So many words to not answer even one of my questions, “expert”.

Why should I answer when those questions include statements that aren’t true? (That’s called the “loaded question” fallacy, btw).

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/loaded-question

900 EUR is what the previous iPhone model, in its lowest configuration, costs atm. Compare to your “highest tier” which is part of the question you want me to answer.

Answer this instead: Why is it so important for you to voice opinions on things you know nothing about on the Internet?

Well then: Clear it up.

I run headless debian VMs at home on a proxmox HV and another NUC with Debian that does Docker tasks.
My steckdeck runs the stock OS and am not scared to tinker within it.

Never assumed to be a pro and would consider an amateur at best that isnt scared to tinker.
It’s just that I prefer convenience most of the time.

So then. These are my cards. Explain what I learned wrong about the fractured linux ecosystem.
So far I know that Arch, Debian and RHEL the biggest distro families are.

Edit: Very helpful. Downvoting instead of telling me where I am wrong.
(Yes my comment was provocative but absolutelynotavelociraptor@sh.itjust.works should just tell where I am wrong if they are so sure of themselve).

why cant valve optimise their new games specifically for their hardware steam deck? why is that impossible?

Except that Windows versions of the same handheld are more expensive.

Which if anything is other manufacturers benefiting from the R&D that Valve have done with Proton and just making it freely available to anyone.

OK? Give it a couple more years and I bet you’ll start seeing that with handheld PC’s too

And yet, you still haven’t answered my question: what gives you a 900€ phone in terms of security that a cheaper phone with grapheneOS or a cheaper iphone won’t give you? But keep going with your “i’m the expert” attitude, you are really, REALLY educating me

It’s not theirs?

valve can optimize their games for a steam deck. The steam deck isnt theirs?

100%

Before I bought a steam deck I hadn’t used steam in years. Now I’ve bought like 20 games… Its a great way to get people on steam who otherwise wouldnt be interested.

Steam on Linux defaults to providing a container based standard Linux environment which is independent of the underlying OS, providing access to all the expected software libraries and OS calls that games need to run.

This is integrated into SteamOS. It’s also available via Steam on any other Linux distro. (And if you wanted to you could cut that part out and run it without Steam.)

When running Windows games it even runs Proton within this container environment.

That gives you a single very predictable and version controlled software environment.

Meanwhile Windows randomly deprecates stuff that somebody might have invested tons of development effort into (silverlight, mixed reality, etc)

There’s a lot of similarities and differences - the Steam Deck’s gaming mode is able to run a very barebones OS, similar to the very basic OS that the Nintendo Switch runs, with the game running in comparable sandboxes with stable software interfaces.

But Nintendo worked with Nvidia specifically to develop a variant of their hardware dedicated for gaming, while Valve essentially put a Linux laptop in a handheld console format (IIRC they did get help from AMD, but it wasn’t the same kind of deep collaboration), which notably may have different components between different hardware revisions.

When you try to maximize game performance that makes a difference, because on the Switch you can reliably push the hardware to the limits and expect it to keep working and on a Deck you have to test the hardware before pushing it. And if you find a trick that depends on architectural quirks you have to special-case it to not break on other hardware. There’s no guarantee that rarely used hardware features (both physical, and CPU/GPU instructions, etc) will stick around on a future revision of a Deck, while Nintendo guarantees forward compatibility (with help from Nvidia).

Nintendo even worked with Nvidia to emulate the Switch 1 GPU when running games for the first Switch on a Switch 2! They’re even going so far that they’re patching the emulation layer on a per-game basis to fix games where the default emulation method fails! And the ability to do this depends on knowing the exact properties of the hardware revisions of both the original and new GPU! (there’s architectural differences in the GPU that would break some games unless it was emulated)

Now Lenovo also has devices running SteamOS on different hardware, so games that runs on both either needs special cased optimizations for both, or only generic optimizations, or they simply have to decide to support one specific model better than others (which could end up with a game looking worse on better hardware because the dev didn’t try as hard with that hardware)

The other answer from Natanael tells you that now

1. you couldn’t make it more powerful, it had the best of the best.
2. my eyes work, and I still I don’t think clearer text and UI is a waste

Noticed and will be reading now.

When talking about a container environment you are talking about WINE, arent you?

But if we are talking about native developed games, how would that look?
That sounds to me like 1st priority-development will be continued using Windows as a base + DirectX and reliance that WINE will somewhat manage that.
How would native Linux look for game devs in terms of platform targeting?

There are several competitors that are more powerful, like the ROG Ally. They also need a bigger battery to support it, or they have worse battery life. And they’re more expensive.

Clear text and UI is an issue because games don’t scale their shit properly.

When a games developer make a game for Switch Nintendo has a say in how it must perform before you’re allowed to release it. Valve have no such requirements on games put on Steam - it’s up to the developers whether to require a lot of performance or not. Thus, while Valve sells the Steam Deck that doesn’t mean games on Steam necessarily run well on it.

Steam Deck can’t ever have that luxury.

Still not sure why this is the case. Have yet to hear any clear argument why it will never happen for Valve.