Steam Deck reservations continue to grow, now at its highest point

Quoting: Mohandevir

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioBased on what I see in Steam Deck groups on social media, I would have no trouble believing that it could be as many as 40% of Steam Decks have Redmondsoft on them.

The Steam hardware survey seem to contradict that theory. Thing is, my experience is that the Windows fanboys in the facebook groups I follow are really vocal, but few are actually doing the move and many regret it aftward. It feels more like a vocal minority, imo, but I do not have any proof of that either.

Windows is just unfit for the task. Too much heat, drains the battery much faster and there is a lot more fan noise. On top of that, a desktop OS on a handheld... It's awkward, at best. SteamOS is a big part of it's best aspects. Users love it. Removing it makes the SteamDeck another boring PC... Or "How to transform a handheld into a laptop".

Edit: Not saying you are wrong, there might be a lot of dualbooting though, from what I read: "Xbox gamepass, Destiny 2, COD Warzone..." but since SteamOS doesn't support that, it's not a trek for the faint of hearts... Non techy users might not be really enticed by that solution.

Judging from r/SteamDeck I'd say it's very very small minority. The few people using Windows need to specifically state it all the time. SteamOS is undisputed default.

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioThe moment I'm most excited about is when I finally sit down to plan, record, produce, and publish an episode (or even multiple episodes) of my podcast ENTIRELY from the Deck. That's when I think I'll feel like this thing has finally FULLY arrived for me - or perhaps better said, when I'VE finally arrived for it! :-)

Maybe my December 2022 or January 2023 episodes will be where I get started with that. I'll make sure to say something in the show notes, in the actual episode itself - or both whenever I finally get a "Deck-made" episode done. :-)

Should be no issue at all. Maybe SteamOS could hold you back a little, but getting usb passthrough in gnome boxes is trivial, so that option is always open.

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadio

Quoting: Mohandevir

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioBased on what I see in Steam Deck groups on social media, I would have no trouble believing that it could be as many as 40% of Steam Decks have Redmondsoft on them.

The Steam hardware survey seem to contradict that theory. Thing is, my experience is that the Windows fanboys in the facebook groups I follow are really vocal, but few are actually doing the move and many regret it aftward. It feels more like a vocal minority, imo, but I do not have any proof of that either.

Windows is just unfit for the task. Too much heat, drains the battery much faster and there is a lot more fan noise. On top of that, a desktop OS on a handheld... It's awkward, at best. SteamOS is a big part of it's best aspects. Users love it. Removing it makes the SteamDeck another boring PC... Or "How to transform a handheld into a laptop".

Edit: Not saying you are wrong, there might be a lot of dualbooting though, from what I read: "Xbox gamepass, Destiny 2, COD Warzone..." but since SteamOS doesn't support that, it's not a trek for the faint of hearts... Non techy users might not be really enticed by that solution.

I have had a similar thought occur to me previously that it's only 40% of the enthusiasts that are actually going to Windows, where the radical majority of the more "casual laity" are just sticking with what it came with, meaning, of course, Linux. It's not that these laypeople are actively choosing Linux like you or I or the people in the group would, but passively choosing it by consequence of simply demurring to actively pursue the alternative. However for the purposes of our aims of pushing Linux gaming forward, these disinterested "I'm just here for the games, man" people, I'd say are still probably 90% as valuable to us and our purposes as "we passionate much fewer" are, since Gaming on Linux is still advancing through them even if only by coincidence. I left this out of my last comment because even with the "long-winded" caveat, I was probably coming up on the limits of how long I should make my reply, figuring we could deal with it in follow ups like this one. :-)

Dual-boot situations occurred to me as well, of course, but [and I could definitely be talked out of this], for the purposes of "propelling or curtailing the advance of Linux gaming, I tend to consider them to be more akin to the Windows-only curtailing than to the Linux-only propulsion.

Lastly, as for the desktop situation, i will admit to ignorance over whether or not Steam has a "Steam Mode" client equivalent for Windows like we do in Linux. If so, then I suppose it becomes a distinction without a difference on handheld and TV / couch gaming at that point, except for the battery / thermals / performance things that you mentioned. I had presumed they had had such a client, but I could be wrong. But if they don't have a "Steam Mode" for Windows, and they'd have to do everything on the small screen in Desktop mode and the full-fat desktop Steam Client, then yeah, I could see that really killing the experience.

