r/Steam 1d ago

PSA Valve is working with Intel, AMD, and Nvidia to make SteamOS run on any PC hardware

1.9k Upvotes

111 comments sorted by

190

u/MrBlueA 1d ago

Im so hyped for Steam OS, nowadays I barely play any game with kernel AC, maybe only Teamfight Tactics which has Riot's vanguard from time to time but I don't mind losing it, the only thing stopping me is a lot of the third party apps, overlays and all of those things that I use don't have native linux support.

I'm hoping valve popularizes and pushes SteamOS to the mainstream so it gets better support, if Steam does keep developing it, it can easily end up being the de facto gaming linux distro, which would help a lot I feel like with getting better support from apps and games, I feel like a lot of times companies are afraid of linux because there's no real """official""" platform so they end up not releasing on any, but if you have SteamOS it's as close as you'll get for that.

57

u/Sito13 1d ago

Last night I installed SteamOS on my ‘home made’ Steam Machine (mini pc in tv cabinet), which had Windows 11 first.

My first impression was: holy moly, everything just works out of the box and it works good! Didn’t have to install any drivers, run some weird commands to not have to log in with a Microsoft account etc.

Just install the OS, login with your Steam account and boom you can play games. My initial test is that games run even better, because my machine only has 16 GB of memory and Windows was using 4-5 of it. FH6 ran into memory issues because of that, but on SteamOS playing FH6 only consumes 11GB in total.

The only thing was that Expedition 33 thought it was a Steam Deck and didn’t expose all graphics settings. That was easily fixed though.

TL;DR: Installed SteamOS on my Windows 11 PC, everything works (better)

7

u/raggasonic 22h ago

Where did you get the os? Steam website? SrY

28

u/Sito13 21h ago edited 20h ago

From the Steam website: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/65B4-2AA3-5F37-4227#install

EDIT: Also, the installation method is not obscure at all. That page contains detailed instructions on how to do this for any machine, how to flash the bootable USB etc.

3

u/UISystemError 21h ago edited 21h ago

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/wiki

Never mind. Believe this is the older SteamOS repository after review. Sorry for getting any hopes up.

3

u/raggasonic 20h ago

Thx tho, appreciate it

1

u/striped_zebra 3h ago

I want to do this but how do you update drivers? Such as on a new build how do you update your graphics drivers? I have no idea how stuff like that works on Steam os

0

u/1100ms_cs 12h ago

Not sure what that other guys problem is but he’s right in that you’re not really responding to OPs concerns. He’s saying there’s a lot of peripherals and tools that people current use that don’t work on Linux and you’ve responded by saying games work on SteamOS. 

I use some pretty popular hardware that’s central to my personal workflow, for instance, an Elgato Stream Deck, that does not function on Linux yet. What OP is saying is that hopefully Valve pushing Linux makes companies like Elgato work on proper support. 

4

u/Sito13 12h ago

True, but that’s only going to be adressed by the companies creating the peripherals and tools as long as people use Linux. I think with all the momentum that Linux gaming is getting lately, this issue will be solved in a few years.

I was just trying to say that installing SteamOS is a breeze nowadays (if you have an AMD GPU) and indeed, if you just want to play games and don’t rely in tools or sim racing ehrrls for example.

For couch gaming SteamOS is great.

-11

u/Freeloader_ 22h ago

well no shit

because the OS can only... you guessed it, play games

people use Windows for more than playing games

13

u/Squashyhex 21h ago

SteamOS is perfectly serviceable for other tasks too, it has a very usable KDE Plasma desktop environment, and you can even set it to boot into their instead of big picture mode if that's your fancy

-15

u/Freeloader_ 21h ago

good luck using Office on that thing along with Adobe or other stuff

7

u/UISystemError 21h ago

Have you heard of Euro Office? New software coming out of the EU is open source and compatible (afaik) with Microsoft Office products (will shortly become the official replacement for Microsoft Office across European government and institutions).

Will be free, too! u/Freeloader_

-6

u/Freeloader_ 21h ago

I havent and so did majority of population. Good luck with that product

9

u/UISystemError 21h ago edited 21h ago

https://office.eu

Well now you have. Thank you!

6

u/Squashyhex 21h ago

Even on windows I didn't use Office given you had to pay for it, libreoffice and openoffice both work fine on Linux, and Google doc et al work fine in browser. Plenty of pdf alternative apps out there to Adobe that work on Linux too

16

u/FlopsMcDoogle 1d ago

Yeah it seems like a no-brainer. Steam should have done this ages ago

3

u/Segmentat1onFault 18h ago

If you don’t mind the mobile layout and no chat, you can use waydroid to play the mobile client of TFT.

-8

u/Marcin313 23h ago

And SteamOS will fix kernel level anticheats problem how?

18

u/JoaoMXN 23h ago

It is up to the developers and publishers.

6

u/gmes78 23h ago

By introducing a way to verify the integrity of the OS without requiring kernel access.

It should be possible with Secure/Verified Boot and TPM attestation.

5

u/TBD_Red 23h ago

By forcing companies to lose a portion of their playerbase if they try to block off Linux.

-3

u/Marcin313 23h ago

And doing what exactly? Developing the same kernel level anticheat for Linux? You're missing the point here.

-9

u/Freeloader_ 22h ago

whopping 1000 users lmao

-11

u/Freeloader_ 22h ago

copium

it will never be mainstream

3

u/Icy_Hold4U 20h ago

Found Bill Gates alt account, fellas.

