I was in a computer shop a couple of weeks ago and it seems the windows handheld makers are doing the same shit they have on their laptops - it was filled with pre-installed bloat, including some shit Norton antivirus 1 year subscription.
Something you never see reviews mention, which is crazy.
Antivirus doubly doesn’t make much sense on handheld. Today’s malware is more stealthy and focused on stealing your data, but what sensitive data are you storing on a gaming-specific handheld?
I guess there’s your Steam account, but the risk profile just isn’t the same, and it comes at the cost of performance which is already much more limited in this form factor.
I’d argue that power is more the issue. All that processor time the antivirus spends scanning and rescanning is a chunk of battery gone.
From a theft perspective, being able to hijack someones steam account is likely to be more lucrative than most. There’s a window where they might be able to resell the account to someone who doesn’t know how easily valve can verify true ownership and fix it.
You’ve still got a lot of botnets and cryptocurrency miners flying around. Ransomware is the big one that targets people with important data that a gaming device is immune to.
Anything with an IP address can be vulnerable to malware running miners, botnets, and all that good stuff for bad people to continually use your toys to do in the background. The convenient jumping off point into your home network and other inward-facing stuff there you might not want accessible from outside is also worth considering.
There’s still ransomware. Pay X bitcoin or say adyeu to your encrypted savegames.
Wipe and my cloud saves got me. We good. Its a handheld, not my desktop.
That’s not how most malware works though. It’s pretty rare that it’s targeted rather than something just looking to take advantage of whatever security hole is present.
Like, I highly doubt anyone is making Steam OS specific malware, but if there’s some security hole in the kernel, a piece of malware targeting that isn’t going to check if it’s a handheld gaming device and stop.
Isn’t it interesting how operating systems have a culture? From my early days of working with windows, it was completely normal for every other program to want to run itself at startup, no matter how useless it was to do so. And people just accepted it. They thought that computers literally get slower over time or something. Oftentimes I’d glance at someone’s system tray and see 15 icons or so.
On Mac and Linux though, this behavior is far less acceptable. Today on Mac it is by far worse than ever but still probably better than it was, say, on windows 98. On Linux I could literally install 50 apps in a row without any asking me (or doing it without asking) to run on startup.
It’s just up to what users will put up with. So windows consistently getting shittier shouldn’t really surprise us. People have put up with that from the beginning. Both in terms of the app ecosystem and the os itself.
Like we went through at least a decade on windows where most free apps people used would literally attempt to, or force malware on your machine, in the form of toolbars or other useless shit running in the background. People were so complacent they wouldn’t even uncheck those boxes when offered a choice in the installer. We really need better education in this world.
Yeah on my Linux machine I’ve had like 2 apps want to run on startup, and both of them had little checkboxes in their tray menus to disable that behaviour. If anything the bigger struggle has been that every time I change machines or distros I have to manually get yakuake to start on login again.
I have had the same issue a couple of times actually. Had to learn how to setup systemd services for one of them!
If anything the bigger struggle has been that every time I change machines or distros I have to manually get yakuake to start on login again.
On the off chance that you use KDE Plasma, it’s just here FYI:
Yeah, it’s easy to do. I just wish for once that this particular app would do it for me automatically
Totally fair!
My Ally didn’t have any bloat. Curious which ones do.
For those brave enough, this year I finally took the plunge and went with Linux on my desktop.
I went with Pop OS, and after a few days decided to try the cinnamon desktop env. since it’s a little more familiar. Some things took about a week to get figured out, but now I don’t ever want to go back.
Gnome, even with Pop’s perinstalled extensions, is not the most familiar DE for those coming from Windowd. KDE, MATE, Cinnamon, XFCE are much closer and at least a few of those you can make to look like Windows (if you for whatever reason want to)
Familiar is bad imo, just switch to something different. It is different, embrace it. I use Fedora gnome btw
This is an odd take. There is no inherent advantage to using an unfamiliar ui on linux, there is nothing under the hood that “works better” for any specific desktop environment
I wouldn’t agree either, but I think there’s some kind of logic: At a certain point familiarity can be a detriment to learning if it leads to you adding invalid assumptions to your mental model because everything else is so familiar. If everything is unfamiliar however you’re less likely to start making assumptions.
As for how true of effective this is, I don’t know. Anecdotally however I had less problems learning entirely different keyboard layouts for example as opposed to layouts that are just slightly different.
I love cinnamon. I guess that makes me a classic guy. It’s nice without being too flashy.
Linux desktop main for about a year, and I mostly use it for gaming. Thank you Valve and Wine developers!
