There is a reason, Sony and many other gaming device vendors are developing their own OS for their gaming device, and that is to having total control over the whole stack. Valve is developing SteamOS to no to be dependent on Microsoft to keep this is running as intended and hoping that after Windows updates nothing breaks. with their own OS Valve has the total control.
@@carlosmaldonado7194 Xbox is run by Microsoft, who also design Windows! That allows them to modify windows as much as they want / need, valve can't do that!
@@carlosmaldonado7194 nope it has bits of windows 10s kernel and libraries but it's not even slightly bloke desktop windows. It's also running in a hypervisor.
I wouldn't put windows on a PS5 or a X-Box, and similarly I wouldn't put windows on my Steam Deck. But at the end of the day, it's my device, I should have that option for the principal of it. And it's amazing to see Valve respect my right to do what I wish with my device
You need to add retro-arch as a "non steam game" to the steam client and then the deck controls will work properly. Same behaviour with the steam controller.
You don't press B to go back in retroarch. You are already on the root menu You need to press Left on the DPAD or analog stick to go back. Thats not a steamdeck issue, thats just the default bindings
@@Ametisti Yeah the default controls are awful. You really need to change a lot from the defaults in retroarch otherwise it's an awful user experience.
It's not a very intuitive choice to make it work like that but at the same time the interface literally tells you, so I'm surprised no one noticed when he was messing around with it.
“I own this and I can do what I want” If only most hardware devs understood this concept Edit: by devs, I didn’t mean the actual individual developers. I meant the development corporations. It was a reference to how they’re all fighting right to repair
@Ralph Reilly This is actually a good comparison. Hardware devs are well aware of what customers MIGHT do, but they can't optimize a system for every scenario, it's just not efficient or even practical.
If you've ever used a controller managed by Steam on your desktop this behaviour makes a lot of sense. Just think of the touchpad as a touchpad and the rest of the buttons on the steam as a controller.
Linus exposed, that was the first thing I thought as well when he was talking about the button mapping. IDK how often he actually uses controllers on computers.
Yeah, it's probably just assigning 'B' to esc, 'A' to enter bc Steam doesn't know if you're in RetroArch or using the desktop. To get around this you can either just add the game as a non steam app, or use GLoSC/GlosSI (I don't know if this supports steam deck yet though)
@@unicodefox I use an old Saitek P2600 Rumble Force controller on Steam, Dolphin, Citra and PCSX2, and it works fine so long as you turn off desktop (background?)control.
I don't think you're understanding the problem exactly here. You make it sound like you just need to change the controls in Steam or turn Steam off. Neither of these solutions would work. They tested with Steam turned off and Windows saw the controls as a keyboard and mouse, not a controller. This is normal for the Steam controller also. When Steam is running it configures the controller based on whether you're on the desktop or in a game. I know you know this I'm just leading to my point. So if retroarch is using desktop controls you can just remap the desktop controls as a controller, right? Well now you can't navigate Windows without quitting steam first. In fact you'd likely have to hook a keyboard and mouse just to get desktop controls working again. The only solution I can see would be to add Retroarch to your steam library so steam treats Retroarch as a game. This would fix your controls for sure but I have tested Retroarch running through Steam and have run into input delay issues, even with the overlay off.
The main thing here (in my personal opinion), is that this shows why many people say that Linux is bad on desktop... Linux is not bad at all what happens is that it lacks support from hardware developers, now when you have a product designed to work well on Linux it is obvious that Linux was never the issue, then you put Windows on it and you see the same issues or even worst that Windows have with a product that is not tailored designed to work on Windows, at the end Windows and Linux on the desktop side have their ups and downs and user experience tends to depend more on hardware support than anything else beside user familiarity, that is why I will keep saying that Linux is the better OS for Gaming, because when you realize this then you can start understanding that the things that really matter are inside... the kernel, and the kernel of Linux is unquestionably better and more performant, so it is just a matter of intention, if hardware companies develop support for Linux the same way than to Windows and then game companies does the same Linux will beat always Windows, the Steam Deck and Steam OS is an example of that.
Very true. This video has Windows and Linux in opposite situations as to what you would encounter in the desktop market. Linux is much better polished, has more supported drivers, and is more performant. So as you said, on the desktop Linux is not the issue but it is the support other companies provide, which is often poor due to them cutting corners. A lot of people talk about the year of Linux desktop, I would like to see the year of the Linux support where pretty much every common software I want to install is supported natively without weird forum workarounds. I just want companies to stop treating Linux as a third-class citizen.
@@greel397 Most treat Linux users as the Plantation slaves. They steal the FOSS code and then tell them to go eff themselves when they ask for support for the product the company made with linux software.
ABSOLUTELY!!! You hit the nail. Even so you can find stupid little things about Linux like sleep/suspension in many distros. Linux as a whole concept is magnificent. For example i work on blender I've use a Hackintosh, Windows 11 and Garuda Linux and the performance from Linux in the same system is just much better . I also play CSGO and definitely Linux with less resources is more effective. Windows have great things but if Linux would have the same software , people would be using Linux
@@robch.2901 Some people benchmarked software like Blender on Linux compared to Windows. It has up to 25% performance increase under Linux. Still many artists use Windows and Blender. But to get a 20% performance plus would spend a whole bunch of money on hardware upgrades. So yes, if software/hardware has good support under both OSes, then the performance under Linux is better in many cases.
2:26 Actually, when you boot windows on a steam deck, or any computer for example windows thinks of most of the hardware or controllers as "software controlled" unless you're using system level mouse and keyboard. This also affects USB Xbox controllers, which are able to navigate windows. When you start a UAC promt, windows locks off software controlled devices, preventing them from accessing a UAC prompt. This is supposed to have some virus or false admin control protection.
As someone who's used Linux with lots of different laptops over the past 15+ years, I've become all too familiar with the unique type of frustration that comes from using a device whose manufacturer has only designed its various specialized components for one OS with a completely different one. This was pretty hilarious to watch from the other side.
Yeah, I hear you mate. As someone who recently was choosing the new gaming laptop with full Linux support I must admit that's a nightmare. Quite funny to see this the other way around on SteamDeck :D
I want to learn Linux, but there is sooooo many different forks/versions.... Would Linux Mint Cinnamon be a good start? I've read that PopOS is for gaming, but can Linux mint play at least some games using Proton? :)
You actually have that wrong. It's a Microsoft problem. It would be up to Microsoft to support the inputs in the windows NT kernel. There isn't anything Steam can do if they don't want to support it. It's not like a USB peripheral where you can make your own driver.
Heck, if LMG having two Decks means that they can do stuff like the side-by-side comparisons in this video, I'm all for it. That's more information in my hands that I didn't have to gather myself.
@Girl On A Quest 800usd wouldn't send them on another planet and i wouldn't be surprised if one of the steam decks is owned by one of the employees not to mention i doubt valve would mind sending them 2 units to test this stuff out since they are a media outlet
Definitely knew that this would happen, it makes sense overall but it's pretty cool that you can do it for certain things you may want to do. Love the transparency steam is currently practicing when it comes to the deck.
@@StellaEFZ it makes sense that running an unsupported OS on a device has drawbacks and issues, especially when windows itself doesnt really support the kind of hardware. If you look at the Aya Neo Next for example, it costs over double (sometimes triple!) the steam decks price, gets slightly less overall performance and has an awkward UI according to the verge's comparison of the two, which isn't hard to coroborate as most things that try to use windows in this way are (using a controller in windows, not in a game is....weird to say the least, granted I havent tried very hard). The Aya Neo Next definitely takes the cake in storage, though that comes at a high price tag. It would be nice for windows to be better on the Deck, but it's unsurprising that it's not the best experience.
@@Dell-ol6hb That is not what I meant with my commen, that was in response to Steam putting support for the Windows OS. It makes no sense to do that, they should (and are, and will) stick with Linux. I whole heartedly agree with what you said, windows sucks ass; That's exclusively a M$ matter, if they don't want to, it's not gonna happen.
I'm happy that Valve are putting effort into creating a polished OS (SteamOS) and an increase of games that can be played on Linux. It's nice to not have to depend on Windows as the only option forever.
Yeah but not optimizing for Windows is kind of a jerk move. This was supposed to be a pc. "It's your Deck. You can do whatever you want with it" doesn't hold up.
@@flameshana9 by your logic every manufacturer/developer under the sun should do the same, support Linux as much as Windows. Which they don't, but it would be nice, wouldn't it? Time for things to finally change.
@@flameshana9 Windows is not optimized for anything and bloated in the first place. You dont optimuze the hardware for software, its better to do it the other way around but m$ has no incentive to optimize their os.
These games should run better natively in Windows, but the software support is lacking. It's the reverse situation we have historically seen with Linux - things should run better in Linux, but they haven't due to poor support. I can see why Valve would decide to use Linux instead of Windows. Rather than needing to collaborate with Microsoft to get support for their device, they can just do it themselves. Look at the issues AMD had with Windows 11. Linux is open-source, if they need something patched, they just do it.
@Perfo Rongo this is also because with their own Linux build, Valve and AMD can push out fixes and optimizations much faster since they control the full OS stack running on the device. Additionally, many of the drivers/changes that Valve/AMD push that aren't closed-source Steam Client have been getting pushed upstream to the Linux Kernel project itself allowing the benefits to be carried across OSes and OS versions.
@@0xC except it does. Windows has a huge optimization problem in general. A lot of games that ran garbage on my windows install run excellent on my Linux install running through proton. Yes, a large part of this is due to the DirectX to Vulcan translation, but Linux itself tends to be a lot less resource heavy in the background.
The emulator is not being picked up as a "game" by steam, so it's working with the windows controls (which can be disabled) so it might be best to add the emulator as a non-steam game on steam and launching it from there. Or another solution would be to disable steams own controller to mouse+keyboard and use 3rd party software like DS4 windows
also support from emulator devs and game modders would probably fix the problems in the future. If emulators were fixed to work on jailbroken consoles they will probably be fixed to work on the deck too in the near future.
I run Retro Arch on my Windows desktop and that's exactly what I do. Retro Arch picks it up just like a 360 control (even pops up like one). Super simple solution
you could use the program Steam Rom Manager to add the emulated games right into steam, which provides steam controller support and steam overlay support.
I think the issue (just like Steam Controller) is that without Steam running, the Steam Controller (or Deck controls in this case) is not recognized as a generic gamepad device, because Steam Controller reports as a mouse and keyboard instead. DS4 Windows won't get around that. I suspect eventually someone might make a Windows driver for interpreting the Deck controls as a generic gamepad.
As for Elden Ring, the reason it worked so much better on Linux is because they fixed a flaw in the way the game does shaders in the windows version. Due to very poor programming from Fromsoft, the game decides to discard any shaders it generates very rapidly, for no good reason. VKD3D (the DX12 to Vullkan layer) has a per game config specifically for Elden Ring, which tells it to NOT discard those shaders, thus performance is better.
Your comment is entirely technically accurate, but I'd like to add that, while that may initially seem like "oh, ok, so it was just an odd elden ring specific issue, ok, so we can ignore that as an outlier" that's very much not true. The biggest advantage of open source is that fixed get made quickly. It's not an edge case, it's a prime example. A week ago shatterline required a lot of elbow grease and luck to play, as of 4-5 days ago it's plug and play.
@Ariana if your going to faff about modding the game anyway, why not run it on linux where it's factually a better experience in the first place. Sure you can jankily use translations within windows, but the windows libraries themselves are still worse off and the background processes kill performance.
This is so weird... I'm so used to the fact that Linux would have issues when to boot compared to Windows... It's interesting to see the shoe on the other foot. It's really comes to show when a company actually spends the time to optimize any OS on a device, it works really well. It's nice to see valve make Linux a first class and show what it can really do when optimize for specific hardware.
Literally the only reason Linux ever has issues is because lazy developers never support it, so Linux users are forced to use complicated and annoying workarounds, when those same developers have put in effort to make things "just work" on Windows. When it gets proper support and love, it really shows just how much better it is than Windows in every concievable way.
I absolutely love that this video is the exact thing all of us have had to deal with in Linux since the dawn of time. Things that CAN work well in Linux just don't - not because the hardware can't, but because they refuse to support it even when sometimes doing so would be trivial.
Linux truly is a great OS, hampered by shitty software support from uncaring companies. When it gets some love, it's truly amazing. Hopefully more companies will get on board.
Weirdly, there's a strange double standard when it comes to OS's. If something doesn't work on Windows (or macOS), people say that thing doesn't support Windows (or macOS). If something doesn't work on Linux, for some strange reason, they say Linux doesn't support it. I have no idea why it's that way.
@@sune9578 That's the main issue. If a device doesn't work on Linux, the Linux folks get it fixed and working while the vendor does nothing. So, hey LTT, you should be telling Microsoft to fix Steam Deck support in Windows, not Valve ...
@Sun E There is no program that doesn't support Windows that the average person is using. Grandma isn't trying to install Geary to check her emails. If it works in Windows but not Linux, then it's seen as a Linux issue.
It seems it recognizes the deck in windows, exactly the same way as the steam controller. If you added Retroarch as a non steam game, and launched it through there, it may then recognize it as a controller then. It appears its using it's 'desktop mode' when not in a game launched through steam
Yes the same system as on the Steam controller, basically the easy way is to launch everything via Steam then the steam controller is hooked with whatever target control scheme you give it into the running application (and you can even switch it on the fly). The other way which I have not tried yet is to use some kind of third party mapping tool: th-cam.com/video/uNt_ReLwk40/w-d-xo.html . Either way, if possible run everything you want to run, through steam that really is the easy way.
he just needs to go into Steam Controller Configuration and set up the Retroarch controller configuration to translate the Steam Controller inputs into Xinput.
Retro arch is one of those things that “should just work”, but I’ve had issues with Xbox controllers before, all the way to needing to rebind every key. Unreasonable to expect them to go to that much effort for something that was working, then stopped working.
@@dr4gonstear You can install Retroarch via steam, then it just works... if you install it from outside and then don´t hook it into steam then you are in the hard way. The Steam Controller and the Deck are pretty similar in this behavior, so call me not surprised.
Very interesting to see a mainstream device with drivers optimized for Linux and not Windows. It's full of all the "Oh, it works! No... wait, it does not... Ok, kinda" that all Linux users are familiar with or have experienced after switching at least once lol
@@ineedgoodname yeah they made windoze drivers but its like using an nvidia card with the open source drivers, it technically works but, thanks to corporate greed, it sucks.
@@extreme123dz That may sound all well and good, but competition is the key to success, there is a reason why in my country we have a free public healthcare but it can be subpar and have long waiting times (I mean really long). Without a direct competitor you have no need to change and adapt and improve.
Yeah the improvements have been insane and not just for the handheld market but the OS market, Linux becoming a real general usage scenario and it lots of cases an improvement over windows. It still has some real issues that make me still have a 'dual boot' of windows in case of problems.
16:08 SteamOS does that too. Steam Controller and Steam Deck are not Xinput device since they have to behave like mouse to allow using it on desktop to launch Steam for example. By launching Steam device uses Steam Input that is required for that extensive mapping capabilities. Any app outside Steam still don't recognise that by itself and it needs to be launched through Steam. Without that it still uses default desktop configuration. To have it behave like proper Xinput device you need to use GloSC which incorporates virtual X360 controller and can be used to play games easily
We all now an actual disappointment is Microsoft. That dumb little brother that needs "an additional care".. . And the smart guys (Linux devs) are Forced to do that, cause that's the only way since that little brother got all the toys and doesn't share them. .
@@valerafox7795 surprise surprise, the Software specifically crafted to run on the device does a better job than the one that wasn't... even Linux needs drivers and I have serious doubts that everything on the Steam Deck would just work, if you installed any other Linux Distro than SteamOS
@@iliasfog8857 Most emulators are generally developed for Linux too tho. The only major one that doesn't is Cemu, but that one works flawlessly on Proton, so doesn't matter in the end.
