[HN Gopher] Lenovo Legion Go S: Windows 11 vs. SteamOS Performan...
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Lenovo Legion Go S: Windows 11 vs. SteamOS Performance, and General
Availability
Author : ekianjo
Score : 101 points
Date : 2025-07-14 14:47 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (boilingsteam.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (boilingsteam.com)
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Absolutely murderous results.
|
| And the open source situation promises only better and better.
| Work in Mesa 25.2 is improving the next gen geometry, enabling
| much better culling for example.
| https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Better-NGG-Mesa-25.2
|
| And a recent organizational shift; the Radeon software folks are
| leaving behind their proprietary stack & will be working purely
| on the open source stack. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Radeon-
| Software-Drop-Prop-GL-V...
|
| It'd be neat to have a comparison like this that has some stats
| or resources consumption graphs. How many of these wins are CPU,
| GPU, or other would be interesting to get a pulse on.
|
| Info on the Legion Go S: specs on the Ryzen Z2 Go APU here are
| overall very similar to the Steam Deck's custom apu; 4 Zen3+
| cores, 12CU RDNA2 iGPU (a 680m). A (Windows based) test shows a
| perhaps double digit % lead for the Z2 Go. I'm a huge fan of
| there being a second USB port, enabling simultaneously charging
| and display. Notably has a 32GB ram model. Base: $650 (on sale
| for $500 recently). https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-
| Ryzen-Z2-Go-Processor-Benc...
| https://www.pcmag.com/comparisons/lenovo-legion-go-s-vs-valv...
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Given Microsoft's recent 'This is an Xbox' and 'Windows 11 will
| be the platform for gaming' messaging, and the demolishing of the
| Xbox division, this may be good timing.
|
| Results like this may light a fire under MS to finally fix some
| deep problems in Windows' performance. At least, one can hope.
| mlnj wrote:
| At this point, I've given up having hope for Windows to be
| actually a good experience for anything at all.
|
| Development has been a pain over the last decade. MacOS has
| it's rough-edges, but it has become a pleasure to code on.
|
| Normal everyday experience is just a pain with unintuitive
| settings pages, slow Files Explorer, and a horrendous start
| panel experience.
|
| Gaming seems to be the last thread my Windows machine is around
| for anymore. Although I have not tried moving to Linux for
| this, the gaming community seems to be happy enough for more
| and more games every week.
| BunsanSpace wrote:
| > MacOS has it's rough-edges, but it has become a pleasure to
| code on
|
| Except when Apple deprecates APIs but the replacement doesn't
| have close to the same functionality (looking at you screen
| capture kit).
|
| Or when the documentation just doesn't explain anything and
| you have to reverse engineer the API to figure out what it
| does.
|
| or how there's a bunch of hidden APIs only certain vendors
| are told about so you can't even compete on an even playing
| field.
|
| And don't get me started on the C, C++, ObjectiveC and now
| Swift monstrosities. Having fun with your legacy project when
| the new APIs require swift, so you have to use the objectiveC
| bridge and the weird bugs that comes with it.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Also Apple undercutting your business by turning your app
| in an OS feature.
|
| Or Apple deleting your app and account because of politics
| but they claim it's a policy violation. They just
| selectively enforce it.
|
| Or apple allowing foreign governments back doors.
| 42lux wrote:
| Because Microsoft never did any of those things...
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Certainly not in the way Apple does. Archive/zip
| integration into the file explorer is a great example. As
| apposed to F.lux, where Apple completely removed the API
| and app and made their own version of it.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| macOS is great to code _on_ , not to code _for_
| pdpi wrote:
| GP said that macOS is a pleasure to code _on_ , you're
| arguing that it is not a pleasure to code _for_. Both can
| be true at the same time!
| baq wrote:
| > MacOS has it's rough-edges, but it has become a pleasure to
| code on.
|
| I don't know what kind of projects are you working on, but it
| couldn't be further from truth for me. WSL2 is so much better
| than docker on macOS it isn't even funny. (Haven't tried
| orbstack, heard good things; though fundamentally the problem
| of developing for linux on not-Linux can only be solved by
| actually running Linux.)
