Given many new handhelds coming on the scene and general disinterest of Microsoft to support the market, do you think SteamOS will take place of default OS the same way Android did on phones some time ago?

  • leo85811nardo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Only possible if all handheld machines have transparent hardware designs, i.e., all electronic components inside are known, have open source drivers and do not rely on third-party proprietary drivers or reverse engineering. This is due to Linux itself rely heavily on open source software and doesn’t play well with proprietary parts (take Nvidia GPU for example, every person who has it in their Linux machine knows it causes headache once in a while). Unfortunately, so far only Valve’s Steam Deck has a hardware specs that satisfy this requirement. The other ones more or less suffer from closed source components

    • marmalade@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Not really true. You don’t necessarily need open source drivers for Linux to play well. There was actually a period where NVidia was the better option on Linux because their proprietary drivers were better than the alternatives. If the company cares to manage those drivers they will work well. That said, it looks like AMD has embraced FOSS and NVidia finally opened their other drivers, so things are looking up at least. Having binary blobs for certain shit is not ideal either, but I’ll take it if it means more people will move to Linux and everything else will still be open.