Yeah Cinnamon reminds me of the old Gnome 2 days, before it started trying to get all flashy and stuff.
TBF that is literally the exact motivation behind Cinnamon. Mint was like “yo, GNOME 3 sucks for what were trying to do” and forked. I think that’s also why you see such string MATE support with Mint, too. Those developers fucking loved GNOME 2 (with good reason, GNOME 2 was genuinely excellent).
Back in the day I thought GNOME 3 would eventually stabilize into something suitable for daily use, but their constant breaking of APIs frustrates me to no end and makes me view the GNOME project as just being… Out of touch with the reality of the kinds of people who use computers. They’re so hyper focused on their usage patterns they don’t recognize they’ve made themselves irrelevant to most of us.
I genuinely mean it when I say KDE and LXDE-Qt (these days just LXDE, but I want to make sure its clear what I’m talking about) are the future. Its not so much because I think their platforms are intrinsically superior, but instead their philosophy to how developing for the desktop works. And for those who think KDE is too heavy and LXDE is too idiosyncratic, running a desktop without any desktop environment has become downright easy as of late. I’m running MX Linux with fluxbox and Antix with IceWM and I rarely miss features of the big DEs and I’m just running what those two ship with.
I loved GNOME 2. It got so much right and really did a lot to get out of your way. GNOME 3 meanwhile has some truly stellar core ideas for how humans computer interactions can be performed but everything surrounding those core ideas (the ecosystem) sucks because GNOME doesn’t value stability anymore. That’s probably somewhat fine on a rolling release distro, but… I don’t… Think the average person looking to GNOME’s ease of use are going to trend toward rolling releases and are going to prefer pointal releases. Probably the best place to run GNOME on a pointal releases these days is Fedora since that’s where so much GNOME development happens anyway, but Fedora has issues I frankly don’t want to deal with because fedora doesn’t offer me (emphasized because if fedora is offering you special value, that’s fine abd valid) value thanks to being a somewhat unstable pointal release distro (be stable or be rolling release. Ideally be both. Don’t be neither)
And all of this is kind of a shame, too. There’s a whole ecosystem of GTK apps that are effectively decaying because no one trusts GNOME to provide a stable platform and for people who’ve come to rely on those apps, there’s gonna come a time they’re gonna have to migrate to unfamiliar Qt apps. They’ll be able to handle it of course, but most people just want their shit to work how they know it works and to not deal with their system being different from how they’re used to.
Gnome 3 was a regression of what I still believe is a perfect UX metaphor for computing. Gnome 2 was perfect in every way. I’ve since gone to Xfce, but it feels like Gnome 3 and beyond is trying to make using Unix fool-proof for a touchscreen paradigm, and you really can’t.
You should give people the keys without difficulty, but give them everything they need to not need them. And you’re never going to run Gnome on a tablet. There’s no point in making everything pronounced, you’ll have an input device that’s not a finger on a screen. Emulating something else like Windows or macOS doesn’t make you seem unique, it makes you seem similar and if the paradigms aren’t the same, its confusing. Have some audacity to be different.
I switched to Mint from windows 10 about three months ago (when I upgraded my video card). Everything is so much smoother and just works. Except Remote Desktop… can’t figure that one out.
If you want to remote into the linux box, I recommend sunshine+moonlight. They are designed for “gamuurz” but that just means they are efficient.
There are a few ways to go about it. You can try to use the microsoft RDP like system with XRDP. Or you can go over to VNC.
But I agree, it is a little bit of a fiddle. Keep at it!Try ThinLinc and ThinLinc server - they work great for me.
Did you try remmina?
I am slightly ashamed to admit the reason I’m not going to consider pop os is the stupid way they write it: Pop!_OS.
I’m already running 11 Linux VMs (and 3 bare metal Linux OS’s) in my homelab so I think I’ve got plenty of Linux here anyway.
I had similar thoughts when I first discovered Pop!_OS. Just the name alone gave me vibes of some Fisher-Price toy operating system like it was meant for children, all cringe happy-smiley.
But I honestly suggest you get over your aversion to the name, and give it a try. It’s actually one of the most pleasant desktop experiences I’ve had with Linux, and it’s especially a treat on bare metal. Looks great, runs great and everything just works, including steam gaming.
I probably will eventually.
Yeah, I leave out the underscore.
I think I’m going to die over my arch sword one more time before I try giving another OS a try. Its either pop or endeaver next if I still have to fight my Nvidia card.
I did the same transition a couple of months ago (the Windows to Pop! OS one, not the desktop environment one) and even though I’m a gamer (something which has stopped me from moving to Linux on the main usage of my home desktop since the late 90s - were I’ve usually had it on dual boot but not used it that much) am very happy with it.
