For those who wish to test out the very latest improvements to the Steam Deck, Valve has put up Steam Deck OS 3.5 into Preview now. In the official announcement Valve go over a big list of new features and fixes, so here's some of what's included.
The fact is that they are rebranding it to Steam Deck OS.
As far as I know they've said nothing about that. It's reasonable to say that the title is a typo for a couple reasons.
They've stated they want SteamOS on third-party devices before
There's also the rumored VR headset running SteamOS as well
Two use cases for the OS that have nothing to do with Steam Deck, so "Steam Deck OS" makes no sense as a name. I personally think they are waiting for Plasma 6+HDR support+VR support before they ship a desktop version, it's important to have feature-parity with Windows out the gate for good word-of-mouth.
Ok, not a typo. Other than the title of these patch notes, is it referred to as "Steam Deck OS" anywhere else? On Preview branch the distro still says "SteamOS Holo".
What about next time just giving the source and your opinioms instead just saying thoughts without reference to anything.
Dude you looked like you are a schizo who hasnt took his pills. Now I understand what you mean and everybody else finally understands your thoughts.
But for me, yeah its for now a Steam Deck OS but I hope they still plan to get it out for other devices. I didn't like your wording for "not a Desktop OS" as the Steam Deck clearly is a Desktop device even without Docking station. Just put it somewhere and connect Bluetooth Keyboard or Mouse.
Well, now I understand what a Desktop computer is. But it doesn't change the fact that the Steam Deck can be one in docked mode.
Just because the default OS isn't what you have on your daily machine and also doesn't have this cool "Media mode" some people refer to Gaming mode, doesn't make it less of a Hardware it already is. Just install Windows of it and stop removed about it.
You first said a "Desktop" is only a tower PC or rather a Desktop PC that sits at the desk. But then you gave a scenario where you complained that a Desktop mode didn't work.
You do notice that Desktop Metaphor and Desktop PC are two entirely different things. Generally clients can be referred as Desktop to make things easy.
A Laptop and Handheld can be described as Desktops too.
@ReakDuck@MJBrune
SteamOS is a spin off Arch aimed very specifically at the steam deck and nothing else. The desktop is nice but incomplete; try setting up a fully working japanese input method for example; or a full, modern gcc compiler chain.
In some future they may make a distro release aimed at a wider range of hardware. But until then it's not a general purpose desktop OS and it's doing them a disservice trying to pretend it is.
I don't understand why you shouldn't be able to do it. The last resort would always be to install a Virtual Machine, distrobox or whatever. Not sure about Japanese input. Thought it would work as they stated they support it.
@ReakDuck
Japanese input is doable without any system changes. Mostly adding language as well. Some software does need you to add language packs to system directories - that's one example where an overlay fs is useful.
Mostly it's good when you need to add specific packages (I ran into xmodmap not being available for instance). Or if you need something such as a custom keyboard layout (technically possible in your home though).