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| > (Haven't tried orbstack, heard good things; though
| fundamentally the problem of developing for linux on not-
| Linux can only be solved by actually running Linux.)
|
| I really wish we could get back to true platform-agnostic
| development and away from shipping whole Linux-jungles
| containing the banana you actually want to ship. Effective
| hard-coupling isn't a good thing isn't my opinion, even
| when the platform being coupled to is FOSS.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| Agreed. Instead of solving "It runs on my machine" we
| just decided to ship the machine as part of the app and
| call it a day.
| zanecodes wrote:
| Docker on macOS also runs a Linux VM under the hood, just
| like WSL2 does, they're no different in that respect. WSL1
| used the more exotic approach of translating Linux system
| calls to and from NT kernel system calls, but for various
| reasons (compatibility, performance, complexity) Microsoft
| abandoned that technique and adopted a Linux VM running
| under the Hyper-V hypervisor for WSL2.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| There is _a_ difference in Hyper-V itself. The Windows
| hypervisor is underappreciated as one of the better VM
| hypervisors in some scenarios, and WSL2 uses a few
| Hyper-V tricks [0] to really shine if your machine 's
| Hyper-V isn't interfered with by other hypervisors.
| (Sadly not uncommon given how many us have things like
| old VirtualBox VMs that still need Hyper-V to run in a
| compatibility mode with Oracle-maintained hypervisors of
| the past.)
|
| (Also, WSL1 isn't as actively maintained as it was when
| WSA [Windows Subsystem for Android] was an active Windows
| 11 feature driving it, but it hasn't been entirely
| abandoned either and there is some community support
| ongoing [open source PRs].)
|
| [0] Among other things, Windows likes to run itself at
| all times as a guest in Hyper-V when Hyper-V is active
| (and other ancient hypervisors aren't interfering),
| making Hyper-V VMs like WSL2 "peers" with Windows itself
| for Hyper-V resources/attention. (It's one of the funnier
| things about Hyper-V being a "Pro" feature still today
| because even consumer-focused Windows Home is often still
| running in Hyper-V [because it's also sometimes a
| defense-in-depth security/sandboxing in some consumer use
| cases], it just won't let you configure other VMs in it
| than your main Windows OS.)
| zanecodes wrote:
| I agree, Hyper-V is a pretty cool technology! I wasn't
| aware WSL1 was still supported at all, let alone
| receiving pull requests. Windows Subsystem for Android
| was a neat feature, but not something I used regularly,
| especially since it lacked Google Play Services which
| made many popular apps fail to function on it.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Yeah, it is often mentioned that WSL1/WSL2 are bad names
| when 2 isn't a direct successor as much as a peer that
| works well side-by-side. Something like WSLA and WSLB
| might been useful to help it feel less abandoned. The
| number of scenarios where WSL1 is better than WSL2 are
| fewer and weirder, so it will always feel "second ran",
| but Microsoft still seems to want to support it for the
| few weird use cases that are left (just not huge new ones
| that would need massive rewrites or compatibility lab
| teams to run more massive suites of Linux applications).
|
| Also, yeah the lack of Google Play Services sure was a
| big issue with WSA, no matter how much Amazon want people
| to believe their replacements for Google Play Services
| are fine enough for most users/apps. Google Play Services
| is quite a moat today.
| jeberle wrote:
| My experience w/ WSL2 and Docker Desktop has been roughly
| equivalent: both a little fussy, but work just fine. What
| was it about either one that led you to such a strong
| preference?
| vips7L wrote:
| Even without WSL, PowerShell is perfectly capable. I find
| that lots of people just rag about windows because it's not
| unix and they're trying to force it to be.
| vips7L wrote:
| I genuinely enjoy programming on windows. Perhaps because I
| don't try to force windows to be linux, but PowerShell is
| genuinely good.
|
| The only issues I face are when other developers do non-cross
| platform things. Like use bash for build scripts.