The one quibble I'll make, and this may not even be a point of contention between us, necessarily, is that here in Linux, I absolutely LOVE that we have desktop mode. Sure it COULD work as a super quirky little laptop with a kickstand and an external KBM, but I basically never use it this way. However, hooked to a USB-C dock on a pair of 1080p monitors and a KBM at a computer desk, or even outputting 1440p on a 49" 4K living room TV using a USB-C dock and wireless KBM, I find the desktop experience really good, and the fact that on top of everything else the Steam Deck is, it's also a full-fat Linux desktop PC that keeps the KDE I love, but gives me an alternative to Ubuntu to play around with that all my other Linux PCs are based on (two on Ubuntu Studio, and one on Ubuntu Web Remix) is I'd say no less than a full third of what makes this thing so valuable and exciting to me! :-)

All you said sounds fair. We are speculating a lot, at this point. It's just that I have the feeling that the 40% is about dualbooting (might be less than that, imo) and mostly for what can't be done on SteamOS exclusively. Those that project to completely replace SteamOS with Windows are rare occurences, from what I read. There are a lot of "I will boot Windows from my SD card". Which is a bad idea, imo, but... Well... Time will tell... At some point, Valve will release sales figures and probably usage...

Steam has a BPM (Big Picture Mode) on Windows too, but it's the old UI that was used in the Steam Machines and it dates a lot. You don't get all the precious Steam Deck optimizations and features.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 26 August 2022 at 4:00 pm UTC

Quoting: Mohandevir

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioBased on what I see in Steam Deck groups on social media, I would have no trouble believing that it could be as many as 40% of Steam Decks have Redmondsoft on them.

The Steam hardware survey seem to contradict that theory.

Yes. I tracked down where someone first figured that out, that I'm aware of. In this GoL article about the hardware survey, mr-victory commented

QuoteIf you limit the survey to Windows only and list the GPUs, you will see that there are GPUs with <%0.01 share and the Steam Deck GPU is not listed.

On Linux Steam Deck GPU has %7.57 usage, which is roughly %0.07 of total.

So few people have gone the Windows route...

This was back on July 2, I don't know how things have changed since, but NerdNoiseRadio, you seem motivated enough to maybe check yourself. However, as of July 2 it was clearly way under 40% to the extent that the hardware survey can be trusted.

Quoting: const

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioThe moment I'm most excited about is when I finally sit down to plan, record, produce, and publish an episode (or even multiple episodes) of my podcast ENTIRELY from the Deck. That's when I think I'll feel like this thing has finally FULLY arrived for me - or perhaps better said, when I'VE finally arrived for it! :-)

Maybe my December 2022 or January 2023 episodes will be where I get started with that. I'll make sure to say something in the show notes, in the actual episode itself - or both whenever I finally get a "Deck-made" episode done. :-)

Should be no issue at all. Maybe SteamOS could hold you back a little, but getting usb passthrough in gnome boxes is trivial, so that option is always open.

Oh, I didn't think it'd be hard, necessarily, and indeed, I've already got Audacity and Ardour installed. It's just a matter of getting around to actually doing it. The only significant concern I'd have would be with latency, with my XLR-to-USB audio interface having to go through AT LEAST the dock before it hits the machine, if not also a hub even before the dock. In fact, I could be mistaken since it's a while since I've checked, but doesn't this thing already have PulseAudio installed? If so, that's what I'm used to using already, so it should all be like a glove, I'd think. :-)

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadiodo we have an approximate knowledge of what percentage of Steam Decks out in the wild are still running SteamOS and what percentage are running Windows?

Minimum %85 of Steam Decks run SteamOS

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadio

Quoting: const

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioThe moment I'm most excited about is when I finally sit down to plan, record, produce, and publish an episode (or even multiple episodes) of my podcast ENTIRELY from the Deck. That's when I think I'll feel like this thing has finally FULLY arrived for me - or perhaps better said, when I'VE finally arrived for it! :-)

Maybe my December 2022 or January 2023 episodes will be where I get started with that. I'll make sure to say something in the show notes, in the actual episode itself - or both whenever I finally get a "Deck-made" episode done. :-)

Should be no issue at all. Maybe SteamOS could hold you back a little, but getting usb passthrough in gnome boxes is trivial, so that option is always open.

Oh, I didn't think it'd be hard, necessarily, and indeed, I've already got Audacity and Ardour installed. It's just a matter of getting around to actually doing it. The only significant concern I'd have would be with latency, with my XLR-to-USB audio interface having to go through AT LEAST the dock before it hits the machine, if not also a hub even before the dock. In fact, I could be mistaken since it's a while since I've checked, but doesn't this thing already have PulseAudio installed? If so, that's what I'm used to using already, so it should all be like a glove, I'd think. :-)

I think it's using PipeWire, but from your perspective, that should be a straight win unless you tend to use virtual sinks. PipeWire is a 99% drop-in replacement for PulseAudio (and Jack), but last time I checked, some special (yet usefull) sinks were missing. There is nearly always a way to circumvent those issues with the jack layer, but it needs some relearning.
USB hubs should not introduce latency. PulseAudio does :D PipeWire is awesome.