Ok, January 2024, this video is mostly 99% invalid now - I think LTT should put a disclaimer on it! We now have fully functional dual boot on the Deck, proper Windows drivers for everything required (including audio and WiFi). Heck, we even have fast switch between SteamOS and Windows now (Clover, etc.). I play Fortnite on my Deck on Windows (due to anti-cheat limiting it from running on Linux) and I am currently doing 60 FPS on medium settings. Also, if you want to access the running apps / tasks, swipe your finger from the left edge of the display - Windows will bring up the visual task manager on any touch screen device. Lastly, I recommend using Windows 10 LTSC instead of Windows 11, you get a significant boost in performance AND you also get ZERO bloat! Also, you can fix the sleep issue by adjusting the power plan settings to never turn off the SSD on sleep.
@@segafrogyou can activate it with a basic script, all available online, little Google search will tell you exactly what you need (can't link it, I'll get deleted).
@@harry619I haven't messed around with Game Pass. Streaming doesn't interest me, its going to be a laggy and bad experience, so why bother? I haven't gotten any BSoD on my Win10 Pro LTSC on the Deck. Consider a fresh install maybe? Or check your SSD. Try to decode the error message on the BSoD, it will usually point at the culprit which will help you resolve the issue.
@@rolux4853 You wanna know the average intelligence of a Nintendo user? I worked at a local electronics repair shop and someone brought in a Switch (who was obviously an adult), their parent (about to pay for service) brought it in because they bit the fuckin thing because they were mad at a game. Yeah. Granted there was a screen protector on it which broke, but they didn't even know that til I took it off. Upon which they just left. Nintendo users have the intelligence of a Koala, with the attention span of a goldfish. They'll never see the Steam Deck as good because it's not at their level. You can't argue with Nintendo users because they're in a totally different universe. Objective reality doesn't exist to them
@@sgas I think it's good to see what happens when someone hasn't gotten used to or dealt with every dumb quirk of something. It's good to see comments providing corrections, however this is an obscure and frankly garbage behavior which requires undesirable workarounds just like a lot of Linux issues are.
I disagree, installing Windows on a random PC is generally a painful experience. As is installing drivers. Most Linux distros are much better optimized for this, because it's something their users are actually expected to do, unlike Windows.
@@Mekuso8 Have you ever installed any windows newer than 98 or XP? The installation is literally so easy that even a 10year old could do it. It's just a sequence of prompts where you choose what you want, and then there's the "we are preparing things" screen telling you to wait and after that is finished all is installed and working. Problem is that steam deck isn't a "random PC", it's a new and very specific device. If you installed some Linux distro on it it'd also have issues with sorting out all the various drivers and controls. Steam OS 3.0 gets it right of course, because it's designed specifically for this device.
2:35 not "for whatever reason". For a software to interact with UAC, it needs to run as an administrator, which makes sense. Imagine if you could run an app, the app could ask to elevate it's permissions, and said app could move the cursor to click yes. It would be pretty stupid. Solution would be to run Steam as admin and configure it such as it does not need to ask for admin, so all functionality works.
Elevated applications cannot interact with the secure desktop either. They will receive an Access Denied error trying to do so. Said process would need to run not with administrator permissions, but under the SYSTEM account with the System Integrity Level attached to a physical console session that has the same privileges as winlogon itself. It also needs particular manifest declarations set (uiaccess=true) which Steam doesn't have. Further, processes trying to access the secure desktop in this way have to be code-signed with an extended validation certificate.
I'm blown away by how much work Valve has put into Linux over the past couple years. I was finally able to move fully to Linux; it's gotten to the point where every game I throw at Proton just works, usually with no tweaking, as well as or better than native Windows.
@@Laughin9M4N I don't know, but I'd be surprised if they did. The Xbox storefront is all UWP, and Microsoft is incredibly unlikely to play nice on this one.
@@Thanatos2996 IMO, if it weren’t for anti-trust laws, Microsoft would be locking their devices down to prevent Linux from running on them. They hold a virtual monopoly on the desktop market.
having spent more than my fair share of time using a gamepad as a mouse, I appreciate that they swap left/right when using triggers as mouse clicks as that's the only way to do it imo.
It really does make sense to have left click on right trigger especially when you consider most people that get this will probably be console people that besides work or possibly a laptop don't have much experience on a PC for gaming use anyway.
The biggest positive I see about the steam deck is the opportunity to watch the rate of improvement in software and drivers. I would also still like a comparison between the etched glass highest end deck versus the less expensive ones.
If you ask me, it doesn't change much. One has a bit more of glares, the other doesn't, but it's not that any game is going to be significantly better or worse. The hardware is the same, except for the SSD.
On the etched glass you cant install a screen protector without adding most the glare back. What i would suggest is getting the lower end one and upgrading the storage for half the price and adding the dbrand screen protector that is antiglare
I think one of the huge advantages the Steam Deck will continue having over their competitors is the engagement and enthusiasm of the community. I'm pretty sure every problem that's software related it will be a matter of time until someone finds a fix in the community. Be it optimizing settings, installing mods, finding workarounds, whatever you think, you'll be able to find a discussion on Steam telling you the best way to play your games and most (if not all) of it will be with Valve's blessing, unlike with other consoles where it would be like jailbreaking.
Steam deck has no way of knowing that you are using retro arch. You need to add reto arch as a non-steam game and map your own controller config to it. Same thing with the steam controller.
As a years long steam controller user I was cringing the entire time on this video. Obviously performance can't be helped, but if you're gonna run an emulator you have to have your controller config set to gamepad. The annoying issue with Windows security prompts has persisted ever since the steam controller shipped and it doesn't seem to be going away, ever. Easy fix for that is to just tell Windows not to darken the screen when giving you those prompts. Microsoft just doesn't care about fixing this. Seems Valve have made a much more optimized and performant experience with SteamOS!
Run steam as admin? That's crazy talk. You shouldn't run *anything* as admin except what needs to touch system stuff. Then again, it's windows, so what's the point of security.
even though its janky right now, I'm very surprised valve is even bothering to make windows drivers for their new console. Awesome! cant wait to get one once this is cleaned up a bit with dual boot enabled, thats a huge selling point
it's mostly just asking the OEMs to make them, it's not like it's super duper custom, they just need to make and validate different configurations of their usual drivers
@@bitw1se Driver issues getting fixed would most certainly improve the experience exponentially. Also, Microsoft COULD begin validating Windows for Steam Deck. If they were smart they would since it would allow them to maintain their market share even on Steam Deck which is native SteamOS (linux)
The windows brightness thing is also an issue on some touchscreens on laptops. If I drag brightness on my hp envy it doesn't register unless I do it slowly, works fine on fedora though.
On my sister's laptop brightness control doesn't work at all, screen or keyboard (it needs some extra drivers but asus deleted them from their website. It wasn't even 3 years old at the time they pulled them out) On linux it works perfectly though.
something with charging my Lenovo ThinkPad is reading 1% in windows while being charged for nearly 2 hours and in Ubuntu, it tells me I am at 100% and plugged in.
Games *can* run just as well in Windows as they do on Linux on the Deck, problem is the Windows drivers don't increase the GPU memory as needed as it does in Linux, so you need to go into the BIOS settings, and set the shared video mem to 4Gb, this exponentially improves performance for gaming on Windows.
Seeing Linus fiddle with the controls on Windows was funny only because when I used my Steam Link, I refused to plug in a keyboard, so I got really used to using Windows like that and I still can
All imperfections aside it is admittedly pretty insane the kind of power and computing capability of todays tech. For something so small to be able to run the windows os and run a game on top of it is pretty crazy. Not only are the capabilities of todays tech insane but the price vs performance you can get today is mind-blowing. You can take 2 to 300 dollars today and build something on a 10 year old platform and be able to play modern games in 1080 p on medium settings depending on the game high settings. To me that's awesome 😎
Regarding the issues with Horizon Zero Dawn, Digital Foundries talked about it in their Steam Deck review and mentioned that is related to the restricted memory capacity of the hardware itself and Zero Dawn caching shaders while you are playing it instead of pre-caching them before, and the workaround they recommended was leaving the game open for a while before you start playing. Those late game areas you are having issues with probably take longer to cache than the early game ones.
Direct X has 12 (? I don’t keep track anymore) iterations to give a damn and here it is, still buggy and unreliable. And I believe it’s because Microsoft engineers (have to) build on top of already incredibly buggy and obsolete code. It’s far more time consuming to rebuild software to be more compatible with current architectures and hardware demands rather than try to tape over ever cracking foundation. And that’s just too expensive. Apparently.
@@glass.hammer I don't think trying to maintain backwards compatibility is something to be maligned. It would be less effort to create an efficient API without backwards compatibility, like Vulkan does with OpenGL.
This is effectively like using the Steam Controller on Windows like I do on my TV. Steam needs to be running for the desktop config to work, and I have it run as admin so that it can interact with everything like UAC prompts and priviliged software I would assume the haptics are done through Steam software and the Windows Steam client doesn't have that yet, it also still uses the old Big Picture. Hopefull it will support its own Deck Controller better once it arrives on Windows I think Elden Ring is playable offline so you could have used the same account on both Decks in offline mode, but you definitely have the funds to own two copies of the game anyways. Still good to know for some viewers I guess About the touch keyboard, you probably didn't realize you could do that (or it doesn't work with the Deck's controller) but I absolutely prefer the keyboard on the old Big Picture since you can use the trackpads of the Steam Controller to hover over a letter and use the triggers to type the letter. It's amazing, way faster than the default touch keyboard on the Deck. I really REALLY hope the Deck gets the Big Picture keyboard because I'm not looking forward to touch typing and awkwardly selecting letters with the joystick. I'm legit scared they might remove the touchpad keyboard instead of also adding it to the Deck, hope they won't because that typing experience is amazing Obviously with Elden Ring, this is a case of the developers making a bad port and Valve swooped in to fix it, (ab)using the fact that they need to use a translation layer anyways. Not exactly the fault of Windows, for clarity On Windows, you can add software like RetroArch to your Steam library which allows you to use the Deck Controller as an Xbox Controller as per usual. If you don't launch it through Steam then the Deck controller will be a mouse and keyboard (using the Desktop config) like Anthony said
@@dylanallen7720 I'm not getting mine until later in the year too and I'm hoping by then you can dual boot SteamOS and Windows properly instead of just Linux/Windows. That's the only way I'll do it unless I just do it to tinker and put it back to normal haha
Windows 10/11 consumes A LOT of system resources when compared to Linux. Every developer has probably noticed that when compiling on Windows 10/11 in comparison to Linux. Compilation time in Windows 10/11 taking twice as long or more is absolutely normal. And I'm talking pure compilation time with EVERY compiler (like java or c). So actually, games running faster with higher performance on Linux when compared to Windows 10/11 is to be expected (with same quality of drivers on both systems).
Holy shit THIS. At this point I'm only using Windows exclusively because of VS and it's gorgeous debugger, but I'm thinking really hard about making the switch
I suggest you follow the channel: ETA Prime That kind of stuff is right up his alley along with emulation, APUs and miscellaneous underground tech. Won't be surprised if he makes a video about that one day
At the moment closest thing to desktop SteamOS is Fedora Silverblue. Both of which have similar immutable filesystem with one crucial difference, SteamOS will likely break if you install non containerized programs unlike Fedora Silverblue, so desktop application compatibility is likely much better on Fedora Silverblue. Fedora Silverblue is Fedora, but designed to be only used with applications packaged to Flatpak format - this is to increase stability, but it also limits what you can do on it. As a Fedora (non Silverblue) gamer, I am not really interested in SteamOS or Fedora Silverblue, except for the SteamOS ui, but for gaming otherwise there isn't that much missing on other Linux distros which have recent enough kernel to support latest features. And one big difference is the desktop environment, SteamOS uses KDE by default, which is fine, has a lot of settings, but I personally prefer GNOME because KDE has just too many options for me. The issue is that on immutable filesystem, you likely cannot easily switch the desktop environment, unlike on other Linux distros. I am not saying it couldn't be done, but as with the Windows experience, SteamOS on desktop could be quite rough experience 🤔
A few things I want to note that may help you guys in future videos: -The Steam Controller aspects of the Deck would probably react to the same software, so GloSC would do you well for playing games outside of Steam without needing an external controller. Alternatively, adding Retroarch and other non-Steam games to Steam may allow you to use standard controller bindings. This doesn't always work from my experience, but that's why I mentioned GloSC first since it has wider support. -The on-screen keyboard in Windows is meant to be controlled with the touch-pads to allow for faster typing than a standard controller-based on-screen keyboard. It's about 1/3 to 1/2 of anyone's standard typing speed (depending on how fast you type), vs the 1/5 to 1/10 you'd expect from the standard on-screen controller-based keyboard. -The Steam Controller has a "real-time firmware", so when you're using Steam, the Steam API is in charge of that, but when Steam is closed, it defaults to the standard desktop config, which you saw. -The TDP is 1/2 of the max, but that limit is temporary as people are working on a way to raise the TDP from 15w to 25w or 30w. The maximum performance of the Steam Deck is yet to be tapped in Windows, we're probably a ways off before we see what that looks like between drivers missing and TDP allowances being a modifiable option. ETA Prime showed this in his video, so it'll be interesting to see how this evolves over time.
"I Own this device, it's mine, so whatever, I do what I want" Is exactly the same thing I think when someone complains about me using adblock to avoid creepy spyware from MY device
My stance is "If the packets enter my network, they become my property." Seriously, it's just like mail. If it's addressed to me, once it's in my mailbox, I can do whatever I want with it.
@@Niarbeht so are you saying that if a package is shipped wrongly on your location, you own it now? i dunno, seems like an entitled karen moment unless otherwise you don't think that way
@@nigeladams8321 If you access a website like the Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon or Netflix, You bet there are some kind of creepy software trying to take as much as possible data from you. As for proprietary software like Windows, I need to say no more.
While as a Linux user I really rejoice over Linux hardware being actually first party and better supported for once, I think they should improve the controls on windows regardless.
@@scottpascal3099 Shouldn't be too hard to create some good presets for windows. They said you could install and play games on windows. They only need to take a look at aya and gpd and tweak the controls a bit
Who should? Valve? It is none of their business. And Linus assuming that they might improve Windows experience is unbased assumptions. The official OS for the Steam Deck is SteamOS and Valve gave Windows drivers as a plus.
@@saifaddeenal-manaseer6325 exactly, making it easier for people to use Windows on the steamdeck doesn't encourage people to use SteamOS AND that's the goal.
As an 8-year Linux user, I fully support your right to put whatever you want on hardware you own. That's the Linux ethos! Your computer, you're in control! Though I must admit to some schadenfreude seeing Windows support being the second-class citizen for once. :)
@Linden Reaper you must be kidding yourself if anyone is going to use steam deck as thier daily driver. Windows is still the best platform for game support and for average user.
@Linden Reaper but, Windows would allow more freedom such as downloading games from game pass until Steam optimizes Game pass. Plus W10/11 is meant for laptops and PC since they weren't meant to be used as a mini gaming system. That's why the Xbox OS is so clean with the Xbox cause it was meant to be for a console
For the RetroArch issue you could 1. Add the retroarch executable as a game and setup the controller to behave like a regular gamepad 2. Set the "desktop" setting as a regular gamepad in Big Picture
Seems like Valve brought full on Linux experience to the Windows users who are trying to install Windows on SteamDeck: Lack of optimization, not working audio and wireless, half-broken screen backlight - those are the most common issues for any Linux user installing Linux to the majority of recently released laptops :D I completely understand how frustrating that might be as I've been through that multiple times myself (installing Linux), and I hope that Valve will fix it, though.