| mtsr wrote:
| Anything touching disk, such as reading a bunch of source
| files is just so much slower on windows right now. From
| what I hear it improves a little if you actually go through
| the Linux subsystem, but it just can't touch native Linux
| performance.
|
| Just switching OS will seriously improve your DX because of
| the faster compiles.
| lupusreal wrote:
| I hope Microsoft stays complacent and ultimately loses the
| gamer market. With gamers out and most other casual consumers
| going mobile, Microsoft will be ever more relegated to office
| environments, making them even less cool and hopefully starting
| a snowball effect that really hurts them.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Gonna be tough when they own literally all the gaming studios
| now
| the_snooze wrote:
| They own a bunch of AAA gaming studios, which have been
| producing flop after multimillion-dollar flop. All that
| while random indie darlings produce high quality cross-
| platform hits for a fraction of the budget.
| maxsilver wrote:
| They just fired a lot of the gaming studios they used to
| own. (Tango, Arkane), and cancelled most of their major
| upcoming projects (Everwild, Perfect Dark, the new MMO,
| etc)
|
| And - while there are rare examples otherwise (like iD
| software), many of their studios haven't made a well
| received game in over a decade.
|
| It's not necessarily a great thing for the industry, but
| Microsoft leaving gaming entirely would not be that
| terribly tough. If anything, it would probably have the
| least amount of impact now, then it would have at any other
| time since 2001.
| staticman2 wrote:
| Microsoft bought the Call of Duty studios for a lot of
| money and likes to say they are succeeding at video games
| by pointing to Call of Duty revenue in a vacuum without
| counting the cost to aquire Activision.
|
| They certainly aren't going to stop releasing Call of
| Duty games.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Not any of the good ones though. The long-tail of game
| developers are where most PC gamers are at these days, the
| AAA slop have large numbers on a per-game basis, but aren't
| very large compared to the whole gaming market.
| msgodel wrote:
| Most office environments seem to be using OSX for their
| client OS these days. It's just much more behaved OOTB. The
| only thing people really need Windows for now is the domain
| controllers and goofy legacy embedded stuff.
| cobalt wrote:
| That is definitely a silicon valley thing.
| msgodel wrote:
| I'm definitely seeing it consistently on the East Coast.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| Consistently for management or the unwashed masses?
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I work at a large F500 company and I would be shocked if
| Macs were more than 5% of the total computer inventory.
| Excel alone is very sticky. Excel excerpts will tell you
| that Mac Excel is weird and does not work correctly.
|
| Said as someone stuck on a windows machine with all of
| the corporate monitoring spyware which makes performance
| crawl.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| It's expanding beyond the valley, at least I can only
| speak for the PNW which is admittedly still a minor tech
| hub but not the level of the Bay Area. My own company I
| work for included (a change driven by myself) has
| switched almost everyone to macOS, as have many of our
| peers and competitors (non tech companies).
|
| I'm also starting to see a lot of Macs pop up in smaller
| private practices - most dentist offices around here are
| on Macs, a few dealerships have moved over, etc.
|
| Windows is still the majority by far, but its marketshare
| is slowly being eroded away. It'll be a while before F500
| enterprises move over, if at all, but small-medium
| businesses are definitely growing their macOS usage.
| FredPret wrote:
| I wish this was true.
|
| But, there's a lot of business software that's locked into
| the MS ecosystem with Active Directory.
|
| Office365 is de rigeur.
|
| Then there's everything built on SQL Server.
|
| Excel is the "bicycle for the mind" for many types of
| professional.
|
| Heaven forbid you ever have to work with an IE-only app
| from 2003, but those still exist in the wild.
|
| I dream of a glorious shining day when all computing will
| be 100% POSIX-compliant.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| They need to actually hire good devs again but then again
| they are a major part of why software as a career is dying in
| America.
| mlnj wrote:
| This might not be an engineering problem. It just doesn't
| feel like anyone at MS actually cares what their users care
| for. Doesn't seem like they use the OS themselves.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > Doesn't seem like they use the OS themselves.
