Debian is not perfect, but lack of updates is not the reason why they switched. At least not the way you think.

Debian is, at it's core, a rolling distribution. It is interrupted every two years by a few months long freeze period when the release happens. But that is meant for servers and enterprise environments, where stability is paramount. If you want bleeding edge, you just keep on rolling.

The simple truth is that a lot of technology choices are quite arbitrary, and are very often based on personal preferences. We talk about the best tool for the job, and like to compare things to each other. But often they are not better or worse, just different.

Even though I am a Debian fanboy, I think what Valve is doing is very cool, and I will happily run SteamOS/Arch on my Steam Deck. Although I am going to replace KDE with GNOME, because of course you would.

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When I was watching the guy from Tested asking about Windows and complaining about third-party launchers and loading times due to shader compiling, I though to myself jeez, this guy doesn't really understand what Steam Deck is. But maybe that's exactly what the wider audience will see? And that got met worried.

Valve keeps repeating that "it's a PC", and it will run anything that a PC can run. And I guess that is technically correct, but is it sending the wrong message, and unintentionally promising more than it can deliver?

I really believe that the idea is that most Steam Decks will run SteamOS and not Windows. It would just not make sense to put so much effort into Linux if you would expect otherwise. But it is also going to be picked up by a lot of Windows gamers, who don't know or care about Linux.

Proton is a great piece of software, but it is not perfect. Even taking into account that they are working on support for popular anti-cheat schemes, and rumored to be working on the video codec problem, there are still games that simply do not work, be it due to esoteric DRM schemes, or something else.

Also there are quite a few Linux ports that perform badly, or are not compatible with Windows save games, or offer no cross-platform multiplayer. All of that would be very hard to navigate for somebody never exposed to Linux gaming before, and I am afraid it can backfire if expectations are not set properly.

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: LinasI wonder if they are ever going to officially support Media Foundation? There are so many games that work just fine, except missing video playback.

As I understand, part of what they're doing is some sort of re-encoding on Steam servers into a format Proton can work with. Don't quote me on it, but I'm sure I saw one of the people involved mentioning it. That, and they're telling developers to avoid it.

If true, that's very a interesting approach. In theory, they would only need a single Windows server (probably many more in practice) to run the re-encoding jobs without any license violations.

Although this would go against Valve's approach of solving the general problem. Identifying where and how videos are used in each game sounds like a lot of work. Just think of all those games that package the data files in some weird formats. It's not like there is any standard here.

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I wonder if they are ever going to officially support Media Foundation? There are so many games that work just fine, except missing video playback.

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For. Academic. Purposes.

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Valve should put this in gamescope as a scaling option.

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I don't actually need more games, but that hasn't exactly stopped me before.

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: elmapul4)people will just install windows on it anyway to get more games, so why bother.

That does bring up a good point but if Valve only supported some form of Linux on it, more might keep it that way. Either way, it would be a boost to Linux gaming if the main way to use it is with let's say SteamOS 3.0.

This being Valve, they would probably do nothing to prevent people from installing another OS on the device, if they so desire.

But consider that Linux can very easily be slimmed down, and configured to run in a resource-limited environment, like removing unnecessary services and installing on F2FS (Flash-Friendly File System) for example. Windows 10 on the other hand is (comparatively) bloated and inflexible, and would most likely not even boot from vanilla installation media without some unofficial hacks.

Windows tends to work better on commodity hardware, because it is made with Windows in mind. But when you are developing custom software for custom hardware, Linux really is the way to go.

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Quoting: ZlopezI can understand it, if they want to get some profit from it, but in the case of Ultima even the original creator can't create any new game under this license (Lord British can't create any new Ultima game, because he don't own the licence anymore, he lost the rights when working for EA few years). And for the fan project in WH40k, they didn't plan to have any profit from it, so it was just something made by the fans for the fans. Furthermore, the computer games are not what the Games Workshop does, their main article are tabletop and books.

Profit is not the issue here. First of all, if they do not defend their trademarks, they can legally lose them. Secondly, a lot of companies are really anal about what their name can be associated with, because they are (sometimes rightfully) afraid that it will tarnish their name.

When I was still a student, I was a member of a student organization that would do semi-educational events. For that we would need to find partner/sponsor-companies, and they would get publicity in return. And most of them would be very specific about how, where, and when their name may be used. It's all part of corporate branding and image, because how your company is perceived by outsiders is very important for businesses.

Now of course it is up to the company how they want to handle fan projects. Some would even endorse and welcome them, while others would viciously fight anything remotely touching their IP. There is a huge spectrum of how this could be handled, and it's not always clear what the best strategy is.

Imagine that somebody makes a "fan project" of the game you made. Then you need to consider if this will give you positive publicity and generate more sales, or maybe confuse your potential buyers, and reduce sales? What if the creators of the fan project do something illegal or just stupid that you have no control over? Would people be able to see that it was not your doing?

At any rate, managing fan projects properly is not exactly a zero effort endeavor, especially if you want to do it properly.

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Quoting: ZlopezI wonder myself why the companies owning licenses to some games just doesn't let fans to create their own games.

This is a quite different situation.

Let's say you buy a Ford. Then you put on better tires, and paint it in a color that you cannot get from the factory. Then you tell others how to do the same, so they can buy their own Ford and mod it. This is basically what this GTA re-implementation is.

What you suggest is more akin to building your own car from scratch and calling it a Ford. No company really wants their name associated with something they didn't make.

Although a lot of companies would rather have their "intellectual property" rot than anybody doing anything with it. Even if it's generations out-of-date (like GTA 3 engine) and would benefit absolutely nobody except the most loyal fans. No no, just buy the remastered edition instead, if they ever bother releasing one.

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