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Latest Comments by CatKiller
Valve adds documentation for Steam Deck development, suggests Manjaro Linux for now
13 November 2021 at 7:50 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: GuestWhere did Valve say they've sold two years supply of Steam Deck already?
Because if that's correct, and those devices are not yet manufactured but already "sold", that's impressive!
The first six months' supply went in less than an hour. They briefly had more granularity for the later units (taking it out to a year's supply), but fairly quickly put everything past that into the "after Q2 2022" bucket. Some people might not want to put the full amount down when their turn in the queue comes up, and I'm sure Valve will try to increase their production rate, but as it stands now every unit they can make for the foreseeable future has already had dibs called on it.

Here's some of what we've learned about the Steam Deck
13 November 2021 at 7:41 pm UTC Likes: 17

Quoting: mr-victory
QuoteSteamOS with have a read-only immutable main filesystem by default. Updates will be distributed as a whole image and so it will replace it.
Wait, what? The first thing I thought of when I heard about SteamOS 3 being Arch Linux based was updating the OS with pacman! And does read-only FS mean I can’t install stuff like another web browser for desktop mode?
Chrome OS, Chimera OS (previously Gamer OS), Ubuntu Core, and Fedora Silverblue all do the same thing, as do Android and PlayStation. It's the sensible thing to do for an appliance.

Valve specifically called out flatpaks as being installable without having to put the underlying filesystem into "developer mode" and said that they'd have more details for everyone later.

Ryan Gordon gets an Epic MegaGrant to further improve SDL, helping with next-gen APIs
13 November 2021 at 6:54 am UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: elmapul"This sounds like a really great project, and hopefully one game developers will appreciate."
one or some?
one developers?
There's an implicit that.
"...hopefully one (that) game developers will appreciate."

Valve adds documentation for Steam Deck development, suggests Manjaro Linux for now
13 November 2021 at 6:50 am UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: elmapulso let me get that straight...
they cant produce enough steam deck devices to cover the needs of developers who want to develop for then...
but they expect to produce enough devices to the people who want to buy then?
there are 50.000 games on steam, and considering some devs made more than 1 game, less than 50.000 developers/publishers, i can understand that big companies that need tons of developers to make/port their games are an priority, but how many devices is valve producing?
They don't charge developers for dev kits; they do charge customers for retail units, and they've essentially sold two years' supply already. If they cannibalise their retail units to send to devs, they're costing themselves $400 a pop and making their customers (who also give them money for games) unhappy. They had intended to have a second batch of dev kits available by this point, but there's a component shortage on at the moment, so they're giving some information so that devs can make do.

Valve adds documentation for Steam Deck development, suggests Manjaro Linux for now
12 November 2021 at 8:17 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: rustybroomhandleThat NUC is frickin' adorable tho.
There are some others that come with Linux pre-installed that GOL has reported on before, if you're interested in that kind of thing.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/05/slimbook-think-they-have-the-one-for-you-with-their-new-compact-mini-pc

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/11/the-tuxedo-nano-pro-is-a-powerhouse-in-a-tiny-box

Valve adds documentation for Steam Deck development, suggests Manjaro Linux for now
12 November 2021 at 8:09 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Liam DaweI'm aware they had some stuff available but nothing laid out as clear as this as a guide.
It's a definite upgrade. It's just that it's not like they had nothing before.

Valve adds documentation for Steam Deck development, suggests Manjaro Linux for now
12 November 2021 at 8:00 am UTC

QuoteNice to see some more clear documentation go up, although it's a little crazy to think this has only just gone live considering the Steam Deck was supposed to launch next month.

The information about the dev tools has been up for quite a while already, and they previously had instructions for setting up a Linux test environment it's just that it was based on Ubuntu rather than Manjaro. The performance-equivalent hardware information should be pretty handy, though.

The Khronos Group officially announces the Dynamic Rendering extension for Vulkan
11 November 2021 at 6:22 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: ShabbyXSince when are Vulkan extensions aimed at consumers? :D
That was the point I literally made by saying that.
ShabbyX's point is that if you're saying that this extension is just for developers, then all those other Vulkan extensions must be intended for a wider audience.

System76 patches APT for Pop!_OS to prevent users breaking their systems
11 November 2021 at 2:42 am UTC

Quoting: F.UltraNot sure how Pop handles this but the full ISO from Debian and Ubuntu contains packages so until you do "apt update" you can install the older versions of packages from the disc, this is done in case you don't have Internet access.
True, but apt can already use the cached list if it can't contact particular online repository servers. So in the case of no Internet access it would simply try the update, not connect, and then use the existing list.

System76 patches APT for Pop!_OS to prevent users breaking their systems
11 November 2021 at 2:14 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: F.UltraI just wish they would get out of their "nobody should ever have to use the terminal mindset. The terminal is perhaps the thing that I love the most about Linux...
It lets me do anything on any of my computers from my phone without getting out of bed.

The change to apt that might make a difference (there's no sufficient hurdle that they could have put in front of someone like Linus to prevent this issue) would be to check when the last update was run before installing anything: if the package list is too old (say, if it hasn't been refreshed that day) then automatically update it before trying to install anything. I think Manjaro does something like that? There's no reason why it would be desirable for the package list to be stale, and people aren't generally on dial-up any more, so ensure that the list of versions and dependencies is fresh.

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