|
| Watch any of the MS BUILD or Ignite conference sessions,
| and take note of how many MS employees are using MacBooks
| - there's still Windows & Surface there, but I swear it's
| becoming less and less every year as Microsoft keeps
| acquihiring, and moved all in on the MS <3 Open Source
| campaign.
|
| There used to be a huge culture of dogfooding in MS and I
| don't see it anymore (granted, I'm not an insider - just
| speaking from public perception). Also see any new open
| source stuff they put out - very little of it is using
| their own stack. Good for the community at large, but it
| speaks volumes to Microsoft's priorities.
|
| Even on the business side - InTune (their MDM) will
| happily manage macOS, Ubuntu, Android, iOS almost as well
| as Windows (there' still deficiencies compared to
| competitors like JamF). Office is on Mac, EntraID doesn't
| care what OS you use, Defender EDR doesn't care what OS
| you use, etc.
|
| It's clear that Windows is no longer a priority.
| Microsoft doesn't care what OS you use as long as you are
| using Azure, Office, and M365's suite of services.
| Definitely a better strategy for them to reach more
| customers, but it does spell the death of Windows long
| term.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Actually renting office suites is kind of stupid and I
| don't think it's going to work out for them. If they
| don't revert to something that isn't abusive to their
| customers. There's plenty of old businesses that are
| still running windows 95.
| zamalek wrote:
| The problem is the bullet point features that Microsoft is
| adding to Windows (AI, ads, Xbox bar, etc.). The fastest line
| of code possible is the line of code that doesn't exist (look,
| this technically isn't true when considering data structures,
| but it's a good baseline).
|
| Microsoft would have to exercise discipline with Windows
| features, which is never going to happen: the very people
| pushing the garbage are using Macs and don't have to suffer it.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| I'm not convinced those new features are adding any
| substantial overhead. From my understanding, most of the
| problems are at the low level - things like threading, kernel
| space operations, file writing, etc.
|
| Very stripped-down versions of Windows perform pretty much
| identically from what I last saw.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Very interesting that the Cyberpunk 2077 results showed 28%
| performance improvements _as well as_ a 25% increase in battery
| life.
|
| Often better performance is due to more efficient use of
| hardware, which comes at an energy cost. Other times it allows
| the hardware to work more efficiently, like avoiding spinning on
| locks.
| usrusr wrote:
| When seeing numbers like that I always wonder about the
| probability of the engines truly running the same feature set:
| not because I doubt that an alternative implementation can be
| faster (I don't) and certainly not because I'd want to accuse
| anyone of trickery, but because those software stacks are just
| so very, very complex and adaptive and minor (but, perhaps,
| costly in fps) adaptions of the engine parametrization to the
| runtime environment can be very difficult to spot by looking at
| the output. I'd imagine the relationship between the code and
| what's actually happening must be almost as wild and
| unpredictable as what we see in epigenetics.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| How would the engines be running differently? It's quite
| literally the same Windows build of the game running on
| Wine/Proton.
|
| The simpler explanation is that Windows is poorly optimized,
| and runs a ton of inefficient crap in the background that's
| taking cycles away from the CPU and maybe even GPU.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I can imagine the feature set the native Windows driver
| advertises is different from the feature set DXVK reports.
| If DXVK doesn't support or implement certain features that
| the engine then doesn't request of it (or if the API call
| translates to a noop), you could quite easily end up in a
| scenario where graphic fidelity is lowered, accidentally
| boosting battery life and performance. There were bugs
| where certain games wouldn't render certain shadows, for
| instance, which might not get noticed but still offers an
| accidental performance uplift.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| I don't see how something like that would happen
| consistently across multiple titles.
| joseda-hg wrote:
| Even on same builds, I could see some calls being
| performed, and the translation while functionally
| equivalent, not quite computationally equivalent
|
| It doesn't even have to be worse, just different
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Okay, but it is nonetheless not a good look for Windows.