Do you buy wish hardware? I only had this issues once with a new Laptop / PC and this was with an OpenSuse Install 16 years ago. So recent hardware is a wide stretch (at that time it was)
@@moritzfabian4392 I recently has been choosing the new gaming laptop for Linux and that's pretty tough due to weird keyboard drivers with RGB, gaming touchpads or even custom screen backlight due to high refresh rate screen. With office laptops I also had issues when soundcard was recognised but neither mic nor speakers was working as manufacturer (HP) did some customisations to the soundcard. In most cases laptops do works fine but if you up to something fancy or powerful be ready to solve compatibility issues.
@@HarlemFoxtrotter I checked MSI, ASUS, Lenovo, Acer, HP, Alienware. Eventually picked Metabox based on Clevo chassis, and still had to compile keyboard module for RGB from Tuxedo (also Clevo based). Non working camera isn't the description of working perfectly laptop, and pretty solid illustration.
the touchpad click thing on the triggers comes from their expertise on VR. This has been the standard on PCVR and I'm surprised to not see you mention it Linus.
I'm amazed you didn't try the windows experience with a monitor, mouse and keyboard. I feel like a lot of people wanting to run windows would do so they can dual use it as their main PC and plug into a home dock. If they get dual booting you could Linux game on the go and windows desktop for home office use.
@@eduardoprocopiogomez But increase productivity. I travel a lot for work so if I could use it as a home station with windows all plugged into externals. Then an on the plane handheld console I wouldn't have to bring a laptop and handheld to pass the time. Less bag space, Better performance for the cost of an equivalent laptop etc. Just be good to see how the it behaves in that sense and I hope linus covers it in his 1 month review. But from wan it sounds like he's only using it as a game console and not a work station.
@@Antpie94 Just use SteamOS as a work station lol. You need Microsoft Word? WINE! By looking at the video, it's pretty hard to write and even click in Windows.
@@eduardoprocopiogomez because he was only using it as a game console! With mouse and keyboard it should perform better. Navigation wise at least. I personally HATE typing on touch screens, so it doesn't matter which OS is being used.
Here is a thing to remember. Valve can go into the Linux kernel to change things to make Linux work better on the Steam Deck and take advantage of the architecture. Windows, not so much since it is close-source and proprietary. Also, when you say "you should see generally the same performance between Windows and Linux on the same hardware." No, I would not. For example, not to long ago I was rocking an Intel i5-9400 with an RX 6800 XT. Control under Linux was seeing almost constant 144 FPS, with dips into 90 FPS. Windows, well, it would go around 120 FPS with dips to 70 FPS. RimWorld on Windows, late-game getting a lot of stutters, on Linux barely any stutters until really late game. And I am pretty sure I know how this is happening, and it comes down to a simple fact, Linux is a monolithic kernel while Windows is a hybrid kernel, where it has basic drivers baked in to get it going for external drivers to be installed. Because every driver is compiled side-by-side, this means that it can optimize the kernel and drivers together, lowering redundancy, lowering the size, and increasing the speed. The last thing I will say, and I don't think anyone can argue this, Windows is bloated beyond reason. Just to match as close to feature parity I have on Linux on Windows means that the Windows side is using up to 8 GiB of RAM while on Linux it only uses 1-2 GiB of RAM. Windows just gets bloated just to match feature parity, and the worst part is that Microsoft's C compiler is so bad when compared to GNU C Compiler. GCC is able to make programs that are, in some cases, 60% smaller than Microsoft's C Compiler, with those programs also running a lot faster as well. Windows just isn't as performant as Linux is.
The thing is, Windows was designed to work without troubleshooting, all these layers of bloat are to secure even a pre-2000 program can still run today Linux is not user friendly for all the troubleshooting it needs even for simple tasks like installing software without a store
@@glass1098 what troubleshooting are you talking about exactly? even installing software or updates with pacman is still easier then on windows, where you have to update the system and some applications in the settings, and some application only update when you open then and you have to install programms with some files you searched up in the internet
Windows 11 with its problems forced me to switch to Garuda Linux about a month and a half ago, and I don't regret it a bit, because now my PC works much more stable, especially in development and emulation, so God bless Linux
А, ой, я только догнал, что ты по-русски говоришь, лол, прости меня пожалуйста за мой текст на английском, надеюсь, никаких проблем с прочтением и пониманием он не вызовет, просто английский не мой родной язык, хех
Gaming press before Steam Deck: "I'm going back to Windows, Linux just isn't ready." Gaming press after Steam Deck: "I'm going back to SteamOS, Windows is terrible."
@@nikkoa.3639 Exactly. Windows was never meant for gaming. It's just where games were developed for because everyone already used the OS for general purposes. Windows is designed for general use. Linux can be molded to be whatever you want and that's why SteamOS is such a polished experience for Steam games.
@Noah Gamer The issue is that it uses way too many resources. Therefore for devices like the deck, windows uses all of the CPU and the RAM and the game ends up with nothing so the performance is shit. If you have hardware to spare, then it is a matter of preference, but if you don't windows just isn't an option, because performance-wise, it just sucks.
@@nikkoa.3639 My problem with trying to use Linux is that I've never had a great experience, so I don't personally will be putting Linux on my gaming PC anytime soon.
The right trigger for left click and left trigger for right click is consistent with their Steam Controller. As are the two trackpads on either side of the device. They're essentially porting the Big Picture style experience with Steam Controller to the handheld form factor, more or less.
I don’t think these are Windows bugs, they are Windows FEATURES! I am so sure about it because I got similar features on my surface pro, Marcohard’s own machine.
2:27 That's one of the biggest pains in the ass that Windows has to offer, since this also applies to any kind of VNC, RDP or other means of remote connections like Virtual Desktop. Sometimes it somehow works, but most of the times you literally have to do it via keyboard simply because the "mouse" is dead there. 13:31 I'd install a dual boot Windows and throw my vhd with 98% of my programs (all portable) from my desktop rig in there when I go visit family, plug the thing to a monitor, keyboard and mouse and basically have everyhting I need that's not gaming related on a thing that's faster than my old 3rd gen Intel notebook and actually capable of running games even.
I remember when Windows 7 was released. It was one of my all time favorite OS's. Ever since then I've never really liked Windows. I tired so hard. And even when Windows 8.1 released, I just never felt the same about it. The whole experience just died for me, seeing desktops be artificially limited by the idea of 'mobile architecture'. With linux it was EXTREMELY difficult to get into at first. Sure you could pull up a video or web page, but not much else. But this last decade has been a huge change as far as that goes. I for once, can use a distro like PopOS without hitting a road block every other program. It really is due to Valves investment. They put their money where their mouth is and that is enough for me to support them because they delivered on a lot of promises many have dropped. I don't even own a Steam Deck yet, but as a Linux user, they have made games which were previously unavailable, entirely playable, and available without requiring extensive effort and time. I will be buying Steam Decks for me and my wife, even though we have gaming Pc's because they work WITH them, not against them. I'm no corporate shill, but I will vote with my wallet. Even if it costs a few bucks more, and a get a few less FPS, I'll take that over the alternatives
Given the volume of updates Valve has been pushing, both to the OS and (hopefully) their windows drivers, it might be nice to do a ‘Steam Deck 1 year on’ update to all of these reviews. See how much the system has improved over time. Supposedly they’re working on dual boot capability whenever OS 3 goes public. Given supply chain shortages and how slow their rollout has been, I’d bet there would still be a lot of interest given a ton of people will still be receiving theirs for the first time and there is nothing priced even close to as competitively. I reserved my 512 model, 3 days after reservations opened. I JUST hit the quarter Valve says I’ll actually be able to BUY mine. Sometime between July and September, ONE YEAR after reservations opened. Anywho, love the 4-5 you’ve got on it.
What about game streaming from your desktop to the SteamDeck? I would imagine that works as usual. That would be my solution to running windows only games rather than installing windows on the Deck. I know not everyone who buys a SteamDeck will have a gaming desktop but most people probably will. I would be interested to see if there is a difference in quality between the Deck and a regular laptop when it comes to game streaming.
@@constancies I think they mean more when they are home a want to game downstairs on the couch on the deck (and the game runs bad on the deck) instead of at their pc. They are asking if the devices are on the same network is the quality and latency good enough for a decent experience.
As a sample size of one, I have to admit that Valve's "true mission" is a complete success ON ME. Before the Steam Deck I was never going to give Linux a shot. Now I'm actually excited to dive into Linux and learn about it's features and use cases. This is a device that I can tinker with but don't NEED to rely on working. I already have a gaming PC for the majority of my play time. This is just an extra device to help me game in places I can't. AND I can learn about Linux when I want to. The ability to run Windows on it is probably going to be nice for some people. But FOR ME, it's a toe in the water of the Linux ecosystem. I expect to be frustrated by some things but learning is a big motivator for my purchase decision. My plan is to have a little doc station with a monitor and keyboard where I can poke around the Linux desktop but use it as the "sick day/in bed/need to kill 2 hours dead on the road" machine the rest of the time. A project for a hobbyist technophile and a "nice to have" as well.
And if you ever need help with something, there are plenty of Linux enthusiasts who will be happy to recommend a dozen competing ways to solve (or "solve") every problem you have. I say this as a Linux user who has gotten too excited trying to solve others' problems. Just make sure you're clear about what solutions you want, and I encourage you to be open to learning *some* command line terminology. Just like some esoteric Windows issues require registry hacks or running something at a command prompt, some esoteric Linux issues require editing some text files or running a few commands.
@@GammaFn. he will not need to do that, steam deck has one spec and one default distro - any issue he will encounter will be encountered by someone already and there will be post in the forum with a fix exactly to his issue... this will be much more easy introduction to linux then dealing with some cheap oem laptop which created only botched windows drivers and which are never updated and utilize some unknown weird bug in hw...
Be careful, you might be unable to go back to Windows after using Linux for a while, because of how fundamentally useless Windows is. Don't say we didn't warn you!
I'm in the same boat (or land mass in this case) but in one of the Steam Deck videos from Valve they said they are actively looking to make it available in other regions soon and called out Australia as one of those regions. So hopefully it doesn't take as long as the Index because I was only recently able to get that despite it being available for years in other countries.
Here's the thing @AusSkiller @Dank Communist @WilksIsOffTheRails , with GPU prices finally normalizing this is super bad timing for Valve to not be able to meet demand across the ponds, and not even be able to commit to a shipment dates of any units to Australia, let alone confirm a AUD domestic launch price point. So I'm in the market for a new Desktop PC and this meets my use case. I wouldn't stuff around like a silly bugger with it in handheld mode, it has the potential to be my daily driver instead with kb+m and looks way more fun than a boring old PC. Basically, I feel like this is the future and I'm not allowed to get on board.
To be fair props to Valve for indeed making the Deck "customizeable",something Nintendo forbids on Switch,i mean Valve indeed makes the Deck the "alpha mobile console",and if things go well i can foresee the Deck become the best mobile console on the market,there's still progress to make but hey slow and steady wins the race.Even if it'll be a bit clunky most ppl specially tech savys will prefer the Deck over the Switch simply for the customizeability.
They can "forbid" it all they want.... Literally the only reason why I even have a switch is because of pirated games and CFW. Nintendo can fully suck it.
@@nexxusty I got a original Switch only because CFW was a thing in 2019, only to sell it last year. Aside from the fact that nintendo will forever be huge cunts no matter what context you look at it, the situation on the switch was kinda shit: Cannot play online on CFW or they'll ban your console, and barely anyone irl still carries their switch with them so local wireless is kinda pointless. And then there is the lack of options compared to PC. Only some games could be modded (and even for Skyrim it was a huge pain in the ass), and most games were censored in some way anyway. As for CFW themselves, it never added anything extra, it only fixed things which really should have been possibly on stock firmware (custom themes / wallpapers and backing up save data) I look forward to being able to play more indie games, emulate more modern systems and play mainstream games with mods on my Deck (once valve finally ships it T_T)
I love Nintendo’s hardware. Truly. But it works best because it’s not customizable, honestly. Kind of like Mac for people who don’t like to tinker. If you pushed the switch beyond it’s dev intended operation, I bet it would fold like bible paper. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing imo. It becomes a great coding project, but Nintendo has an image that they staunchly maintain.
@@glass.hammer what you’re saying about Nintendo is correct for the most part but your Mac comparison isn’t correct,Mac OS is a powerful Unix based operation system with many powerful features and capabilities and Mac hardware specially in recent years become very powerful ,using Apple SoC,this can’t be compared to Nintendo,since they use basic software and minimum of hardware specs,they had powerful hardware in SNES and Gamecube era but changed towards the least capable hardware specs possible and focus of unique features and first party softwares to stand out and appeal to market.and it works for them they’re printing money.
I honestly wouldn't expect Steam Deck to be particularly good at being a handheld Windows PC at this point in its life cycle. I wish we'd find out if it works OK as a docked productivity device, which would give it a lot of value.
The mentioned using docked desktop as a challenge on the WAN show. But I suspect it'd be exactly the same as the Linux challenge once peripherals were connected. I've used Linux exclusively for 5-6 years now without a hitch. A tiny bit of our tools at work only work with Linux because it's just too difficult to make things compatible with Windows and macOS.
@@gotoastal I'm mostly in the Apple Silicon ecosystem now and tend to do most of my gaming on PS5/PS3. Therefore, I don't need to invest in a powerful Windows system, but I have some niche interests and enjoy love me some odd RTS games, so I keep an Intel MacBook Pro around as a backup productivity laptop that can also play Windows games through Boot Camp. Ideally, I'd love to be able to sell my Intel MacBook Pro and have the Steam Deck occupy a similar role in my life. I don't even care if it takes a fair bit of DIY work, but it just has to be acceptable. I know it's a very specific role I'm looking to fill with a Steam Deck, but at that price for that amount of power and potential, I have a feeling a lot of people have similarly wacky possibilities in mind.
If you want a productivity device, just run KDE. It's fine and it's already included and works very well. "Productivity" is the worst argument for Windows.
@@pt8306 aye especially since libre office is pretty jank free now, been using the libre office suite for light productivity for my work over a couple of years. It's especially welcome compared to Microsoft is actively hampering running office suite offline (office online is great - though the browser interface always leaves a bit to desire)
@@pt8306 Productivity can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. If my definition of productivity means processing proprietary gyro data in my Sony Alpha video footage while using my multi-channel USB-C audio interface that needs a vendor-specific software mixer to be useful, that's not a job for KDE. All modern operating systems, whether Linux, Mac, or Windows, can basically do 99% of productivity tasks about as competently as anything else. Having said that, if I find something I can't do on Mac, it's Windows that's going to cover that gap; it's really unlikely that KDE would.
The "input doubling" issue in Retroarch has been around a long time. It happens usually if Steam or DS4Windows/Betterjoy are handling the controller when Retroarch starts up, due to Retroarch trying to reference xinput or dinput to handle controller configuration.
I think if you disabled steam-input , the issues would go away . Since the controller is then picked up as a controller? With steam streaming rise of the tomb raider i was also very frustrated with an Xbox controller. All the prompts where messed up and wrong, buttons doing two actions at the same time (like jumping and opening the map?!?). Turns out there were steam controller profiles loaded, which I couldn't turn of except disabling the whole steam input handling for the game (which thankfully is an option ). The previous Tomb Raider games don't even have this. Makes me wish the whole config was non existent for games having good native controller support . Or at least an option to return all mappings to default , instead of autoloading some community profiles I never asked for :(.
That stuttering in Elden Ring is nothing like it is on the regular PC version. In general, the stuttering is typically on area loads like when you're riding across the open world and the game is frequently loading in new chunks of the map, with framerate dips in certain areas with lots of effects like lighting and weather. In smaller, more contained areas like dungeons or the chapel you start the game in, the framerate is a stable.
