this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
99 points (90.9% liked)

Steam Deck

6012 readers
2 users here now

Universal community link
!steamdeck@lemmy.ml

Rules

Order

Models

64GB eMMC LCD
256GB NVMe LCD
512GB NVMe LCD
512GB NVMe OLED
1TB NVMe OLED

Allowed languages

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] hibby@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They switched from a Debian based OS to an Arch based immutable fork for the Deck. There are folks who have built a close version to SteamOS 3, but there would be no need if Valve would just release the official OS. I can't imagine why they haven't. It would only make it cheaper for other hardware manufacturers to release a product. I don't know how much of the Ally's price is just covering the Windows license, but it has to be a substantial percentage of the overall retail price.

[–] Cybersteel@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So i can fetch AUR packages on the Steam Deck?

[–] hibby@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Not out of the box. You don't have sudo privileges on the SteamOS 3. Valve made an immutable fork of Arch for stability and to dissuade unskilled folks from punching stuff into the terminal that might cause customer service nightmares.

[–] rog@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the main selling point of the Ally is Windows though.

There are plenty of people who are scared to touch linux, even with a nice launcher on top that does everything for you if you are happy with a vanilla experience. I personally know people, in their 30s as well, who said a while back that they would rather wait for a windows handheld for "stability". They havent picked up an Ally though.

[–] hibby@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's an immutable filesystem fork of Arch, not vanilla Arch. It's as stable as any operating system is, doesn't update in the same way Arch does, and doesn't even allow the user sudo privilege. Also, you don't even need to interface with Linux. The front end is extremely intuitive, but you also have the option of a pretty great KDE Plasma desktop mode if you switch over. Fortunately, it has no Candy Crush, Teams, or Cortana in the Start Menu.