 I've never been much of a gamer. It's basically down to the fact that I'm not very good at games and Mostly that has to do with the fact that the games that I was always proud of to play where first-person shooters And I can't or aim worth a damn. I just don't have the dexterity or the coordination to actually aim at anything and Come anywhere close to hitting it. It's just it's a flaw that I just can't get past Even with practice and playing hours and hours of Call of Duty. I just wasn't any good at it It didn't mean that I didn't have fun. It just means that I was you know terrible The types of games that I've always enjoyed however have been more mobile type games So I play a lot of games on my phone. I enjoyed the Game Boy back in the day. I had a DS I had a PSP. I had a Vita all those handheld consoles were really interesting to me And I really enjoyed them because they were more my speed So the Steam Deck that Valve announced this past week is actually really interesting to me And I've I came really really close to paying the five dollars to actually reserve one but I didn't and Really it's mostly come down because it was just a little bit too pricey for me in terms of Actually fitting in to my finances at the moment and there might come a time when it actually it's closer to Actually being a real thing that I might regret that decision and just might splurge on it and buy it myself But at the moment, I'm not getting one But I do have some thoughts on how the release of the Valve Steam Deck affects Linux and specifically gaming on Linux So this is the first of two videos that I'm actually going to be doing on this So in this video, I'm going to be covering what a successful launch of the Steam Deck means for gaming on Linux And in the video that you'll see tomorrow, I'm going to be talking about what happens if the Steam Deck fails So if you want to see that video, make sure you hit the subscribe button And if you want to see it early head on over to patreon.com Slash Linuxcast and you'll actually be able to see that video a day early So in this video, I want to talk about what happens if the Steam Deck is a success How does that affect gaming on Linux? the answer is that it actually affects it immensely because really There's one thing that's missing for gaming on Linux and that's the ability to play games that use anti-cheat software Right now. That's the biggest hurdle We have on Linux in terms of actually playing top tier triple-a games those ones that use anti-cheat software just won't work on Linux and That's a shame because those are obviously the most popular games now the introduction of the Steam Deck means that it's possible that that hurdle becomes Either lessened or goes away completely because Valve has announced that they want to or they're aiming for a hundred percent game viability on the Steam Deck, which means that any games that you want to play on the Steam Deck will also play on Linux because Steam OS and the Steam Deck just use Arch Linux. So any gains for the Steam Deck Automatically translate to being awesome for gaming on just whatever Linux device you have That's really the hurdle That they have to jump and they'll be interesting to see if they do because the way anti-cheat works is it actually has to have kernel level access in order for it to check on whether or not you're actually cheating and Obviously as you can imagine that would have some serious security implications and it's unlikely that the Linux kernel team would just open up the kernel for access to anti-cheat software I mean, maybe it's possible that they can work together and try to figure out how to Have some kind of software. Maybe it's wine. Maybe it's proton whatever that somehow Acts as a liaison between the kernel and the anti-cheat software. Maybe I don't know I'm not a developer But that has been the hurdle so far and it's been a hurdle that valve has not been able to jump over yet And whether or not they can do so by December. I don't know but if they can that means that Linux will see 100% Game compatibility Whether the game was developed for Linux or not and that is spectacular The number one reason why a lot of Windows users give for not being able to use Linux full-time is Games even now that we have proton even with how good Linux gaming has gotten over the last few years There are many people who just can't get past those few games that they absolutely want to play because they use Anti-cheat software and they're not available on Linux through proton if they can get past that that means that that hurdle that that Limitation is no longer there. That means that more people theoretically should be interested in switching to Linux that Barrier to entry would be gone and that is an amazing thing and I really do hope that the Steam deck is as good as they say it's going to be If this thing comes out and runs really well and plays the games that they say it's going to play It's gonna be awesome Even if in December it gets to the point where they don't have a hundred percent game compatibility But they won't you know, they're still working on it. Maybe but the games that we have right now Play on it and play on it. Well, I think that even that can be considered a win because it's still Linux and it still exposes people to Linux and I think that any exposure of more people to Linux is a good thing Even if I think that those games that don't play on the steam deck at that time if that becomes the case will be a Thing that the reviewers kind of point at towards while this thing kind of sucks because you can't play X game whatever I mean that would be definitely something that will be a disappointment for reviewers and that might Lower the ability of the steam deck to actually be successful But I think that even if it's just the you know, it 90% of games that we have right now that do work If it's just that that number I think that a lot of people still be blown away because it's obviously miles ahead of where steam was Five years ago when they had the steam Boxes or whatever the hell they were called When basically no games played on Linux so I'm really excited for what this means because if this is successful if steam can go through if Valve can go through and Get those last few games up and running on Linux It's just going to blow Everybody's minds. I think that it's just going to be a complete game changer in terms of Nobody can actually go through and argue that Linux can't game because that hurdle will be gone that argument will be gone It'll no longer be something that people can use and like I said That means all we'll have to do is listen to them bitch about Adobe. So That is it for me If you want to get in contact with me, you can do so at the Linux cast on Twitter You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash the Linux cast before I go I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons Devon Marcus, Megal and Donnie Sven East Coast web Chris Mitchell. Mr. Fox American camp. Thanks everybody for watching I'll see you next time