It's finally here! 2025 is the year of the linux ~~desktop~~ handheld!
this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
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Linus Torvalds said 10 years ago that Valve will save the Linux desktop, and here we are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzl1B7nB9Kc
He says it after 5:10
"linux desktop handheld" is not wrong.
Title: "is finally rolling out to the wild"
Content:
Ahead of Legion Go S shipping, we will be shipping a beta of SteamOS which should improve the experience on other handhelds, and users can download and test this themselves.
So, neither that product is rolling out yet, nor the SteamOS beta is rolling out yet?
(This quote is from Valves announcement, but meaning-equivalent to the linked article sentence regarding it.)
"To the Wild" as to other manufacturers. Steamos is now available as a preinstallable option to hardware vendors. Since steam machines disappeared, steamos was only available to Valve devices. There were gossips that this will happen, this is the official announcement.
Who could've thought that the thing Linux was worst for (gaming) would finally conquer Windows...
Upd: why down votes? Am I wrong? My first Desktop Linux was Ubuntu 6.04 in 2006. Back then I could only dream of what we're witnessing nowadays.
Good question. Maybe:
- Windows fanbois upset at the suggestion that Windows is starting to lose the game
- People in general objecting to the idea that single-digit install numbers is "conquering."
- Greybeards upset at a trivial misuse of compute power (games) is evidently more influential than truly worthy uses, like interpreting ctrl-alt-shift-n and running some Lisp to indent some text.
- You've made powerful enemies...
I'm just guessing. I have no idea; I upvoted your comment.
😄 thanks
I've removed my Windows installation available via dual boot the moment Proton was able to run NFS:)
I really thought it had dwindled for good after the failure of the original run of Steam Machines, feels great to be where we're at now
What can you do with SteamOS?
It's mostly just ArchLinux with preinstalled steam, booting into "big picture" ui. You can do the same thing as with any linux distro. Nearly all non competitive games from steam should work ootb.
The important part is a lot of people don't really care about operating systems, a big part of home usage of windows comes from being preinstalled on a lot of laptops. People just switch on their new computer and use it, if the preinstalled os is good enough they don't search for replacement. This is consumer device from a well known manufacturer. Before this other similar devices had to use windows, as Valve didn't have installers for steam os, didn't supported third party devices.
As the usage of linux grows with this, more (game) developers would choose to also develop for linux or at least make sure their programs run fine with wine.
This sounds awesome! Thank you for taking some time to write this, it was really helpful.
Would learning how to install arch help me install steamOS?
Probably not. SteamOS likely won't have any particular benefit on desktops over other distros.
Just download an Arch-based distro, like CachyOS or EndeavorOS, install the Steam app through pacman -S or whatever helper app they have for new users, install Proton Plus, and play your games. If you want to get into the weeds of immutable Arch, give blendOS a try.
I recommend, trying all of these in a VM first, btw. You can even practice doing a pure Arch install from scratch that way.
Anyway, SteamOS is almost certainly just a preconfigured Arch + KDE that has Steam and Proton already installed, with downstream patches for specific hardware they've deemed worth their time to patch (which will eventually make their way upstream).
Knowledge can't hurt, but probably not. Valve seems to be aiming at a OEM experience out of the box, and we don't know what the installer for desktop would look like. But it would certainly be some kind of install wizard. Arch based distros use stuff like Calamares.
You can't install steamos, as it's not availble as an iso with an installer. Holo iso is an unoffiial installer for steamos
Installing arch nowadays is not complex at all, there is the command archinstall, so it's just a meme now. If you are somewhat familiar with computers and linux, and don't call someone a "haxor" just for using a terminal, it won't be a big deal.
If they're going the unofficial route, I would think Bazzite would be the more "safe" recommendation if you were looking to get SteamOS without having what I will only halfheartedly describe as a cludged-together distro (as much as I love the project).
You can't install steamos, as it's not availble as an iso with an installer.
At the moment. But the whole point of the article is that it's coming soon.
Ironically HoloISO also can't be installed easily right now since all the prepared downloads are missing. You could maybe built it yourself from source, but I haven't figured it out...
I opened this issue several months ago: https://github.com/HoloISO/issuetracker/issues/59
SteamOS is immutable, so you can't do everything other distros can
You absolutely can there's even a command that allows you to selectively make directories mutable again. Not that you would want to. It's just arch underneath and you'd be surprised with what people do with SteamOS on steam decks.
Ah ok. Thanks for correcting. Pretty new to linux
Its nothing like archlinux.
It's literally based on arch.
It's an immutable arch variant with KDE plasma and a bunch of pre installed applications.
You can make it mutable really easy, too, if you need to for some reason. Most stuff you need is available off flathub, but some applications you may want have to be installed the old-fashioned way.
Its based on Arch packages (that are extremely out of date) and that doesn't make it anything like arch. An arch package feels exactly the same as software packed by any other maintainer. What makes arch arch is that you start from a minimal install and choose your software. Another thing that makes arch arch is that you get the latest software updates on a rolling release. Another thing that makes arch arch is that you are responsible for your system and making sure it doesnt break.
None of those things remotely apply to SteamOS. A distro based on another distro doesnt mean they are they same. We dont think mint is ubuntu, we dont think ubuntu is debian, we dont think manjaro is arch.
I only push back on your comment because people echoing SteamOS is Arch causes so many issues in linux help discords with new users thinking their steamdeck is arch linux and fucking up their system and thinking that linux doesnt work because they followed an arch guide.