In an IGN interview, Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais said that “[they] want [SteamOS] to be at the point where at some point you can install it on any PC”. Below is a transcript of the interview. I tried to clean it up to my best ability.
Just like Steam Deck paved the way for Steam OS on a variety of third-party handhelds, we expect that Steam Machine will pave the way for Steam OS on a bunch of different machines in either similar form factors, different perf envelopes, different segments of the market, and get to a good outcome there. We definitely want to encourage people to try it out on their own hardware. We’ll be working on expanding hardware support for the drivers and the base operating system. Just last week, we fixed something that was preventing us from booting on the very latest AMD CPU platforms. Last month, we added support for the Intel Lunar Lake platforms. We’re constantly adding support and improving performance. We want it to be at the point where at some point you can install it on any PC, but there’s still a ton of work to do there.
If the embedded video doesn’t take you to the correct part of the video, the correct timestamp is 5:37.
EDIT: Here’s the written article of the video:
https://www.ign.com/articles/valves-next-gen-steam-machine-and-steam-controller-the-big-interview
As much as I appreciate Valve’s contributions to the Linux gaming world: If I wanted a computer with an Operating System dedicated to / optimized for gaming, I would buy a console instead.
I do believe that an operating system by steam for anything but the SteamDeck is a bad idea. It might leech market share of other linux distros, and trigger less well maintained generic linux compatibility - and at that point, Valve could get procured by one of those parasitic megacorps and the enshittification thumbscrews will be tightened HARD. With the end result throwing Linux gaming back a decade in favor of proprietary hot garbage.
I’m slightly worried that games on Linux will end up targeting Steam os, instead of just running great on any distribution.
And I’m fine running SuSE and Fedora. Also they run my games just fine and I wish it stayed that way.
Nvidia please make a dedicated driver team for Linux. IIRC one of the biggest stumbling block for a general SteamOS release is subpar Nvidia performance on DX12 games that can get around 30% performance degradation. Even Valve assigned a team of engineers to work on this specifically.
There is a fix coming for the Nvidia performance problem. It’s going to take some months for all the pieces to fall in place. See this video for more about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpXINAMaljA
Obvious solution: Build a D3D12 to D3D11 translation layer, kinda like DXVK but in reverse
I hate Microsoft shoving AI down our throats. I will not upgrade to AI Windows. I just don’t want to port over to a new OS because: (1) I like 10’s GUI, (2) I don’t trust an OS that I might not be able to run word or excel on because I do so much on them, and (3) my version of Windows doesn’t have ads on it.
As others have mentioned - and to add my own opinion: In terms of Writer (Word) and Calc (Excel), LibreOffice is by far better than M$ for everyone who isn’t for some reason an absolute fan of searching for buttons that have the function they need by looking at tiny icons.
There are alternatives to Microsoft Office like LibreOffice and OnlyOffice. Plus you can still use Office 365 in a browser if it “has” to be Microsoft Office.
I’ve used both Libreoffice and Onlyoffice along with Microsofts offerings. I’ve gone several hours in onlyoffice to only notice when I’m saving that I was using Onlyoffice instead of Microsoft Excel. That’s how similar they look.
LibreOffice has been so good. As a non-power user I haven’t even noticed a difference, aside from the lack of bullshit.
Yep, the browser version has been good enough if you’re not working with 500 MB excel files that’s been used since 20 years ago. Even the people at my work has switched to the web version of office.
Do it goddammit!
Cool, me to.
They have a unique opportunity here to capitalise on Microsoft’s mistakes.
I’d say it’s even more unique than a valuable competitive mistake/opportunity.
Valve has the chance to grow the brand and make a bunch of money and all the other standard goals for a company, sure. But they also have the opportunity to benefit the world in subtle but significant ways while getting richer.
A normal megacorp might not give a shit about that last part. But a company that is majority owned by one individual who is already a billionaire that looks like santa claus and presumably cares about his legacy and maybe even other people… it might just be possible!
It’s even still a valid course of action if there’s literally no interest in making the world better.
They’ve potentially found a way to make their nearly omnipresent e-commerce platform share a name with the operating system, which is coincidentally mostly developed by others. They get to associate their name with a few tens of billions of dollars of development effort for a fraction of the cost.To be clear, this isn’t bad or anything. It’s quite literally what a lot of the people doing all that legwork want. It just doesn’t require any altruism from valve. They make money selling games, and they sell more games when people think it’s easier to play them. A desktop with the ease of a console is a big selling point for a lot of people.
I am hoping that Gabe someday creates a PayValve service, to let perverts and LGBTQ+ customers to have a True Neutral transaction processor. Just a 1% fee would let Valve get a little bit of profit from everyone who doesn’t use MasterVisa - including competing game stores, or other markets.
