I am happy about the raise of popularity of the new handheld PC consoles, but still Windows on handheld device is a deal breaker for me.
I know Steam Deck is not perfect, but the proton compatibility layer, the OS and the console-like experience is something I would pay extra money for, if other manufacturers adopted it.
On the contrary, you should be paying less, since you don’t have to pay for a Windows 11 license. And while Steam can charge whatever they want for their Steam OS license, it shouldn’t be as much since they haven’t had to develop a full fledged OS.
Windows, ad delivered by OEM like Lenovo and Asus, comes with additional third party bloat/spyware that eat resources but gives extra money to the OEM. These money are used by OEM to either cut the price of the windows license key or cut the overall price to the customers if Microsoft has already a special agreement with the OEM to provide free keys.
A device having Windows is a deal breaker? seems like an odd requirement to have set in stone couldn't you plug in a USB stick with linux loaded on and install your linux distribution of choice onto these gadgets
You don't exude an air of having experience, to say the least. Windows is a deal breaker for plenty of power users who have used it for 20+ years.
You just made a random assumption that Linux could literally work on anything. Yeah, it mostly can, but support is a good thing. I don't want to be recompiling the kernel and troubleshooting driver issues.
I think the implication is more of the fact that having a supported OS gaming handheld distribution is preferable to Windows. It's so much smoother with controls being pre-configured for me and being able to suspend on the fly. I'm sure there's loads of other things that I don't even think about ... I would imagine the optimizations.
SteamOS is the main reason why I like the SteamDeck. I would be quite happy if there's another Linux distro or if there's great Windows support. I think when if that happens, then the consumer adoption of these would skyrocket.
Windows is ok on my desktop PC (even though I'm thinking of going Linux the next time I upgrade it), but it's not very pleasant on handheld devices.
The Steam OS was created the way you can use it similar to PS or Xbox console. It's focused on simply accessing and playing your games, with great UI, full controller support and no unnecessary bloat. You still have a desktop mode to use the device as a regular PC, so the option is there.
I dont want to deal with all the windows stuff on my handheld console, I just want to play games.
My understanding is that because it's Linux they can customize it and trim all the fat to make the OS run as efficiently as possible, making it perfect for a portable device where you want as much processing power going to the game. You just can't get that with Windows.
SteamOS is almost entirely open source software, except for the handheld's specific proprietary drivers and Steam itself. Vendors are free to use it via its open source license if they choose.
The hardest parts (i.e. proton) are fully available to anyone who'd like to use it under an approximation of the MIT license, even for commercial use.
You can install wine or steam and run games on pretty much any distro. SteamOS is just tailored for the Steam Deck and is open source and under GPLv2, so anyone can fork it or contribute (https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steamos_kernel).