Dual boot is still on the menu, too.

Recent patch notes sounded like they might be hinting at upcoming ROG Ally support, but it’s now confirmed.

  •  orca   ( @orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts ) 
    42•1 month ago

    It would make the Ally usable. Windows holds it back a ton because it’s a trash OS.

    There’s still some hardware issues to contend with. Like the fact that it fries SD cards due to poor card slot placement… and the control stick bug…

    Let’s just say my wife has one and we recently got her a Steam Deck instead. I had to replace one of the sticks on the Ally and still had problems. She also can’t use the SD card slot at all. It’s flawed hardware with potential (after a couple revisions).

  •  Destide   ( @sirico@feddit.uk ) English
    19•1 month ago

    Distros like bazzite have really picked up but they’ll always be niche projects in the eyes of game dev and publishers. Steam os at least can help them realise that Linux isn’t an instant dismiss because they haven’t used it before.

    I have friends in AAA game dev and they all have the same kinda dated idea of Linux being this sweaty crazy programmer distro even though we all play games online together.

    If valve can carry on increasing the market share it’ll definitely help get rid of some stereotypes for Devs which in turn brings more market share.

    •  Fubarberry   ( @Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz ) OPEnglish
      17•1 month ago

      The lower storage Deck models have been sold at a loss, with the plan of recovering that through game sales. So rival hardware running SteamOS could make valve more money than the deck does.

      It’s possible that the deck’s are no longer sold at a loss, both due to components getting cheaper over time and higher sale numbers leading to lower cost per unit. But either way the money comes mostly from game sales, not hardware sales.

  •  thingsiplay   ( @thingsiplay@beehaw.org ) 
    14•1 month ago

    I’m actually a bit surprised this takes so long for Valve. Because I think Valve wants to be in a position what they envisioned with Steam Machines, where many systems are created by different manufacturers. Only with a reference model that everybody can fallback to as the base model, the Deck. Guess creating an operating system that can be installed on arbitrary handhelds is not easy (go figure).

    BTW this is not a unique concept either, because we had similar strategies before with home computer systems and console like systems in the 80s and 90s: MSX (actually from Microsoft) and 3DO are “popular” examples.

  •  bitwolf   ( @bitwolf@lemmy.one ) 
    13•1 month ago

    The exciting thing I am taking from this, specifically because of the ROG Ally are two things:

    • Valve intends to support nvidia drivers in SteamOS (the ROG Dock)
    • Valve intends to ensure eGPUs are a good experience on SteamOS

    If these do make it to fruition that would be a huge benefit overall for Linux gaming.

  •  Skull giver   ( @skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl ) 
    11•1 month ago

    How’s Linux support for the Ally? I know Valve has been doing a lot to make Linux work well on the Deck, so I kind of wonder how much extra work they need to put in to get a similar experience.

    As any Linux user with Nvidia hardware probably knows, driver support makes all the difference. Just getting the GUI on screen isn’t enough.

    •  smoothbrain coldtakes   ( @canis_majoris@lemmy.ca ) English
      8•1 month ago

      Bazzite is fine. It’s serviceable enough to get the job done. The hardware is supported through a bunch of different emulation tools and bespoke applications like HandHeld Daemon for hooking into power draw and managing extra buttons.

      Bazzite is based on the Holographic base that SteamOS uses, but opts for a Fedora-based immutable back-end over Arch. Running SteamOS itself is going to be better once Valve implements native support for all of these things that are covered by HandHeld Daemon, at least in theory.

      Due to the non-optimal nature of both Windows and Linux at this stage, they tend to perform about equally.

      I get that the Fediverse is disproportionately made up of Linux users, but the reality right now is just that no operating system is fine-tuned for the hardware its running on besides SteamOS and the Deck itself. It’s not better yet, but it’s getting better at a massive clip - which is above and beyond whatever Microsoft is doing (looks like nothing) to improve their software for the form factor.

      •  Skull giver   ( @skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl ) 
        5•1 month ago

        Microsoft actually recently announced modifying their game bar to be more mobile friendly. MS clearly wants handheld manufacturers to use the Xbox bar which isn’t going to happen, but they’re trying. The problem with Windows for handhelds is that the launchers are the unique selling points for most of these manufacturers, so any official Microsoft toolkit would be hidden completely if the manufacturers could have their way.

        All of those extra daemons to make Linux usable is exactly what I was wondering about. SteamOS for the Ally means nothing if they don’t build all of that stuff into their distro, preferably by fixing the drivers rather than user mode proxies patching over lacking driver support.

        •  smoothbrain coldtakes   ( @canis_majoris@lemmy.ca ) English
          3•1 month ago

          Well, the problem is honestly just Windows. It’s not designed for mobile or touch interfaces at all, and all the telemetry and crap bloatware degrades the battery performance. If you get rid of all of that stuff it’s actually on par with the Linux equivalent.

          I dual boot my Ally and I actually spent time messing around with different OSes. ChimeraOS was not ready when I had initially given it a shot (around March) and it crashed constantly and didn’t have full support for things like RGB. I also tried Bazzite at that time and it was a similarly strange experience. It’s gotten much better in the last few months. I’ve been running Bazzlite on my Ally since early July. HHD has progressed immensely and offers a lot of good control over the device.

          If you start off with the IoT version of Windows, it comes with essentially nothing. The store app isn’t installed, but neither is Teams or Paint. You don’t actually have to spend time “debloating” it, since it comes more or less bloat-free. You actually have to spend more time installing dependencies and drivers than removing things. Run the telemetry disabling script and then you have a version of Windows that still sucks to use in general, but is much less awful on battery life.

  •  cum   ( @moon@lemmy.cafe ) English
    3•1 month ago

    Hell yeah. If Valve was smart, they’d have pushed for this a lot sooner. They should focus on making it more device-agnostic. If the consumer’s device revolves around their storefront, then it’s a massive win for them.