Valve confirms it'll support the ROG Ally with its Steam Deck operating system

Don't own it, but I would recommend against the regular Ally due to some known hardware issues and Asus warranty trying to scam people into expensive "not covered by warranty" repairs.

The new Ally X has some tempting hardware upgrades though, if no major defects have shown up in a couple months it might be worth checking out.

Their proprietary external GPU connector (xg Mobile graphics) was recently reverse engineered so you may soon* be able to connect desktop graphics cards.

Still in the early revisions, though all the info is on GitHub by osy86

There were some things in the latest update that pointed to such an release

Was it from the horse’s mouth?

Check out Bazzite until then.

It's coming. In the meantime you can use HoloISO

N-Gage 2 confirmed

That would be awesome, I still have hopes that it will somehow be possible to put Linux on the vita, but that probably will never happen

The vita was a tragically underperforming console. I loved mine, just wish it had more games

My bad, I meant Vita 2

Vita 2 when

PSP2?

You can run Linux on the Switch: https://switchroot.org/

Not without tinkering, but isn't that always the case with Linux?

Well, the problem is honestly just Windows. It's not designed for mobile or touch interfaces at all, and all the telemetry and crap bloatware degrades the battery performance. If you get rid of all of that stuff it's actually on par with the Linux equivalent.

I dual boot my Ally and I actually spent time messing around with different OSes. ChimeraOS was not ready when I had initially given it a shot (around March) and it crashed constantly and didn't have full support for things like RGB. I also tried Bazzite at that time and it was a similarly strange experience. It's gotten much better in the last few months. I've been running Bazzlite on my Ally since early July. HHD has progressed immensely and offers a lot of good control over the device.

If you start off with the IoT version of Windows, it comes with essentially nothing. The store app isn't installed, but neither is Teams or Paint. You don't actually have to spend time "debloating" it, since it comes more or less bloat-free. You actually have to spend more time installing dependencies and drivers than removing things. Run the telemetry disabling script and then you have a version of Windows that still sucks to use in general, but is much less awful on battery life.

Bazzite is fine. It's serviceable enough to get the job done. The hardware is supported through a bunch of different emulation tools and bespoke applications like HandHeld Daemon for hooking into power draw and managing extra buttons.

Bazzite is based on the Holographic base that SteamOS uses, but opts for a Fedora-based immutable back-end over Arch. Running SteamOS itself is going to be better once Valve implements native support for all of these things that are covered by HandHeld Daemon, at least in theory.

Due to the non-optimal nature of both Windows and Linux at this stage, they tend to perform about equally.

I get that the Fediverse is disproportionately made up of Linux users, but the reality right now is just that no operating system is fine-tuned for the hardware its running on besides SteamOS and the Deck itself. It's not better yet, but it's getting better at a massive clip - which is above and beyond whatever Microsoft is doing (looks like nothing) to improve their software for the form factor.

Looks like the Ally uses AMD, so I expect it probably works just fine.

It would be a win for Asus and Valve alike

They tried that method with the steam machines, it didnt work. A bunch of companies put out half arsed cash in versions and it went nowhere. By putting Valve's whole weight behind one platform that they tested extensively they got a great product that has made waves. Opening it up now that it has momentum makes sense, but they absolutely made the right call making the steam deck the focus rather than making it hardware agnostic.

Okay, understood. May be SteamOS was the incorrect wording. I meant the Linux Kernel, Arch, Proton. I am assuming most changes are related to hardware and software compatibility which should all be open source.

Open source just means you can get the source code, it doesn't mean you can take over a project.

Asus can't just take SteamOS, apply some driver tweaks, change some options, and release it as a SteamOS device.

A lot of SteamOS is proprietary, and Valve of course owns all the IP related to the branding. Asus literally *needs* Valve's blessing to do it.

Asus are certainly welcome to help Valve with their code, but Valve could also say no this is our project.

And of course they can fork the open part of SteamOS and brand it as something else, and not install steam/steamUI, but that's half the reason people use the steam deck. It wouldn't be SteamOS without that.

Yes, thats how Open Source works or they can keep paying Windows. Asus knows their hardware much better than Valve does and has a much bigger interest in a good user experience, but currently lacks the incentive, because Windows is a „good“ paid alternative. Honestly I don't understand all the downvotes.

You don't think the developers of SteamOS should be the ones working on SteamOS?

It mentions that the work from Valve was for accessory support. So they may not be extending that much effort towards getting it on specific devices. Rather, I think they're working on generic PC support on the side.

It's had a revision which appears to have fixed that, and brought other improvements.

However it also came with a price bump, and Asus has been under fire recently for awful handling of warranties all across their business

Potential that will never go anywhere. It's ASUS, they're on the 8th iteration of phone and still having problems, the Ally X is having problems too.

ASUS is just a problem company.

Ok, I repent my sin now. Hannah Montana has my undivided attention. https://media.tenor.com/_cGu-9UxtV4AAAAM/mdr.gif

Not even their brand new "handheld" Assussy??

(It will fully support Hannah Montana Linux)

Right on. I'm just excited that this form factor is going to "be a thing" for a while, because god damn, I love my deck.

