In practice, there are differences, such as fan speed controls, RGB LEDs (if just to disable all that), discrete GPUs, and keyboards with custom functions. Yes, a PC not sold as a gaming PC can have those too, I am making a general categorization here.

The funny thing is that voice actors think unions like SAG-AFTRA will save them, the idea that studios will hire non-union actors to train AI doesn't cross their minds. Basically, the AI model will take the voice sample of the non-union actor and make it look professional. Nothing wrong with unions, they just aren't effective when your boss doesn't need your labor in the first place.

So instead of letting the original manufacturer know what you need from their product, you just expect a 3rd party with absolutely no spec or documentation make it work for you, for free.

When I bought the hardware (Alienware 17 R1), I needed it to do one thing: run Windows. And it keeps doing that and will keep doing that for several years more when I'll install ESU updates and even Windows 10 LTSC 2021 IoT on it (supported until 2032). The Alienware Area-51m can even run Windows 11.

It's OP who proposed that "SteamOS needs to be marketed to Windows 10 and 7 gamers as an escape route to keep their expensive gaming hardware going from Microsoft's end of support", NOT me. I explained why this won't work, considering the hardware diversity and proprietary drivers situation is most pronounced in gaming rigs and gaming laptops. Then you interjected with your quite frankly useless ranting about how I am entitled for something I don't want to do and didn't even propose in the first place. And just to pre-empt another useless interjection, I am not saying SteamOS is bad, I'll buy it pre-installed on supported hardware when I want to.

unless it's completely proprietary crap, in which case it's on the proprietary vendor to make it work (Alienware / Razer garbage).

See? This is what you don't understand: As a gamer, I want such "Alienware / Razer garbage" to work and don't care who's responsibility is to make it work, I'd rather stay with some Windows 10 LTSC than bother my beautiful mind with blame games about "who's responsibility it is to make it work with Linux" that offer me no value. Also, I am not interested in hearing your rants about evil hardware vendors not opening up their hardware interfaces either.

5.1 audio hardware is basically already recognized and used under Linux.

Gaming hardware has a special TRRS mini jack for headsets (in addition to the usual TRS line-out jack and microphone mini jack) which may or may not work under Linux. It also has the ability to remap the mini jacks to output analog 5.1 audio. I have an Alienware 17 R1 that has such a thing. The Windows driver also comes with Dolby equaliser filters that make the laptop speakers sound better. None of those three features are guaranteed to work under Linux. All you are guaranteed to get is a basic HDA driver.

Same with WiFi and Bluetooth.

WiFi chips from Broadcom are notorious for not working well under Linux. Yes, I know, Broadcom is evil. I don't care, that's what my laptop has.

Brightness and volume controls are an HID standard, supported for quite some time now even on weird laptop shit that changes by the model.

About HID, even if we assume again there is support for brightness and volume controls, there is stuff such as RGB controls and fan speed controls that isn't well-supported in Linux. For example, my Alienware Area-51m R1 has a special Windows utility to change fan speed profiles (quiet, normal, performance, full speed). Is this supported under Linux for the particular model? Nobody knows. As another example, all my laptops have RGB lights, and I want to set the keyboard to white and disable all the other RGB lights that are enabled by default. Will this work under Linux? Nobody knows. And then there is stuff like TactX macro keys that I also want to work.

Microsoft didn't do that - the proprietary garbage vendor wrote a driver / config app for Windows.

And here you are, with yet another rant about evil hardware vendors writing proprietary drivers and not opening up their hardware interfaces, despite the fact I've told you I don't want to year any of that.

Why should Valve have to take on such a complex and undefined forever-build just to satisfy you, because you don't want to replace or forego a $100 overpriced widget you bought 5 years ago from a vendor who acts like an asshole?

Because the widget still works? Because it's integrated into a laptop or motherboard that will cost more than $100 to replace? Because I can keep using some Windows 10 LTSC and don't have to care about what Valve can or can't do?

