It's Critter Time!

linuxavali wrote: Sun Jul 13, 2025 2:54 pm Honestly, Valve has been a great upstream contributor to the Linux kernel and the open source community. They have been throwing a unprecedented number of hours at open source projects they don't own to make gaming on Linux work and they deserve every bit of praise that get for it. We might be seeing more anti-cheat compatability with linux going forward though since Microsoft is now working with anti-cheat and AV providers to move their code out of the windows kernel and into user land, making it a lot easier to emulate under wine/proton. I don't want to say "X year will be the year of the linux desktop" but damn does it ever feel close. The Linux usage numbers are constantly creeping up on the Steam hardware servery which is a good sign.

speaking of Valve, I still am kinda kicking myself for not getting a Steam Deck a couple years ago when I was looking to get a small Linux computer. I remember at the time being like "Ok, sure, you can do desktop stuff on it too, but I'm not interested in PC games, I'm a console gamer".
And sure enough, that changed last year, so I'm like "well crap xP"
especially since the mini computer I ultimately went with cost like €1000, and the Steam Deck is available for far less. with both devices being about equal in terms of processing power.

*sigh* hindsight is 20/20, I guess

Pandro wrote: Sun Jul 13, 2025 2:59 pm I got StarCraft 2 and FFXIV to run with it. Although for StarCraft 2 (and other Blizzard games) I had to fiddle with the wine prefix every now and then to keep it working when they changed something in the launcher. Has been a while though since I played either of them

Oooo, neat! :O
I think if I'm ever gonna give FF14 a try, it's gonna be through the Steam version. That just seems far simpler to set up, especially since I don't even know if I'm gonna stick with the game or not.

JarylGaren wrote: Sun Jul 13, 2025 7:42 pm speaking of Valve, I still am kinda kicking myself for not getting a Steam Deck a couple years ago when I was looking to get a small Linux computer. I remember at the time being like "Ok, sure, you can do desktop stuff on it too, but I'm not interested in PC games, I'm a console gamer".
And sure enough, that changed last year, so I'm like "well crap xP"
especially since the mini computer I ultimately went with cost like €1000, and the Steam Deck is available for far less. with both devices being about equal in terms of processing power.

Oh yeah, I got mine as soon as it was available. I actually used it as a travel computer until I got a new laptop. I used an original nexdock with it to get a mouse, keyboard and bigger screen on the go. It defiantly wasn't ideal but it worked pretty well.

linuxavali wrote: Sun Jul 13, 2025 7:46 pm

JarylGaren wrote: Sun Jul 13, 2025 7:42 pm speaking of Valve, I still am kinda kicking myself for not getting a Steam Deck a couple years ago when I was looking to get a small Linux computer. I remember at the time being like "Ok, sure, you can do desktop stuff on it too, but I'm not interested in PC games, I'm a console gamer".
And sure enough, that changed last year, so I'm like "well crap xP"
especially since the mini computer I ultimately went with cost like €1000, and the Steam Deck is available for far less. with both devices being about equal in terms of processing power.

Oh yeah, I got mine as soon as it was available. I actually used it as a travel computer until I got a new laptop. I used an original nexdock with it to get a mouse, keyboard and bigger screen on the go. It defiantly wasn't ideal but it worked pretty well.

to be honest, I still feel like a Steam Deck would probably service my particular use-case perfectly fine (as in: playing videogames, browsing the web, watching youtube videos and listening to music), but I already got my gaming computer for bigger games that would be unfeasible for the Steam Deck last year.
And I'm also currently looking for a new job, so at the moment it does feel like a bad idea to spend money on a Steam Deck.

at some point I'm gonna try to get one, though.

my main experience with gaming on linux has been with linux handheld things like the r36s and


yeah it is mostly just older games emulated, and some shit with portmaster. Does suck that anbernic and others are pirating new shit for newer releases but lol

also i fucking hate retroarch

oh yeah and a steamdeck

i have played more with my steamdeck than with my desktop pc the last couple of years, fantastic device

JarylGaren wrote: Sun Jul 13, 2025 7:54 pm

linuxavali wrote: Sun Jul 13, 2025 7:46 pm

JarylGaren wrote: Sun Jul 13, 2025 7:42 pm speaking of Valve, I still am kinda kicking myself for not getting a Steam Deck a couple years ago when I was looking to get a small Linux computer. I remember at the time being like "Ok, sure, you can do desktop stuff on it too, but I'm not interested in PC games, I'm a console gamer".
And sure enough, that changed last year, so I'm like "well crap xP"
especially since the mini computer I ultimately went with cost like €1000, and the Steam Deck is available for far less. with both devices being about equal in terms of processing power.

