Well, the Fedora Release Party just ended and I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to write about some of the ideas that sparked during the hallway talks and some other things I, as a tech journalist, see on the horizon.
First, the boom of handheld computers since last year, when the Steam Deck changed the whole game and started this slow-but-steady-burn Linux gaming revolution. Then again, even if ASUS, AyaNeo and even Lenovo launched their handhelds, the one in the spotlight was the Steam Deck and we’re sure SteamOS is to thank for that level of usability (or something like Batocera). Windows became the burden that makes these handhelds not-so-usable. So the question was on the table: What if there’s a Fedora-based handheld in the market?
Right there, @mpearson jumped int with @dherrera and @ngompa. He already asked his colleagues at Lenovo for a Legion Go so he could tinker with it, with no response so far (looks like the Legion team is not that friendly towards Linux).
The idea is in the air: A Legion Go with Fedora Silverblue (I know @ngompa will gravitate to Kinoite, but I’m a GNOME guy) and a fork of the Steam GUI for handheld usability. Maybe, since most handhelds are based on more-or-less the same AMD chips, an Inmutable Fedora Handheld spin that can be used on any gaming-oriented system (like the SteamOS that was promised and not delivered so far).
Then it hit me: These AMD chips might be just a transit phase. Because, as far as I know, 2024 will be a ARM’s race. Not just Qualcomm with the Snapdragon X-Elite but Nvidia and AMD are in the works making a computer-oriented ARM-based processor. And giving the fact that ARM is becoming Windows’s Kryptonite, Fedora already has ARM-based branch and the Asahi-Fedora Remix just around the corner, what if we have this ARM-based Handheld-oriented Inmutable spin ready when the ARM-based handhelds arrive? (Because they will come… sooner than we think).
So, what do you think?