I’ve actually been familiar with Linux since way back in the Slackware times, but only now have I started using as my main desktop.
I do think it’s getting to be the Year Of Linux On The Desktop for a lot more people than ever before thanks to the aligned forces of Windows “all your computerz belongz to us” 11, software as a system with general enshittification and just how much easier it is to game on Linux thanks mainly to Valve and the steady, unrelentless, stream of improvements being done by the Wine devs.
100% agree. I was getting tired of the start menu notification to sign in to windows, and how the updates would reenable telemetry.
I shouldn’t have to constantly run a debloat script. I should be able to disable “create a windows account” notifications.
The steam deck showed me that Linux can run games, the only thing left for me is a decently running adobe suite, but I can live with the occasional dual boot for that.
Not trying to get you back into Windows, and I hate to be the ass saying “skill issue”… but I legitimately have not had any issues with updates reverting my Windows settings in over half a decade. Besides the default PDF reader setting. I haven’t signed in with a Microsoft account and have never been prompted to make one.
Install the Pro version of Windows, use Group Policy to turn off the bloat the way Microsoft intends for it to be disabled by enterprise admins, and you’re golden. Maybe run a debloat tool or two right after your initial setup, but that’s it. No need for repeatedly running debloat scripts, and no settings reverting themselves.
It’s 100% easier to use an OS where none of that shit is needed, but I just get frustrated seeing people point at entirely avoidable things as why Windows sucks. There’s plenty of other reasons too!
Nah, you good.
The notification is the the start menu. There’s a little notification dot on the profile icon above the power and settings icon.
This issue: https://community.spiceworks.com/t/disable-sign-in-to-your-microsoft-account-prompt-in-start-menu/965584
Running win 10 enterprise. I can say “remind me later” but not “never remind me.” I did a registry/GPO fix which made it go away… Until it came back. The OS just feels pushy at times.
Aaaaaarch aaaaaarch btw
I know logically that people can do whatever they want and it doesn’t affect me in any way so I shouldn’t care, but I do still get a visceral eye-twitching feeling whenever someone talks about installing Windows on a Steam Deck. It’s like someone buying a sports car and using it to tow a caravan or something.
It’s like buying an electric sports car and immediately converting it to diesel.
People fear what they don’t know. Valve has made Linux gaming stupid easy and still people are more worried about FOMO of that small percentage of games that don’t run on Linux. Maybe we’ll see a shift if someone releases a banger game that’s designed to be really really good on steam deck (so Linux exclusive, basically) and have it out in Linux for a few months before the windows version comes out
Valve has made Linux gaming stupid easy and still people are more worried about FOMO of that small percentage of games that don’t run on Linux.
Unfortunately, most of the non-working games are also the ones people tend to have FOMO about. I feel like they’re mostly online games with anti-cheats which, by their online nature, means that you will feel really missing out when all of your friends except you play the game, more so than single player games.
Dude, same. I cannot understand it (for games. I’m sure people have valid reasons if they’re using the Deck for some other purpose). It seems there is a cohort of otherwise relatively tech savvy people who are just terrified of all things “Linux.”
Maybe they heard horror stories from friends or family while growing up and aren’t aware of just how close to complete compatibility Proton is. In fact, in some cases, it can somehow run games better than if one were to dual boot and install in Windows.
Even Valve’s own Steam Deck verification should be taken with a grain of salt, it seems as though they’re being extra conservative with those. I’ve gotten several "unsupported " games working (very easily), for example , Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition is listed on Steam as “unsupported,” but it works great (with DSFix even) on my Deck.
ProtonDB is a far better resource for anyone reading this who hadn’t heard of it.
But yeah, it’s almost like this subconscious aversion to Linux. And they want to be in their comfort zone I guess.
I mean there’s a time and a place.
What if someone has gamepass or a ton of free games on EGS?
Can’t you play both of those from SteamOS?
Unsure about EGS, but Gamepass can only stream via xcloud on non-microsoft platforms
The GP app/store for installing games locally is only available on Windows
EGS you definitely can with Heroic Launcher. I got Death Stranding for free on Epic and played it on Steam Deck using that.
You can play non streamed games on steamos now?
Edit: Gamepass games
You can play non streamed games on steamos now?
Non streamed? You mean just running the game on the device? You could run games on steamos since it first released in 2013.
He means from Gamepass. On many non-microsoft platforms, the only way to play Gamepass games is streaming via xcloud
On Windows, Gamepass games can be installed locally from the GP app, but last I checked the GP app was still Windows-only
Sorry, I was referring to game pass games. They’re exclusive to windows because they’re built as windows apps or something.
