I bought mine a few months ago despite never being a Steam user before and I love it. Sometimes I use it in handheld mode but it is too bulky for me, so most of the time I just have it hooked up to the TV and use a PS5 controller.
Only issue I have with it so far is that I couldn’t find the packages for Arabic keyboard support in SteamOS. I have been using Linux for over 15 years and had no issue with Arabic input on other distros (Red Hat and Debian based), I just couldn’t figure out where to look for them if they do exist. I never used Arch, so maybe that’s why? If anyone has a clue please let me know.
Generally in arch you can set Arabic keyboard layout with the command
setxkbmap ara,us. If you’re wanting to change the keyboard layout in game mode though that will probably require something else.That did it, thanks a lot!
It’s a great machine especially for playing chill indie games that you might not run on a desktop as well.
That is exactly my experience!
I have been a competitive player for stuff like WoW and LoL for years, and very conservative in the types of games I play (always 1/2 max). Since I bought the deck I went deep into Hollow Knight rabbit hole and loved it, playing balatro and many other smaller indie games, chilling on the sofa and without the addicting factor of online PvP.
Perfect for those sorts of games. Previously the switch was my machine for those sorts of games, but waiting for a switch port ruled out or delayed a lot of games. So glad we have handheld PCs now.
I bought so many indie games over the years that I felt like was not enough for my desktop. I know that sounds stupid but I’d want to play high end games on my desktop or maybe mouse and keyboard games rather than any controller.
After getting a steam deck I plowed through that list and they were amazing. I got the dock and have a controller too.
I loved my Switch but I gave that to my nephews … The Steam Deck requires a bit more configuration which makes it perfect for me.
Seriously considering a switch to Bazzite on my actual gaming PC.
Me having a RTX3070 is holding me back, though. Maybe AMD will have a decent, not-too-stupidly-expensive card in the 9070XT. Really don’t want to spend more than $500-600 on a GPU. And I really don’t want to replace it until I can get something with at least twice the performance.
I literally started downloading the Bazzite installer on my PC just before heading out to work - will be installing it on a spare NVME and seeing how it goes tonight hopefully!
Bazzite does have a Nvidia-specific build, I’ll report back in a day or two how I go with my 3090.
Nvidia GPUs work well on normal Linux distributions. Ubuntu, for example.
I have a 3070 ti, I am using Cachy Linux. How do you feel held back? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m curious about your experience. My experience has been great and I’m confused what the fuss was about. Maybe it’s easier now that Nvidia drivers are open (or at least fauxpen)? Idk.
Edit: misread as you saying you’re on Linux right now and wanted to use Bazzite, but I think you’re on Windows. The switch from Windows to Linux has been substantially easier than I thought. Happy to answer any questions about it if you’re curious.
My concern is basically the usual “Nvidia hates Linux”.
Also:
https://docs.bazzite.gg/Gaming/Hardware_compatibility_for_gaming/
Nvidia GPUs are currently in beta with major caveats
That’s just Bazzite, CachyOS doesn’t have a similar clause.
Did it though? I mean some people switched, it sold well, but is there like a huge shift in Linux gaming? I feel like things have been proceeding pretty smoothly since DXVK was released.
The original DXVK is mostly thanks to one guys obsession with nier automata, but after his initial work on it, it was valve who hired him and has funded it’s development.
So a lot of DXVK working as well as it does was in preparation for the Steam Deck.
I’ve been a Linux PC gamer for 10+ years now, and the months between the steam deck being announced and released saw a huge improvement in game compatibility.
I mean, it’s complicated yeah, but i would still maintain that DXVK was more of a watershed moment than Steam Deck.
Valve developed SteamOS way back during the first Steam Machine push, 2012-ish.
They moved quick adding DXVK into Proton and releasing it in 2018.
But I think that the core of the recent Linux Gaming story gets lost when people celebrate Valve or the Steam Deck since, like you said, it was a dedicated gamer who first developed DXVK which enabled all of this.
Linux gaming has accelerated in the last few years for sure, but I’m not sold on the premise that the impact belongs to the SD. That being said, I haven’t checked the release feature sets against the SD launch so I don’t have any hard numbers to back that up.
SD has done a lot to push Linux Gaming into the mainstream, but i don’t think the development efforts are a reflection of that, rather that SD was launched in the middle of an accelerated development curve caused by DXVK.
I just remember that when the steam deck was announced in 2021, I was excited for it, but I was extremely skeptical of their claims that most steam games would run on it. Linux game compatibility was really hit or miss at the time, and it didn’t seem possible that it would improve that much by the release date. I know the groundwork was already in place for a lot of the foundational projects, but those months before the release were absolutely incredible for seeing proton mature and actually start working on most everything.
Hopefully wine would have gotten here eventually, but I really think that valve funding the development of stuff like DXVK and proton was absolutely key for the fantastic state of Linux gaming now. The big question is how much of valve funding development of those projects was with the steam deck in mind, or if they had something else in mind.
Oh, neat, I remember borrowing money from friends to buy one shortly after release, and spending many months repaying it. My main thought process, besides it being a cool PC, was “the higher the statistics, the better the outlook for Linux adoption”. :D
Can barely believe it’s been three years already.
This why I bought 3 of them. The 2 I gave to my family members is probably collecting dust but oh well.
hi, its me your family member
Doing the Lord’s work. 🫡
Steam deck changed gaming forever.
I dreamed of a handheld computer so long that just had the fucking screen and gamepad connected like the game boy. I thought shit why isn’t it done we have the technology! But it was because of the Linux system and valves own incredible work on making games work on Proton and it’s a truly monumental paradigm shift that I support in every way
And my gaming PC is collecting dust since then. Dragon Age, BG 3, Avowed this thing still goes strong.
Can’t wait for the next version, already saving money for it.
How well does Avowed run on it?
Good, it runs out of the box on low settings. I fiddled a bit with the settings and even turned textures up to medium. I set it to 30 fps instead of 60.
Forgive me for asking, but why not run it on the desktop so you can get better settings (especially that FPS) and then stream it to the deck?
fair question.
I prefer using less power if possible. The game looks great even on low and on the small screen its crisp and beautiful. Instead of two PC running I use a low power device. However for games the require high FPS like shooter games, still the desktop, mouse and kb is my goto.
I stream my PS5 though if possible and the wife is watching TV.
