Does anyone know if they have worked on controller & splitscreen support or if it is in the roadmap?

Cost aside. If they don’t price it competitively between the Xbox and the PS5, the Steam Machine will be DOA.

The Deck is a perfect example of what they should try to replicate. If they don’t do that, it will flop.

Microsoft must be pissing their pants right now.

Can it do video and audio calls?

I am comparing random things, yes. If you don’t find this trivia interesting, please ignore it.

“Flexible” doesn’t sell as much as “Easy”

I agree.

But as a sidenote, a few interesting facts:

• Debian is older than Google.
• Arch (2002) and Fedora (2003) both have outlasted more than 298 Google projects.

Steam Machine

If the Steam Machine really takes off, I see way more people moving to Linux on their main rigs and laptops, and in turn making companies stop ignoring it, if it becomes a massive success I imagine:

• Mainstream games like FIFA supporting Linux
• Apps like Affinity Studio being distributed through Steam officially supported via Proton.
• Epic games will be the last company to keep ignoring Linux.
• Valve adopting Waydroid for SteamOS (for Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, etc)
• NVIDIA will redouble their Linux efforts.
• Greatest than ever VR support in Linux

Steam Frame

• Lots of Linux apps will work on Android desktop mode, like LibreOffice, Inkscape, etc.
• Linux phones will receive a lot more maintainers and funding.

Steam Deck

• Android apps on the Deck via Valve’s Waydroid
• Steam Deck 2 on ARM

Other

• New use cases for ARM will motivate RISCV to speed up it’s growth.
• KDE & Arch will receive more funding from Valve
• More contributions to the Kernel
• More Linux developers
• Increased security for Linux
• Flathub will grow

FUCK YESSS

I’ll get 4 controllers and a Steam Machine for my kids.

This could mean great news to Linux WhatsApp users.

Does it support VJOURNAL?

It could be right out of the box. Happened to me with 2 controllers.

Does Briar ask for anything ?

Xbox controllers need a Windows PC to update their drivers.

The paywall is a problem.

I don’t know the solution to your funding, I just know that this one doesn’t work for me.

Looks great! I was looking for something like this (but FOSS) for my kids.

On Windows, I used to install stuff using winget install whatever.

Waiting for the MS Store to load was a freaking anxiety needle injected into my veins. Unacceptable.

Bazaar on the other hand, it’s glorious. Blazing fast. So, I go with a GUI.

Also, there are tools like pandoc, ghostscript, caddy, imagemagick, and a gazillion others that are very powerful and quicker to do their job than waiting for a GUI to load.

And then, sometimes, there’s just no other way. Maybe it’s part of installing or updating something, or stuff like that. But a casual will either wait for a GUI, or just not do that.

I don’t think using the terminal is aspirational, it’s practical and it’s value is clear.

AFAIK Proton-GE uses VLC and Valve is from the US, where VLC is considered to breach some codec licenses I believe h264 decoding in particular. But I’m not sure, it’s been a long time since I’ve read about it.

Damn. It was supposed to make it even easier. What issue did you have with it?

Which one ? The one it had up until a few months ago ? I haven’t tried the new one yet.