I’m considering getting one. I currently have a nearly silent computer working as a HTPC but I can’t play games on it. I can get around that with Steam Link, but that isn’t ideal. So, it would be an upgrade that would let me play games on my living room TV without needing to tie up the gaming computer.
The other thing it looks ideal for is a travel computer. Gaming laptops suck. Often they’re absurdly expensive. When they’re decently powerful, they’re almost always obscenely loud. That fan whine really bothers me. Plus, they almost always have major Linux compatibility issues. The current laptop I’m using with Linux has weird driver quirks. Like, for example, to re-enable WiFi after it goes to sleep I need to wake it up from sleep, turn on airplane mode and then turn it off again. Only then will the WiFi work again. And getting an external monitor to work after sleep… ugh.
Also, I think it’s easy to underestimate the value of what is effectively a Linux gaming console. I’m almost exclusively a PC gamer these days, but one thing I always appreciated about consoles is that you never had to ask “will this game run well on my console?” 99.9% of the time, if a game was released for a console, it was optimized for that console. Even when a game was multi-platform like say FIFA, each console got a build that was as good as possible for that console. For PC games, I think that means most developers will have a Gabecube and ensure all their games run as well as possible on it. The fact that it’s Linux-first is also important to me. It means any drivers or software updates will be tested and optimized on Linux. It won’t be an afterthought like it is most of the time.
So, this machine is nearly silent, runs Linux, and plays most of the games in my Steam library. It’s expensive, but maybe it’s worth it?
I’m considering getting one. I currently have a nearly silent computer working as a HTPC but I can’t play games on it. I can get around that with Steam Link, but that isn’t ideal. So, it would be an upgrade that would let me play games on my living room TV without needing to tie up the gaming computer.
The other thing it looks ideal for is a travel computer. Gaming laptops suck. Often they’re absurdly expensive. When they’re decently powerful, they’re almost always obscenely loud. That fan whine really bothers me. Plus, they almost always have major Linux compatibility issues. The current laptop I’m using with Linux has weird driver quirks. Like, for example, to re-enable WiFi after it goes to sleep I need to wake it up from sleep, turn on airplane mode and then turn it off again. Only then will the WiFi work again. And getting an external monitor to work after sleep… ugh.
Also, I think it’s easy to underestimate the value of what is effectively a Linux gaming console. I’m almost exclusively a PC gamer these days, but one thing I always appreciated about consoles is that you never had to ask “will this game run well on my console?” 99.9% of the time, if a game was released for a console, it was optimized for that console. Even when a game was multi-platform like say FIFA, each console got a build that was as good as possible for that console. For PC games, I think that means most developers will have a Gabecube and ensure all their games run as well as possible on it. The fact that it’s Linux-first is also important to me. It means any drivers or software updates will be tested and optimized on Linux. It won’t be an afterthought like it is most of the time.
So, this machine is nearly silent, runs Linux, and plays most of the games in my Steam library. It’s expensive, but maybe it’s worth it?