The Steam Deck has revolutionized the gaming handheld market. With the Linux-based immutable SteamOS, Valve has fostered an active community developing mods and alternative systems for this platform. Other manufacturers distribute Windows-based mobile consoles. However, time and time again it has been shown that they lag behind Linux in terms of software support.
But how easy is it to bring a Linux distribution, say openSUSE, to the Steam Deck?
In this talk, a prototype based on openSUSE’s open technologies and infrastructure will be presented, which is already (almost) fully functional on the Steam Deck and many other devices.
Mint is a long term support distro using an in house custom desktop environment. LTS distros don’t receive kernel or mesa updates as often so game performance can be lacking especially for newer games and/or newer hardware. Cinnamon also lags behind on modern desktop features compared to GNOME or KDE Plasma.