I am an extremely cheap and patient gamer. This is how I look at both the stores.

If I want free games, I’ll go to Epic.

If I want good deals, I’ll go to Steam.

Why would I go to Epic for good deals when it’ll either have a good deal on Steam OR be free on Epic after a few months or a year?

I’m sure it’s solvable but I call these example “death by a 1000 papercuts”. I don’t want absolute newbies to face these issues which will make them give up Linux forever.

I am not saying that Linux can’t be mainstream. I’m saying Nvidia is one of the blockades for Linux becoming mainstream. I have bazzite on my Rog Ally and it’s a fantastic experience, way better than windows, but it’s because of AMD.

If AMD can get an equal footing in the GPU landscape (unlikely in the next 5 years), maybe things can change. I just hope Nvidia comes to their senses and properly support Wayland.

Let me tell you about my Nvidia experience.

I use an old Nvidia card and I’m using the proprietary drivers. My distro maintainer said they are switching over to the open source version (only supported for 20xx series and above). They said it will cause an issue. I updated my distro like usual. And boom! Can’t boot anymore.

Since I’m more or less tech savvy, I could fix it but it took me few hours of my life to find the solution. I saw on reddit many people were having the same issue. If I constantly checked their Discord before every update, I could have avoided it but it’s impossible for a layman.

A mainstream person won’t be able to search & diagnose the problem. They will just think it’s a Linux problem and give up. This is why it’s impossible for Nvidia users to peacefully live with Linux. I know they are going to release a proper driver for Wayland but I am pretty sure that will take another 2-3 years. But till then, my stance remains the same.

Things which are holding this back

• Collaboration with OEMs to provide SteamOS OTTB (Lenovo is an exception)
• Nvidia support. Most gamers use Nvidia GPU unfortunately
• Certain industry-standard software which don’t have a Linux port. PSA: Most people don’t want to learn alt software. Johnny Mainstream is scared of new softwares. This cannot be changed
• End-users suffer from choice paralysis and Linux offers endless choice. Maybe SteamOS can help.

What we know so far, SteamOS won’t be a general purpose OS, so it might not support every random piece of h/w.

We might not have the year of the Linux Desktop, but we can expect 2025-2026 to be the year of the Linux handheld.

SRC: Linux fanboy for the last decade

Ahh, thanks. I was wondering because Steam usually never gives out keys.

If you still want the key, DM me.

How do you obtain Steam Keys?

Lenovo are testing the water with one device rather than going all in.

Exactly! I just might buy this one to give Linux a slight boost.

I’m really interested in how a different OEM handles SteamOS. Will the OS be locked down right from Valve? Or will Valve allow some OEM bloat (MyAsus) to be running on the device?

There is one issue where I want Valve to become a bit flexible; easy installation of 3rd party launchers. I know it’s against their interests to do so (even though the community has come up with alternatives and thankfully Valve is not stopping them). However, majority of people get confused and state that it’s not possible to play Epic/GoG games. Maybe Valve will take a small hit in sales because of this but Linux gaming will improve in the long run.

The report also mentions that the larger model does not feature the Steam button, implying that SteamOS will be exclusive to the Legion Go S model in the new series

IMO, this is a logical move and not a “We ❤ Linux” moment. Lenovo probably saw that Windows was performing abysmally on the lower powered device and it would offer a horrible experience to the users. But I would consider this a small win since this is the first time a big player has officially embraced Linux. This device would be perfect for playing indies and retro gaming and I hope shows people how easy Linux gaming has become.

• you’re going to get a worse experience in win11 compared to win10 (extra ads and extra copilot)
• your win10 pc will lose M$ support on October 2025
• if you update to win11 today with a non TPU enabled chipset, you’ll lose M$ support today

Just remind me again why I should upgrade to win11?

I enjoyed Splinter Cell quite a lot