They can simply say on their download pages that residents of Brazil and California are not allowed to use their OS.

There will be the Steam Frame recovery image but with the device tree stupidity of ARM, that image will be only compatible with Frame.

You can bet your ass people will either extract the ARM Steam client by themselves or Valve will simply release a stand alone ARM client.

I’m here wondering if it will be a good time to switch over to Devuan

LOL. Do you really think that because that thing is supported for commercial distros like RHEL, it would have any impact on the Debians etc. of the world?

Intel GPUs aren’t better performance but they’re better value if you’re short on cash.

Certainly better on Linux/SteamOS

Tried it with an old Simpsons game. The result is amazing!

Is Valve’s update cycle really worse than what the typical Android device gets?

No but also yes. No because Valve supports their hardware extremely long but also yes because several design decisions of SteamOS as seen on Steam Deck weren’t made with data security in mind. Storage isn’t encrypted, Game Mode has only a simple PIN lock but the underlying Linux account “deck” has no password, so Desktop Mode (=KDE Plasma) cannot be locked out of the box.

That said, Valve will release a Linux ARM version of Steam later this year, so there is no need to solely rely on Valve for a Linux phone that runs Steam and its games.

It’s unmaintained the same way Debian would be. It’s a community repository.

It’s a “community” repository that’s enabled by default and subject to Ubuntu’s draconian version number freeze rules. Fedora isn’t. I already explained that. I suggest you scroll back up and read what I wrote and try to understand what I wrote.

Wrong.

I’m 100% right.

You can skip Pro and get the same experience you get with any other distro.

And that’s where you are wrong. Fedora etc. ship package updates for the entire support cycle. Ubuntu only for Main. Universe is left without formal support. Fedora etc. have no problems shipping updates. I already explained it to you. You just don’t understand.

For gaming, I don’t really understand why anyone would prefer slower update cycles since there are frequent updates that fix compatibility or increase performance.

Which game uses host system libraries? I think you have a wrong impression how things work in Linux gaming outside of Tux Kart these days. Valve maintains their own set of Linux containers called Steam Linux Runtimes and their entire point is to be relatively slow moving. Just have a look at all the package dates at https://repo.steampowered.com/steamrt4/images/latest-public-stable/sources/

On top of that, almost every game is a proprietary Windows application. So it runs on top of Proton which sits on top of the latest Steam Linux Runtime.

It’s similar with FOSS games where the foremost distribution outlet is Flathub and software published there relies on Flatpak Runtimes which are also relatively slow moving.

CachyOS is apparently “optimized” for gaming performance—I don’t pretend to know what that means or how much of an impact it has.

Barely any unless you’re installing FOSS games from their own repository for the reasons I outlined initially.

I’m super impressed with how well everything just works

And that’s what’s important.

Leap is two years. LMDE support ends soon after the newest version. Fedora gets 13 months after the newest version I believe.

And they do that without requiring anybody to sign up for a Pro plan. Ubuntu ships unmaintained software to people who don’t sign up for Pro. That’s a fact.

Client-side data collection is opt-in and open-source

You need to log in to use Ubuntu Pro. Obviously.

does the Fedora project even have an equivalent to universe?

No because all FOSS software distributed by Fedora is in the main repo.

Most people don’t care about snaps or the backend of the infrastructure that they download their app from

And that’s why they pass by distributions that make Flatpaks such a hurdle to use. Steam Deck sealed the fate of Snaps and handed Flatpak the victory. Steam Hardware & Software Survey shows a steady decline of Ubuntu in the last years.

Ubuntu is the most well known distro among the general public.

Not among all groups. Gamer, for example, mostly left Ubuntu behind already.

The most vehement Ubuntu proponents are 30+ olds who moved to Ubuntu 15 years ago and never ever broadened their horizon. That’s probably why much of Ubuntu’s community-created documentation is so outdated.

now I’m not sure about unity either.

Unity didn’t but its predecessor Netbook Launcher did.

Debian also doesn’t offer security upgrades for contrib and non-free. Only main is officially supported.

So Fedora and openSUSE are most superior. OK.

I can use a community for my OS?

Debian is a community.

Debian GNU/Linux is a non-commercial Linux distribution, ergo not a product.

Right, but if you’re after the level of “stability” that Canonical is offering, where are you getting it for free?

Fedora, Alma Linux, openSUSE Leap, LMDE,…

Debian is a community, not a product.

They also don’t provide those updates.

Fedora allows all updates that do not break compatibility. To update packages in Universe means adhering to overly zealous version number freeze policy, whereas leaf packages in Fedora can be updates without much fuss. I contributed a small number (only two or three) of updates to Fedora packages years ago. Nothing was a core package, only tiny stand-alone utilities, so the stuff that would be in Universe under Ubuntu, but they had new version numbers. Updates were accepted by the maintainers without much trouble.

I am a Fedora guy by the way.

So you should know that I’m right.