| mitkebes wrote:
| My understanding is there are two performance differences
| here, one is vulkan outperforming DirectX, and one is
| reduced overhead on linux vs windows.
|
| The Vulkan difference can actually be achieved on windows
| as well, by using DXVK on windows.
|
| The overhead difference is most seen on the lighter games,
| like Dead Cells and Hades. It's why we see such massive
| increases in battery life for those games.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| I think one of the answers here _may_ be nVidia related.
| CP2077 is one of those games with a ton of "optimized
| for/by nVidia" magic with the nVidia driver injecting a lot
| of its own GPU/CPU code adjustments into the game. Given
| the Linux nVidia driver is a fraction of the size of the
| Windows driver I've long assumed there's a lot less
| "optimized" code being sent to the Linux side than the
| Windows side. It's interesting to wonder if it is because
| Linux needs it less or if Windows is still the flagship for
| "most features"/"best graphics" for nVidia so DirectX gets
| all the attention.
| tmottabr wrote:
| This device has AMD for both CPU ane GPU, so nVidia
| optimized stuff would not be a factor..
| paol wrote:
| That would be plausible if the effect was only seen in one
| game, or a small handful. Instead it's happening across the
| board, with almost all games tested showing at least some
| gain, and many showing gains comparable to CP2077.
|
| At that point it has to be a platform/stack difference.
| kevingadd wrote:
| The CP2077 framerate is 59, so it's probably effectively
| running at 60FPS, or is CPU-limited instead of GPU-limited. If
| the graphics side of things has spare headroom it's going to
| draw less power.
|
| On the flip side, the CPU may be doing less work due to things
| like more efficient drivers / less OS nonsense tying up CPU,
| which would also reduce power draw.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| > better performance is due to more efficient use of hardware,
| which comes at an energy cost
|
| It's a matter of balance.
|
| More efficiency means less power for the same computations. If
| you increase the computations more than your gain in
| performance, you use more power. If your efficiency gains are
| not fully utilised by increased computations, you use less
| power.
| trelane wrote:
| > So, guys, I don't want to kill your enthusiasm, but this sounds
| very much like We are just pretending to release a SteamOS
| version but in fact we advertise the Windows model everywhere
| instead. Since I am familiar with large companies, I guess the
| story was like that.
|
| As a Linux user since the last millennium, this dance is so
| incredibly familiar.
|
| > In his own column, Gassee has written several times about
| Microsoft's Windows OEM License and the ways in which it limits
| the freedoms of PC OEMs. In July 2001, I spoke with Gassee to
| find out why no dual-boot computers with BeOS or Linux installed
| alongside Windows can be purchased today
|
| https://birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/
|
| > It's impossible to know precisely how much, but if you do the
| math and assume that it's $30 per computer from those various
| sources, that would yield $200 million or more than 25% of Dell's
| profitability. It could be more or less than this number, but any
| way that you look at it, Dell is dependent on Microsoft for a
| massive chunk of their profits.
|
| http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=131
|
| So, uh, good luck. Sure is an _amazing_ coincidence how many PC
| vendors suddenly have a competitor to the Steam Deck, that
| _happen_ to run Windows, and especially push their Windows
| versions.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I keep telling remember OS/2 and netbooks, but apparently the
| dream of Desktop Linux built on top of Win32 and DirectX is too
| good to give up, and accept the issues building castles on
| foreign kingdoms.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| I don't get the comparison here. Imagine comparing a Toyota
| corolla out of the dealer's lot with a highly customized Honda
| civic optimized for street racing. Guess which will be faster?
| lol
|
| Windows is a general purpose operating system. Can SteamOS run
| random accounting software from 2002? makes no sense right?
| apples and oranges.
|
| Why pick the obvious terrible choice for the category? A good
| comparison would have been consoles like playstation or xbox
| (Microsoft's gaming optimized OS/platform akin to SteamOS). Then
| if they used similarly specced PC, it would be reasonable
| benchmark.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > obvious terrible choice for the category?
|
| the same hardware for gaming is being advertised and sold with
| Windows 11. That's why.