Oh yeah, I got mine as soon as it was available. I actually used it as a travel computer until I got a new laptop. I used an original nexdock with it to get a mouse, keyboard and bigger screen on the go. It defiantly wasn't ideal but it worked pretty well.

to be honest, I still feel like a Steam Deck would probably service my particular use-case perfectly fine (as in: playing videogames, browsing the web, watching youtube videos and listening to music), but I already got my gaming computer for bigger games that would be unfeasible for the Steam Deck last year.
And I'm also currently looking for a new job, so at the moment it does feel like a bad idea to spend money on a Steam Deck.

at some point I'm gonna try to get one, though.

steamdecks are very fucking worth it but yeah, sort out your situation first, once you do getting one is such a good idea. They are fantastic devices.

Loosf wrote: Mon Jul 14, 2025 12:12 am also i fucking hate retroarch

BIG SAME

When I tried to set up Dreamcast emulation on it at some point, I somehow managed to make it so I couldn‘t load any Dreamcast games and thus access the core settings anymore, which to my knowledge are *only* in the quick menu that you can access only when a game is currently playing, so I had to figure out where the settings were stored in retroarch‘s files and delete them from there to fix that.

also, the UI is awful and confusing to navigate, which is an impressive feat, considering how they cribbed it just straight from the Switch (which imo also isn‘t winning any awards in terms of UI design, tbh)

Yea, retroarch is kinda rough to set up. Usually when i use it, it is because some other application is using it under the hood, like parallel launcher and that does work okay since it's all preconfigured, but retroarch by itself needs some serious work.

speaking of Parallel Launcher, that reminds me that I recently tried out some of the NSO controllers I still had lying around, and I really like that you can just connect them with Bazzite over Bluetooth out of the box, and everything works as it should.

the official Gamecube Controller adapter that Nintendo made for the Wii U also works right out of the gate, without having to fiddle around with any driver nonsense like you'd have to do on Windows. Which kinda rules, ngl.

though from what I've looked up, the GC controller adapter doesn't seem to work natively on Steam Deck/SteamOS, which is a bit of a bummer, but I'm also not really sure how much use I'd get out of a Gamecube controller nowadays anyways. It's a nice controller and I grew up playing stuff like Zelda Wind Waker and Smash Bros Melee with it, but it's defintely only made with Gamecube games in mind. Trying to play other stuff with it is awful, lmao

linuxavali wrote: Sun Jul 13, 2025 2:54 pm Honestly, Valve has been a great upstream contributor to the Linux kernel and the open source community. They have been throwing a unprecedented number of hours at open source projects they don't own to make gaming on Linux work and they deserve every bit of praise that get for it. We might be seeing more anti-cheat compatability with linux going forward though since Microsoft is now working with anti-cheat and AV providers to move their code out of the windows kernel and into user land, making it a lot easier to emulate under wine/proton. I don't want to say "X year will be the year of the linux desktop" but damn does it ever feel close. The Linux usage numbers are constantly creeping up on the Steam hardware servery which is a good sign.

Every year is the year of Linux on desktop if you're not a coward.

I made the swap away from Win 11 earlier this year to Bazzite on pretty much all my devices after playing with it for quite a while on my Steam Deck and it has been surprisingly painless compared to all the other times I'd tried in the past! Once some of the Nvidia issues had been relatively smoothed over, it was nice to finally make the switch and I haven't really been looking back towards Windows at all. Anything I personally need to do in Windows (mainly work stuff) I can just run a quick VM for and pop into and out of.

It's been very pleasant and there's lots of Bazzite documentation and help out there. I really like the containerized approach Bazzite takes. Always have a rollback for updates and it's relatively hard to screw up the install at a base level if you follow their recommended hierarchy of how to install programs and the like that they outline.