[News] SteamOS will be coming to other handhelds before you can install it on your PC 'because right now, it's very, very tuned for Steam Deck'

Fubarberry@sopuli.xyzmod to Steam Deck@sopuli.xyz – 283 points –
SteamOS will be coming to other handhelds before you can install it on your PC 'because right now, it's very, very tuned for Steam Deck'
pcgamer.com
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At this moment in time, Bazzite is just straight up a better experience than SteamOS. Fedora backend with rpm-ostree is way better than what Valve has going on. And for Steam Deck, GNOME just makes more sense for touch interfaces.

Yeah, I was puzzled why Valve chose KDE to be the default desktop for a touchscreen device. Ultimately though I figured they just wanted a Linux desktop that would be more familiar to Windows users.

I would bet the main reason is that KDE is way more willing to accept features and contributions outside of the typical use case than Gnome is.

I was puzzled why Valve chose KDE to be the default desktop for a touchscreen device.

The default software selection, especially when SteamOS 3.0 had launched, clearly showed that they picked a setup they wanted to use for themselves (my setup is heavily customized by now but I clearly remember VIM having been set as default text editor). If Valve was interested in Desktop Mode being primarily for touch use, they could go with Plasma Mobile instead of Plasma Desktop. Plain Gnome without any extension is not good to use as either desktop or handheld. The Gnome developers can't even make up their mind which shell to use for touch devices because they literally have two competing ones (Phosh and Gnome Shell Mobile).

You guys are using the touchscreen? You know there's a perfectly serviceable trackpad you can use, right?

The trackpad is the only way to really use the desktop, but if the touchscreen was better KDE still wouldn't allow a good touchscreen experience.

Bazzite is just straight up a better experience than SteamOS. Fedora backend with rpm-ostree is way better than what Valve has going on. And for Steam Deck, GNOME just makes more sense for touch interfaces.

Bazzite defaults to Plasma for Desktop Mode just as SteamOS. According to https://universal-blue.org/images/bazzite/installation/ Gnome is only the 4th installer choice.