The only times it’s OK are when it’s planned for specific softwares. For example, I can’t run Rocksmith 2014 on native Deck but it works fine in Windows. Similarly, software that’s OS limited would be another use.
But if your main thing is gaming, and you aren’t dual booting… Yeah, I’m judging you. (And I mainly use Windows on PC. But why, why, why would you need to only run Windows on a Steam Deck without a specific purpose
They just can’t help themselves, lol.
All that bloat is bad enough on a laptop, but its the absolute last thing a handheld needs, both for performance/battery and ergonomics.
and to think there was plenty of no windows, no buy mentally when the Deck got announced. I cannot understand why would anyone go down the Windows route on a handheld, specially now that Linux has been so tried and tested
I mean, Windows would be fine if the OEM stripped it down instead of bloating it even more. They can totally do with with group policies.
I honestly don’t know what they were thinking here.
They were probably thinking that they’d use the cheapest Windows license (no gp manager) and make more money by putting bloatware on there via deals with other companies.
I know you know but why are they so short sighted? I just don’t think actual consumer experience is at the forefront of priorities. Deadlines and budgets are.
It totally kills interest in the device though. Its like they think every single buyer is an impulse buyer who just looks at the demo in Best Buy without even looking it up or trying it.
I own an OLED Deck, and while I absolutely love it, it isn’t perfect from a compatibility standpoint. Getting other launchers to work can be a pain, and certain games that the hardware can easily handle have issues due to obnoxious shit like EA’s launcher, e.g. the Dragon Age games. Additionally, mods can be fickle to get working on certain games. The majority of these problems can thankfully be overcome, but implementing the fixes can be tedious/annoying on a handheld.
That all being said, I’m amazed how far gaming on Linux has come. Valve and people like Glorious Eggroll have done excellent work in making Linux gaming possible. I hope as more and more Deck users get accustomed to Linux and make the transition on desktop, that developers start making native Linux clients so all these wrappers aren’t even needed in the first place.
I specifically did so I can use any game service beyond Steam without hacking stuff. I know I can turn on my Ally and use Steam, Gamepass, roms, sail the high seas, virtually anything, out of the box.
There’s no “hacking” involved to use non-steam services on the Deck. Except maybe gamepass but since Microsoft is making that shitty now is it really that important lol?
If you want to play anything with anticheat, you can’t on a steamdeck. And gamepass was my number one reason to not get a steamdeck. I play Xbox too, I might as well get the most bang for my buck if I already subscribe.
About half of games with anticheat work on Linux: https://areweanticheatyet.com/
I know there are working ones, unfortunately all but overwatch don’t work from current games I play.
This was all in response to why anyone would choose a windows machine. I’m a use case that needs windows. I don’t love that I do, but it is what it is.
Sea of Thieves has a shit ton of Tumbleweed reviews on protondb. You should read them. There’s also a fair amount of other distros that say they work fine. Now my own anecdotal experience, I couldn’t get anything to work on my arch install. But I was dumb as hell and didn’t want to use a desktop environment on a desktop.
I think this is it. Extra margin they can slap on at the last second.
Prosumers aren’t going to care, because if the hardware is still OK, they can just re-install.
But consumers end up buying gear that is hobbled with shiteware.It’s really sad, as it kills the end product for no good reason. Just theoretical pennies.
User Experience matters. And Valve knows that very well.
Unfortunately it doesn’t always matter. It matters after the sale is made, so many hard thinking departments think they can skimp here. Apple and Steam know different and it’s working for them. But they built trust for years.
I had to set up a Mac for our sole marketing employee yesterday. I didn’t want to go back to my windows computer. I was only asked for an icloud the entire time. Windows has become a shabby ad platform with an OS attached to it.
What is this heresy that you utter in this holy community? /s
Linux distros are waay worse!
They keep on advertising things like Desktop Environments and Window Managers and Display Managers and Printer Drivers!
And they don’t even go about it subtly, like, one at a time. A single ad contains a list of around 10 or so Graphical Environments and even after you select one, it keeps on showing you the other ads, because you, apparently, can install as many of those things at the same time as you have HDD space for. And then they keep advertising GRUB and systemd-boot! (Though I must give them credit for giving me the option of “No boot”)And even after you have finished installing, it is not enough, because you have to see an ad of 2 Network Card drivers, both being different versions of the same, because why not ?!
And turns out, everything that they give you in the package is actually third party! Meaning, stuff that has access to the lowest depths of your hardware, to stuff that you use to enter your bank details are all made by different people. So many people you have to put your trust into.
