Valve runs the DRM that runs Steam. They are making the platform desktop agnostic, but that may not be sustainable.
Sure, but they can’t force Linux users to use Steam. It just so happens that most Linux gamers use Steam because it works well for them, thanks to the hard work of the various open-source devs (along with Valve, Codeweavers, etc) behind WINE, DXVK, and Proton. Microsoft can theoretically force Windows users to use only their store, if they felt like that was a good idea for whatever reason.
Steam may push users to Linux, but still run the Steam walled garden.
The Steam Deck has both a Desktop Mode which lets you run any application you want (so long as its Linux compatible of course), SteamOS is built on top of Arch (which you can build on top of), and lets you run whatever OS you would like (you can even go as far as removing SteamOS if that is what you want). I’m not sure how it’s a “Walled Garden”. A walled garden would be the Xbox / PlayStation / Switch and basically any other console, along with most mobile phones, where you cannot install the OS that you want - you’re forced to use what the manufacturer provides.
If you don’t use any XWayland apps, yeah - this is still a major blocker unfortunately assuming they didn’t make any significant changes between the beta from a couple of weeks ago and now.
Well, I know for a while Steam only officially supported Ubuntu, and on their developer page It still mentions that they only support Ubuntu, though I don’t know if they’ve just forgotten to update the page:
Steam only officially supports Ubuntu running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or newer and SteamOS, but the Steam for Linux community is extremely resourceful and has managed to run Steam on a large variety of distros. Valve approves of these efforts but does not officially endorse or provide support for them.
Does Minecraft (specifically the Java edition) count as a Linux native game? It’s written in Java, so thus it’s not really “native” to one specific platform.
It’s always worked perfectly for me on Linux, and have a lot of strong memories with the game. Pair it with something like Prism Launcher for easily installing mods / modpacks / resource packs / etc (which is available on Flathub) and you’ve got a pretty good setup! Though the “official” launcher is available through most package repositories these days as well.
Can also confirm, never had an issue with my Stadia controller under Linux. On Windows, I use a tool called reWASD but I don’t actually believe you need it for using it wired, just wireless.
Ah, I thought I saw something about that mentioned. I’ll be happy to see it, I think KDE 5.x is effectively “done” which might be why it’s not getting backported (though I’d still really love to see it happen if they change their minds).
For now I got some of those glasses that have the tinting on the lenses - I think they are branded as “gamer glasses” or something like that, but as silly as it sounds it’s actually not bad.
Plus, on the upside apparently I look really good with glasses ha!
For sure, previously I never really had an okay time with Nvidia + Wayland, but I finally got to try out Fedora Kinoite (via Universal Blue, so the Nvidia drivers are already in the image) and the experience is way smoother than I’ve had on other distros.
I still had the issue with Discord and getting lag while typing, but that seems to be fixed by disabling hardware acceleration in the advanced settings - though I suspect this will still occur in other Electron apps (which thankfully I do not use too many of). Other than that, my experience seems to be the same as what Lojcs mentioned (along with Night Light not working, but that’s 100% an Nvidia driver issue since it doesn’t support GAMMA_LUT under Wayland yet).
I’m so far cautiously optimistic to see if it continues to run decently, as in the past when I’ve used Wayland, when it worked it was definitely smoother than X was.
There’s a huge difference between GPS which is effectively a rootkit, and Steam which is a userland application however. To actually remove GPS requires that you have a device with an unlockable bootloader (or an active exploit to gain root privileges) so that you can flash a ROM without it - Steam is one simple uninstall away.
Sure, a monopoly on the gaming market isn’t great, and while I hope I don’t bite my words anytime soon - Valve/Steam is the lesser of the two evils. Especially if you consider that it wasn’t really all that long ago where Linux gaming was an absolutely crazy idea that resulted in the pool of games available to you to be very very small.