I guess things run faster without the spyware, logging, and other general bullshit running in the background. Who could’ve guessed?
Device made with software specifically for purpose performs better than generic machine with generic software designed to do a wide range of things. All of my machines are on Linux distros, but this just seems like a no brainer to me. It’s like years ago when the mustang had a 4.6L V8. It was the same engine used in the Ford explorer. Will the Mustang beat the Explorer to 60, of course. But the Explorer will also transport 5 people to the beach with coolers and beach gear and drive in the sand.
It’s good that SteamOS is doing well, but the variety of tasks people are using Windows for cannot be performed on SteamOS.
What?
SteamOS is just an immutable version of Arch Linux, with some Valve flavor and preinstalled apps.
So you are saying SteamOS is not designed/tuned to be used primarily for games on a system without a keyboard/mouse?
Why do you want your windows gaming handheld (e.g. Ally) doing non gaming things?
I don’t expect a steakhouse to bring me a Swiss army knife to cut my steak with because it can do more than cut steak? I don’t need a can opener when eating steak. Same is true for bringing the right OS for the job of gaming.
I don’t, I was saying it makes sense that bringing a steak knife to cut the steak would work better than a Swiss army knife.
Why do you want your windows gaming handheld (e.g. Ally) doing non gaming things?
I don’t expect a steakhouse to bring me a Swiss army knife to cut my steak with because it can do more than cut steak? I don’t need a can opener when eating steak. Same is true for bringing the right OS for the job of gaming.
Also…SteamOS can do a lot as a full OS. It may be tailored to handheld gaming, but it is more capable than you think.
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From what I know about it, it has a modified kernal that is smaller cutting out support for a few things . Smaller kernal, standardly more efficient and stable. Throw in that it comes in a read only setup that will wipe changes added via pacman the next time you do an update. Customizability is also limited. Flatpacks better than snap many will argue, but snap won’t even run on SteamOS from what I’ve read even after manually dialing the read only mode and knowing you will have to reinstall all your changes after the next update.
That doesnt sound like regular arch to me.
95% of the kernel is just drivers, so ofc it makes sense to cut out what you don’t need when you know exactly which hardware you will have forever.
Same with everything else. It’s a video game console. The real point is that Linux with Proton, which you can install anywhere, can now beat Windows at its own game so to speak.
So everything you are saying agrees with me. People are just upset that I said the OS was designed for handheld game consoles
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It’s arch, so no. The hardware that utilizes the OS is fine tuned to be used with a controller, since a controller is literally built into it.
Proton is the fine tuned bit, but that runs on many distros.
That is not the smoking gun you think it is.
Again… SteamOS is just an immutable version of Arch Linux. That’s what they are talking about in the article when they talk about turning off “read-only” mode. Being immutable makes it less likely to break/more stable, but doesn’t “fine-tune” it for gaming.
Saying it’s “fine-tuned” for gaming takes away from what is actually doing the heavy lifting for gaming on linux, which is Proton. One could argue Proton is “fine-tuned” WINE, but SteamOS is not “fine-tuned” for gaming.
It has a gaming mode which is essentially the big picture steam interface and it has a desktop mode which is a fully functional Linux pc. If I wanted my deck to be my plex/immich/file server, I could do so without making a single change to the stock os.
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SteamOS is a full fat Linux distro. I use the desktop mode every day
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Device made with software specifically for purpose performs better than generic machine with generic software designed to do a wide range of things. All of my machines are on Linux distros, but this just seems like a no brainer to me. It’s like years ago when the mustang had a 4.6L V8. It was the same engine used in the Ford explorer. Will the Mustang beat the Explorer to 60, of course. But the Explorer will also transport 5 people to the beach with coolers and beach gear and drive in the sand.
Exactly. I don’t think the comparison is very good here. A better article would say - how to performance tune Windows 11 on a Legion Go S for gaming and compare the results to Steam OS, which is already tuned for gaming. I expect the results would be close enough that the OS choice is less of a concern about performance than what games you want to play and any other uses you might have for the device.
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I assume you mean corporate workstations? The EU is currently on that.
Other than that a handful of games and legacy software/hardware.
But what you gain in performance you lose in data mining. Imagine not being graped for personal information after you paid extra to get it.
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I think you missed the joke.
What a shock
Shitty OS is shitty.
This reminds me of when I got Spore on Optical disc for my (brand new at the time) Intel iMac. The disc was ISO9660 with both Joliet and HFS extensions, so if you put it in Windows, it would show up natively and if you put it in a Mac, it would also be native.