Every time I get annoyed with Linux, I switch back to my Windows partition and damn its so awful. Theres just so many little annoyances that I was used to but are now glaringly obvious.
I bought a new laptop a few weeks ago. Installed Windows 10 on it to do some gaming. Then installed Ubuntu to do work. After half a day Windows no longer boots and I am not going to fix it. Not worth it. Linix is fine for all I do. I can game on my workstation...
You must use a different windows than I do. I have very little issues using windows. Either that or this is another Linux hype. I have a solution for you guys, delete windows and use Linux. Problem solved.
@@koopmcgrumpy6409 Have you used linux for an extended amount of time? I never noticed issues with windows until I started using linux for awhile and switched back. That was when I noticed how much slower and buggy windows is compared to linux on the same hardware.
Now you know how Linux users feel when we get new hardware and there is no support. It takes weeks, months or years to get support for some devices. The good thing is users will often write drivers and software themselves to fill in the gaps if the hardware manufacturer is unwilling to. And when a game is a buggy mess on Windows, it isn't that surprising when it runs better on Linux these days as patches are often introduced to fix game bugs.
@@computer_freedom In regards to the performance my guess is either "Windows Update" or "Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry". Both suck performance on my Windows machine from time to time, causing even audio to suffer.
@@Gramini Just Windows checking for updates I have seen it dump programs, which is why I used Linux for a security camera setup I did for some friends. So you might have something there, since Microsoft promised to not reboot in peak hours, but downloads like crazy. Linus had a new install, and it could have very well been doing just that.
LMAO these Linux users here flexing their “superiority” over Windows users. You guys are so salty that Windows users have it a little easier that you glee in enjoyment when they seem to suffer, when in reality, very little of all this actually matters to the average person. It just comes off as arrogant to me.
I’m just expecting that they improve the drivers since their not complete yet. Like adding WIFI drivers and Audio drivers, I’m not worried of the controls though.
I'm using Windows 11 on Deck. It wasn't easy, but once I've figured it out, it's great. I've tried a ton of games and they all work fine. After a couple weeks, first problem I'm having is right now my FFXIV install crashes on Windows. It worked great on SteamOS. I'm still troubleshooting to make it work. Good thing I have SteamOS still installed (dual boot) in case I need to go back and use that.
So far, I haven't really felt any urge to want Windows. I've tended to stick with games that will suit a handheld device, although I have poked at the Desktop Mode and "desktop" type apps, so far just a little bit of basic web-browsing and again it works fine for me. I'll admit I'm not a power-user so I'm unlikely to hit the ceiling any time soon. So far, most games that flat out don't work are heavy enough that I'd want a pc with keyboard and mouse anyway, but I have enjoyed seeing LTT push the Deck as hard as they can, and impressed that Valve were confident enough to let them. As Linus says at the end; what Valve has given us for the price point is absolutely top-notch.
I would honestly love to see a comparison between different distros such as Nobara, PikaOS, & other popular distros on the Steam Deck to see how they hold up compared to stock SteamOS.
i think you would be sacrificing the steamos game mode, but if they’ve optimized for Arch then I think other distros that aren’t arch based would be lacking or equivalent in performance
The problems with controller mapping and big picture aren't specific to Steam Deck. That's just how Steam Controller and Big Picture are on Windows, and there are workarounds, but Big Picture has never felt great, and it's been 7 years since their last update. So, yeah, the Steam Deck is a new device, and they say they're going to fix it, but Big Picture should have been fixed years ago. Regardless of what Valve intends to do to improve this currently, the larger problem is that Valve doesn't stick with their ideas long term. So even if they improve the Steam Deck, eventually major updates will stop coming and we'll be stuck with whatever state Valve considered was good enough.
"the same architecture should be performing similarly" Except the windows has a ton of background processes that are notoriously resource hoggy. Since switching to Linux for gaming about a year ago I've noticed I get a lot more out of my hardware. For example, Apex was so laggy it was nearly unplayable, but on mint through protons it's like butter. Sure, ideally two operating systems should perform similarly, but due to just how inefficient Windows is that's not the case. On top of that, valve can only do so much when it comes to optimizing windows. With their OS they have complete control over it and can tweak everything, with Windows that's just not the case
All of these input issues could likely be solved if you just plug a mouse & keyboard into the handheld through the ports/a hub. Obviously, it's a handheld so you would say "well I don't have to" but that's one of the implications of installing windows on it, (though you can unplug it later once you get your stuff working)
The input issues would actually be solved if they added RetroArch to Steam as a non-steam game, and launched it from there. Then SteamInput would actually know that you've launched a "game" and switch controller profiles from "desktop" to "default xinput". What's weird is that this has been known since before the SD released.
What I would like to see is a benchmark comparing loading times on games installed to an SD card. Since from what I've gathered is that the reason games load as fast from them, is that the steam deck formats them to ext4 (a Linux file system); which is significantly faster* than the ones Windows can use. *Allegedly, don't actually quote me on that.
The only Windows format remotely the same speed is exFAT, which is notoriously unreliable and known to completely destroy it's own partitions. For something mostly unimportant, like game data, this is annoying but not a critical issue, so I could see them using that for their SD cards on Windows.
First: the AMD drivers are ahead on Linux compared to Windows. The reason is that *valve* is involved in fixing and optimizing the drivers. AMD can port back parts of that progress that Valve has made back to windows, but reality is: if AMD wants to deliver the same performance on windows, they actually have to throw away their own DX stack and start using Valve's Vulkan stack maybe with DXVK on top. To be clear: DXVK runs on windows. That would give them some reign back on windows. I do think Valve is already involved with AMD on windows, since most of the new VR features/vulkan standards already work on AMD. Second: I took a look at the list of games I have, and practically all games that were tagged unsupported were games I am playing (I have never had windows on any of my gaming systems). And a few games that were supported were still slideshows on my rig. Of course my rig is an RX580 eGPU through express card on a 2012 T430 attached to a 4k monitor. and RDNA2 should be a lot faster than GCN4 and going from 4k to 1.2k should make that slideshow playable.
Linus Tech Tips should revisit this. Drivers have been updated, fixes have been found, and now the difference between Windows 11 and Steam OS is very negligeable.
Agreed Edit: i just got done resizing my dual boot to give windows more storage because I’m on it a-lot more than SOS lol. deck w/ windows is absolutely amazing 🤩
Why, though? If "the difference between Windows 11 and Steam OS is very negligible" what's even the point in going though the expense of buying a Windows license and the hassle of installing and configuring Windows on a handheld device, when Steam OS is just as good, comes pre-installed, and has much better community support in general? Seems to me that would be a whole lot of pain for not a whole lot of gain... Which is paradoxically the very same argument people have used to dismiss Linux for decades, but in reverse.
Hey there, I'm a new deck owner and considering doing this rather than learning about Linux enough to get certain programs working on deck. What are your major pain points with windows now that steam has updated support for it?
@@ColoniaCroisant I’m in the same position. Downloading games outside of steam is a pain in the ass since non of the launchers are made for linux. I can download everything but on some launchers it’s a 50/50 if it will actually run without saying files are missing or anticheat doing its thing. Also simply trying to run a .exe file or finding the location of an app turns into a 10 minute process. I think I will do it this week.
Fun fact, when it comes to testing games on steamos/wine, for some triple A games they'll go the full length and complete the whole game but for most games they'll just do a minimum playtime unless it's unplayable from the get go. A friend was testing it.
They appear to be using the same default binds for desktop use as they do with the Steam Controller. I use my steam controller for navigating Windows on a TV and I love it.
Oh no, Windows having problems with patchy hard to find drivers which need to be community fixed? What a tragedy, sure hope no other OS had such problems previously.
1 year later it truly seems like their invested in making the OS an all encompassing experience. Glad to see the progress is going so well with the product going through the headache of a new os and make windows work on non native software seems like a new level of hell
When properly supported, Linux truly is a great OS. Way, way better than Windows in so many ways. Valve is finally showing the world this truth, because all this time it was hidden behind a complete lack of support and companies just not caring.
@@coastaku1954 Exactly. Running better on hardware _made_ specifically for the OS is what consoles do. You get a lot of performance for less money. But you also lose control. You can't install other operating systems. You can't make it anything other than what it is. So the Deck is just a console. Consoles are great at what they do, but they're not PC's. They're prebuilt machines that only do what they're allowed to do. Anything outside that is hacks and less performance.
honestly??? huge part pf the reason i want a Deck is to access my steam library without having to deal with Windows, but its still soo cool that they even let you freely install any operating system. its so exciting to see such a major player in the industry release an open platform like this
There is a reason, Sony and many other gaming device vendors are developing their own OS for their gaming device, and that is to having total control over the whole stack. Valve is developing SteamOS to no to be dependent on Microsoft to keep this is running as intended and hoping that after Windows updates nothing breaks. with their own OS Valve has the total control.
Isn't xbox just running a custom version of windows 10?
@@carlosmaldonado7194 Xbox is run by Microsoft, who also design Windows! That allows them to modify windows as much as they want / need, valve can't do that!
@@carlosmaldonado7194 nope it has bits of windows 10s kernel and libraries but it's not even slightly bloke desktop windows. It's also running in a hypervisor.
@@eagle_rb_mmoomin_418 Windows is also running in a hypervisor
@@carlosmaldonado7194 yes it does, and its maintained by the same vendor that is developing Windows 10 ;-)
I wouldn't put windows on a PS5 or a X-Box, and similarly I wouldn't put windows on my Steam Deck. But at the end of the day, it's my device, I should have that option for the principal of it. And it's amazing to see Valve respect my right to do what I wish with my device
Which is exactly what Valve is aiming for!
I wouldn't even put windows on my actual PC
@@BrainMaggotMelt lmao
@@BrainMaggotMelt what do u prefer
I would put WIndows on PS5. Not to play games, just for basic stuff. I would not need extra PC for that.
You need to add retro-arch as a "non steam game" to the steam client and then the deck controls will work properly. Same behaviour with the steam controller.
@Alfa i omega bots, dime a dozen
RetroArch is available on Steam. So, why bother adding it as a non-Steam game ? Seems silly.
@@msebastien24 lol needs to be fixed
@@msebastien24 RetroArch may be available on Steam, but it isn't the full version... Yet!!!
@@a_1389 you can override the controls, Steam just automatically grabs the most popular community controls by default
You don't press B to go back in retroarch. You are already on the root menu
You need to press Left on the DPAD or analog stick to go back.
Thats not a steamdeck issue, thats just the default bindings
Ooh I think I recall Retroarch having annoying default controls, I think I rebound them on whatever I was using at the time, might've been my tablet..
@@Ametisti Yeah the default controls are awful. You really need to change a lot from the defaults in retroarch otherwise it's an awful user experience.
It's not a very intuitive choice to make it work like that but at the same time the interface literally tells you, so I'm surprised no one noticed when he was messing around with it.
@@FalcusSTG facts that's why I refuse to use retroarch
Use dedicated emulators guys
“I own this and I can do what I want”
If only most hardware devs understood this concept
Edit: by devs, I didn’t mean the actual individual developers. I meant the development corporations. It was a reference to how they’re all fighting right to repair
oh, hardware devs do, it's their higher-ups that make them implement anti-fix properties.
People blaming devs and engineers for decisions made by the wealthy. No wonder
@Ralph Reilly This is actually a good comparison. Hardware devs are well aware of what customers MIGHT do, but they can't optimize a system for every scenario, it's just not efficient or even practical.
@@ryswick1064 that's the point. it would be impractical but possible, just need some effort.
*If only Microsoft Liked that
If you've ever used a controller managed by Steam on your desktop this behaviour makes a lot of sense. Just think of the touchpad as a touchpad and the rest of the buttons on the steam as a controller.
Linus exposed, that was the first thing I thought as well when he was talking about the button mapping. IDK how often he actually uses controllers on computers.
@@DumbguyMc At least he's simulating the Average Consumer Experience?
Yeah, it's probably just assigning 'B' to esc, 'A' to enter bc Steam doesn't know if you're in RetroArch or using the desktop. To get around this you can either just add the game as a non steam app, or use GLoSC/GlosSI (I don't know if this supports steam deck yet though)
@@unicodefox I use an old Saitek P2600 Rumble Force controller on Steam, Dolphin, Citra and PCSX2, and it works fine so long as you turn off desktop (background?)control.
I don't think you're understanding the problem exactly here. You make it sound like you just need to change the controls in Steam or turn Steam off. Neither of these solutions would work.
They tested with Steam turned off and Windows saw the controls as a keyboard and mouse, not a controller. This is normal for the Steam controller also. When Steam is running it configures the controller based on whether you're on the desktop or in a game. I know you know this I'm just leading to my point. So if retroarch is using desktop controls you can just remap the desktop controls as a controller, right? Well now you can't navigate Windows without quitting steam first. In fact you'd likely have to hook a keyboard and mouse just to get desktop controls working again.
The only solution I can see would be to add Retroarch to your steam library so steam treats Retroarch as a game. This would fix your controls for sure but I have tested Retroarch running through Steam and have run into input delay issues, even with the overlay off.
The main thing here (in my personal opinion), is that this shows why many people say that Linux is bad on desktop... Linux is not bad at all what happens is that it lacks support from hardware developers, now when you have a product designed to work well on Linux it is obvious that Linux was never the issue, then you put Windows on it and you see the same issues or even worst that Windows have with a product that is not tailored designed to work on Windows, at the end Windows and Linux on the desktop side have their ups and downs and user experience tends to depend more on hardware support than anything else beside user familiarity, that is why I will keep saying that Linux is the better OS for Gaming, because when you realize this then you can start understanding that the things that really matter are inside... the kernel, and the kernel of Linux is unquestionably better and more performant, so it is just a matter of intention, if hardware companies develop support for Linux the same way than to Windows and then game companies does the same Linux will beat always Windows, the Steam Deck and Steam OS is an example of that.
Very true. This video has Windows and Linux in opposite situations as to what you would encounter in the desktop market. Linux is much better polished, has more supported drivers, and is more performant. So as you said, on the desktop Linux is not the issue but it is the support other companies provide, which is often poor due to them cutting corners. A lot of people talk about the year of Linux desktop, I would like to see the year of the Linux support where pretty much every common software I want to install is supported natively without weird forum workarounds. I just want companies to stop treating Linux as a third-class citizen.
@@greel397 Most treat Linux users as the Plantation slaves. They steal the FOSS code and then tell them to go eff themselves when they ask for support for the product the company made with linux software.
ABSOLUTELY!!! You hit the nail. Even so you can find stupid little things about Linux like sleep/suspension in many distros. Linux as a whole concept is magnificent. For example i work on blender I've use a Hackintosh, Windows 11 and Garuda Linux and the performance from Linux in the same system is just much better . I also play CSGO and definitely Linux with less resources is more effective. Windows have great things but if Linux would have the same software , people would be using Linux
@@benruss4130 TRUEEEEEE THAT!!!!!!!
@@robch.2901 Some people benchmarked software like Blender on Linux compared to Windows. It has up to 25% performance increase under Linux. Still many artists use Windows and Blender. But to get a 20% performance plus would spend a whole bunch of money on hardware upgrades.
So yes, if software/hardware has good support under both OSes, then the performance under Linux is better in many cases.
2:26 Actually, when you boot windows on a steam deck, or any computer for example windows thinks of most of the hardware or controllers as "software controlled" unless you're using system level mouse and keyboard. This also affects USB Xbox controllers, which are able to navigate windows. When you start a UAC promt, windows locks off software controlled devices, preventing them from accessing a UAC prompt. This is supposed to have some virus or false admin control protection.
