I reserved a Steam Deck.
Jul. 16th, 2021 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
estiroseI haven't been paying attention so I didn't know about Steam's new handheld until lunchtime today. Since I am not on U.S. East Coast time I was able to miss most of Steam's crashiness with their reservation system, at least. I ordered the midrange model even though it's expensive.
I've always been kind of hesitant to order the Switch because basically I like my 2DS thankyouverymuch and many of the games I've wanted duplicate the ones I already have on pc (mostly via Steam anyway). The Deck runs a Linux distribution called SteamOS by default, which is based on Debian. My current distribution is also Debian-based and I'm familiar with Debian-based distributions. Also, unlike the Switch, it looks like comes already "jailbroken" - it sounds like users will have direct access to the underpinnings of the OS. So I can install Wine to get my GOG-based and random Her Interactive (Nancy Drew) games running. (ETA: Apparently they switched to Arch. Not my top choice, but it's not my distro and it wouldn't be the first time I built from source.)
Steam's Proton (based off of WINE, which allows you to run Windows programs under Linux) is something I'm also familiar with. I tested a bunch of my Steam games and non-Steam games when I switched to Linux for most of my gaming. ETA: Steam swears up and down they'll have 100% compatibility. I kind of doubt it but they're making an effort, at least.
I've always been kind of hesitant to order the Switch because basically I like my 2DS thankyouverymuch and many of the games I've wanted duplicate the ones I already have on pc (mostly via Steam anyway). The Deck runs a Linux distribution called SteamOS by default, which is based on Debian. My current distribution is also Debian-based and I'm familiar with Debian-based distributions. Also, unlike the Switch, it looks like comes already "jailbroken" - it sounds like users will have direct access to the underpinnings of the OS. So I can install Wine to get my GOG-based and random Her Interactive (Nancy Drew) games running. (ETA: Apparently they switched to Arch. Not my top choice, but it's not my distro and it wouldn't be the first time I built from source.)
Steam's Proton (based off of WINE, which allows you to run Windows programs under Linux) is something I'm also familiar with. I tested a bunch of my Steam games and non-Steam games when I switched to Linux for most of my gaming. ETA: Steam swears up and down they'll have 100% compatibility. I kind of doubt it but they're making an effort, at least.