But realistically, it could be a drop in replacement for my mobile computing solutions if it was just a bit beefier.

The original Ally was pretty debatable hardware wise when compared to the deck. It was more powerful, but had worse battery life (especially in low power games), worse controls, poorly designed heat routing that burned up SD cards, etc. There was also stuff like how the higher resolution screen wasnt really necessary for the screen size, and the performance hit was very significant unless you capped at 720p.

It's missing trackpads, which is a pretty big oversight for a device like that.

The new one indeed have it... considering your paying the combined price of a desktop pc gaming + a steam deck to buy one.

Yeah the more gaming landscape gets matured outside of Windows the better

They keep saying it's coming, bazzite is pretty solid for now, but I'd really like to get an official valve iso.

@ipha @Fubarberry u wonder when or if at all well get a desktop version thats as easy to install as installing steam os on the steam deck is

Insert ="*More, More!*"= meme here.

I got it for travel and it really is a top notch portable gaming hub. Doubly so because emulation is really easy to set up and run through the frontend. I love being able to play Elden Ring on the go.

I have bought more games than ever when I got the Steam Deck. Playing games on the PC can be tiring when you are 30+

The lower storage Deck models have been sold at a loss, with the plan of recovering that through game sales. So rival hardware running SteamOS could make valve more money than the deck does.

It's possible that the deck's are no longer sold at a loss, both due to components getting cheaper over time and higher sale numbers leading to lower cost per unit. But either way the money comes mostly from game sales, not hardware sales.

As long as you don’t use the sd card slot

Great news! The more devices running SteamOS the better

This will make that device so much more usable.

This is so exciting, very happy for Ally owners. Choice is a strength of PC ecosystem, and I'm confident SteamOS experience is going to win over many users. It's a great upgrade.

Edit-

"And it's not like Valve is suggesting it'll offer SteamOS for rival handhelds anytime soon, either"

Oh :( I thought this was further along than it is.. got excited.

It would make the Ally usable. Windows holds it back a ton because it’s a trash OS.

There’s still some hardware issues to contend with. Like the fact that it fries SD cards due to poor card slot placement… and the control stick bug…

Let’s just say my wife has one and we recently got her a Steam Deck instead. I had to replace one of the sticks on the Ally and still had problems. She also can’t use the SD card slot at all. It’s flawed hardware with potential (after a couple revisions).

If Asus wants some positive PR after a rough 2024, they should offer the Ally with SteamOS preinstalled.

Hell yes! More Linux more better!

Distros like bazzite have really picked up but they'll always be niche projects in the eyes of game dev and publishers. Steam os at least can help them realise that Linux isn't an instant dismiss because they haven't used it before.

I have friends in AAA game dev and they all have the same kinda dated idea of Linux being this sweaty crazy programmer distro even though we all play games online together.

If valve can carry on increasing the market share it'll definitely help get rid of some stereotypes for Devs which in turn brings more market share.

Selling games is their main revenue anyway. The console is an extra.

Make SteamOS available for desktops tol

I confirm that I will never buy anything Asus even again.

This is the right move

The exciting thing I am taking from this, specifically because of the ROG Ally are two things:

• Valve intends to support nvidia drivers in SteamOS (the ROG Dock)

• Valve intends to ensure eGPUs are a good experience on SteamOS

If these do make it to fruition that would be a huge benefit overall for Linux gaming.

How funny/great would it be if the PSP2 and Switch 2 ran branches of SteamOS?

I'm actually a bit surprised this takes so long for Valve. Because I think Valve wants to be in a position what they envisioned with Steam Machines, where many systems are created by different manufacturers. Only with a reference model that everybody can fallback to as the base model, the Deck. Guess creating an operating system that can be installed on arbitrary handhelds is not easy (go figure).

BTW this is not a unique concept either, because we had similar strategies before with home computer systems and console like systems in the 80s and 90s: MSX (actually from Microsoft) and 3DO are "popular" examples.

I really hope Valve takes up this market with strong software. I believe Microsoft is lagging behind just using regular Windows for that.

I saw an ad for this thing on TV the other day. IDK why, but seeing things like this on TV always makes me giddy ever since I first saw Secret of Mana advertised on TV. Seeing new tech (and video games before a certain time) having commercials on television is like seeing a unicorn.

Finally the buyers can make use of that hardware!

Big W as usual from Valve. We need more privately owned companies again.

@Fubarberry good guy valve. Rather than getting butt hurt about competition they embrace it.

I've been looking at the ally for a while, the eGPU support is interesting too. SteamOS support would be the final addition to make me pull the trigger on it. Anyone own it and can give their 2¢?

!20240819_223554

Dual boot this....and I may have the perfect device.

Shiitttttt..

I mean. The ROG Ally has much better hardware..

Hell yeah. If Valve was smart, they'd have pushed for this a lot sooner. They should focus on making it more device-agnostic. If the consumer's device revolves around their storefront, then it's a massive win for them.

Valve shouldn't give their blessing to SteamOS on the Ally. That should be Asus‘ job. However they could give Asus a cut on every game sold through their device on SteamOS (like a few percent). That would make it much more financially interesting for Asus and they might put an official team behind it, to support SteamOS.