A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
[Selling] - If you are selling your deck.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
Here's the old page:
Here's the link: https://store.steampowered.com/steamos/
Credit to @abobla@lemm.ee for the post.
I've got a gaming laptop from a few years back. Republic of gamers, or some such nonsense.
Been thinking of switching to some brand of Linux. Seems like this might be a good way to try it out.
Be mindful of Nvidia drivers, should that notebook come with a GeForce GPU. SteamOS does not support Nvidia. Use Bazzite in such a case.
Appreciate the heads up. I'm pretty sure it's an AMD processor, but I don't know about the video card.
Is Bazzite an OS that I would use, or is it a set of drivers that lets SteamOS play nice with Nvidia?
You cannot install Nvidia drivers on SteamOS without jumping through more hoops than it's worth because the system partition is write protected. You can unprotect it but the next SteamOS update everything will be reset.
All improvements from SteamOS eventually trickle down to all mainstream desktop Linux distributions anyway, just as all Red Hat improvements trickle down to SteamOS.
Bazzite happens to be a gaming-focused distribution but you can also just get Fedora KDE and have a good time as well. I happen to like the download assistant at https://bazzite.gg/#image-picker which more distribution should adopt.
If you're assuming the user will have trouble with SteamOS' write protection, which I totally agree with, Bazzite is also surely going to cause headaches. The idea of a locked down system that gets most apps as Flatpaks sounds appealing, until the cracks start to show up.
I strongly suggest going with your other proposal, something like plain Fedora with KDE.
Bazzite founder here. I started Bazzite after spending a few months helping with support on the steam deck Discord because I had already been using atomic fedora and knew the proper workarounds for people who wanted to install applications on a read-only distro like SteamOS.
Bazzite was initially an experiment to see what it would take to get SteamOS packages working in Fedora Atomic, because I knew Fedora Atomic provided a better experience for installing applications that had to be a part of the root system than SteamOS could.
Unlike SteamOS you can layer applications over the root system and they will be kept across updates instead of being removed entirely. You're also able to spin off custom images with any changes you want through a GitHub action. You have full access to the roof file system during the build process.
Most linux OS with locked down file systems allow you to install apps permanently if you need something that doesn't work with flatpak/distrobox/etc. It's usually called something like atomic updates, and it installs the software in a layered image, and will require a reboot to load.
It's not the ideal way to install software, but it's a lot easier than your options for installing packages on SteamOS.
I haven't personally used Bazzite, so I'm not 100% sure that it supports it, but I'm assuming it does. If anyone else wants to confirm it I would appreciate it. Edit: you can, here's the documentation page on it
For the specific context I was replying to – Nvidia drivers – Bazzite's write protection is completely irrelevant because there are editions with Nvidia drivers preinstalled.
Depends on the use case. SteamOS comes with Distrobox. All non-Flatpak needs of mine can be achieved through this.
Sure, but the original context was a new user wanting to try Linux on their gaming laptop.
Both Bazzite and SteamOS will result in headaches from their limitations.
And I was giving a heads up regarding Nvidia graphics and only Nvidia graphics. I know what I wrote.
Sure...?
Bazzite still has experimental support for NVidia GPUs, you should use Nobara HTPC Nvidia ISO
None of the Nvidia issues are because of Bazzite. They are all because of NVidia's drivers and those are the same everywhere. Nothing Nobara or anyone else but Nvidia can do. See https://docs.bazzite.gg/Handheld_and_HTPC_edition/quirks/#nvidia-exclusive-issues