Monday, November 15th 2021

Valve's Arch Linux-based SteamOS 3.0 to be Available to Public as a Standalone Distribution

by
AleksandarK
 Discuss (41 Comments)
As Valve is preparing to launch its handheld gaming console called Steam Deck, the company is investing a lot of resources into the software side of things. Powering the console is the company's custom SteamOS distribution, a modification of Arch Linux in today's form. In previous releases, Valve has been pushing its SteamOS as a modification of Debian Linux. However, that version didn't get updated in over two years, and the last release happened with version 2.195. When the Steam Deck console lands in the consumer's hands, we are supposed to see a new version of SteamOS, called SteamOS 3.0, become available for the public to download as any standalone Linux distribution.

With the release of 3.0, the company is switching to a rolling release OS embedded with bells and whistles to make gaming on Linux a viable option. All that is needed to fire up Steam and start gaming is already pre-installed, and you can get the same Steam Deck experience on your PC or any device that can run Linux. The moment this becomes available to the public, we will update you with more information.
Source: via 9to5Linux

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41 Comments on Valve's Arch Linux-based SteamOS 3.0 to be Available to Public as a Standalone Distribution

#26
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
I look forward to the day W1zz cries because he has to start benchmarking in linux as well
Posted on Reply
#27
Nordic
Ferrum MasterFor sure...

That is hilarious

How can they grow if they don't have the infrastructure to do so? The Steam Deck builds that infrastructure.
MusselsI look forward to the day W1zz cries because he has to start benchmarking in linux as well
350 hours of benchmarking later....
Posted on Reply
#28
R-T-B
Ferrum MasterFor sure... and nothing signals it will be different.
Dunno. Proton/Dxvk has made huge inroads as far as making the OS a usable gaming platform.
RavenasI've used KDE and nvidia's proprietary drives, wasn't a problem. At least on kubuntu.
If you don't try to force it to play with wayland it's fine.
Posted on Reply
#29
bug
Ferrum MasterThose are the best... making nvidia binaries more broken than they are already :D I don't even want to start whining about it... it is what it is.

At current point, I cannot even boot a stable LIVE image release of my distro, I've used Fedora for years and currently KDE+Wayland+nvidia even on nouveau cause me system freeze. I had to fall back to Gnome. So the Steam OS release kinda surprises me. Well I don't know... maybe it doesn't use Wayland and it is safe... for a while at least. But as the Ryzen 5000 aware scheduler is still MIA, putting it on the real deck HW would be a disaster at current moment. I haven't poked my eyes for upstream changes in upcoming kernel thou, maybe it is included.

I wouldn't touch Ubuntu, it had made me sad so many times in the past... IMHO Father Torvalds even never had installed it, he was joking that almost once had to do it... almost.
KDE 5.23 worked pretty well with Nvidia. And then the driver with GBM support landed and performance tanked. Like bigtime. There's a patch waiting to land in Qt somewhere, but once that does KDE and Wayland will really start being friends.
Posted on Reply
#30
Zareek
This could be huge. This may very well be just the move needed to get gamers off Windows. I'm certainly excited at the prospect of no longer being an uncompensated beta tester for M$. Not to mention getting rid of all their "Telemetry" and advertising inside the OS BS.
Posted on Reply
#31
bug
ZareekThis could be huge. This may very well be just the move needed to get gamers off Windows. I'm certainly excited at the prospect of no longer being an uncompensated beta tester for M$. Not to mention getting rid of all their "Telemetry" and advertising inside the OS BS.
If you think the Linux land is some sort of Eden, you're in for some rude awakening. Linux has many strong points, but UX is not on that list. It can be pretty awesome though, especially if Valve puts their weight behind it.
Posted on Reply
#32
chrcoluk
Glad they chose arch linux, a very under respected distro.
Posted on Reply
#33
Ravenas
chrcolukGlad they chose arch linux, a very under respected distro.
I'm trying to figure out what you mean by that. Arch is #2 in popularity on Steam stats, and many Linux usage sites have it and its arch based distros ranked at #1. If usage means anything, it means people respect the platform enough to use it over others.
Posted on Reply
#34
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
The only reason i'd heard of Arch before is all the memes on social media about Arch linux being the new Vegan: If someone uses it, they'll tell you.
Posted on Reply
#35
Ravenas
MusselsThe only reason i'd heard of Arch before is all the memes on social media about Arch linux being the new Vegan: If someone uses it, they'll tell you.

#5 being Pop_OS!
Posted on Reply
#36
Nordic
You know, selling how many thousands of steam deck is one way to make linux / arch show up significantly more in the hardware survey. I hadn't thought of that now. We might see single digit growth!
Posted on Reply
#37
chrcoluk
RavenasI'm trying to figure out what you mean by that. Arch is #2 in popularity on Steam stats, and many Linux usage sites have it and its arch based distros ranked at #1. If usage means anything, it means people respect the platform enough to use it over others.
If you look at projects like directadmin, proxmox etc. they tend to choose to only support distros like debian, ubuntu and redhat.

I manage a lot of servers, and I very rarely deploy arch linux even though I like it due to the lack of vendors supporting it. Its kind of fallen into the same problem FreeBSD has.

So for someone as big as steam to pick it, its a breath of fresh air.
Posted on Reply
#38
bug
chrcolukIf you look at projects like directadmin, proxmox etc. they tend to choose to only support distros like debian, ubuntu and redhat.

I manage a lot of servers, and I very rarely deploy arch linux even though I like it due to the lack of vendors supporting it. Its kind of fallen into the same problem FreeBSD has.

So for someone as big as steam to pick it, its a breath of fresh air.
Yeah, it's usually .deb, .rpm or .tar.gz. Sadly.
Posted on Reply
#39
Ferrum Master
bugYeah, it's usually .deb, .rpm or .tar.gz. Sadly.
What's wrong with having rpm's? :pimp: At least they don't brake just by looking at them.
Posted on Reply
#40
bug
Ferrum MasterWhat's wrong with having rpm's? :pimp: At least they don't brake just by looking at them.
Who said there's anything wrong with them?
Posted on Reply
#41
Ravenas
chrcolukIf you look at projects like directadmin, proxmox etc. they tend to choose to only support distros like debian, ubuntu and redhat.

I manage a lot of servers, and I very rarely deploy arch linux even though I like it due to the lack of vendors supporting it. Its kind of fallen into the same problem FreeBSD has.

So for someone as big as steam to pick it, its a breath of fresh air.
Your perspective is from a side that Arch isn't targeting. Arch is more of a user's platform, and not necessarily a server based solution. The userbase for Arch is very large, probably the largest in regards to personal use especially towards gaming. There isn't lack of respect for it.
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