smoothbrain coldtakes

Not without tinkering, but isn’t that always the case with Linux?

Well, the problem is honestly just Windows. It’s not designed for mobile or touch interfaces at all, and all the telemetry and crap bloatware degrades the battery performance. If you get rid of all of that stuff it’s actually on par with the Linux equivalent.

I dual boot my Ally and I actually spent time messing around with different OSes. ChimeraOS was not ready when I had initially given it a shot (around March) and it crashed constantly and didn’t have full support for things like RGB. I also tried Bazzite at that time and it was a similarly strange experience. It’s gotten much better in the last few months. I’ve been running Bazzlite on my Ally since early July. HHD has progressed immensely and offers a lot of good control over the device.

If you start off with the IoT version of Windows, it comes with essentially nothing. The store app isn’t installed, but neither is Teams or Paint. You don’t actually have to spend time “debloating” it, since it comes more or less bloat-free. You actually have to spend more time installing dependencies and drivers than removing things. Run the telemetry disabling script and then you have a version of Windows that still sucks to use in general, but is much less awful on battery life.

Bazzite is fine. It’s serviceable enough to get the job done. The hardware is supported through a bunch of different emulation tools and bespoke applications like HandHeld Daemon for hooking into power draw and managing extra buttons.

Bazzite is based on the Holographic base that SteamOS uses, but opts for a Fedora-based immutable back-end over Arch. Running SteamOS itself is going to be better once Valve implements native support for all of these things that are covered by HandHeld Daemon, at least in theory.

Due to the non-optimal nature of both Windows and Linux at this stage, they tend to perform about equally.

I get that the Fediverse is disproportionately made up of Linux users, but the reality right now is just that no operating system is fine-tuned for the hardware its running on besides SteamOS and the Deck itself. It’s not better yet, but it’s getting better at a massive clip - which is above and beyond whatever Microsoft is doing (looks like nothing) to improve their software for the form factor.

I like “Product Degradation” way better than “enshittification”.

Deleted comment was praising GitHub Copilot.

It’s literally just a glorified autocorrect and suggestion feature.

It also suggests complete stochastic garbage most of the time. When I type “list” sometimes it will try to infer that I am writing a cookbook and try to autofill to “of ingredients” or even further.

It’s an atomic variant of Fedora that satisfies all necessities for gaming with Linux, like coming with built in drivers and the option to install stuff like Steam and Discord during initial startup.

Atomic varieties of Linux are really cool, they are much less prone to breakage because all updates happen at once or not at all. They are just generally more stable and you can rollback easily if necessary.

Personally I just like Fedora, so my preconfigured options are either Bazzite or Nobara. I also prefer the stability of atomic variants. It’s just a solid base to work with, regardless of if you’re using a desktop or a handheld.

If you use Bazzite anywhere, you need to apply this fix.

I had to fix this on my desktop and laptop.

You betcha. Depending on what the next iteration of the Deck is like, I might just pick up an OLED when they go on sale.

A full install of Windows runs games fine. It doesn’t last long though. Bazzite was not working well when I tried it a few weeks ago. There are a few things that don’t work properly including no control over RGB settings.

I put the stripped down IoT version of Windows on mine. It doesn’t have anything preinstalled. No store, no teams, no xbox, no nothing out of the box. Combine that with a basic telemetry disabling script and you can have better performance. The Armory Crate app handles all of the firmware and drivers. I’m able to stretch the battery almost an hour longer.

Windows actually can run kind of alright when you get rid of all of the bullshit. It’s not going to be as efficient as Linux, and it’s sure as hell not going to be as efficient as a Linux built around a specific set of hardware. It remains to be seen what kind of optimizations MS may introduce when they build a handheld.

I remember it being one of my favored chosen out of the plethora of random third party devices I had laying around. This was a step above Mad Catz for sure, but definitely still below the original controllers.

This is a Nyko Air Flow controller. I had one for the original Xbox. It was supposed to keep you from sweating during long sessions of gameplay, because it was ventilated and had a fan on the back. To be honest, I don’t remember it being excellent at keeping you cool. I think the fan was pretty lousy, but it was a great gimmick none the less.

I had a lot of weird controllers back then. Some good, some bad. Most of them Mad Catz.

I like how part of Meer’s logic is that he’s basically inescapable in the franchise otherwise, since he voices so many NPCs as well as BroShep. He boils it down to listening to him some of the time or all of the time.

It definitely is not an optimized game. It doesn’t run really well on my ROG Ally, so I can’t imagine trying to do it on a Switch.

If you have a Gen 1 Switch laying around, I would advise you to sell it to somebody who wants to make use of the ability to put CFW on it. They are actually still pretty valuable given the fact that all of the models beyond the first generation are guarded against the exploit that even makes this possible.

If you can only install softmods you will not be able to crack the Switch to install Android on it. If you read the article it goes into detail about how only G1 Switches can actually achieve this because they are not guarded against the Fusée Gelée exploit for Nvidia Tegra processors. It continues to point out how Lites and OLEDs need to have custom soldering done for this to even work.

I have a Lite so I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

If you have an original gen 1 Switch capable of even doing this (eg, not guarded against Fusée Gelée exploit at the hardware level like all subsequent models) you will probably find a better return selling it to somebody who wants to put CFW on it rather than turning it into a hacky android tablet.

I just don’t get what the purpose is though. You’ve lost access to the proprietary primary library, which was the original reason to buy a Switch. If you want an emulation console there are cheaper alternatives as well other than the Deck, I was just using it as the de facto standard handheld.

There’s no benefit to nuking the OS and replacing it on a Switch. At least with something like a ROG Ally, you can make the argument that flipping over to Linux would make the handheld more performant and energy efficient. That cannot be said about flashing Lineage onto a Switch which functionally makes the system considerably less useful.

The Switch OS is already optimized and designed for the hardware. It’s as good as you’re going to get, and it’s also already Linux. I would much rather suggest cracking it to put custom firmware on the device based on the Switch OS; you would get more use out of the device because it could still play the games and be rigged to emulate the older ones.

It’s cool Lineage did this or whatever but it’s kind of a pointless and weird flex.

Why would you want to, though?

It’s not like the Switch is a powerhouse; you’re better off just buying a Deck and emulating.

You can check the md5 hash checksum provided by Microsoft to verify the authenticity. Massgrave gets it from Microsoft, it’s a legit ISO just rehosted.

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