You didn't clarify whether you are using a gaming rig or gaming laptop, and anyway, people want to know whether THEIR hardware will work with Linux, not yours. With Windows they can visit the manufacturer's website to get drivers, with Linux is a toss-up. There is so much diversity of hardware in the PC ecosystem that no general promise can be made that a given piece of hardware will work with Linux. That's why Valve abandoned plans to offer SteamOS as a download and went with supporting a small selection of hardware and supporting it well.

I really hope Valve keeps working on Proton and Wine, Windows has been gradually reducing win32/win64 compatibility to the absolute minimum they can get away with. They've already killed Secdrv support (which made most CD and DVD games unplayable), and they've recently introduced a change in Windows 11 memory management that broke some games (that relied on certain memory garbage being in certain places). Proton and Wine may soon be more compatible even for post-XP games than Windows itself.

The problem with this approach is that literally every little hardware peripheral on those PCs has to be supported: Obscure fan speed and RGB controls, brightness and volume controls for gaming laptop keyboards (and obscure stuff such as Alienware TactX macro keys), audio drivers for hi-end sound chips, various Ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth drivers, the list goes on. And keep in mind some of that hardware has proprietary drivers that will have to be reverse-enginered. And no, gamers don't want to hear you screaming about evil hardware vendors not opening up their hardware interfaces. This is what Ubuntu and the like have been trying for decades and failed.

Valve is going down the sane route of supporting a small selection of hardware and supporting it well.

Never let the iSnobs forget that the biggest innovation in the iPhone ecosystem in the past 5 years was one mandated by EU lawmakers. When the government has to legally compel you to innovate, you know you have stagnated.

MBAs have their place in the kind of business that does no R&D and where it's all about "business efficiency" and "business process improvement": airlines, steel mills, railways, refineries, etc. But MBAs don't have a place in the kind of business that does R&D, since highly-paid engineers shouldn't have to "dumb it down" for MBAs.

The problem is that there are simply too many MBA graduates because too many people assumed that businesses that do R&D would give them a job. That was true for a while, but now that business that do R&D have stopped hiring MBAs (thankfully), MBA graduates feel cheated.

Android NDK apps are either ARM-first or ARM-only, any other ISA is doomed (this is the reason Atom for Android phones failed despite being stronger on paper, Intel SoCs had to emulate ARM which was slower and often led to crashes). Sure, Intel could make an ARM SoC, but they don't want to. Also, there is the issue of Qualcomm modems being superior with Qualcomm having patented certain design elements so others can't use them, so that's another big hurdle.

Intel should split chip design and chip fabrication. If their first-party fabs are good, they can use those, if they fall behind, go to TSMC.

My point is, there is a difference between saying that "everything will fail or get hacked given an infinite amount of time" and criminal negligence.

This was an unpatched vulnerability in Oracle Access Manager from 2021, not a little Bobby Tables SQL injection exploit. Yes, Oracle took 4 years to update their own Oracle Access Manager software running on their own Oracle Cloud Classic service (and I doubt they would've patched it if not for the breach).

This is like saying "all planes will crash eventually (assuming they are operated for an infinite amount of time)". There is a difference between that and criminal negligence. Oracle didn't update Oracle Access Manager in their Oracle Cloud Classic product, leaving a known vulnerability from 2021 unpatched, which was then exploited by a third-party. Imagine taking 4 years to update your own software running on your own service.

Not everyone has an old card lying around: Some people are now getting into PC gaming, and some (like me) are gaming-laptop-only for the past 18 years but want to dip into desktops. There is a reason eBay exists. Also, gaming laptop users are screwed anyway since the only solution is probably a thunderbolt GPU enclose with the old GPU in (and I'm not sure if this setup works even for PhysX). And desktop users need to have a second old GPU increasing the temperatures inside the desktop case for what should have been part of the main (RTX 50-series) GPU anyway.

My concern is that once dishwasher manufacturers find a way to push ads through the device's screen (or the device's smartphone app), all dishwashers will be internet-enabled, much like all TVs are internet-enabled nowadays. I hope I'm wrong and "landlord special" barebones dishwashers remain a thing, but I highly doubt it.