| reef_sh wrote:
| Steam OS is very much just a general purpose OS. It easily
| allows you to switch to desktop mode and just use it as a
| regular linux PC. It just boots into steam by default.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| So I can deploy steam at any random company? or if I'm a
| graphic designer can I use it to replace my macos? is it a
| good distro if I'm working on embedded sofware development?
| Should I use it as a web server? it can after all run nginx
| or apache on it. If I have a VPS with 1GB ram, is this a good
| OS for it? or a laptop from 2011? all I'm saying is it can do
| lots of things, but it isn't built to support all those
| things. it's built for gaming. if it really is a general
| purpose OS, the litmus test (in my opinion) is that someone
| starts shipping it with general purpose computing hardware
| and people actually start using that.
| bsimpson wrote:
| Say you want to play Outer Wilds on an airplane. Your
| options are Windows or SteamOS. Which do you prefer?
|
| No one in that scenario cares if it's easier to run Office
| on Windows.
| evilduck wrote:
| The Steamdeck is a general purpose computing hardware
| device shipping with SteamOS, it's just an x86 APU with a
| handheld form factor and SteamOS is just a customized linux
| distro (but not a proprietary one). Install Windows on it
| if you'd like, or install SteamOS on any other hardware
| you'd like (though it's not really meant for this, just go
| get a more generic linux ISO)
| coolgoose wrote:
| SteamOS has 'desktop mode' which is full fledged Linux + Kde
| environment. You can use that accounting software most likely
| via wine ;)
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| I get that, I have VMs for various linux distros as well, all
| purpose-built. i wouldn't use Kali RockyLinux for office use
| cases for example. there is a lot to a distro than merely
| downstreaming ubuntu. it can run libreoffice but can it
| support (not run,support!) other workloads? I can run netbsd
| on anything, i can theoretically port any software to it or
| run a VM in it, that doesn't mean it can support what I'm
| doing with it well.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| How well does this work? I have been trying to justify this
| toy to myself. Could it act as a crummy laptop replacement so
| long as I can dock it with a real monitor and keyboard?
| baq wrote:
| Short answer is yes, it'll work.
|
| There is no long answer, it's just a laptop without a
| keyboard.
| lawn wrote:
| > Can SteamOS run random accounting software from 2002? makes
| no sense right?
|
| I bet it can.
|
| > Why pick the obvious terrible choice for the category?
|
| They're selling the "obviously terrible" choice, even
| prioritizing and asking a premium for it.
|
| Furthermore Windows has been the obvious choice for gaming for
| decades, that SteamOS seems to outclass Windows is indeed
| noteworthy.
| staticman2 wrote:
| I've had a lot of weird issues with my early model Steam Deck
| from 2022.
|
| I'd be interested in knowing how these later devices do in basic
| usability issues like will the device freeze for 30 minutes if
| booted when your internet is down but your network is up and it
| can't confirm your Steam credentials on startup.
|
| Will switching inputs on an HDTV result in the dock needing to be
| disconnected and reconnected before you get a video signal? Etc.
| bsimpson wrote:
| Considering a major selling point of handhelds is portability,
| it's bizarre that Steam insists on trying to log in when you
| power it on. Even if there are no known wifi hotspots nearby,
| it will still spend a minute looking for one.
| Daishiman wrote:
| Really amazing how Win32 is now another API that's been
| essentially virtualized out of Windows with performance
| improvements on top.
| baq wrote:
| It's the stable ABI that Linux doesn't want to have so it got
| shoved down its throat in userspace, with surprisingly good
| results and a typical 20 years in the making overnight success.
| zanecodes wrote:
| I'm convinced that the lack of a stable ABI and the lack of a
| hardware abstraction layer (requiring drivers to be in the
| kernel source tree) is what's preventing The Year of the
| Linux Desktop from ever arriving. I understand the principles
| behind both decisions, but at some point I think pragmatism
| should win out. I guess I'm just a bit surprised that no
| distro has taken up the mantle of providing these things; it
| seems to me it should be possible to build a stable ABI and
| HAL on top of the existing Linux kernel.
