F5F Stay Refreshed Software Operating Systems SteamOS 3.0 lacks certain features and functionalities compared to previous versions.

SteamOS 3.0 lacks certain features and functionalities compared to previous versions.

SteamOS 3.0 lacks certain features and functionalities compared to previous versions.

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treacledog
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03-18-2025, 01:26 AM
#11
To change things like what drivers get loaded automatically (including but not necessarily in your initial ramdisk), you may need to write to (on a typical distro): /boot /boot/efi /etc/default /lib/modules if any of those are mounted read-only, you can't do that without breaking out of the default configuration (remounting read-write, entering ‘developer mode’, etc.). You basically seem to get it here: Right. The only reason I used more vague and general language in the OP rather than simply saying something like ‘pacman packages’ was because at the time I wrote it, it wasn't yet clear to me that SteamOS 3.0 would actually ship with pacman on it. Have you ever used Homebrew on macOS, or pkgsrc anywhere but on NetBSD, or Gentoo Prefix? Kinda. It'll have a basic desktop environment and a web browser, and probably a few basic apps, and they'll all be real desktop software. Using it won't be like trying to browse the web on an unmodded Wii back in the day, or something like that. But unless you enable developer mode there'll be a little more separation between the ‘base system’ and stuff you might add yourself; upgrades of the preinstalled software will be largely limited to whatever Valve chooses to give you; package management tools available will probably be (some combination of) more brittle, more limited in selection, or more complex than a typical Linux distro's system package manager, including pacman; and most guides (way too many, at any rate) are going just ask you to enable developer mode and unlock the root filesystem. This is very similar to how contemporary macOS works, and in spirit it's also so similar to typical desktop BSD usage, where the base system comes as a single unit with its own, separate upgrade mechanisms and end-user applications don't really touch the base system and just try to get by on top of it. (The main difference between these two cases, other than that macOS actually enforces this separation with an immutable root filesystem, is that on BSD, the entire GUI is considered a user application. That's less Linus-proof than the macOS way. ☺) That kind of arrangement works well for many people, and if a bunch of SteamOS addon/mod projects developed around the Steam Deck to make it easier to install software with few or no modifications to the base system (so very selectively turning on developer mode, or not turning it on at all), that would actually be really cool. But it's not gonna be there on launch day, except maybe having a Flatpak store enabled. Agreed! Maybe I'm underestimating the value of this kind of barrier as opposed to others we've watched Linus hastily cross in L&LLC. Maybe I'm underestimating the value of having a kind of soft reset option, because it'll feel safer than reinstalling even though what it does will be functionally the same. But yeah, I think I'm just more pessimistic about how much this will protect users from themselves. I agree about the shitty guides, but what I anticipate is that we'll just have a lot of shitty guides that start with ‘first, enable developer mode’. I'd much prefer if the most popular guides were based around Flatpaks, AppImages, and ports install to /opt or whatever. That would be kickass. I agree that an immutable filesystem is good for users coming from Windows, especially those who consider themselves power users, but it may not be what they want . And I think it would be hypocritical and/or confused for Linus to bitch and moan when a human tells him ‘don't modify /usr by hand, ya ding-dong’ but to then see a piece of software that essentially does the same thing as a praiseworthy and novel solution a few months later.
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treacledog
03-18-2025, 01:26 AM #11

To change things like what drivers get loaded automatically (including but not necessarily in your initial ramdisk), you may need to write to (on a typical distro): /boot /boot/efi /etc/default /lib/modules if any of those are mounted read-only, you can't do that without breaking out of the default configuration (remounting read-write, entering ‘developer mode’, etc.). You basically seem to get it here: Right. The only reason I used more vague and general language in the OP rather than simply saying something like ‘pacman packages’ was because at the time I wrote it, it wasn't yet clear to me that SteamOS 3.0 would actually ship with pacman on it. Have you ever used Homebrew on macOS, or pkgsrc anywhere but on NetBSD, or Gentoo Prefix? Kinda. It'll have a basic desktop environment and a web browser, and probably a few basic apps, and they'll all be real desktop software. Using it won't be like trying to browse the web on an unmodded Wii back in the day, or something like that. But unless you enable developer mode there'll be a little more separation between the ‘base system’ and stuff you might add yourself; upgrades of the preinstalled software will be largely limited to whatever Valve chooses to give you; package management tools available will probably be (some combination of) more brittle, more limited in selection, or more complex than a typical Linux distro's system package manager, including pacman; and most guides (way too many, at any rate) are going just ask you to enable developer mode and unlock the root filesystem. This is very similar to how contemporary macOS works, and in spirit it's also so similar to typical desktop BSD usage, where the base system comes as a single unit with its own, separate upgrade mechanisms and end-user applications don't really touch the base system and just try to get by on top of it. (The main difference between these two cases, other than that macOS actually enforces this separation with an immutable root filesystem, is that on BSD, the entire GUI is considered a user application. That's less Linus-proof than the macOS way. ☺) That kind of arrangement works well for many people, and if a bunch of SteamOS addon/mod projects developed around the Steam Deck to make it easier to install software with few or no modifications to the base system (so very selectively turning on developer mode, or not turning it on at all), that would actually be really cool. But it's not gonna be there on launch day, except maybe having a Flatpak store enabled. Agreed! Maybe I'm underestimating the value of this kind of barrier as opposed to others we've watched Linus hastily cross in L&LLC. Maybe I'm underestimating the value of having a kind of soft reset option, because it'll feel safer than reinstalling even though what it does will be functionally the same. But yeah, I think I'm just more pessimistic about how much this will protect users from themselves. I agree about the shitty guides, but what I anticipate is that we'll just have a lot of shitty guides that start with ‘first, enable developer mode’. I'd much prefer if the most popular guides were based around Flatpaks, AppImages, and ports install to /opt or whatever. That would be kickass. I agree that an immutable filesystem is good for users coming from Windows, especially those who consider themselves power users, but it may not be what they want . And I think it would be hypocritical and/or confused for Linus to bitch and moan when a human tells him ‘don't modify /usr by hand, ya ding-dong’ but to then see a piece of software that essentially does the same thing as a praiseworthy and novel solution a few months later.

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