• markon@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Actually… The Steam Deck runs on Valve’s custom Arch Linux. To say there is no steady userbase is simply not true.

    • Nobsi@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Touché. I would like to counter that with “Not a desktop though” and end my turn with “wine required to use company software”

      • TeddE@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Between Microsoft’s open source Vulcan enhancements and Valve’s everything else enhancements both being contributed upstream, “Wine required” doesn’t have quite the same punch it used to.

        Pours myself a shot for having to thank Microsoft

        • Nobsi@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          It is very true. Nobody buys a steamdeck to be a desktop replacement. Nobody does work on a steamdeck. It might theoretically work, but most steamdeck owners game on it and thats it.

          • HuntressHimbo@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I dont think you’re right about that. Browse through the steam deck subreddit and community here and you’ll see plenty of posts of people using the steam deck for work and productivity as well as gaming. I myself use it both as a console and as a laptop more or less. Its a very nice portable Linux desktop

    • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What a dishonest argument. They’re using a curated overlay for Linux that mostly hides the Linux part from them completely. The fact that there’s a “Desktop Mode” doesn’t change the fact that 99% of Steam Deck users aren’t in Desktop mode.

      Edit: If someone bought a smart appliance with a screen whose software was Linux on the backend, we wouldn’t count people who bought that appliance (a refrigerator, for example) as “Linux users”. The Steam Deck is the same way for 95% of its users.

      • Doxin@yiffit.net
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        1 year ago

        They’re using a curated overlay for Linux

        This is commonly known as a “distro”. SteamOS is just particularly good at being user friendly for it’s fairly narrow use-case.

        • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          SteamOS is the distro. Big Picture/Steam Deck is an overlay for the Steam application and what the majority of Steam Deck users are using and experiencing. They’re not using it for day to day applications and browsing the internet.

          • Doxin@yiffit.net
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            1 year ago

            I’d probably call Big Picture the Desktop environment in this case. Yes it’s a simplified linux experience, but it’s not not linux.

            • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              The point is that you could swap what OS it is in the background and it wouldn’t make a difference that it’s Linux. The Steam Deck could be running Windows with Big Picture on top of it and no one would be the wiser. It’s misleading to say that Steam Deck users are Linux users if they don’t even use any of the Linux environment.

              • Doxin@yiffit.net
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                1 year ago

                But that’s true for anything. you could swap out the OS under gnome and most users wouldn’t notice either.

                • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  You’re either being intentionally obtuse or disingenuous. If there was a microwave or refrigerator out there that ran Linux for its components, you wouldn’t count people who bought that refrigerator as Linux users, would you? If anyone did, it would be to artificially inflate the Linux numbers since users only use the refrigerator/microwave functions. If they’re not exposed to any operational functions of the OS, then counting them as users of the OS is dishonest.

                  • Doxin@yiffit.net
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                    1 year ago

                    You’re either being intentionally obtuse or disingenuous.

                    Or I’m simply disagreeing with you. I’m not disagreeing to disagree, I just simply am not convinced by your arguments.

                    you wouldn’t count people who bought that refrigerator as Linux users, would you?

                    No, I would not.

                    If they’re not exposed to any operational functions of the OS, then counting them as users of the OS is dishonest.

                    Right, but the steam deck exposes all that perfectly fine, a lot of uses simply choose not to engage with that. Someone using debian but then only touching the web browser still counts as them using linux surely.