this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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Linux Gaming

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Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Honestly

As compared to consoles? Windows is pretty free.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Other than the Windows tax, ads, bloatware, constant intrusive up-sell attempts…

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Again

COMPARED TO CONSOLES? That's basically paradise.

Modern, unhacked and unmodded Consoles are:

  1. Completely locked down, not only do they not let you install applications not approved by the manufacturer, in reality you can ONLY buy them from the manufacturer and you pay a hefty tax for that "privilege".

  2. Feeding you ads and upsell attempts whenever you turn them on, as the UI has basically been redesigned to try to sell you more shit first and make getting to your actual games take a few extra steps

  3. Any undesired feature in a console's OS is something you just have to accept and move on. Powerusers killing Windows bloat with third party tools is a time-honoured tradition that goes back to Windows 3.11

I'm not saying Windows is good.

I'm saying that for someone coming from a PlayStation or a traditional XBoXSeXxxx (I love making jokes out of this name), this whitelabelled ROG Ally machine would feel like finally being able to breathe. Just for the fact that you can use more than one storefront and install applications from wherever you want.

Let me put it this way:

Linux is an anarchist commune. True freedom.

Windows is an American Style Capitalist Republic. Freedom*********** with a thousand asterisks more. BUT for someone coming from the North Korea that is playing on consoles (or using an iOS mobile device or...), it DOES feel like finally breathing free.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

That's a really good comparison

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I saw that it's a trimmed down version of windows so I'm interested in giving it a chance. Who knows, maybe we will be able to install said trimmed down version on regular hardware which would be interesting.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

You can always use a debloat script to fix a lot of issues. Nothing will help with Windows broken, ancient architecture, but the scripts do help.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

"Freedom of Windows" "Power of Xbox" Good stuff. We should make some more. "From a brand you can trust" "Pro gamers choose ... " "Powered by Copilot and Game pass"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Well gamepass on a cheap handheld doesn't sound so bad tbh

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago

and copilot on a cheap handheld that cannot do anything except record you 24/7 and send it off to MS servers?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, the Zune is fucking amazing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

You can Google it. The zune was far superior to iPods but software was absolute dog shit

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

The Zune was at-best an adequate copy of the iPod lacking a click wheel and having an awkward user interface.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

The click wheel was one of the worst physical interfaces ever invented

[–] [email protected] 7 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

The one thing I took away from it was that the Xbox-button acts as alt tab. I WANT THE SAME FROM MY STEAM DECK IN DESKTOP MODE!

But in Desktop mode the Steam button does absolutely nothing while a game is running.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Can't you map Alt-Tab to one of the back buttons? Or does that not work in desktop mode?

EDIT: Or if that doesn't work through steam then is there gamepad software in KDE or the Software Centre that lets the desktop map gamepad buttons?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

That works. I'm just lazy and don't want to have to do it for every game.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Why do you use desktop mode for a game?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I like to have other apps like a browser easily accessible with proper window management. And most of my games are non-Steam games which allow me to easily swap between desktop and gamepad bindings easily to alt tab out.

And I've found that running KDE Plasma Wayland has no visible performance impact either. No idea why they use X11 in SteamOS.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Steam os is pretty old now, compared to the Wayland readiness timeline, and proton doesn't fully support Wayland yet

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Ah, but the really funny thing is how Gaming Mode works.

They start the gamescope wayland compositor which launches an XWayland session to run the Steam client in. Which will start gamescope to run the game, which will use a second XWayland session to actually run the game in.

It'll probably take at least two more years until they can get rid of X.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

Oh god, why have you cursed me with such knowledge

[–] [email protected] 4 points 12 hours ago

Remote play for whatever reason works far better in desktop mode

[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I guess you could remap them in desktop mode? I haven't tried but it should be possible.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

No, you cannot change the mapping of the Steam and ... buttons. They are only available to the Steam client. You cannot remap the Steam+other button combinations either.

Funnily enough when no game is running the Steam button focuses the Steam window. But that functionality is gone as soon as a game is running. Really frustrating.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 22 hours ago

Players on either device will be able to tap into Gaming Copilot ...

...yeah

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This got me thinking that Valve is the best competitor to Xbox. Instead of getting to release some walled garden, single store handheld they have to open it up to other stores because otherwise people would just buy a SteamDeck.

But everyone who cares about handheld gaming already has a steam deck and this is going to be more expensive so I don't see the point anyway.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 23 hours ago

Moar power! More more more more!!!

boots up an indie roguelite

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 day ago (1 children)

From what I saw, it's more or less just a new app that starts when windows boots up. Plus some improvements like "the controller now works in UAC prompts" - which tells me that they didn't really learn anything.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 day ago (11 children)

it's more or less just a new app

You know a reason why Linux with Steam runs just way better than win? Because they use game scope, therefore not needing to render and run all of the desktop.

So what does Microsoft do? They release a new app on top of the already bloated desktop.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Gamescope is a compositor. It has many useful gaming features, but it doesn’t have a major performance advantage over desktops like Gnome, KDE, or tilers.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

The performance advantage comes from the fact that there isn't a full-fat desktop running concurrently with the game. You're booting directly into Steam.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 13 hours ago

Performance isn't noticably worse in desktop mode on the Steam Deck compared to gaming mode. Windows is just full of bloat and has a trash power scheduler.

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