Linux is getting too mainstream I gotta switch to freebsd /j
Templeos or ye shall be smitten
I’m pretty smitten with Linux already.
I just run headless Linux and imagine that I’m playing games.
I’m so hardcore I run Linux without a CLi!
Watching the boot log eh?
MINIX is the way
Nah, Plan 9 is the real Unix.
It’s just not the same if you don’t have to fiddle for hours to get a game to run, is it?
I thought that was the game of Linux, the fiddling.
There’s certainly a satisfaction in getting something to work in an environment it was never intended for.
But I can’t deny that it’s also nice that most games just work nowadays.
Year of the BSD when?
Year of the BSD when?
When Mac OS X launched?
When iPhone launched?
When PlayStation 4 launched?
That’s like saying that the year of Linux came when Android release. Sure, but it’s a bastardized monster clone of the original.
That’s like saying that the year of Linux came when Android release.
It’s usually “Year of the Linux Desktop” and Android is a mobile platform, not a desktop OS.
it’s a bastardized monster clone of the original.
Android developments did benefit areas like power saving, so why the hate. Android is no GNU/Linux because of the lack of glibc.
MacOS is “Unix” in paid certification dollars only.
MacOS is “Unix” in paid certification dollars only.
macOS, the Darwin layer specifically, is totally a BSD. Even with the Mach bits in the kernel because Mach itself is derived from BSD.
The fact that the origins of maxOS (OSX) is forked from BSD means nothing. Apple has rewritten just about everything from the ground up at this point.
Haiku or bust!
ReactOS, so I can go against the flow but still not use Windows
OS/2
I put SteamOS on my handheld and turned it into my main PC. I haven’t missed Windows even slightly.
Whether you like the idea of SteamOS or not, this will be the easiest way to get Linux into the mainstream for gamers. And at a time when Windows is forcing everyone to buy a new PC it really couldn’t come sooner. If Steam timed this right they could really fuck over Microsoft. I honestly can’t think of a more hilarious scenario in which Windows potentially gets dethroned.
Steam gets a lot of deserved flak for their anti-consumer practices and gambling, but it’s honestly amazing how much they can do as a company. It’s amazing the things you can accomplish when you don’t have shareholders to deal with.
If they release Half Life 3 day 1 of Steam Machine launch, Linux gonna get so much attention, probably biggest bang of the decade.
What makes it even funnier is, that steam is started by former Microsoft employees
I’ve seen a lot of folks waiting for this to make the switch, it’s silly but having a familiar name attached to it gives them a sense of comfort, and SteamOS is solid for what it is.
I’m not a fan of its whole “read only filesystem” shenanigans and wiping things on upgrade, so I switched my Deck to CachyOS Handheld, but I acknowledge it does those for a reason, adding a safety net to the “console-like” experience for most users. Admittedly that feature may be just the thing some inexperienced users would need in order to not break the thing.
It may limit stuff for a more technical user But for common folks? It makes it reliable, a lot reliable
It’s more reliable, but more tedious. Kind of like a walled garden, like Apple and Android phones. You can’t just go download random software and install it willy nilly like Windows. I mean you can, but that process is more involved. Flatpaks and Appimages are what most users will be limited to.
There are plugins and addons for now I didn’t felt limited when i ran a speech to text engine in game mode to chat more easily in games.
Absolutely, it is a huge drawback, but the good part of it is that the user is less prone to accidentally fuck it up.
It’s quite a trade-off, the more raw control you give to the end user, the more prone they are to breaking things. Of course, exceptions always apply, but in a “generic Joe” kind of user, it tends to follow that
Yep, exactly
It’s the bell curve meme
I know people (and was, once upon a time, one of them) that are really scared of accidentally breaking something. To them, being told “Don’t worry, the important bits are locked down anyway, so you couldn’t even break them” is a promise of safety. They might not strictly need it, but how would they know in advance?
(I did break things, eventually, and learned that I can fix them too, but I took a leap of faith that most users wouldn’t and probably shouldn’t dare)
I’ve seen a lot of folks waiting for this to make the switch, it’s silly but having a familiar name attached to it gives them a sense of comfort, and SteamOS is solid for what it is.
And should they be not native English speakers, they’ll wonder why the desktop is only in English, why they can’t even check the spelling of their native language. Or why playback of WebM videos glitches.
I really like my Steam Deck and actually use it as desktop PC from time to time but you can tell desktop mode is an afterthought. Traditional Linux distributions are actually a better choice for regular users. Valve luckily open sources and upstreams everything of SteamOS other than the actual Steam client, so it’s not like SteamOS has some special sauce nobody else gets.