That's why I always turn off UAC.
@@Rokabur fyi, you're letting any background program run as admin on your computer now.
@@Rokabur That's why Linux is always better. It always requires password for every admin action
As someone who's used Linux with lots of different laptops over the past 15+ years, I've become all too familiar with the unique type of frustration that comes from using a device whose manufacturer has only designed its various specialized components for one OS with a completely different one.
This was pretty hilarious to watch from the other side.
That's true xD
Hear, hear. Quite a few times on my end too. Thus for all my hardware, searching for linux compatibility is paramount.
Yeah, I hear you mate. As someone who recently was choosing the new gaming laptop with full Linux support I must admit that's a nightmare. Quite funny to see this the other way around on SteamDeck :D
I want to learn Linux, but there is sooooo many different forks/versions.... Would Linux Mint Cinnamon be a good start?
I've read that PopOS is for gaming, but can Linux mint play at least some games using Proton? :)
You actually have that wrong. It's a Microsoft problem. It would be up to Microsoft to support the inputs in the windows NT kernel. There isn't anything Steam can do if they don't want to support it. It's not like a USB peripheral where you can make your own driver.
Everyone - desperate to get their hands on a steamdeck.
Linus - hold my beer while I use a steamdeck to prop up another steamdeck
@Girl On A Quest . Can’t tell if joking or clueless…
Heck, if LMG having two Decks means that they can do stuff like the side-by-side comparisons in this video, I'm all for it. That's more information in my hands that I didn't have to gather myself.
Bro, there was a preorder that only already existing accounts could do to buy 1. I don’t think anyone who wanted one and had money didn’t get one.
@Girl On A Quest 800usd wouldn't send them on another planet and i wouldn't be surprised if one of the steam decks is owned by one of the employees not to mention i doubt valve would mind sending them 2 units to test this stuff out since they are a media outlet
how are people desperate? aren't they one of those things where if you order one they make one?
Pre-compiled shaders was a very smart move by Valve as the hardware is the same on every SD.
They have actually done this on Linux/Vulkan for some time now.
@@Henrik_Holst ye, dxvk is awesome
@@username-du2er Valve did this for native Linux games before they even added dxvk.
@@Henrik_Holst really? i didnt know
@@Henrik_Holst For windows as well, but only for OpenGL and Vulkan games.
Definitely knew that this would happen, it makes sense overall but it's pretty cool that you can do it for certain things you may want to do. Love the transparency steam is currently practicing when it comes to the deck.
It makes no sense at all
@@StellaEFZ
Make sense though
@@StellaEFZ it makes sense that running an unsupported OS on a device has drawbacks and issues, especially when windows itself doesnt really support the kind of hardware.
If you look at the Aya Neo Next for example, it costs over double (sometimes triple!) the steam decks price, gets slightly less overall performance and has an awkward UI according to the verge's comparison of the two, which isn't hard to coroborate as most things that try to use windows in this way are (using a controller in windows, not in a game is....weird to say the least, granted I havent tried very hard). The Aya Neo Next definitely takes the cake in storage, though that comes at a high price tag.
It would be nice for windows to be better on the Deck, but it's unsurprising that it's not the best experience.
@@StellaEFZ how does it not make sense, it’s an unsupported unoptimized OS being put on the system, no shit it runs terribly
@@Dell-ol6hb That is not what I meant with my commen, that was in response to Steam putting support for the Windows OS. It makes no sense to do that, they should (and are, and will) stick with Linux.
I whole heartedly agree with what you said, windows sucks ass; That's exclusively a M$ matter, if they don't want to, it's not gonna happen.
I'm happy that Valve are putting effort into creating a polished OS (SteamOS) and an increase of games that can be played on Linux. It's nice to not have to depend on Windows as the only option forever.
Yeah but not optimizing for Windows is kind of a jerk move. This was supposed to be a pc. "It's your Deck. You can do whatever you want with it" doesn't hold up.
@@flameshana9 by your logic every manufacturer/developer under the sun should do the same, support Linux as much as Windows. Which they don't, but it would be nice, wouldn't it? Time for things to finally change.
@BlackWorm facts
@@flameshana9 Windows is not optimized for anything and bloated in the first place. You dont optimuze the hardware for software, its better to do it the other way around but m$ has no incentive to optimize their os.
@BlackWorm This is a fair point but the entire reason of installing a Windows or Linux OS on your deck is to emulate games.
These games should run better natively in Windows, but the software support is lacking. It's the reverse situation we have historically seen with Linux - things should run better in Linux, but they haven't due to poor support. I can see why Valve would decide to use Linux instead of Windows. Rather than needing to collaborate with Microsoft to get support for their device, they can just do it themselves. Look at the issues AMD had with Windows 11. Linux is open-source, if they need something patched, they just do it.
@Perfo Rongo this is also because with their own Linux build, Valve and AMD can push out fixes and optimizations much faster since they control the full OS stack running on the device. Additionally, many of the drivers/changes that Valve/AMD push that aren't closed-source Steam Client have been getting pushed upstream to the Linux Kernel project itself allowing the benefits to be carried across OSes and OS versions.
I read recently that the AMD linux graphics driver is almost 4 million lines of code. Indeed these guys are at it 24 / 7.
You're not taking in account all the Microsoft bloat running in the background.
@@nigeladams8321 Makes absolutely no difference when talking about DirectX support. If anything, the Steam program is causing most of the issues.
@@0xC except it does. Windows has a huge optimization problem in general. A lot of games that ran garbage on my windows install run excellent on my Linux install running through proton. Yes, a large part of this is due to the DirectX to Vulcan translation, but Linux itself tends to be a lot less resource heavy in the background.
The emulator is not being picked up as a "game" by steam, so it's working with the windows controls (which can be disabled) so it might be best to add the emulator as a non-steam game on steam and launching it from there. Or another solution would be to disable steams own controller to mouse+keyboard and use 3rd party software like DS4 windows
also support from emulator devs and game modders would probably fix the problems in the future. If emulators were fixed to work on jailbroken consoles they will probably be fixed to work on the deck too in the near future.
I run Retro Arch on my Windows desktop and that's exactly what I do. Retro Arch picks it up just like a 360 control (even pops up like one). Super simple solution
I haven’t tested this but I bet this will fix it, that’s what works for 90% of pirated games for me lol
you could use the program Steam Rom Manager to add the emulated games right into steam, which provides steam controller support and steam overlay support.
I think the issue (just like Steam Controller) is that without Steam running, the Steam Controller (or Deck controls in this case) is not recognized as a generic gamepad device, because Steam Controller reports as a mouse and keyboard instead. DS4 Windows won't get around that. I suspect eventually someone might make a Windows driver for interpreting the Deck controls as a generic gamepad.
As for Elden Ring, the reason it worked so much better on Linux is because they fixed a flaw in the way the game does shaders in the windows version. Due to very poor programming from Fromsoft, the game decides to discard any shaders it generates very rapidly, for no good reason. VKD3D (the DX12 to Vullkan layer) has a per game config specifically for Elden Ring, which tells it to NOT discard those shaders, thus performance is better.
Your comment is entirely technically accurate, but I'd like to add that, while that may initially seem like "oh, ok, so it was just an odd elden ring specific issue, ok, so we can ignore that as an outlier" that's very much not true. The biggest advantage of open source is that fixed get made quickly. It's not an edge case, it's a prime example. A week ago shatterline required a lot of elbow grease and luck to play, as of 4-5 days ago it's plug and play.
@Ariana if your going to faff about modding the game anyway, why not run it on linux where it's factually a better experience in the first place.
Sure you can jankily use translations within windows, but the windows libraries themselves are still worse off and the background processes kill performance.
@@robonator2945 I just dualbooted my steam deck so I can play games that don’t work on linux
@@dkvsoi neat, I'm not your dad, why should I care
This is so weird... I'm so used to the fact that Linux would have issues when to boot compared to Windows... It's interesting to see the shoe on the other foot. It's really comes to show when a company actually spends the time to optimize any OS on a device, it works really well. It's nice to see valve make Linux a first class and show what it can really do when optimize for specific hardware.
windows is a virus
uhmmm did you ever heard of android?
Literally the only reason Linux ever has issues is because lazy developers never support it, so Linux users are forced to use complicated and annoying workarounds, when those same developers have put in effort to make things "just work" on Windows. When it gets proper support and love, it really shows just how much better it is than Windows in every concievable way.
@@tomatobros android is linux？
@@AfadDeRazzy69 Android uses the Linux kernel, also shares some stuff that you would see on Linux distros
I absolutely love that this video is the exact thing all of us have had to deal with in Linux since the dawn of time. Things that CAN work well in Linux just don't - not because the hardware can't, but because they refuse to support it even when sometimes doing so would be trivial.
Linux truly is a great OS, hampered by shitty software support from uncaring companies. When it gets some love, it's truly amazing. Hopefully more companies will get on board.
Weirdly, there's a strange double standard when it comes to OS's. If something doesn't work on Windows (or macOS), people say that thing doesn't support Windows (or macOS). If something doesn't work on Linux, for some strange reason, they say Linux doesn't support it. I have no idea why it's that way.
@@sune9578 That's the main issue. If a device doesn't work on Linux, the Linux folks get it fixed and working while the vendor does nothing. So, hey LTT, you should be telling Microsoft to fix Steam Deck support in Windows, not Valve ...
@@Leseratte Hahaha... that would require Linus to be a little self aware.
@Sun E There is no program that doesn't support Windows that the average person is using. Grandma isn't trying to install Geary to check her emails. If it works in Windows but not Linux, then it's seen as a Linux issue.
It seems it recognizes the deck in windows, exactly the same way as the steam controller. If you added Retroarch as a non steam game, and launched it through there, it may then recognize it as a controller then. It appears its using it's 'desktop mode' when not in a game launched through steam
Yes the same system as on the Steam controller, basically the easy way is to launch everything via Steam then the steam controller is hooked with whatever target control scheme you give it into the running application (and you can even switch it on the fly). The other way which I have not tried yet is to use some kind of third party mapping tool: th-cam.com/video/uNt_ReLwk40/w-d-xo.html . Either way, if possible run everything you want to run, through steam that really is the easy way.
he just needs to go into Steam Controller Configuration and set up the Retroarch controller configuration to translate the Steam Controller inputs into Xinput.
Yeah, I'm surprised they don't know this...
Retro arch is one of those things that “should just work”, but I’ve had issues with Xbox controllers before, all the way to needing to rebind every key. Unreasonable to expect them to go to that much effort for something that was working, then stopped working.
@@dr4gonstear You can install Retroarch via steam, then it just works... if you install it from outside and then don´t hook it into steam then you are in the hard way. The Steam Controller and the Deck are pretty similar in this behavior, so call me not surprised.
Very interesting to see a mainstream device with drivers optimized for Linux and not Windows. It's full of all the "Oh, it works! No... wait, it does not... Ok, kinda" that all Linux users are familiar with or have experienced after switching at least once lol
they made windows drivers…
@@ineedgoodname "optimized"
It’s amazing to see how far it has come over the years. Linux today is so nice compared to a decade and a half ago.
@@ineedgoodname yeah they made windoze drivers but its like using an nvidia card with the open source drivers, it technically works but, thanks to corporate greed, it sucks.
@@silverbags1208 still sucks
Its nice to see a company like valve to take such a different route compared to what the others take.. Huge respect to valve!
The benefit of being a private company
@@Treviath Thats bad, in comunism companies and private dosent exist and that is what the world need, public and for the state or nothing!
@@extreme123dz That may sound all well and good, but competition is the key to success, there is a reason why in my country we have a free public healthcare but it can be subpar and have long waiting times (I mean really long).
Without a direct competitor you have no need to change and adapt and improve.
It's easy to innovate when you have unlimited cash.
Yeah the improvements have been insane and not just for the handheld market but the OS market, Linux becoming a real general usage scenario and it lots of cases an improvement over windows. It still has some real issues that make me still have a 'dual boot' of windows in case of problems.
16:08 SteamOS does that too. Steam Controller and Steam Deck are not Xinput device since they have to behave like mouse to allow using it on desktop to launch Steam for example. By launching Steam device uses Steam Input that is required for that extensive mapping capabilities. Any app outside Steam still don't recognise that by itself and it needs to be launched through Steam. Without that it still uses default desktop configuration. To have it behave like proper Xinput device you need to use GloSC which incorporates virtual X360 controller and can be used to play games easily
This shows how much effort steam put into the steamOS for steamdeck to not be a dissapointment
We all now an actual disappointment is Microsoft. That dumb little brother that needs "an additional care".. . And the smart guys (Linux devs) are Forced to do that, cause that's the only way since that little brother got all the toys and doesn't share them. .
@@valerafox7795 surprise surprise, the Software specifically crafted to run on the device does a better job than the one that wasn't... even Linux needs drivers and I have serious doubts that everything on the Steam Deck would just work, if you installed any other Linux Distro than SteamOS
@@valerafox7795 The Dump little brother has much more games and newer Emulators. Thats why!
@@iliasfog8857 r/woosh
@@iliasfog8857 Most emulators are generally developed for Linux too tho. The only major one that doesn't is Cemu, but that one works flawlessly on Proton, so doesn't matter in the end.
Ok, January 2024, this video is mostly 99% invalid now - I think LTT should put a disclaimer on it! We now have fully functional dual boot on the Deck, proper Windows drivers for everything required (including audio and WiFi). Heck, we even have fast switch between SteamOS and Windows now (Clover, etc.). I play Fortnite on my Deck on Windows (due to anti-cheat limiting it from running on Linux) and I am currently doing 60 FPS on medium settings. Also, if you want to access the running apps / tasks, swipe your finger from the left edge of the display - Windows will bring up the visual task manager on any touch screen device. Lastly, I recommend using Windows 10 LTSC instead of Windows 11, you get a significant boost in performance AND you also get ZERO bloat! Also, you can fix the sleep issue by adjusting the power plan settings to never turn off the SSD on sleep.
do you need to activate windows 10 ltsc or is it fine to use it un-activated?
@@segafrog it's mega easy to activate. Just look it up!
Oh man, I wish I got your experience. I was planning on playing pc game pass games. But I always get the damn BSOD.
@@segafrogyou can activate it with a basic script, all available online, little Google search will tell you exactly what you need (can't link it, I'll get deleted).
@@harry619I haven't messed around with Game Pass. Streaming doesn't interest me, its going to be a laggy and bad experience, so why bother? I haven't gotten any BSoD on my Win10 Pro LTSC on the Deck. Consider a fresh install maybe? Or check your SSD. Try to decode the error message on the BSoD, it will usually point at the culprit which will help you resolve the issue.
Hey! Nintendo! Look at Linus playing Mario on a Steam Deck. I know you want to make a copyright claim against this video. Come on. I dare you.
@dylle d
You sure showed them. 😐
That’s why nobody ever should pay for Nintendo stuff!
If you really want to play switch exclusive games use an emulator on a steam deck!
@@rolux4853 facts, they do not care about they people it’s their own fault 😂
@@rolux4853 You wanna know the average intelligence of a Nintendo user? I worked at a local electronics repair shop and someone brought in a Switch (who was obviously an adult), their parent (about to pay for service) brought it in because they bit the fuckin thing because they were mad at a game. Yeah. Granted there was a screen protector on it which broke, but they didn't even know that til I took it off. Upon which they just left. Nintendo users have the intelligence of a Koala, with the attention span of a goldfish. They'll never see the Steam Deck as good because it's not at their level. You can't argue with Nintendo users because they're in a totally different universe. Objective reality doesn't exist to them
seeing someone install windows an a device and have flaky behaviour due to bad/nonexistent drivers is such a role reversal. wild.
I was thinking the same thing.
