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Help Me understand Steam Deck vs SteamOS compatibility (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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From my understanding Steam Decks come with SteamOS preinstalled on them. Yet when you look at the list of games on steam that are compatible with Linux + SteamOS, its a small fraction.

But what confuses me is this page

https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck/mygames

It shows your games that are compatible with the Steam Deck which has a Linux based OS. And almost my entire library is compatible with the Deck. Can someone help me understand how this is possible? If games are compatible with the Steam Deck, why wouldn't they also work on Ubuntu for example?

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Linux + SteamOS" compatibility is a bit legacy. It mostly refers to games that have a native linux client (I believe some of the early Proton Validated games are included as well.

The Steamdeck (and generally speaking, any linux system) uses Proton as a compatibility layer with windows, and the "Steamdeck Verified" system is more relevant today. That said, even the Steamdeck verified system isn't perfect. There are a number of titles that, while verified, have some problems with the deck, typically later in the game or after running for some number of hours. There's also a vast number of games that while not "Steamdeck Verified" work perfectly on the deck and linux via proton (though you do have to enable it in the settings).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Thanks the info. I'm hoping to switch to Ubuntu soon, so it's good to know that I can use Proton to run most of my games

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Protondb is your best bet if you wanna know which games run on the Deck and Linux as a whole. Really only some multiplayer games have an issue because of their invasive anti cheat software

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If you intend to use Linux for gaming, then using a distro that's optimised for gaming, such as Nobara, would be a much better option, IMO.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Or just not Ubuntu, used to the kneejerk good for newbie but, pooch screwed. Nobara gets you a fedora base, so, cool.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for the tip. I'll look into this. Does Nobara have regular security updates like the main Fedora OS?

I'm fairly new to the whole Linux thing so I want to make sure my PC is secure while running Linux

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, of course. It uses Fedora's default repositories but adds it own repository with the customisations on top. So the update cycle is pretty much the same as Fedora.

Nobara is made by the same guy who makes Proton-GE, ie, GloriousEggroll, so you know that this is a legit distro.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

You can also run windows programs on Linux.

To this day i can't find image viewing software as good as irfanview which is Windows only , yet i just run that as if it's a native program