/tech/ - Technology

A short while ago Valve announced and demoed a functional gaming handheld, that uses a AMD labtop CPU with a very powerfull iGPU and a beefed up memory-bus for about 500 money.

The big wow was that it was running Arch Linux as operating system under the hood, with access to a desktop mode, that would actually be usable as a PC. Most of the people (including me) in the Free Software and Linux scene were excited about this because it means more people using Linux and maybe better driver support.

I have only ever used steam once and i managed to buy a game and then somehow invalidate my license key or user account that was attached to it. I'm pretty sure this was user-error, but still i felt like i was being punished for legally buying a game. I kinda gave up on gaming, although i do sometimes still follow technical news about video game engines.

My experience with DRM systems in general is that it's a fickle bitch and proprietary software doesn't just mean that it's violating the 4 User Freedoms bequeathed to us by Saint Stalllman, it also means that it's probably going to stop working at some point. At least in my case I managed to wrench quite a number of DRMed programs i payed for. I basically think that Intellectual property enforcement is some kind of political, ideological or religious terror, that can only be explained by an unreasonable amount of evilness. I know this sounds a little silly but consider that it feels like unpredictable unexplainable punishment when drm wigs out. Stallman really can feel like a angel descending from the sky telling you a transcendental truth. (Figuratively speaking)

And here is where my doubts come about, steam uses DRM for most of it's games, and Linux users in general really don't like DRM, or proprietary software, and there might be a lot of friction, about it. However I don't think Valve will switch to windows, because Microsoft has it's own videogame-store on windows as well as their own console that is the arch nemesis of Valve and steam. Their dependence on Microsoft is an existential risk and they need something like the steamdeck that is independent of MS to survive as a company. But i fear that there will only be a honeymoon period after which Linux ends up as a battered wife.

I was re-considering my game-abstinence and getting a steamboy, because it looks like you could use it while lying on a sofa and there are a number of puzzel games like the ones from Zachtronics that do look very tempting. However i would immediately wipe the steamdeck and install generic Arch Linux, followed by getting the games from GOG because i hear these aren't cursed by the digital inquisition. I'm probably not the only one thinking about doing this. Valve must have razor thin margins on the steamboy hardware and if a lot of people gog out or use it to sail to a certain bay. They might be induced to wreck the potential for good this might have by trying to rape Linux with a drm sub system and or locking down the hardware.

Microsoft probably will not let Valve get its independence without a fight either, and there might be collateral damage raining down on linux from this.

Now that i managed to make my self feel bad about something i initially felt very good about, i don't actually know anything concrete about any of the active actors involved in this. I secretly hope somebody who does, can prove to me that this will have a happy end and the result will be a genuine linux device that normies like and use, which would reduce the relative precarity of free software somehow.