Many of this behaviour is just his incompetence regarding how controllers work on windows and steam
@@sgas I think it's good to see what happens when someone hasn't gotten used to or dealt with every dumb quirk of something. It's good to see comments providing corrections, however this is an obscure and frankly garbage behavior which requires undesirable workarounds just like a lot of Linux issues are.
I disagree, installing Windows on a random PC is generally a painful experience. As is installing drivers. Most Linux distros are much better optimized for this, because it's something their users are actually expected to do, unlike Windows.
@@Mekuso8 Have you ever installed any windows newer than 98 or XP?
The installation is literally so easy that even a 10year old could do it. It's just a sequence of prompts where you choose what you want, and then there's the "we are preparing things" screen telling you to wait and after that is finished all is installed and working.
Problem is that steam deck isn't a "random PC", it's a new and very specific device.
If you installed some Linux distro on it it'd also have issues with sorting out all the various drivers and controls.
Steam OS 3.0 gets it right of course, because it's designed specifically for this device.
2:35 not "for whatever reason". For a software to interact with UAC, it needs to run as an administrator, which makes sense. Imagine if you could run an app, the app could ask to elevate it's permissions, and said app could move the cursor to click yes. It would be pretty stupid. Solution would be to run Steam as admin and configure it such as it does not need to ask for admin, so all functionality works.
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Elevated applications cannot interact with the secure desktop either. They will receive an Access Denied error trying to do so. Said process would need to run not with administrator permissions, but under the SYSTEM account with the System Integrity Level attached to a physical console session that has the same privileges as winlogon itself. It also needs particular manifest declarations set (uiaccess=true) which Steam doesn't have. Further, processes trying to access the secure desktop in this way have to be code-signed with an extended validation certificate.
I'm blown away by how much work Valve has put into Linux over the past couple years. I was finally able to move fully to Linux; it's gotten to the point where every game I throw at Proton just works, usually with no tweaking, as well as or better than native Windows.
Just for this Valve deserves the best gaming project in a decade reward. I moved to Linux just bc of them.
Any idea if they got gamepass working directly? No cloud shit
@@Laughin9M4N I don't know, but I'd be surprised if they did. The Xbox storefront is all UWP, and Microsoft is incredibly unlikely to play nice on this one.
@@Thanatos2996 IMO, if it weren’t for anti-trust laws, Microsoft would be locking their devices down to prevent Linux from running on them.
They hold a virtual monopoly on the desktop market.
Hopefully in the next 7 - 10 years, we'll see 97% of games running perfectly perfect on Linux.
having spent more than my fair share of time using a gamepad as a mouse, I appreciate that they swap left/right when using triggers as mouse clicks as that's the only way to do it imo.
It really does make sense to have left click on right trigger especially when you consider most people that get this will probably be console people that besides work or possibly a laptop don't have much experience on a PC for gaming use anyway.
Honestly right click should be the other right bumper. And if you’re left handed, LT and LR. My mouse hand doesn’t want to learn new things help
The biggest positive I see about the steam deck is the opportunity to watch the rate of improvement in software and drivers. I would also still like a comparison between the etched glass highest end deck versus the less expensive ones.
If you ask me, it doesn't change much. One has a bit more of glares, the other doesn't, but it's not that any game is going to be significantly better or worse. The hardware is the same, except for the SSD.
@@GiovanniMascellani probably, but we want proof.
The etched glass has slightly duller colors but isn’t reflective. It’s SSD is bigger. That’s really the only difference.
there is no difference, the hardware is the same
On the etched glass you cant install a screen protector without adding most the glare back. What i would suggest is getting the lower end one and upgrading the storage for half the price and adding the dbrand screen protector that is antiglare
I think one of the huge advantages the Steam Deck will continue having over their competitors is the engagement and enthusiasm of the community. I'm pretty sure every problem that's software related it will be a matter of time until someone finds a fix in the community. Be it optimizing settings, installing mods, finding workarounds, whatever you think, you'll be able to find a discussion on Steam telling you the best way to play your games and most (if not all) of it will be with Valve's blessing, unlike with other consoles where it would be like jailbreaking.
Steam deck has no way of knowing that you are using retro arch. You need to add reto arch as a non-steam game and map your own controller config to it. Same thing with the steam controller.
As a years long steam controller user I was cringing the entire time on this video. Obviously performance can't be helped, but if you're gonna run an emulator you have to have your controller config set to gamepad. The annoying issue with Windows security prompts has persisted ever since the steam controller shipped and it doesn't seem to be going away, ever. Easy fix for that is to just tell Windows not to darken the screen when giving you those prompts. Microsoft just doesn't care about fixing this. Seems Valve have made a much more optimized and performant experience with SteamOS!
Its a permissions issue, only admin processes are allowed to access UAC prompts. Run steam as Admin and the problem goes away.
Run steam as admin? That's crazy talk. You shouldn't run *anything* as admin except what needs to touch system stuff. Then again, it's windows, so what's the point of security.
guys.... you can turn off the UAC darken all together in the account settings. you've been able to since they started doing that.
@@ShahbazYoussefi I didn't say it was a good solution, but it is A solution
@@benruss4130 or just remove UAC notifications all together.
even though its janky right now, I'm very surprised valve is even bothering to make windows drivers for their new console. Awesome! cant wait to get one once this is cleaned up a bit with dual boot enabled, thats a huge selling point
it's mostly just asking the OEMs to make them, it's not like it's super duper custom, they just need to make and validate different configurations of their usual drivers
Apart from driver issues, it doesn’t look like you’d want to run windows on the steam deck even if the drivers get fixed.
@@bitw1se Driver issues getting fixed would most certainly improve the experience exponentially. Also, Microsoft COULD begin validating Windows for Steam Deck. If they were smart they would since it would allow them to maintain their market share even on Steam Deck which is native SteamOS (linux)
Why are you surprised? It's not uncommon for Linux devs to write Windows ports. I'd be surprised if Valve *didn't* make Windows drivers available.
I would honestly think that Valve purposefully released crappy windows drivers.
The windows brightness thing is also an issue on some touchscreens on laptops. If I drag brightness on my hp envy it doesn't register unless I do it slowly, works fine on fedora though.
Yes, since the moment I saw it I thought that was more a Windows bug.
On my sister's laptop brightness control doesn't work at all, screen or keyboard (it needs some extra drivers but asus deleted them from their website. It wasn't even 3 years old at the time they pulled them out)
On linux it works perfectly though.
@@DiamondPugs It's drivers.
something with charging my Lenovo ThinkPad is reading 1% in windows while being charged for nearly 2 hours and in Ubuntu, it tells me I am at 100% and plugged in.
Games *can* run just as well in Windows as they do on Linux on the Deck, problem is the Windows drivers don't increase the GPU memory as needed as it does in Linux, so you need to go into the BIOS settings, and set the shared video mem to 4Gb, this exponentially improves performance for gaming on Windows.
have you tried running game pass on windows on the steam deck?
@@michaelparker5216 Yeah, it works very well. Any games that play well on Windows with the Steam Deck that are on Game Pass work perfectly
Seeing Linus fiddle with the controls on Windows was funny only because when I used my Steam Link, I refused to plug in a keyboard, so I got really used to using Windows like that and I still can
UAC is like the "sudo" command in linux. Unless you launch the steam itself with UAC Admin, you will have things disabled for security.
Yea. But do you keep your financial and personal information on your gaming console?
That’s why just running steam in admin role isn’t a good idea.
Looks like no one at LTT understands how security works in operating systems.
@@ProfessorPepper17 you can use a web browser on it, someone might actually do it
All imperfections aside it is admittedly pretty insane the kind of power and computing capability of todays tech. For something so small to be able to run the windows os and run a game on top of it is pretty crazy. Not only are the capabilities of todays tech insane but the price vs performance you can get today is mind-blowing. You can take 2 to 300 dollars today and build something on a 10 year old platform and be able to play modern games in 1080 p on medium settings depending on the game high settings. To me that's awesome 😎
“I do wot a want!”
_Five minutes later._
“This was a terrible decision.”
Regarding the issues with Horizon Zero Dawn, Digital Foundries talked about it in their Steam Deck review and mentioned that is related to the restricted memory capacity of the hardware itself and Zero Dawn caching shaders while you are playing it instead of pre-caching them before, and the workaround they recommended was leaving the game open for a while before you start playing. Those late game areas you are having issues with probably take longer to cache than the early game ones.
You'd think persistent shader caching would be a default feature of DirectX by now.
DirectX is so awful, shader caching has been a thing for years now on OpenGL/Vulkan...
@@becyk_du_quebec Asynchronous Shader Caching to be exact, and yeah, DXVK wouldn't exist if this wasn't true.
It's pathetic.
Direct X has 12 (? I don’t keep track anymore) iterations to give a damn and here it is, still buggy and unreliable. And I believe it’s because Microsoft engineers (have to) build on top of already incredibly buggy and obsolete code. It’s far more time consuming to rebuild software to be more compatible with current architectures and hardware demands rather than try to tape over ever cracking foundation. And that’s just too expensive. Apparently.
@@glass.hammer I don't think trying to maintain backwards compatibility is something to be maligned. It would be less effort to create an efficient API without backwards compatibility, like Vulkan does with OpenGL.
This is effectively like using the Steam Controller on Windows like I do on my TV. Steam needs to be running for the desktop config to work, and I have it run as admin so that it can interact with everything like UAC prompts and priviliged software
I would assume the haptics are done through Steam software and the Windows Steam client doesn't have that yet, it also still uses the old Big Picture. Hopefull it will support its own Deck Controller better once it arrives on Windows
I think Elden Ring is playable offline so you could have used the same account on both Decks in offline mode, but you definitely have the funds to own two copies of the game anyways. Still good to know for some viewers I guess
About the touch keyboard, you probably didn't realize you could do that (or it doesn't work with the Deck's controller) but I absolutely prefer the keyboard on the old Big Picture since you can use the trackpads of the Steam Controller to hover over a letter and use the triggers to type the letter. It's amazing, way faster than the default touch keyboard on the Deck. I really REALLY hope the Deck gets the Big Picture keyboard because I'm not looking forward to touch typing and awkwardly selecting letters with the joystick. I'm legit scared they might remove the touchpad keyboard instead of also adding it to the Deck, hope they won't because that typing experience is amazing
Obviously with Elden Ring, this is a case of the developers making a bad port and Valve swooped in to fix it, (ab)using the fact that they need to use a translation layer anyways. Not exactly the fault of Windows, for clarity
On Windows, you can add software like RetroArch to your Steam library which allows you to use the Deck Controller as an Xbox Controller as per usual. If you don't launch it through Steam then the Deck controller will be a mouse and keyboard (using the Desktop config) like Anthony said
For the On screen Keyboard there's a feature request to bring in the old behavior / Steam Controller style
You still use the double touchpad method on SteamOS for interacting with the keyboard.
As a normally Windows user, I wouldn't install windows on my Steam Deck, regardless, it is amazing that they let you.
I 100% will install windows day one that I get my steam deck.
@@dylanallen7720 Have fun with a worse device.
@@privateger wont get mine till the end of the year most likely. By then it will be much better i anticipate.
@@concertmaster no trolling here.
@@dylanallen7720 I'm not getting mine until later in the year too and I'm hoping by then you can dual boot SteamOS and Windows properly instead of just Linux/Windows. That's the only way I'll do it unless I just do it to
tinker and put it back to normal haha
Wtf, I was not expecting the GOG client I made in my free time while learning Python to reach a Linux Tech Tips video at some point 😱
so cool!!!
A like for you sir
Not all heroes wear capes... Unless you do have a cape?
Windows 10/11 consumes A LOT of system resources when compared to Linux. Every developer has probably noticed that when compiling on Windows 10/11 in comparison to Linux.
Compilation time in Windows 10/11 taking twice as long or more is absolutely normal. And I'm talking pure compilation time with EVERY compiler (like java or c).
So actually, games running faster with higher performance on Linux when compared to Windows 10/11 is to be expected (with same quality of drivers on both systems).
Holy shit THIS. At this point I'm only using Windows exclusively because of VS and it's gorgeous debugger, but I'm thinking really hard about making the switch
@kenaz Ok, what's a good IDE to use with similar things as VS on linux? I fucking tried looking for it but yeah
@@StellaEFZ There is an official version of Visual Studio on Linux though (yes, native, from Microsoft and all)
@@Arthur-hn5yk That's Visual Studio CODE, Not Visual Studio; They're very different
@@StellaEFZ oh really? What is the other one? (I searched but I just find vsc)
Would like to see a SteamOS on desktop gaming PC video when the iso becomes available
I suggest you follow the channel: ETA Prime
That kind of stuff is right up his alley along with emulation, APUs and miscellaneous underground tech. Won't be surprised if he makes a video about that one day
Wasn't that what those alienware steam machines were? Desktop pcs with steamOS?
That's at best going to feel like a console. It would be much more interesting to see SteamOS 3 on a windows handheld.
I mean it's just KDE neon
At the moment closest thing to desktop SteamOS is Fedora Silverblue. Both of which have similar immutable filesystem with one crucial difference, SteamOS will likely break if you install non containerized programs unlike Fedora Silverblue, so desktop application compatibility is likely much better on Fedora Silverblue. Fedora Silverblue is Fedora, but designed to be only used with applications packaged to Flatpak format - this is to increase stability, but it also limits what you can do on it.
As a Fedora (non Silverblue) gamer, I am not really interested in SteamOS or Fedora Silverblue, except for the SteamOS ui, but for gaming otherwise there isn't that much missing on other Linux distros which have recent enough kernel to support latest features.
And one big difference is the desktop environment, SteamOS uses KDE by default, which is fine, has a lot of settings, but I personally prefer GNOME because KDE has just too many options for me. The issue is that on immutable filesystem, you likely cannot easily switch the desktop environment, unlike on other Linux distros. I am not saying it couldn't be done, but as with the Windows experience, SteamOS on desktop could be quite rough experience 🤔
A few things I want to note that may help you guys in future videos:
-The Steam Controller aspects of the Deck would probably react to the same software, so GloSC would do you well for playing games outside of Steam without needing an external controller. Alternatively, adding Retroarch and other non-Steam games to Steam may allow you to use standard controller bindings. This doesn't always work from my experience, but that's why I mentioned GloSC first since it has wider support.
-The on-screen keyboard in Windows is meant to be controlled with the touch-pads to allow for faster typing than a standard controller-based on-screen keyboard. It's about 1/3 to 1/2 of anyone's standard typing speed (depending on how fast you type), vs the 1/5 to 1/10 you'd expect from the standard on-screen controller-based keyboard.
-The Steam Controller has a "real-time firmware", so when you're using Steam, the Steam API is in charge of that, but when Steam is closed, it defaults to the standard desktop config, which you saw.
-The TDP is 1/2 of the max, but that limit is temporary as people are working on a way to raise the TDP from 15w to 25w or 30w. The maximum performance of the Steam Deck is yet to be tapped in Windows, we're probably a ways off before we see what that looks like between drivers missing and TDP allowances being a modifiable option. ETA Prime showed this in his video, so it'll be interesting to see how this evolves over time.
"I Own this device, it's mine, so whatever, I do what I want" Is exactly the same thing I think when someone complains about me using adblock to avoid creepy spyware from MY device
If you have spyware on your device adblock is a Band-Aid solution for a much more serious issue
My stance is "If the packets enter my network, they become my property."
Seriously, it's just like mail. If it's addressed to me, once it's in my mailbox, I can do whatever I want with it.
@@Niarbeht so are you saying that if a package is shipped wrongly on your location, you own it now? i dunno, seems like an entitled karen moment unless otherwise you don't think that way
@@KizukiKotataki Those aren't my thoughts, that's the law. If it's addressed to you and shipped to you, it's yours.