| Daishiman wrote:
| The problem is that as soon as you do that you're stuck
| with whatever architecture you already have, which incurs
| precisely the performance and maintenance burdens that
| Windows already suffers.
|
| Which is a reasonable design choice for many things. But
| Linux can move fast in part because it can decide to
| discard bad ABI and HAL conventions.
| zanecodes wrote:
| I understand that, but I think for an operating system
| it's more valuable to provide stability for applications
| than to be able to move fast.
|
| Secondarily, do the same issues not apply to the Linux
| API as to a hypothetical ABI? If the API changes, don't
| userspace applications still need to be updated and/or
| recompiled accordingly, or suffer breakage? At some
| level, whether it's an ABI, a statically linked API, or a
| dynamically linked API, there always has to be some
| interface between applications and the operating system,
| and breaking changes to that interface must be managed
| with care.
|
| It comes down to where you decide to draw that interface,
| and I think the ABI is just a better place to draw it
| from a user's perspective. This way, applications don't
| need to be recompiled to work on newer operating system
| versions, and given how challenging and painful it can be
| to compile applications reproducibly, and how many
| applications are only provided in binary form to begin
| with, this seems like a worthy goal.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| > I guess I'm just a bit surprised that no distro has taken
| up the mantle of providing these things; it seems to me it
| should be possible to build a stable ABI and HAL on top of
| the existing Linux kernel
|
| Doesn't that distro already exist and it is called WINE?
|
| As funny as it is to pattern the stable ABI and HAL so
| directly after Win32, it's also a hardened, well battle
| tested one. Rather than needing to design something from
| whole cloth and then get user and driver code buy in for
| it, why not just use an ABI and HAL with a lot of existing
| code? WINE is a funny answer, but it is a respectable one.
| (I appreciate the "overnight success 20 years in the
| making" joke above, too, about it.)
| pjmlp wrote:
| It is an API frozen in Windows XP days, most new additions are
| based on COM since Vista.
|
| This will work out as long as Microsoft is willing to tolerate
| it, like netbooks.
| inversetelecine wrote:
| I guess the OEMs (Lenovo in this case) still don't want support
| calls about why their game (anti-cheat enabled, fortnite, etc)
| won't run on their new Legion Go S.
| lvass wrote:
| Although you may very well be correct, Epic and Lenovo aren't
| owned by the same entities in paper, and putting it this way is
| uncalled for.
| tines wrote:
| This year I switched over to Linux and Mac completely away from
| my high end Lenovo Windows gaming laptop, using the latter only
| when absolutely necessary, and I couldn't be happier. I'm not
| putting up with ads in my goddamn start menu, opt-out or no.
| acd wrote:
| When gamers get better FPS on Linux they will switch os.
| zamalek wrote:
| Unfortunately draconian anticheat is still rife and prohibits
| many gamers from switching. Those of us who no longer care
| about competitive games are fortunate to be able to choose the
| superior platform.
| dralley wrote:
| It's already possible with a lot of titles.
| POM37 wrote:
| I personally own the older but almost identical version of the
| Legion Go and while i really think Steam OS is the defacto better
| operating system for Handleld gaming i still don't switch because
| what the article missed is the big buzzword Named Frame
| Generation. Yes windows has worse performance if you count Frame
| Gen out. Steam OS saddly had no Framegen on launch and now a
| relatively Old version of it. I think for handheld gaming this
| really is the killer feature. You get double or even triple the
| frames in those More demanding 3d titles, added smoothness for
| the 2d indi games, and the normally occurring downsides like
| graphic artefacts are a lot less of a problem because of the
| smaller screen size. Even on windows Lenovo is slow to update
| their official Drivers but you can either go directly to AMD or
| get the asus Handheld drivers instead, if you are willing to jump
| through the hoops that its. This feature which currently has a
| lot of bad press(rightly so) really is perfect for Handheld
| gaming and Valve should be staying on top with the updates more.
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