
The Deck is incredible, and if I didn't get the ROG two weeks before the OLED was announced, I would have probably gotten the OLED and eaten the loss of my Game Pass games.
I'm not following what your first point has to do with the filesystem?
I dual boot Windows 11 on mine, and it makes me feel like a deviant on this site. I just slapped Playnite on it, and it became fine enough for GP games.
Unless the game isn't on steam, then you do have to touch the OS