Its only one LTS Version behind, but its still very usable. I have confidence that COSMIC is going to be just as easy to use as Pop!_OS is now. This gives them an opportunity to make even more changes that will improve the end user experience. The System76 team knows what they are doing and won’t release a busted product.

Pop!_OS is built different than other distros, I only had to apply 1 tweak and was minor AF. Honestly, if they were up to date with Ubuntu, I’d still be using that banger distro. First they must build COSMIC, their Rust based DE.

With tweaking, I’m sure most games would be just fine running on the Steam Deck. It’s just a matter of figuring out the right settings.

I find older Windows games have the most issues like Oblivion or Morrowind if you install the stock standard GOTY. However, there’s an open version of Morrowind that can be run via Lutris its just a bitch to get Lutris to work. Persistence is key.

Gaming on Linux has drastically improved. I’m still cautious about buying non-native games and running them via Proton, but I am no longer worried about not having access to cool games! Proton is one of the best innovations that Valve came out with thanks to their Steam Deck. It makes non-native games feel like native titles, most of the time my save data is intact, and I can just pick up where I left off. It’s rare that I can’t use an older save if I am using Proton to play a game.

Until they can protect the hinge better, I wouldn’t be able to purchase one of these over a slab style phone. A grain of fine sand would ruin this phone’s life. I’m waiting on the time when foldable devices improve drastically enough for me to get one.

Thank goodness I switched to Apple before this nonsense got deployed; their Apple Intelligence is opt-in and not being forced on users. Google and Microsoft truly botched the deployment of their LLM experiments by forcing it into first party apps and not giving users a choice.