Last edited by const on 26 August 2022 at 5:05 pm UTC

Quoting: constI think it's using PipeWire, but from your perspective, that should be a straight win unless you tend to use virtual sinks. PipeWire is a 99% drop-in replacement for PulseAudio (and Jack), but last time I checked, some special (yet usefull) sinks were missing. There is nearly always a way to circumvent those issues with the jack layer, but it needs some relearning.
USB hubs should not introduce latency. PulseAudio does :D PipeWire is awesome.

Oh, I'm super excited about PipeWire and can't wait to try it. I've heard that with Ubuntu 22.04 (Ubuntu Studio at the very least), that they've added it to the repositories, even though I know from experience that they've left PulseAudio as the default for now. I was very tempted to try installing it. But since I'd break my workflow if anything went wrong, I decided I'd either wait til it became mainstream, or I could try it on a backup device, or at least in a VM. You know, I do have a really old backup laptop that has Ubuntu Web Remix running on it....perhaps I'll give it a try over there. But no, I would not be disappointed in the slightest to learn that the Steam Deck uses PipeWire! :-)

As for the virtual sinks, I have only ever had to try that just the one time - to get a piece of video game music off of Audio Overload over to Audacity since the "export to WAV" functionality in AA seemed to be broken. And that's after almost 6yrs of doing VGM podcasting. So, no, it is not even remotely a part of my standard workflow...however, given that it is at least theoretically, remotely possible that I could potentially need to do so again sometime, I'll need to have some kind of backup plan in place for virtual sinks should PipeWire not support them. Any ideas? Any reason I couldn't have BOTH PipeWire and PulseAudio installed at the same time, and just use Pulse for the sinks? That sounds like the best idea - unless that would break stuff.

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadio

Quoting: constI think it's using PipeWire, but from your perspective, that should be a straight win unless you tend to use virtual sinks. PipeWire is a 99% drop-in replacement for PulseAudio (and Jack), but last time I checked, some special (yet usefull) sinks were missing. There is nearly always a way to circumvent those issues with the jack layer, but it needs some relearning.
USB hubs should not introduce latency. PulseAudio does :D PipeWire is awesome.

Oh, I'm super excited about PipeWire and can't wait to try it. I've heard that with Ubuntu 22.04 (Ubuntu Studio at the very least), that they've added it to the repositories, even though I know from experience that they've left PulseAudio as the default for now. I was very tempted to try installing it. But since I'd break my workflow if anything went wrong, I decided I'd either wait til it became mainstream, or I could try it on a backup device, or at least in a VM. You know, I do have a really old backup laptop that has Ubuntu Web Remix running on it....perhaps I'll give it a try over there. But no, I would not be disappointed in the slightest to learn that the Steam Deck uses PipeWire! :-)

As for the virtual sinks, I have only ever had to try that just the one time - to get a piece of video game music off of Audio Overload over to Audacity since the "export to WAV" functionality in AA seemed to be broken. And that's after almost 6yrs of doing VGM podcasting. So, no, it is not even remotely a part of my standard workflow...however, given that it is at least theoretically, remotely possible that I could potentially need to do so again sometime, I'll need to have some kind of backup plan in place for virtual sinks should PipeWire not support them. Any ideas? Any reason I couldn't have BOTH PipeWire and PulseAudio installed at the same time, and just use Pulse for the sinks? That sounds like the best idea - unless that would break stuff.

I'm using pipewire since it's available in Arch and am very very happy with it. Only once had I issues and reverted back to pa in minutes. Switched back short after, since pipewire really is the better soundserver, hands down. The biggest issue I see so far are the missing virtual sinks (not sure if they have been added lately) and documentation. As said, you can basically just use pulse and jack tools, but it would be really nice to have dedicated, well documented tooling that utilizes pipewires full capabilities.

Here's the backup plan: As soon as you have an open input channel (e.g. started recording or streaming), you can just connect the audio out of your game to it in a patchbay like catia/cadence or helvum. Takes a few minutes to get the grasp, but it's incredibly usefull tooling.

Edit: just found this section on virtual devices in PW wiki So they pretty much skipped on virtual-sink modules because you can do the same with null-sinks. Quite a surprise.


Last edited by const on 27 August 2022 at 10:37 am UTC

Quoting: NerdNoiseRadioIt's not that these laypeople are actively choosing Linux like you or I or the people in the group would, but passively choosing it by consequence of simply demurring to actively pursue the alternative.

The same is also true of the majority of Windows' desktop user base.