After a few games in MacOSX I was disappointed with the performance so I started to dig and realised it was the Windows Binary with some sort of WINE-like translation layer. I assumed it would run better natively in Windows.
I installed Bootcamp and a stripped-down version of Windows Vista and then installed the native Windows version. It installed a Root kit that broke most of Vistas security and the game ran even worse and crashed constantly.
I don’t think that Microsoft deserves all the blame for games running like shit natively. The users who pirate games and the studios who don’t trust Windows users to not pirate games deserve the blame as well.
Microsoft (and Post-Jobs Apple) definitely do deserve a lot of blame for allowing their platforms to get so bloated with so many features that users don’t want. Copilot should have been laughed out of the boardroom and Apple Intelligence is an underperforming, overly obnoxious know-nothing know-it-all.
Apple Intelligence is completely disabled on my Mac.
Me too, and Copilot is disabled on my work computer (and then magically reenabling itself)
Please tell me how to disable Data Detectors on MacOS, sometimes a number is just a numerical string and is not a Phone number; actually it it quite unusual for it to ever be a phone number. Even if it is a phone number, I would love to be able to just copy and paste it without it trying to connect to my phone and prank call some poor sucker.
Never had an issue with that… I didn’t even know that was a thing on Macos. Maybe because I have enabled paste app? Or maybe never said ok to some Macos app in accessibility permissions?
I can definitely believe this on low power machines.
I got a N150 Mini PC the other week, and it comes with Win 11. It thrashed around at 100% CPU doing updates and virus checks and fuck knows what other background tasks Windows considers more essential than whatever I tell it to do. Case was red hot.
So I popped the latest Ubuntu on it. Is it perfect? No. I had to mess around with Firefox “snap” for ages and type arcane commands to make it find the N150’s tiny GPU. And it still can’t play videos using the hardware. But other than that, it just works, just the bare essentials, and then gets out the way. Sits at about 2% CPU use when idle.
MS seriously need to cut bloat.
Duh
So does the application menu
I think a far more likely reason for any slow down is Lenovo’s Windows drivers suck, or Windows defaults to a power saving mode that improves battery life but impacts performance, or Windows has antivirus or some other impactful service running that they didn’t turn off. Since the article neglects to say if they tweaked Windows I have to assume they didn’t.
It was already shown that SteamOS is way better in terms of battery performance than Windows. So if Windows uses power saving mode by default, these results are even more damning:
There might be some tweaks to mitigate some of the short comings of Windows, but that doesn’t changed that the script has flipped. Before it was Linux that required tweaking and Windows would have a decent out of the box experience. Now SteamOS works great out of the Box while Windows needs tweaks. And at that point there is no reason for sticking with Windows unless your software specifically demands it.
This might be true, but at the end of the day I don’t care. I just want things to work out of the box.
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Running a windows game using Proton-GE 10.4 and a Wayland desktop is even faster still.
Never mind. You people are children.
The amazing thing is that there is often a translation layer involved and it still runs faster. And as it was pointed out, this can also be achieved with a “normal” Linux system.
The fact that a 3rd party offers better performance than the platform’s creators is a pretty big indictment of Microsoft’s stewardship of Windows.
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Duh. Reread what I wrote.
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You do realize you’re in a Linux gaming community?
You can quickly and easily filter this community out from being shown to you.
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From your replies it appears so.
Apparently it does to you.
No.
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Except that it’s not. It’s just arch Linux with some modifications for the steam deck/handheld mode. It’s not like they built a new kernel specifically for the steam deck. Which is why the other persons correct.
It’s not like they built a new kernel specifically for the steam deck.
I agree that the majority of the impact being seen is from various components that aren’t SteamOS specific, however Valve does actually have a custom kernel for the Steam Deck “linux-neptune” (there are quite a few mirrors for browsing, but this is the official source).
I believe most of their changes are just to drive the deck’s hardware. Every now and then there are some changes that Valve contributes that lands there first before it gets upstreamed, for example the Arch Wiki calls out the Steam Deck’s kernel as a way to fix issues between HDR & VRR (shouldn’t be needed anymore on modern mainline kernels).
Never mind. You people are children.
There’s nothing else in your comment anymore. Why say anything in the first place if you’re just going to change your mind about it and give up? There’s something to be said for making up your mind before you talk. All your comment really says is “I have no convictions”.
Cry more :)
Never mind. You people are children.
Says the tantrum thrower? Taking your ball and going home kinda shows the reverse here.
If I can’t use it on PC… :’)
