I think the stuff about “experimenting” with limited editions is because they’re trying to find ways to make it hard for scalpers to buy them. That’s why they’ve got stuff about having a Steam Account in good standing etc… Maybe it’s actually working!
It absolutely discusses phone size - in some detail both in the intro and as part of the reviews.
I’d get this instead: JSAUX Docking Station Compatible with Steam Deck/ROG Ally, 5-in-1 Steam Deck Dock with HDMI 2.0 4K@60Hz, 100Mbps Ethernet, Dual USB-A 2.0 and 100W USB-C Charging Port for Valve Steam Deck-HB0602 https://amzn.eu/d/c71hbV8
It’s a fairly well known dock for the Deck, and seems (based on feedback on Reddit) that it’s more reliable than the official one if anything.
That was my conclusion from research, so I’ve got it and it’s worked flawlessly for several months.
GeForce Now is Nvidia’s game streaming service.
I’ve been using the absolute simplest option - just use normal desktop mode and then KDE Connect for control. KDE Connect connects your phone to anything, and then can use phone touchscreen as mouse for the deck.
I agree, it’s a bit annoying. Maybe you could put it in desktop mode, and configure it to turn screen off but not go to sleep? It’ll still do updates then.
I’ve been playing more single player games. My PC has mostly been for multiplayer stuff with friends - Siege, Deep Rock etc. My Deck has opened up time to a load of Single Player things - AAA things like Spiderman, Control, Mad Max and indie stuff like Black Skylands.
Plus I had a load of work travel in the first part of this year. The Deck made hotel rooms much more pleasant!
I’m glad to see some variation in this space (I almost said innovation except that it’s a combo of the Deck and Switch). But it’s still running Windows (see above) and it’s going to be around twice the price of a Deck.
Yeah, the ROG Ally particularly makes zero sense to me and misses the point. It runs Windows and it doesn’t have the touchpads.
The touchpads really broaden the utility of the console, from being able to select small UI elements in normal programs to being able to play more mouse enabled games (FTL being the most recent for me).
And Linux is the real special sauce - nobody seems to get why Valve did all that work rather than “just” putting Windows on it. Windows isn’t a selling point (you can put it on the Deck if you want), it’s slow, the UI doesn’t work well on that screen and you lose out on being able to suspend games etc.
Interesting - I’d always thought that G-Sync etc meant the other way around. Thanks for the explanation!
Desktop Linux had been a bit behind the others on display features due to the legacy of X. As everybody moves more to Wayland that better enables these sorts of things, they’re catching up.
You can update your version of Fedora through the updater software as well but it’s a very clear separate process that is initiated manually.
Distro version updates bring major updates to key packages - the one you’d notice most would be to Gnome, the desktop environment. There will be other things too that get only bugfix and security updates during the life of that version, and then after a while that version will lose support and you won’t get any updates at all (https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/releases/lifecycle/).
Updating is very safe and reliable. I’ve had my Fedora install at work for 3 years, updating periodically and it’s working extremely well.
I bought the JSAUX dock (from Amazon). Has been really good. It’s a fair bit cheaper than the official one and there are a load of reports.of the official one having issues.
One more note on learning Rust: what Rust does is front-load the pain. If you write something in another low-level “direct control of memory” language you can often get something going much more easily than Rust because you don’t have to “fight the borrow checker” - it’ll just let you do what you want. In Rust, you need to learn how all the ownership stuff works and what types to use to keep the compiler happy.
But then as your project grows, or does a more unusual thing, or is just handed over to someone who didn’t know the original design idea, Rust begins to shine more and more. Your C/C++/whatever program might start randomly crashing because there’s a case where your pointer arithmetic doesn’t work, or it has a security hole because it’s possible to make a buffer overrun. But in Rust, the compiler has already made you prove that none of that is possible in your program.
So you pay a cost at the start (both at the start of learning, and at the start of getting your program going) but then over time Rust gives you a good return on that investment.
Context: I am an embedded software engineer. I write a lot of low level code that runs on microprocessors or in OS kernels, as well as networking applications and other things. I write a lot of C, I write some Rust, I write Elixir if I possibly can, I write a lot of Python (I hate C++ with a passion).
I don’t think you want Rust. Python is unbeatable on “idea to deployment” speed. Python’s downsides:
Rust is good when you need at least one of:
If you’re doing one of those and so have become expert in Rust, then it is actually excellent for a lot of other things. E.g. you might build your data processor in it, and then distribution is easy because it’s just a single binary.
One option you might look at is Go. You get a lot of performance, you get good parallelism if you need it, it’s designed to be easy to learn, and it also compiles programs to a single binary for easy distribution.
You need some mechanical features to locate the Deck as it goes in to ensure that the USB locates properly.
Black Skylands. A friend gifted me a copy on steam after he had a transaction error and got two copies. Thought it might be fun for a few hours but I’ve been obsessed.
It’s an open world exploring game where you’ve got an airship and go from island to island, and it’s a top down twin stick shooter. The mobility is really enjoyable with the grappling hook, the combat is fun with interesting weapons, tech and upgrades and you have an airship!
I bought this one off Amazon and it seems fine:
Joyhood Carrying Case Compatible with Steam Deck, Portable Travel Carry Case, Hard Shell Storage Bag Fits Steam Deck Console with TPU Soft Cover, Gifts for Men (Slim) https://amzn.eu/d/fj6lQNS
From that quote I took “that salmon is ok, but this dish that it’s in is overall good”.
There’s a massive cultural thing in the US about the iPhone being the preferred phone and if you don’t have one it must be because you’re too poor to afford one. Obviously this is a result of marketing and isn’t universal but it is a surprisingly widely held view.
Given that, showing up in a group chat as a lone blue bubble marks you out as the inferior group member (in some people’s eyes). It doesn’t matter so much 1:1 but if there are 10 people the odd one out stands out.