The ROG Xbox Ally is finally arriving at people's homes, and they are sharing their initial impressions of it. It's a significant moment, as the ROG Xbox Ally marks Microsoft's major entry into the handheld console market, so all eyes are on it to see how well it performs. And because it's a Microsoft-endorsed handheld, it comes pre-installed with Windows 11. And you know what that means? That's right; people are wondering what happens when you replace Windows 11 with a Linux-based OS.

Well, if one YouTuber is to be believed, we're once again witnessing a Linux distro perform better than Windows. And before you pretend to act surprised at this news, it's worth noting that the Linux distro the YouTuber used wasn't SteamOS.

Bazzite is reportedly a better OS for the Windows handheld than Windows

On YouTube, Cyber Dopamine conducted a brief test to compare Windows with a Linux alternative. During the video, Cyber Dopamine refers to the alternative as both "Bazzite" and "SteamOS," seemingly using the terms interchangeably. However, he claims he installed Bazzite at the start, praises the Bazzite devs in the final segment, and we can see him boot into a Fedora-based system thirty seconds into the video, which is what Bazzite uses. As such, there's a chance that he uses both terms to refer to the Bazzite install because it's designed to emulate SteamOS pretty closely.

Before Cyber Dopamine gets into the framerate comparison, he checks out the quick resume feature. On Bazzite, both suspending the system and waking it back up occur nearly instantly when the quick resume button is pressed. Meanwhile, Windows takes around 40 seconds to suspend and reboot, which includes a login screen when resuming play. Cyber Dopamine also notes that Windows will sometimes bug out and break the controls or crash the game when resuming, which Bazzite doesn't do.

Alright, so what about the main attraction: the framerates? Cyber Dopamine notes that when you run the ROG Xbox Ally at 13 watts, both operating systems output the same frame rates. When you increase the wattage, however, the difference becomes noticeable.

For Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, when Cyber Dopamine sets the ROG Xbox Ally to 17 watts, he achieves 47 FPS on Windows and 62 FPS on Bazzite. He then tries Hogwarts Legacy, and the same pattern appears. At 17 watts, Windows scores 50 FPS, while Bazzite achieves 62 FPS. Crank the dial all the way up to 35 watts, and Windows achieves 60 FPS, while Bazzite reaches 65 FPS.

And sure, the concept of a Linux-based OS beating Windows on handhelds is not a strange one. However, I think this one is especially bad, given that the ROG Xbox Ally is, you know, an Xbox. This is meant to be Microsoft's flagship product in the handheld space, and we're seeing some evidence that the best way to use it is to scoop out Windows 11 and put Linux in there instead. Microsoft has a significant battle ahead if it doesn't want people replacing its OS with a Linux alternative on their handhelds from day one.