@@nigeladams8321 If you access a website like the Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon or Netflix, You bet there are some kind of creepy software trying to take as much as possible data from you. As for proprietary software like Windows, I need to say no more.
While as a Linux user I really rejoice over Linux hardware being actually first party and better supported for once, I think they should improve the controls on windows regardless.
Valve stated clear they won't support Windows at all, and they released the drivers as they are.
@@scottpascal3099 Shouldn't be too hard to create some good presets for windows. They said you could install and play games on windows. They only need to take a look at aya and gpd and tweak the controls a bit
Who should? Valve? It is none of their business. And Linus assuming that they might improve Windows experience is unbased assumptions. The official OS for the Steam Deck is SteamOS and Valve gave Windows drivers as a plus.
@@saifaddeenal-manaseer6325 exactly, making it easier for people to use Windows on the steamdeck doesn't encourage people to use SteamOS AND that's the goal.
@@saifaddeenal-manaseer6325 because they said in previous interviews that steam deck also works well with windows i kinda was expecting this
As an 8-year Linux user, I fully support your right to put whatever you want on hardware you own. That's the Linux ethos! Your computer, you're in control!
Though I must admit to some schadenfreude seeing Windows support being the second-class citizen for once. :)
@Linden Reaper you must be kidding yourself if anyone is going to use steam deck as thier daily driver.
Windows is still the best platform for game support and for average user.
@Linden Reaper but, Windows would allow more freedom such as downloading games from game pass until Steam optimizes Game pass. Plus W10/11 is meant for laptops and PC since they weren't meant to be used as a mini gaming system. That's why the Xbox OS is so clean with the Xbox cause it was meant to be for a console
@D Reaper rent?
@@spookyfool I for one like the fact that you can plug a few peripherals in and BAM the steam deck is now a laptop.
@@spookyfool that’s not freedom. That’s just a lack of support for Linux systems.
For the RetroArch issue you could
1. Add the retroarch executable as a game and setup the controller to behave like a regular gamepad
2. Set the "desktop" setting as a regular gamepad in Big Picture
Seems like Valve brought full on Linux experience to the Windows users who are trying to install Windows on SteamDeck: Lack of optimization, not working audio and wireless, half-broken screen backlight - those are the most common issues for any Linux user installing Linux to the majority of recently released laptops :D
I completely understand how frustrating that might be as I've been through that multiple times myself (installing Linux), and I hope that Valve will fix it, though.
Do you buy wish hardware?
I only had this issues once with a new Laptop / PC and this was with an OpenSuse Install 16 years ago. So recent hardware is a wide stretch (at that time it was)
@@moritzfabian4392 I recently has been choosing the new gaming laptop for Linux and that's pretty tough due to weird keyboard drivers with RGB, gaming touchpads or even custom screen backlight due to high refresh rate screen.
With office laptops I also had issues when soundcard was recognised but neither mic nor speakers was working as manufacturer (HP) did some customisations to the soundcard.
In most cases laptops do works fine but if you up to something fancy or powerful be ready to solve compatibility issues.
@@snowmean1 Which laptops were they? My acer predator works perfectly apart from the fact I don't have webcam drivers (arch btw).
@@HarlemFoxtrotter I checked MSI, ASUS, Lenovo, Acer, HP, Alienware. Eventually picked Metabox based on Clevo chassis, and still had to compile keyboard module for RGB from Tuxedo (also Clevo based).
Non working camera isn't the description of working perfectly laptop, and pretty solid illustration.
@@moritzfabian4392 My friend has issues like that on his pretty modern lenovo gaming laptop with ubuntu. Don't remember what exactly the model was
the touchpad click thing on the triggers comes from their expertise on VR. This has been the standard on PCVR and I'm surprised to not see you mention it Linus.
the design started with using steam controller on desktop
I'm amazed you didn't try the windows experience with a monitor, mouse and keyboard. I feel like a lot of people wanting to run windows would do so they can dual use it as their main PC and plug into a home dock. If they get dual booting you could Linux game on the go and windows desktop for home office use.
This would decrease your performance
@@eduardoprocopiogomez But increase productivity. I travel a lot for work so if I could use it as a home station with windows all plugged into externals. Then an on the plane handheld console I wouldn't have to bring a laptop and handheld to pass the time. Less bag space, Better performance for the cost of an equivalent laptop etc. Just be good to see how the it behaves in that sense and I hope linus covers it in his 1 month review. But from wan it sounds like he's only using it as a game console and not a work station.
@@Antpie94 Just use SteamOS as a work station lol. You need Microsoft Word? WINE! By looking at the video, it's pretty hard to write and even click in Windows.
@@eduardoprocopiogomez because he was only using it as a game console! With mouse and keyboard it should perform better. Navigation wise at least. I personally HATE typing on touch screens, so it doesn't matter which OS is being used.
@@arucarddimples1944 No, Just no. See 8:40
Here is a thing to remember. Valve can go into the Linux kernel to change things to make Linux work better on the Steam Deck and take advantage of the architecture. Windows, not so much since it is close-source and proprietary. Also, when you say "you should see generally the same performance between Windows and Linux on the same hardware." No, I would not. For example, not to long ago I was rocking an Intel i5-9400 with an RX 6800 XT. Control under Linux was seeing almost constant 144 FPS, with dips into 90 FPS. Windows, well, it would go around 120 FPS with dips to 70 FPS. RimWorld on Windows, late-game getting a lot of stutters, on Linux barely any stutters until really late game. And I am pretty sure I know how this is happening, and it comes down to a simple fact, Linux is a monolithic kernel while Windows is a hybrid kernel, where it has basic drivers baked in to get it going for external drivers to be installed. Because every driver is compiled side-by-side, this means that it can optimize the kernel and drivers together, lowering redundancy, lowering the size, and increasing the speed. The last thing I will say, and I don't think anyone can argue this, Windows is bloated beyond reason. Just to match as close to feature parity I have on Linux on Windows means that the Windows side is using up to 8 GiB of RAM while on Linux it only uses 1-2 GiB of RAM. Windows just gets bloated just to match feature parity, and the worst part is that Microsoft's C compiler is so bad when compared to GNU C Compiler. GCC is able to make programs that are, in some cases, 60% smaller than Microsoft's C Compiler, with those programs also running a lot faster as well. Windows just isn't as performant as Linux is.
OHHh, that's the guy with the brains!!?>!&!?? Gosh< teach the others here to just anything - maybe they'll get them to some day))()
The thing is, Windows was designed to work without troubleshooting, all these layers of bloat are to secure even a pre-2000 program can still run today
Linux is not user friendly for all the troubleshooting it needs even for simple tasks like installing software without a store
@@glass1098 what troubleshooting are you talking about exactly? even installing software or updates with pacman is still easier then on windows, where you have to update the system and some applications in the settings, and some application only update when you open then and you have to install programms with some files you searched up in the internet
@@glass1098 what are you even talking about?
@@glass1098 I can install software without a store using few clicks on linux.
As a Linux fanboy I strongly believe that everyone has a right to install an OS of his choice on any device. As long as it's Linux.
Windows 11 with its problems forced me to switch to Garuda Linux about a month and a half ago, and I don't regret it a bit, because now my PC works much more stable, especially in development and emulation, so God bless Linux
А, ой, я только догнал, что ты по-русски говоришь, лол, прости меня пожалуйста за мой текст на английском, надеюсь, никаких проблем с прочтением и пониманием он не вызовет, просто английский не мой родной язык, хех
try changing your wallpaper 💀
🤓
@@matejamicic3037 couldnt be easier. Literally just right click on an image and set as desktop background.
Gaming press before Steam Deck: "I'm going back to Windows, Linux just isn't ready."
Gaming press after Steam Deck: "I'm going back to SteamOS, Windows is terrible."
GIGACHAD Jason
It's quite reassuring that people are opening their eyes to how unsuited Windows 10 is for gaming (aside from compatibility).
@@nikkoa.3639 Exactly. Windows was never meant for gaming. It's just where games were developed for because everyone already used the OS for general purposes. Windows is designed for general use. Linux can be molded to be whatever you want and that's why SteamOS is such a polished experience for Steam games.
@Noah Gamer The issue is that it uses way too many resources. Therefore for devices like the deck, windows uses all of the CPU and the RAM and the game ends up with nothing so the performance is shit. If you have hardware to spare, then it is a matter of preference, but if you don't windows just isn't an option, because performance-wise, it just sucks.
@@nikkoa.3639 My problem with trying to use Linux is that I've never had a great experience, so I don't personally will be putting Linux on my gaming PC anytime soon.
My respect for Anthony just keeps on increasing with every video in which I hear him speak. He's always got it, even when he's not onscreen. 😎
Anthony is the best, he is the reason I have been an LTT fan for so long.
Who else but Anthony
Linux Tech Tips
Yes
The right trigger for left click and left trigger for right click is consistent with their Steam Controller. As are the two trackpads on either side of the device. They're essentially porting the Big Picture style experience with Steam Controller to the handheld form factor, more or less.
I don’t think these are Windows bugs, they are Windows FEATURES! I am so sure about it because I got similar features on my surface pro, Marcohard’s own machine.
2:27 That's one of the biggest pains in the ass that Windows has to offer, since this also applies to any kind of VNC, RDP or other means of remote connections like Virtual Desktop. Sometimes it somehow works, but most of the times you literally have to do it via keyboard simply because the "mouse" is dead there.
13:31 I'd install a dual boot Windows and throw my vhd with 98% of my programs (all portable) from my desktop rig in there when I go visit family, plug the thing to a monitor, keyboard and mouse and basically have everyhting I need that's not gaming related on a thing that's faster than my old 3rd gen Intel notebook and actually capable of running games even.
That's because the keystrokes are natively passed through, while mouse input is emulated.
I remember when Windows 7 was released. It was one of my all time favorite OS's. Ever since then I've never really liked Windows. I tired so hard. And even when Windows 8.1 released, I just never felt the same about it. The whole experience just died for me, seeing desktops be artificially limited by the idea of 'mobile architecture'. With linux it was EXTREMELY difficult to get into at first. Sure you could pull up a video or web page, but not much else. But this last decade has been a huge change as far as that goes. I for once, can use a distro like PopOS without hitting a road block every other program. It really is due to Valves investment. They put their money where their mouth is and that is enough for me to support them because they delivered on a lot of promises many have dropped. I don't even own a Steam Deck yet, but as a Linux user, they have made games which were previously unavailable, entirely playable, and available without requiring extensive effort and time. I will be buying Steam Decks for me and my wife, even though we have gaming Pc's because they work WITH them, not against them. I'm no corporate shill, but I will vote with my wallet. Even if it costs a few bucks more, and a get a few less FPS, I'll take that over the alternatives
Window 7 and XP were the best!
Given the volume of updates Valve has been pushing, both to the OS and (hopefully) their windows drivers, it might be nice to do a ‘Steam Deck 1 year on’ update to all of these reviews. See how much the system has improved over time. Supposedly they’re working on dual boot capability whenever OS 3 goes public. Given supply chain shortages and how slow their rollout has been, I’d bet there would still be a lot of interest given a ton of people will still be receiving theirs for the first time and there is nothing priced even close to as competitively.
I reserved my 512 model, 3 days after reservations opened. I JUST hit the quarter Valve says I’ll actually be able to BUY mine. Sometime between July and September, ONE YEAR after reservations opened. Anywho, love the 4-5 you’ve got on it.
What about game streaming from your desktop to the SteamDeck? I would imagine that works as usual. That would be my solution to running windows only games rather than installing windows on the Deck. I know not everyone who buys a SteamDeck will have a gaming desktop but most people probably will. I would be interested to see if there is a difference in quality between the Deck and a regular laptop when it comes to game streaming.
In previous videos Linus staid that it works amazingly well, with lower latency than anything else he used before.
Doesn't help on the go, though
@@Droogie128 you can stream games anywhere. what does this mean
@@gooseyboygavin9143 i think they mean in case you don’t have internet
@@constancies I think they mean more when they are home a want to game downstairs on the couch on the deck (and the game runs bad on the deck) instead of at their pc. They are asking if the devices are on the same network is the quality and latency good enough for a decent experience.
As a sample size of one, I have to admit that Valve's "true mission" is a complete success ON ME. Before the Steam Deck I was never going to give Linux a shot. Now I'm actually excited to dive into Linux and learn about it's features and use cases. This is a device that I can tinker with but don't NEED to rely on working. I already have a gaming PC for the majority of my play time. This is just an extra device to help me game in places I can't. AND I can learn about Linux when I want to.
The ability to run Windows on it is probably going to be nice for some people. But FOR ME, it's a toe in the water of the Linux ecosystem. I expect to be frustrated by some things but learning is a big motivator for my purchase decision.
My plan is to have a little doc station with a monitor and keyboard where I can poke around the Linux desktop but use it as the "sick day/in bed/need to kill 2 hours dead on the road" machine the rest of the time. A project for a hobbyist technophile and a "nice to have" as well.
And if you ever need help with something, there are plenty of Linux enthusiasts who will be happy to recommend a dozen competing ways to solve (or "solve") every problem you have.
I say this as a Linux user who has gotten too excited trying to solve others' problems. Just make sure you're clear about what solutions you want, and I encourage you to be open to learning *some* command line terminology. Just like some esoteric Windows issues require registry hacks or running something at a command prompt, some esoteric Linux issues require editing some text files or running a few commands.
@@GammaFn. he will not need to do that, steam deck has one spec and one default distro - any issue he will encounter will be encountered by someone already and there will be post in the forum with a fix exactly to his issue... this will be much more easy introduction to linux then dealing with some cheap oem laptop which created only botched windows drivers and which are never updated and utilize some unknown weird bug in hw...
@@sleepete12 They explicitly said "excited to dive into Linux and learn".
you can also use virtualbox on your desktop pc to try out different linux distributions.
Porteus Linux can boot from USB stick to RAM.
Be careful, you might be unable to go back to Windows after using Linux for a while, because of how fundamentally useless Windows is. Don't say we didn't warn you!
I'm so jealous that we can't get a Steam Deck in Australia (hopefully soon), and here's Linus stacking one on top of another as a stand hahah
I'm in the same boat (or land mass in this case) but in one of the Steam Deck videos from Valve they said they are actively looking to make it available in other regions soon and called out Australia as one of those regions. So hopefully it doesn't take as long as the Index because I was only recently able to get that despite it being available for years in other countries.
There are ways to get it here, just takes a lot of effort
Here's the thing @AusSkiller @Dank Communist @WilksIsOffTheRails , with GPU prices finally normalizing this is super bad timing for Valve to not be able to meet demand across the ponds, and not even be able to commit to a shipment dates of any units to Australia, let alone confirm a AUD domestic launch price point. So I'm in the market for a new Desktop PC and this meets my use case. I wouldn't stuff around like a silly bugger with it in handheld mode, it has the potential to be my daily driver instead with kb+m and looks way more fun than a boring old PC. Basically, I feel like this is the future and I'm not allowed to get on board.
@@T0TALLYAWESOMEGUY normalizing? Idk
@@AusSkiller I'm broke at the moment anyway so I'm in no rush.
To be fair props to Valve for indeed making the Deck "customizeable",something Nintendo forbids on Switch,i mean Valve indeed makes the Deck the "alpha mobile console",and if things go well i can foresee the Deck become the best mobile console on the market,there's still progress to make but hey slow and steady wins the race.Even if it'll be a bit clunky most ppl specially tech savys will prefer the Deck over the Switch simply for the customizeability.
Well completely different business models.if Nintendo do that it’s game over for them.
They can "forbid" it all they want.... Literally the only reason why I even have a switch is because of pirated games and CFW.
Nintendo can fully suck it.