While I generally agree with your overall assessment. The thing you have to understand is that Microsoft has largely written off home users. At least written them off as a concern. They are much more focused now on corporate, government, and AI. Whether or not home users remain trapped on their products, matters less to them. Compared to the other groups.
The recent revelations about meddling by Microsoft corporate into their gaming division, closing so many successful studios. Canceling massive projects. Without regard to how much time, energy and resources were poured into them. All to meet some arbitrary 30% margin of profitability. They’re betting in the short term on the other groups to keep home users trapped and helpless. And short term it will work to an extent.
But the time is right for valve to push right now regardless.
At corporate scale, migrating to Linux is a non-starter right now. Our IT had to explain to people where the “windows button” had gone and how people could find all their apps. Support had to argue with a user who had a hardware issue, but didn’t want to get a new device because it would come with Win11. Last I heard, a board member still refuses to upgrade.
So yeah, MS has the corporate world by the balls. Smaller companies might have a better shot, but might have a harder time hiring someone willing to give Calc even just a chance when all their training and experience is with Excel.
I hope Linux can gain a larger foothold on the home user market, particularly among those who only really need the browser anyway. If Valve can convince gamers that it really isn’t that big of a leap, perhaps that’s the best place to pry open MS’ grip.
It’ll be a long way to go still, but at least it looks like there’s some movement.
Problem is Microsoft has leverage in several enterprise categories like teams, office, etc.
There have been successful corporate switches in Linux, with even dedicated 1:1 UX skins to keep even the most poorly skilled users happy, but lots of corporations are just way too vendor locked.
It doesn’t matter how total garbage win 11 or teams gets, anyone locked in is gonna be stuck, kinda like what happened with vmware.
Microsoft’s biggest mistake though is basing their QoL and overall OS design on the home market. If they lose their leverage there, even mid size or older corps may seriously consider transitioning or trialing Linux as a test.
It’s very hard to convince leadership to abandon vendor locked deals, but they eat up anything that demonstrates slashed costs and improved productivity. If a vendor like SUSE shows up with a complete package, they may genuinely consider if MSFT takes a real nosedive.
Microsoft will dominate corporate, SMBs, government and education. That’s what they care about.
When it comes to this i personally tend to agree with what Brodie Robertson always says in his videos about SteamOS. It’s kinda silly to keep waiting for an official release when things like Bazzite exist, but if the SteamOS release helps with more people making the switch, then that’s still a good thing in the end.
For sure, I’ve been running Linux as my daily driver since… 2005? Fuck… and ran it on the side even before that. And I’ve been trying bazzite on my gaming PC and it’s been pretty cool. But I’m still pumped about SteamOS, not because I’m planning on running it, but because any success SteamOS has will be likely directly applicable to Linux desktop gaming in general.
Every game that adjusts something to test on SteamOS will make it better for me off SteamOS. Every peripheral that is built to work with SteamOS, all the user demographic numbers that set priorities withing the gaming industry, are all great.
I’m excited for the year of the Linux desktop.
Year of the Linux couch.
I am not waiting for it because I personally want to use it. I’m excited for the industry shaping power a Linux OS released by Valve will have.
I mostly agree with that, but the problem with Bazzite and CachyOS is that they are made by small teams. Distributions made by small teams might die because of some small problem, like a key member of the team being unable to continue with the project. Bazzite team, for example, earlier this year said that they would stop maintaining the OS if a proposed change to Fedora would go through, because their team wouldn’t be able cope with the change.
SteamOS on the other hand, being developed by a company with a lot of money to throw into things, is much more resilient OS, and I think that makes it better for larger masses of users.
I agree.
But as a sidenote, a few interesting facts:
- Debian is older than Google.
- Arch (2002) and Fedora (2003) both have outlasted more than 298 Google projects.
Those are silly comparisons.
How many distros have failed? How many Linux projects in general? (Since we’re comparing random shit)
I am comparing random things, yes. If you don’t find this trivia interesting, please ignore it.
This is a big reason why I would prefer a SteamOS Desktop over Cachy and friends. Also, documentation that is designed for people who don’t have an interest in becoming masters of the terminal. My general impression of Linux as an intermediate user, is a Tower of Babel situation, everyone having different procedures for how to resolve the same issue.
It’s a matter of priorities. A large portion of Linux users don’t actually care about adoption. They’re not selling the os, so the docs aren’t designed for anyone who isn’t already a user.
Valve on the other hand is paying people for documentation and good ux. That’s enough to significantly boost the quality.
I find the archwiki immensely useful.
Bazzite is downstream from fedora, which i’ll remind you is partially handled by red hat, aka a large ass company with “a lot of money to throw into things”. The bazzite developers only handle a smaller portion of the maintenance that distributions require, and really only as much as they want and are confident in handling.
