 Valve recently announced that they're getting into the handheld gaming business. They're designing a device that really is meant to compete against the Nintendo Switch, but not really. It's it's really more than what the Nintendo Switch is because the Nintendo Switch is a handheld gaming device. But the Valve Steam Deck is actually going to be a portable computer. It's actually going to be a PC and it's gonna run a desktop operating system on that handheld device. It's going to run Arch Linux, which is a fantastic GNU slash Linux operating system, one of my favorites. And I really think this is an important time in history because I think with this new device that's going to ship and it's going to be very popular because when Valve announced the Steam Deck, you know, their servers basically melted down from people trying to pay them a deposit to get, you know, in front of the line for when these devices are finally released. So there is a ton of interest in this device. And one of the cool things about this is you're going to see millions of people buy this device that have no idea what Linux is. But they're going to have a computer that is actually a full computer that runs Linux. You know, it's not running Windows. It's not running Mac OS. It's not running Chrome OS. It's running a completely free operating system, GNU slash Linux. In this case, it's going to run the distribution Arch Linux. Since I've been using Linux as a desktop operating system, I've seen really two major events that I think really helped us gain popularity where we had really huge spurts of growth. The first one was around 2006 to 2008. And that was the rise of Ubuntu. Ubuntu became the desktop Linux operating system really for most of Linux's early life. You know, the first 15 years of Linux as a desktop operating system, most people just kind of assumed it was a server operating system because that's what Linux really is, right? It runs millions and millions and millions of servers all around the world. The internet, basically, all the websites you visit, they're all running on Linux servers. And, you know, Ubuntu kind of changed the game a little bit because now all of a sudden you had a desktop Linux operating system. That's what Ubuntu was designed to be. And it got people to actually take Linux seriously. It got me to take Linux seriously as a desktop operating system. And that's how I got into Linux and millions of others. Around 2006 to 2008, you know, that really was a good time period for us to gain adoption. And then the next big event that I think really got people to take Linux seriously as a desktop operating system was late 2015, Valve announced Steam on Linux. Because before Valve had Steam on Linux, we really didn't have that many games on Linux. There were a few free and open source games that people, you know, designed specifically to run on Linux. But most of your big AAA games are all proprietary software and by proprietary software companies. And they only write these games most of the time to run on Windows. That's the only operating system they write their games for. Sometimes they write them for console devices as well. But you're never going to get a game that runs on Windows to run on Linux. At least we didn't think that would ever be the case. But Valve made it happen. They had Steam on Linux announced late 2015. And then very quickly, all of a sudden, they started working with the Wine team. Wine is kind of a Windows emulator as technically not an emulator. But it allows you to run Windows software sometimes on Linux. And Valve paired up with the Wine team and they eventually got thousands of Windows only games that could actually be played on Linux. So now, like 90% of the games that you play on Steam on Windows, you can also play on Steam on Linux. And for a lot of people that were holding out, I have to keep my Windows machine around for gaming. Steam on Linux really was the last thing that was the missing piece. That was the missing piece of the puzzle. But there's still a few holdouts out there because there's still 10% of the games out there that you play on Windows still just don't work even on Steam on Linux with Wine and Proton. But Valve is working very hard to get those last few games working. And now with the Steam Deck being announced, I think this is the last piece of the puzzle because they want to make sure 100% of their library, the Steam library plays on that device, which runs Linux. So this is it, right? All the games, all the games on Steam will eventually run on Linux. And so if you're a gamer, this is a great time to consider switching to Linux because this handheld device, especially if you buy the Steam Deck, it's going to run a Linux operating system. Wouldn't it be great if your desktop computer also ran Linux or your laptop? Because I think you know that Windows is not privacy-respecting operating system. Windows is constantly spying on you. It has a key logger built in. It's tracking every key press. It's scanning all the files on your system. It's doing all kinds of nasty stuff to you because there's a company behind it that makes money from data mining you. Data mines you so it can sell that information, usually to companies that want to advertise to you, send you targeted ads and things like that. It's just not a good experience, not to mention the fact that Windows is not fun to use. It's not a great operating system. It's really, compared to all the other modern desktop operating systems, Windows really does lag behind. Really, the only reason people stay on Windows is because they feel like they have to because the software that they have to run only runs on Windows. Well, you know what? There's thousands and thousands and thousands of pieces of software that run on Linux. You just run Linux software when you moved to Linux instead of running Windows software. It's like I've been a Linux user now, strictly a Linux user, for about 14 years. And most of the programs I use on a daily basis, most of them I couldn't run on Windows because they're designed to run on Linux, right? The software developer wrote that program to run on the Linux operating system. Linux software doesn't run on Windows, but I don't complain about it, right? If I had to use a Windows