@@nexxusty I got a original Switch only because CFW was a thing in 2019, only to sell it last year. Aside from the fact that nintendo will forever be huge cunts no matter what context you look at it, the situation on the switch was kinda shit: Cannot play online on CFW or they'll ban your console, and barely anyone irl still carries their switch with them so local wireless is kinda pointless. And then there is the lack of options compared to PC. Only some games could be modded (and even for Skyrim it was a huge pain in the ass), and most games were censored in some way anyway. As for CFW themselves, it never added anything extra, it only fixed things which really should have been possibly on stock firmware (custom themes / wallpapers and backing up save data)
I look forward to being able to play more indie games, emulate more modern systems and play mainstream games with mods on my Deck (once valve finally ships it T_T)
I love Nintendo’s hardware. Truly. But it works best because it’s not customizable, honestly. Kind of like Mac for people who don’t like to tinker. If you pushed the switch beyond it’s dev intended operation, I bet it would fold like bible paper.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing imo. It becomes a great coding project, but Nintendo has an image that they staunchly maintain.
@@glass.hammer what you’re saying about Nintendo is correct for the most part but your Mac comparison isn’t correct,Mac OS is a powerful Unix based operation system with many powerful features and capabilities and Mac hardware specially in recent years become very powerful ,using Apple SoC,this can’t be compared to Nintendo,since they use basic software and minimum of hardware specs,they had powerful hardware in SNES and Gamecube era but changed towards the least capable hardware specs possible and focus of unique features and first party softwares to stand out and appeal to market.and it works for them they’re printing money.
Windows users now know what it felt back in the day when we Linux users installed Linux on some rando OEM PC.
So they give 0 shits?
@Fashinqu A. wich in turn made Game Dev made real Linux Game
I honestly wouldn't expect Steam Deck to be particularly good at being a handheld Windows PC at this point in its life cycle. I wish we'd find out if it works OK as a docked productivity device, which would give it a lot of value.
The mentioned using docked desktop as a challenge on the WAN show. But I suspect it'd be exactly the same as the Linux challenge once peripherals were connected.
I've used Linux exclusively for 5-6 years now without a hitch. A tiny bit of our tools at work only work with Linux because it's just too difficult to make things compatible with Windows and macOS.
@@gotoastal I'm mostly in the Apple Silicon ecosystem now and tend to do most of my gaming on PS5/PS3. Therefore, I don't need to invest in a powerful Windows system, but I have some niche interests and enjoy love me some odd RTS games, so I keep an Intel MacBook Pro around as a backup productivity laptop that can also play Windows games through Boot Camp. Ideally, I'd love to be able to sell my Intel MacBook Pro and have the Steam Deck occupy a similar role in my life. I don't even care if it takes a fair bit of DIY work, but it just has to be acceptable. I know it's a very specific role I'm looking to fill with a Steam Deck, but at that price for that amount of power and potential, I have a feeling a lot of people have similarly wacky possibilities in mind.
If you want a productivity device, just run KDE. It's fine and it's already included and works very well. "Productivity" is the worst argument for Windows.
@@pt8306 aye especially since libre office is pretty jank free now, been using the libre office suite for light productivity for my work over a couple of years.
It's especially welcome compared to Microsoft is actively hampering running office suite offline (office online is great - though the browser interface always leaves a bit to desire)
@@pt8306 Productivity can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. If my definition of productivity means processing proprietary gyro data in my Sony Alpha video footage while using my multi-channel USB-C audio interface that needs a vendor-specific software mixer to be useful, that's not a job for KDE. All modern operating systems, whether Linux, Mac, or Windows, can basically do 99% of productivity tasks about as competently as anything else. Having said that, if I find something I can't do on Mac, it's Windows that's going to cover that gap; it's really unlikely that KDE would.
The "input doubling" issue in Retroarch has been around a long time. It happens usually if Steam or DS4Windows/Betterjoy are handling the controller when Retroarch starts up, due to Retroarch trying to reference xinput or dinput to handle controller configuration.
I think if you disabled steam-input , the issues would go away . Since the controller is then picked up as a controller?
With steam streaming rise of the tomb raider i was also very frustrated with an Xbox controller. All the prompts where messed up and wrong, buttons doing two actions at the same time (like jumping and opening the map?!?). Turns out there were steam controller profiles loaded, which I couldn't turn of except disabling the whole steam input handling for the game (which thankfully is an option ). The previous Tomb Raider games don't even have this.
Makes me wish the whole config was non existent for games having good native controller support .
Or at least an option to return all mappings to default , instead of autoloading some community profiles I never asked for :(.
That stuttering in Elden Ring is nothing like it is on the regular PC version. In general, the stuttering is typically on area loads like when you're riding across the open world and the game is frequently loading in new chunks of the map, with framerate dips in certain areas with lots of effects like lighting and weather. In smaller, more contained areas like dungeons or the chapel you start the game in, the framerate is a stable.
Just switched my desktop to Linux. Every time I try to do anything on windows now, I get reminded of all the annoyances I used to live with.
Every time I get annoyed with Linux, I switch back to my Windows partition and damn its so awful. Theres just so many little annoyances that I was used to but are now glaringly obvious.
I bought a new laptop a few weeks ago. Installed Windows 10 on it to do some gaming. Then installed Ubuntu to do work.
After half a day Windows no longer boots and I am not going to fix it. Not worth it. Linix is fine for all I do. I can game on my workstation...
You must use a different windows than I do. I have very little issues using windows.
Either that or this is another Linux hype. I have a solution for you guys, delete windows and use Linux. Problem solved.
@@juliusfucik4011 if your laptop can run games on Windows it can run them on Linux as well with proton. Hell even some EAC games work now
@@koopmcgrumpy6409 Have you used linux for an extended amount of time? I never noticed issues with windows until I started using linux for awhile and switched back. That was when I noticed how much slower and buggy windows is compared to linux on the same hardware.
Now you know how Linux users feel when we get new hardware and there is no support. It takes weeks, months or years to get support for some devices. The good thing is users will often write drivers and software themselves to fill in the gaps if the hardware manufacturer is unwilling to. And when a game is a buggy mess on Windows, it isn't that surprising when it runs better on Linux these days as patches are often introduced to fix game bugs.
My question is what is running in the background of the Windows installation that could be contributing to messing it up.
@@computer_freedom In regards to the performance my guess is either "Windows Update" or "Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry". Both suck performance on my Windows machine from time to time, causing even audio to suffer.
@@Gramini Just Windows checking for updates I have seen it dump programs, which is why I used Linux for a security camera setup I did for some friends.
So you might have something there, since Microsoft promised to not reboot in peak hours, but downloads like crazy. Linus had a new install, and it could have very well been doing just that.
@@Gramini "anti malware service"
LMAO these Linux users here flexing their “superiority” over Windows users. You guys are so salty that Windows users have it a little easier that you glee in enjoyment when they seem to suffer, when in reality, very little of all this actually matters to the average person. It just comes off as arrogant to me.
I’m just expecting that they improve the drivers since their not complete yet. Like adding WIFI drivers and Audio drivers, I’m not worried of the controls though.
I don't think it's gonna be soon or at the best. They really need to update steamOS right now. I think that is the biggest priority
@@KerimKero1903 if valve doesn’t themselves I know that someone else will.
bruh just don't waste your time putting Windows on this thing, it will always suck
Id love see an indepth video of steam deck with win11 now that the drivers are more updated and with a nice list of pros and cons
Can't wait for SteamOS 3.0 to be available to the public. There are a lot of devices that could benefit and need to be tested with this
I would l love for a revisit or a labs report with the new drivers that are out
I'm using Windows 11 on Deck. It wasn't easy, but once I've figured it out, it's great. I've tried a ton of games and they all work fine. After a couple weeks, first problem I'm having is right now my FFXIV install crashes on Windows. It worked great on SteamOS. I'm still troubleshooting to make it work. Good thing I have SteamOS still installed (dual boot) in case I need to go back and use that.
So far, I haven't really felt any urge to want Windows. I've tended to stick with games that will suit a handheld device, although I have poked at the Desktop Mode and "desktop" type apps, so far just a little bit of basic web-browsing and again it works fine for me. I'll admit I'm not a power-user so I'm unlikely to hit the ceiling any time soon. So far, most games that flat out don't work are heavy enough that I'd want a pc with keyboard and mouse anyway, but I have enjoyed seeing LTT push the Deck as hard as they can, and impressed that Valve were confident enough to let them.
As Linus says at the end; what Valve has given us for the price point is absolutely top-notch.
I would honestly love to see a comparison between different distros such as Nobara, PikaOS, & other popular distros on the Steam Deck to see how they hold up compared to stock SteamOS.
i think you would be sacrificing the steamos game mode, but if they’ve optimized for Arch then I think other distros that aren’t arch based would be lacking or equivalent in performance
The problems with controller mapping and big picture aren't specific to Steam Deck. That's just how Steam Controller and Big Picture are on Windows, and there are workarounds, but Big Picture has never felt great, and it's been 7 years since their last update. So, yeah, the Steam Deck is a new device, and they say they're going to fix it, but Big Picture should have been fixed years ago.
Regardless of what Valve intends to do to improve this currently, the larger problem is that Valve doesn't stick with their ideas long term. So even if they improve the Steam Deck, eventually major updates will stop coming and we'll be stuck with whatever state Valve considered was good enough.
"the same architecture should be performing similarly"
Except the windows has a ton of background processes that are notoriously resource hoggy. Since switching to Linux for gaming about a year ago I've noticed I get a lot more out of my hardware. For example, Apex was so laggy it was nearly unplayable, but on mint through protons it's like butter. Sure, ideally two operating systems should perform similarly, but due to just how inefficient Windows is that's not the case.
On top of that, valve can only do so much when it comes to optimizing windows. With their OS they have complete control over it and can tweak everything, with Windows that's just not the case
Relatable.
This is why we crack LTSC
Wait how are you playing apex on mint? The uac doesn't work right?
@@alpha9433 it does now, as long as you're running proton 7
@@nigeladams8321 yeah just checked Amazing! what gpu are you running btw and how's the performance?
I just got my Steam Deck today, and I was thinking of installing Windows OS on it. Thanks for talking me out of it Linus.
All of these input issues could likely be solved if you just plug a mouse & keyboard into the handheld through the ports/a hub. Obviously, it's a handheld so you would say "well I don't have to" but that's one of the implications of installing windows on it, (though you can unplug it later once you get your stuff working)
The input issues would actually be solved if they added RetroArch to Steam as a non-steam game, and launched it from there. Then SteamInput would actually know that you've launched a "game" and switch controller profiles from "desktop" to "default xinput". What's weird is that this has been known since before the SD released.
What I would like to see is a benchmark comparing loading times on games installed to an SD card. Since from what I've gathered is that the reason games load as fast from them, is that the steam deck formats them to ext4 (a Linux file system); which is significantly faster* than the ones Windows can use.
*Allegedly, don't actually quote me on that.
The only Windows format remotely the same speed is exFAT, which is notoriously unreliable and known to completely destroy it's own partitions. For something mostly unimportant, like game data, this is annoying but not a critical issue, so I could see them using that for their SD cards on Windows.
Hey LTT, Can you do an update on windows and Steam deck performance now that better drivers are available?
15:49 - The way Linus said "conspicuously" is amazing
"I own this device"
You don't now, you installed windows
First: the AMD drivers are ahead on Linux compared to Windows. The reason is that *valve* is involved in fixing and optimizing the drivers. AMD can port back parts of that progress that Valve has made back to windows, but reality is: if AMD wants to deliver the same performance on windows, they actually have to throw away their own DX stack and start using Valve's Vulkan stack maybe with DXVK on top. To be clear: DXVK runs on windows. That would give them some reign back on windows. I do think Valve is already involved with AMD on windows, since most of the new VR features/vulkan standards already work on AMD.
Second:
I took a look at the list of games I have, and practically all games that were tagged unsupported were games I am playing (I have never had windows on any of my gaming systems). And a few games that were supported were still slideshows on my rig. Of course my rig is an RX580 eGPU through express card on a 2012 T430 attached to a 4k monitor. and RDNA2 should be a lot faster than GCN4 and going from 4k to 1.2k should make that slideshow playable.
Linus Tech Tips should revisit this. Drivers have been updated, fixes have been found, and now the difference between Windows 11 and Steam OS is very negligeable.
Agreed
Edit: i just got done resizing my dual boot to give windows more storage because I’m on it a-lot more than SOS lol. deck w/ windows is absolutely amazing 🤩
Why, though? If "the difference between Windows 11 and Steam OS is very negligible" what's even the point in going though the expense of buying a Windows license and the hassle of installing and configuring Windows on a handheld device, when Steam OS is just as good, comes pre-installed, and has much better community support in general?
Seems to me that would be a whole lot of pain for not a whole lot of gain... Which is paradoxically the very same argument people have used to dismiss Linux for decades, but in reverse.
@@n0xx295 simply because of windows exclusive games, and the game pass. All these games should have great controller support too, because xbox.
Hey there, I'm a new deck owner and considering doing this rather than learning about Linux enough to get certain programs working on deck. What are your major pain points with windows now that steam has updated support for it?
@@ColoniaCroisant I’m in the same position. Downloading games outside of steam is a pain in the ass since non of the launchers are made for linux. I can download everything but on some launchers it’s a 50/50 if it will actually run without saying files are missing or anticheat doing its thing. Also simply trying to run a .exe file or finding the location of an app turns into a 10 minute process. I think I will do it this week.
Fun fact, when it comes to testing games on steamos/wine, for some triple A games they'll go the full length and complete the whole game but for most games they'll just do a minimum playtime unless it's unplayable from the get go. A friend was testing it.
I love how quickly you guys emulated a Nintendo game after you said you would.
I really hope that this forces Nintendo to change their business model. Cause now there REALLY is no reason to pay for 30 year old games.
@@tiagotiagot rAcIsm /s
@@DylLit yeah, but if it cant handle an N64 game, then they dropped the ball harder than Nintendo themselves.
They appear to be using the same default binds for desktop use as they do with the Steam Controller. I use my steam controller for navigating Windows on a TV and I love it.
Oh no, Windows having problems with patchy hard to find drivers which need to be community fixed?
What a tragedy, sure hope no other OS had such problems previously.
1 year later it truly seems like their invested in making the OS an all encompassing experience. Glad to see the progress is going so well with the product going through the headache of a new os and make windows work on non native software seems like a new level of hell
I personally feel very conflicted about SteamOS, it has so much but also lacks so much, we'll just have to wait and see what the future entails
Oh no, so Windows users are struggling with software compatibility issues on the Deck?
Linux users: _"First time?"_
It's just like installing Linux on a laptop in the 2000s. I'll just be over here sipping my irony tea.
When properly supported, Linux truly is a great OS. Way, way better than Windows in so many ways. Valve is finally showing the world this truth, because all this time it was hidden behind a complete lack of support and companies just not caring.
@@pt8306 How is it better though?
@@pt8306 hmm. its like linus never made any video about how janky linux experience for "normies" right?
@@coastaku1954 Exactly. Running better on hardware _made_ specifically for the OS is what consoles do. You get a lot of performance for less money. But you also lose control. You can't install other operating systems. You can't make it anything other than what it is.
So the Deck is just a console. Consoles are great at what they do, but they're not PC's. They're prebuilt machines that only do what they're allowed to do. Anything outside that is hacks and less performance.
@@flameshana9 No I'm just wondering why people think Linux is better than Windows
i was considering having windows and linux on my steam deck, i think ill just stick with linux.... which is something i never expected to be saying
honestly??? huge part pf the reason i want a Deck is to access my steam library without having to deal with Windows, but its still soo cool that they even let you freely install any operating system. its so exciting to see such a major player in the industry release an open platform like this
And the support for windows I also great. They are continually improving it.