And yet, as demonstrated by the kerfuffle earlier, they can’t survive if Fedora makes a swing too big for them.
True, but anything running Bazzite could just as easily run Fedora atomic instead and basically no one could tell the difference. Fedora is sponsored by one of the largest tech companies on the planet.
Guy who owns the online, PC version of Gamestop: “What if we took on Microsoft and kicked those mfers in the balls?”
if they sell easy install one/low click installs they’d make a killing.
I’d bet a lot that it’ll be easy to install. Any Linux distro I’ve tried is a breath of fresh air after using the Windows installer. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they make driver management even more seamless and automagic than the best Linux distros, stuff like that might be why it’s taking so long.
I really hope they sell the GabeCube in retail outlets. It’ll be a Linux machine you can just plug in and use. A lot of people will buy it as a console and then realise it works fine as a PC. That’s the kind of promotion Linux needs right now.
I fear for this too but because I live where steam hardware is never sold, I have to rely on scalpers or stores who sell it for triple it’s value. I want the controller (tbh I want the vr controllers, but not the steam frame) but I don’t want to pay around $2,000 MXN for it.
I have to rely on scalpers or stores who sell it for triple it’s value. I want the controller
The 8bitdo Ultimate 2 series of controllers are fine pieces of hardware. Yes, they don’t have the trackpads but they have TMR sticks (probably the very same model as Steam Controller 2) and they are even compatible game consoles.
The biggest problem is that there are four very similarly named controllers (“Bluetooth” is the highest end and compatible with all BT devices even phones) but that’s it. No need to throw money at scalpers if good alternatives exist.
PS: If it behaves like Steam Deck’s controller, it’ll be useless without Steam running and merely acting as mouse.
Why not use a reshipping service?
If all the games I had worked on steam os I’d switch to Linux in a heartbeat.
Which ones don’t?
The ones with kernel level rootkits. I think they call it “anti cheat detection”
Its crazy to me, because if these games were designed from the ground up to have server side validation, and to share information on a needs to know basis, you wouldn’t really need any advanced client side AC and the process could just monitor itself and not spy on you as a complete black box.
Yes, this would cost money up front to develop differently such that this happened, and yes it would make the miniscule server costs slightly increased (and still miniscule), but its completely doable and they don’t want to, because thats more money and no one is forcing them to.
Battlefield 6
Helldivers 2
CoD
I played Helldivers 2 on Linux literally last night
I have hundreds of hours in Helldivers 2 and I haven’t played a single minute on Windows.
Helldivers 2 works just fine on Linux…?
it does
Crappy sweaty games I do too enjoy respawning simulator but I just stick to bf one that I paid a fiver for
I am very excited for steamos, give me my VR capabilities on Linux and I’ll say goodbye to Windows forever.
I might suggest you take a look at Envision and see if that doesn’t get you what you need right now?
I appreciate the suggestion and it does look fascinating, but one of the biggest reasons I’m stuck on Windows is; put simply, I need my computer to function more plug and play as I use a lot of creative programs to make VR content. I’m not as good at the code side of a lot of Linux but know enough to get by.
I get really frustrated when I have to fix XYZ bug or configuration every time I use my computer when I need my machine to make content. Adding more complexity to my processes is just not good for me.
Understandable! Hopefully it gets to that point soon. A lot of people are sick of Windows and I’d love for it to be as smooth a transition as possible for everyone.
Valve has news for you
Well I hope the new one isn’t limited to ARM chips…
Valve also used Windows 11 on their own demos for VR streaming to the Steam Frame
I do believe they called out that the steam machine is designed to work with the frame, right? I’d have expected to see Linux SteamVR updates leasing up to this, to get it fully fixed up and tested ahead of time, though I might also have missed something…
The ad for the Steam Frame specifically says it’s compatible with the whole Steam family, Deck, Controller, and Machine. I expect Steam Deck will only be a virtual screen, as well as it’s standalone capabilities. If that’s all it can do with the deck, that’s enough for me. If it can do VR as well, even better. Either way, the frame also runs on SteamOS, so that will be Linux, and if they can’t support streaming VR from the Machine they will be crucified.
I suppose the thing I’m worried about is more general Linux SteamVR support than the streaming itself… But duh, the headset can run games on Linux standalone, so they’ve gotta have SteamVR working well. The only question is, am I behind on the news, or have they been holding back the updates internally?
I hope it was just them working out the hardware required to meet their goals, and the software required to make it work. Fingers crossed. I don’t plan on buying one on release, at least not before I’ve seen a number of reviews.
I installed cachyOS and love it so far, KDE plasma is nice. Used Linux mint before. Didn’t try vr yet because my GPU died and 1060 3GB won’t run or well but I hope it will run fine thanks to steam.
