The Duff CEO with a Windows-Logo on his forehead: "Gamers use Windows because of its' user experience not our de facto monopoly."
Next Image: Duff CEO with Windows-Logo in front of a "Out of Business" sign. Subtitle: "30 minutes after SteamOS is released"
Edit: Yo, I'm not saying this is gonna happen. I just want to say that Windew's UX sucks ass.
In what world? The steam deck is almost 3 years old, Windows is still on top and it's not even close
SteamDeck was also not a replacement for your gaming rig's OS. SteamOS is.
No SteamOS is not a replacement for your gaming rig. The recent steamOS beta release is specifically for hardware manufactures that aren't in the powered by steamOS program to test their HANDHELD hardware as well as users with non powered by SteamOS handhelds to test steamOS on their handhelds.
There has been a lot of people taking this as SteamOS releasing a linux distro for desktop gamers but thats not the case. I hope one day that will be the case but today its not and people jumping the gun will leave with a terrible linux experience.
I dont think a desktop flavor is far off at all. Plus, they backed Arch, which is upstream from SteamOS and Bazzite. No matter which way you slice it, this is a massive win for Linux gaming and accessibility for many reasons.
Small correction: Bazzite's upstream is Fedora.
F, thank you. I read one time that its steam deck like and my brain does wild shit.
Yes a desktop compatible version of SteamOS might be coming in the near future but currently thats speculation and there is no evidence to suggest this is the case. Backed by Arch means nothing here, they are just using packages from the arch repo SteamOS itself is nothing like Archlinux.
The win for linux gaming is more hardware manufacturers shipping linux. Its not Desktop users moving from windows to SteamOS like this meme would suggest. I just want to clear this up everytime i see it because I dont think its good for new linux users to try SteamOS on their desktops in its current state.
Valve sponsored arch. Thats a huge deal.
Its good but it doesn't change anything I said above. Plenty of companies contribute to distros its expected that when you use a distro for commercial purposes that you contribute back upstream. Take a look at the amount of companies donating to RHEL, Ubuntu or OpenSuse.
Does steam deck not run Steam OS..? What the Deck was meant to do is irrelevant, the OS it comes with and the OS mentioned in the OP in no way shut Windows down
Sure, but the real goal is to get gamers off of Windows. We dont give a shit what the corpos use. SteamOS has a massive possibility to do that.
I feel like we're having two different conversations.
The OP is acting like as soon as people "have the option" to switch to something else, they will, and Windows will be dead. SteamOS, however, has been a thing for a couple years now, and easily configurable Linux distributions for even longer, so saying that Windows is dead 30 minutes after release isn't really wishful thinking, it just... Didn't happen.
Your argument is that SteamOS has potential to upset the gaming OS market, which I'm not at all disagreeing with.
My comments had nothing to do with "what corpos use", I'm talking about Steam's user statistics. Over 90% of steam users are on Windows, and that's with the incredibly popular Steam Deck taken into consideration.
Let it be clear that I'm not at all a Windows fanboy, I fucking hate the OS. I use it because I'm too lazy to set up Linux, and a few games I play are known to not work. Something SteamOS can change, but not something it already has.
We are talking sideways a little bit. OP's joke won't come true. But SteamOS has the potential to begin shipping on prebuilds if this traction keeps up. Why pay for a Windows license when we wanna game, y'know? In company time, thats a blink of an eye. Microsoft should be doing something, they are, but its not really going to matter. If this game focused OS jumps to desktop and is good. It has the potential to take over the PC gaming market. Especially if it makes everything Just Work. We're probably on the same page in reality. Its not exactly there yet. But if there is gonna be a year of the Linux desktop. I'd put my money on Valve igniting it.
Linux Mint: Exists
Windows: Still king
Point: Made
I think you're kind of right. For now anyway.
It won't make any difference until Valve releases SteamOS for general consumption on more than a handful of handhelds
Mint, Bazzite, Pop... Options exist, users don't care. If you don't get the professional world off Windows, you're not getting the personal world off Windows because people don't want to figure out two OS when they have a hard time figuring out one.
Proton is a much bigger deal than SteamOS itself. It's what allows you to play Windows games on Linux -- often with better performance than on Windows due to reduced overhead.
That's all been available for a while. The cat is out of the bag
Here's the news you missed:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/01/bye-bye-windows-gaming-steamos-officially-expands-past-the-steam-deck/
I saw that after my first comment, I'm still not really sure how this is supposed to mean the death of Windows. Another mobile PC device running SteamOS isn't going to disrupt Window's position (though it is of course nice to see more handhelds on the market running the OS), and Valve saying they'll soon release a user-installable beta is nowhere near what some are making it out to be. People are acting like they just released a stable Linux distro meant to replace your main OS; the news is exciting, but it's not the death of Windows, at least not for a long while.
The idea is that the deck is not a one off and as more devices come to run SteamOS specifically developers will take note.
No one said it'll be the death of windows altogether, the meme and comments are saying it may be the death of windows for dedicated gaming rigs (meaning handheld pc gaming devices and dedicated desktop gaming pcs)
Market share moves slowly.
Windows enshittification made me look if Linux had become a viable alternative.
Got a Steam Deck to try it out and was very impressed by how far it’s come.
When my Win10 desktop needs replacement in a year or 2, getting a Linux desktop.
What's stopping you from installing Linux now? I don't think you can just "get" a Linux desktop, though I'd be happy to be wrong.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Several companies sell Linux desktops nowadays. Tuxedo and Slimbook come to mind