Comment by TazeTSchnitzel
3 years ago
> The Steam Deck is an incredible bit of hardware, but the software that underpins it is just as impressive.
No shade on the journalist here: to me, the software is vastly more impressive. That it can run a vast library of high-end Windows PC games on a laptop SoC running Linux is an incredible feat of software. I wouldn't have believed Proton could work so well if I hadn't seen it happen.
And all the tech is open-source :)
Seriously, I can't describe the feeling the first time I used Proton back in the summer of 2018.
I remember clearly that I was expecting the usual "everyone says it works but it will probably crash on my computer and I have to dig for a solution for 3 hours"-type of situation that we Linux users are use to
But then I launched a game with it that I had struggled to run with the normal version of wine, and everything worked like magic, with only a few glitches.
A large part of my steam library was working without issues even in 2018 with Proton and it only kept getting better
It was like a dream come true. 2018 was the year I finally deleted my Windows partition because I didn't need anymore
I often marvel st how awesome Wine is, even before Proton. The fact that we can translate Windows programs and sometimes run them without a single problem on a completely different platform speaks to the awesomeness of the software and the people who contribute to it.
And proton takes it to a different level. Proton changed the whole linux gaming situation seemingly overnight. After they released the first public versions, all kinds of new possibilities opened
And the fact that it's all open source and easy to use outside of steam (so not just steam exclusive) and the fact that valve devs are contributing to wine, the linux kernel and lots of open source projects just makes me so happy
What was the game? I bought Steam Deck this October and my first impression was nothing but - holly fucking shit it works! This is because after many years of tweaking Wine to run what could be described old school games, I have already given up on the idea that Linux could be ever used for gaming, boy I am glad I was wrong, thanks Valve for Proton.