Given many new handhelds coming on the scene and general disinterest of Microsoft to support the market, do you think SteamOS will take place of default OS the same way Android did on phones some time ago?
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
313 points (99.4% liked)
Steam Deck
14863 readers
236 users here now
A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
[Selling] - If you are selling your deck.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
- Follow the rules of Sopuli
- Posts must be related to the Steam Deck in an obvious way.
- No piracy, there are other communities for that.
- Discussion of emulators are allowed, but no discussion on how to illegally acquire ROMs.
- This is a place of civil discussion, no trolling.
- Have fun.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The reason Valve is so heavily investing in Linux is that they know that Microsoft could - in theory - flip a switch and kill their business, especially because Microsoft themselves is a competitor to Valve in the form of Xbox and Gamepass.
It's a defensive tactic, not a money-making venture.
And realistically Microsoft has a very good moment coming up in the next few years to effectively kill Steam: Valve only delivers pre-compiled files and does not have access to source code. Therefore Valve is not only stuck with a “Windows-like environment”, they are also shackled to x86. With Apple’s M-processors reigning supreme in the laptop space with insane values for performance-to-powerdraw (and in turn heat radiation and cooling requirements), the days of x86-by-default laptops are probably numbered and more manufacturers may want to switch to ARM, to avoid unfavorable comparisons to MacBooks. With Windows for ARM Microsoft can finally kill of all traces of Win32 in WinRT, as they tried for years and force everyone to use UWP-apps from the store exclusively on ARM. Apple does leave apps behind, when updating their operating systems on a regular basis, a similar move by Microsoft wouldn’t look totally unreasonable. The switch could even happen gradually, like Apple’s Rosetta translation layer, which runs x86 apps on arm great right now, but I don’t think it will be maintained forever and support for x86 apps on macOS will end one day. Microsoft could do the same for Windows for ARM. If this happens Valve will probably have the opportunity to install games as UWP-apps, but their back catalog of Win32 .exes becomes effectively worthless. But if Win32 .exes run great through some translation layer on linux, valve can continue to sell and support their back catalog on current hardware.
Why are they shackled to anything? They will sell whatever the market supports. Linux doesn't care what CPU it runs on and software can be compiled for anything. Valve isn't stuck with anything, all of their stuff is virtual.
If we move to ARM, MIPS or whatever the flavour of the day will be, they'll just follow the trend.
OTOH, Microsoft has to deal with an insane amount of legacy software in the corporate space. That's probably the main reason Windows still sucks so much (although it did manage to get much better) when Mac OS managed to make a clean cut and start over.
Technically you are right when saying:
But in practice software is compiled from source for the environment it will run on and Valve does seldomly have access to the source code of third parties. They generally have pre-compiled .exes and the accompanying files. If the developer chooses to recompile for different architectures, then valve will probably get a new compiled binary. But what about defunct developers or publishers who don’t want to invest any more development time in old software? Additionally: No, software as complex as games cannot always be compiled for anything without throwing ungodly amounts of errors. In these cases additional development would be needed, even if Valve had access to the source code and the rights to use or recompile it, which they probably don’t have for proprietary third-party software.
This is specifically a problem for valve’s immense back catalog, brand new games will probably release as a compatible binary.