And if that’s not enough, the people who compile it and send it to you might be totally different people from those who made the code!! What kind of heresy is this?
And turns out, everything that they give you in the package is actually third party! Meaning, stuff that has access to the lowest depths of your hardware, to stuff that you use to enter your bank details are all made by different people. So many people you have to put your trust into.
And if that’s not enough, the people who compile it and send it to you might be totally different people from those who made the code!! What kind of heresy is this?
You joke but I’ve met people that actually think like this
The reason for that being that all the points I have put are fully valid.
The rest depends upon the persons inference.
- Having a separate coder and a packager means there is a good chance that another person (the packager) is looking at the code.
- And this other person is also most probably a separate entity, so if the coder is malicious, someone will know.
- Then comes the point of the distro community being more open and fragmented, as compared to a corporation, that can keeps their members’ mouths shut using contracts and all
- For the same thing, the pro corpo guys will say that they have a single entity to go to for any problems. And since they have a contract (which maybe a b2b client-provider contract), their interests match.
- As opposed to some random chap on the internet, developing some Open Source thing as a hobby, purely for their own fun/ego/satisfaction.
Your points about enterprise support are fair but I was more talking about people that believe that FOSS is inherently less secure than something closed source controlled by a single large company (i.e. security by obscurity which doesn’t actually work)
Honestly I do agree in some ways support is better for enterprise products but at the same time companies could still use some sort of source-available license to promote transparency/security auditing while having the same control as a closed source product. It’s not FOSS but would definitely be better than having everything closed off
- Having a separate coder and a packager means there is a good chance that another person (the packager) is looking at the code.
Offline mode is still kind of an issue with some stuff, unfortunately.
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That’s because it isn’t. You may get a few more FPS out of it than the Steam Deck in some games but overall it’s a much worse experience.
User experience is more than raw performance numbers. In my personal opinion, the Steam Deck is still easier and more enjoyable to use.
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In what games do you get 120 FPS?
I stay under 60 fps the vast majority of the time and while the games i play are fairly demanding I personally think going over 60 or even 40 is a waste. I would rather increase the quality and/or reduce the power consumption.
Indies mostly. Hades 2 is a great example - plays and looks great.
I should probably get Hades 2 someday, I should just finish Hades 1 first and probably wait for release.
What FPS and battery life are you getting on Hades 2?
I really want an OLED deck but I can’t really justify the additional cost. The bigger battery and slightly improved efficiency seems like the best part about the OLED edition.
Anyways I usually only play on the train and most often on the bus to work, so as long as I charge the Deck each day it usually holds up well both ways.
I play it almost exclusively docked with a controller because of wrist stuff tbh
Also yeah Hades 1 rules
It’s worth it. I’ve bought two of them. Use almost daily. For me it’s the coolest piece of tech I own, and I do have a very powerful gaming PC…
YEAR OF THE LINUX
DESKTOPHANDHELDWindows is cancer
Someday, Windows might be as good at gaming as Linux.
I love how the tables have turned.
All this because Windows 8 started to evolve into a walled garden with the Microsoft Store and that pissed off Valve.
Here’s to Windows ownership significantly dropping thanks to SteamOS.
Hopefully articles like this get more companies contributing to steamos/proton
If you want Steam Deck experience on these handhelds, take a look at Bazzite. It already supports the Ally X. Runs like a dream on my Legion Go.
This is a sensible recommendation. Even though I despise windows and Asus has support issues historically ( very lame ones even), the hardware itself is very good and any Linux distro can be easily flashed.
I wouldn’t dismiss the handheld based on a windows review really ( hint : windows will forever suck).
Just 45 minutes for windows updates? Must be a bitching internet connection.
Eventually Microsoft is going to be forced to adapt and make an operating system that doesnt use 20% of your system resources, right?
surely they wont continue to make the same bloated, sluggish OS every year since windows 7 right?
I strongly believe they will do that. Then a week later, slowly introduce bloat again.
ah yes, the internet explorer/chrome/firefox but then firefox got better but then worse again/chrome/is internet explorer good now?/opera/operagx/Microsoft edge is actually fast now/back to opera effect
Uncomfortably rare Windows L
After the Stephen catastrophe, I can never read the Verge without thinking how utterly inept they are.
Care to give some context?
This is a reupload https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2lmfF0k2UcU
Edit: it’s easy to say Stefan was the idiot here, but he’s some 20 year old kid that’s built only 4 PCs at this point. The editing, continuity errors, etc were all the Verge management. The fact that a tech news company has no one that knows how to build a PC is mind boggling. Then it was sponsored by Capital one…