computer, I'm not going to complain, oh my goodness, all my Linux software doesn't run on Windows. I'm going to go find some Windows software that would do the job for me. And that's the same thing you guys have to do. If you want to make the switch to Linux, find Linux software that does what you want to do because I promise you, like the artwork for the channel, audio editing, video editing, everything I do to make these videos is all done with free and open source software that is designed to run on Linux. And really, when I hear from people saying they can't move to Linux from Windows, it's because of software reasons. There's really three things. The first one is games. We've got that taken care of, right? Within the next year, the Steam Deck will ship and Steam on Linux will be able to play 100% of the Steam library. So that, scratch that off the list. That doesn't matter anymore. The second one, most common when I hear is Microsoft Office. Now I understand most people, if you work in an office environment, typically you're required to use Microsoft Office, but with the rise of web-based clients, Office 365, you just run it in a browser, which means you can run it on any operating system on the planet, right? So unless there's a real need for you to have a desktop-based Microsoft Office suite, which of course you need Windows to run, you can run Microsoft Office 365 on Linux. So if that works for you, you've got that covered. The third most common thing I hear people say is they can't switch to Linux because of the Adobe Creative Suite. There's nothing we can do about that. Unfortunately, Adobe has no interest in ever porting their software to Linux, right? And if Adobe doesn't want to write a Linux desktop client for Photoshop and Premiere Pro and things like that, it's never going to happen. It would be very difficult for Linux people to make that happen, right? As the creator of the software has to make that happen and Adobe is very anti-Linux. They don't really see Linux as being something that they can make money off of. As for it, maybe there's just not enough of us yet. Maybe one day we'll eventually get there. But for right now, if you really had to use the Adobe products on a daily basis for work, then you probably would have to keep Windows around, at least dual boot, keep a Windows partition to do your work for the Adobe stuff and then maybe move over to Linux when you actually want to do your standard desktop computing stuff, web browsing and things like that. I would definitely rather do things like online baking, for example. I would rather do that on a Linux operating system than Windows because just the security of the Linux operating system. Now, as far as the Steam Deck goes, I'm not much of a gamer. So I don't know if I would purchase one for myself, because these are not cheap devices. They're range and price, I think, from like $350 to about $600, depending on what kind of storage you get in it. But even though I'm not a gamer, and probably a lot of you Linux users, especially many of you are not hardcore gamers, that doesn't matter. We should support Valve in this way. We need to make this a success, because if this is a success and they can get every single game that runs on Windows to also run on Linux, that's a win. And maybe they could also keep working on Wine and Proton and eventually get things like, I don't know, Microsoft Office, the desktop client to run in Wine or some of the Adobe products to work in Wine. I think that's eventually where we're hitting. I think eventually Valve is gonna sell stuff other than just games in their store, right? They want some of this other software that used to only run on Windows or Mac now to run on Linux. So what I'm thinking about doing is I may purchase one or two of these devices for gifts. I've got young nieces and nephews. Give them to your nieces or nephews if you've got young children or grandchildren. Give it as gifts, birthday gifts, Christmas gifts. Help this product succeed, because I think really this is gonna be a game changer. This is gonna be one of those major events that all of a sudden we see a massive spurt and growth again as far as new users coming from Windows over to Linux. I see too many journalists out there. All these articles about the Steam Deck and none of them mention how damaging the Steam Deck is gonna be to Windows. Every single article that talks about the Steam Deck running Linux, you know, that's great and all, but they leave it at that. They don't ever talk about how millions and millions of people are now going to be running a good new slash Linux device, a computer. And they talk about how the Steam Deck, you know, could really pose problems for Nintendo because it's a competitor to the Nintendo Switch. I don't think the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch are really competing because the Steam Deck is gonna be a proper computer where the Switch isn't. Plus, if you're a Nintendo fan, you like the Nintendo games, you know, the catalog of games that Nintendo has, you're gonna keep buying Nintendo products, right? I don't think the Steam Deck is gonna run Nintendo out of business. That's not gonna happen. I do think, though, the Steam Deck is gonna cause serious problems for Microsoft as far as the adoption of Windows 11. I think a lot of people are gonna give Linux a serious look now. Now before I go, I need to thank a few special people. I need to thank the producers of this episode. And of course, I'm talking about Absie Games James, Mitchell, Paul, Wes, Akami Allen, Chuck, Kurt, David, Dylan, Gregory, Heiko, Erion, Alexander, Peace, Arch, Infador, Polytech, Raver, Scott, Steven, and Willie. These guys. They're my high-steered patrons over on Patreon. Without these guys, this episode you just watched wouldn't have been possible. The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these ladies and gentlemen as well. All these names you're seeing on the screen right now. These are all my supporters over on Patreon because I don't have any corporate sponsors. It's just me and you guys, the community. If you like what I do and want to support my work, please consider subscribing to Distro Tube over on Patreon. All right, guys, peace. Now gamers can say I run Arch, by the way.