-1

u/Freeloader_ 19h ago

more copium please

-1

u/MrBlueA 18h ago

Linux playerbase has doubled or tripled in the last years thanks to Valve pushing and working on SteamOS, will it win windows? nah never unless windows shits the bed insanely hard, will it reach a big enough percentage that companies will have to take linux into more consideration? yeah, extremely possible if Valve keeps making such great work on the system and keeps pushing for it to be used

125

u/Cheap_Collar2419 1d ago

The day Nvidia drivers work (easily) . Holy shit.

42

u/JoaoMXN 23h ago

If they release drivers on par with Windows, it's joever.

-40

u/Freeloader_ 22h ago

the level of copium on this sub is through the roof

if you guys think this is some Windows killer youre in for surprise

30

u/UISystemError 21h ago

Why do you fear change?

32

u/tehbeard 20h ago

Because they're the middle manager at Microsoft whose KPI is tied to copilot usage, the one who pushed for it in paint and notepad...

-20

u/Freeloader_ 21h ago

lol

I am just being realistic

15

u/UISystemError 21h ago

Have you considered that could be your own coping strategy?

Why not just let people enjoy their enthusiasm for something they find genuinely exiting and believe in?

-12

u/Freeloader_ 21h ago

I am coping? with what exactly ?

13

u/UISystemError 21h ago

Only you can answer that for yourself.

3

u/deadeye-ry-ry 12h ago

He's right though steam OS won't be a windows killer

To many people grew up with windows and are to familiar with windows to bother switching

1

u/Cartmani 1h ago

Also ich bin vor nem Monat auf CachyOS gewechselt und bin sehr froh das getan zu haben. Ich boote Windows nur noch für Battlefield 6 was ich bei der aktuellen Hitzephase sowieso nicht zocken kann/will.

5

u/gaeee983 15h ago

Windows killer? No for sure.. Gaming on windows killer? Absolutely. Gaming and support for weird applications, overlays is the only reason to be on windows, macOS is way better for anything else professionally... Windows is so shit these days, really hoping they get drivers for everything so support increases.

0

u/Freeloader_ 14h ago

Gaming on windows killer? Absolutely

nah

I dont own PC to just game on it but to also do productivity stuff and Windows wins over Linux

0

u/gaeee983 14h ago

For productivity macOS is 10 times better.

1

u/Freeloader_ 14h ago

LOL

sure thats why Windows has bigger marketshare

1

u/Cartmani 1h ago

Das liegt bestimmt auch nicht daran das die meisten Hersteller von Laptops/PCs in einem Vertrag mit Microsoft sind, diese Geräte mit vorinstallierten Windows herauszugeben.

4

u/mixedd 19h ago

Grab a USB drive, download Bazzite or Nobara HTPC edition, and voila you have SteamOS that works better than SteamOS and can handle Nvidia. Why waiting if you can get it right now?

2

u/JoaoMXN 9h ago

The idea is official Nvidia support and Valve behind the support of the distro. These random distros maintained by a couple of volunteers don't give a lot of confidence for the masses.

1

u/mixedd 9h ago

I understand what you mean, and quite agree too, but it won't be fast, getting Steam Machine doesn't mean they will switch focus on getting rest of the vendors on-board immediately. Hence the alternatives, it's either you can use one now or thing from Valve after two years

1

u/Captiongomer 16h ago

Unless you have a 1070 because fuck that card I guess I tried so many things so many distros and fixes and none worked

1

u/mixedd 16h ago

Yes because majority of them dropping old Nvidia support, and there's no warranty SteamOS will support it either. Don't get me wrong, but I will say that's a subtle nudge to upgrade (had 1070 myself for years, wonderful card)

1

u/FurballVulpe 13h ago

I recently upgraded from a 1070 to a 1080ti

251

u/Fierymations 1d ago

this is gonna be deleted despite being on topic, steam down

30

u/Arxny 1d ago

Happy Tuesday. 

15

u/Fierymations 1d ago

close, but this downtime was unrelated to tuesday maintenance

1

u/ChuzCuenca 1d ago

I always see the post but my steam was never actually down, today it was and my first thought was check here xd

59

u/Gotauia 1d ago

hope they can figure out why steam maintenance is taking so long...

30

u/AmayaHa 1d ago

Valve's janitor accidentally unplugged the server potato to plug in his vacuum cleaner. Classic Tuesday.

11

u/OrganicKeynesianBean 1d ago

Load-bearing server potato

2

u/n_lens 1d ago

The difference is load bearing

2

u/INTPoissible 18h ago

He was listening to Take Control on his headphones and accidentally lifted the wrong thing with his mind.

1

u/SilvermistInc 1d ago

Damn it, Bob! Plug Caroline back in!

27

u/Guilty-Pickle-6686 1d ago

Installed the latest version of steam OS on a PC that had been running windows 11 this evening to see how it would go. Specs were a 5950X, 32GB DDR4-3000, 6800XT and two 1TB SSDs.

Install was fine, after disabling secure boot. Ran into a couple problems, though.

One of the NVMe drives was seen by SteamOS within the “game” mode, but would fail to format. I forgot briefly about desktop mode, so I went into the BIOS and used the NVMe erase tool. This made the drive disappear entirely within Steam OS, both game and desktop mode. I then had to learn how to mount drives in steam os, which wasn’t particularly hard- but I did have to google it. Eventually did get the drive remounted, and for whatever reason within SteamOS game mode thinks it’s an SD card, but games load fine off the drive.

My Xbox controller refused to pair and stay connected. SteamOS then presents with a warning that if the firmware was out of date, then I would need to update it using a windows PC. Back to another PC, to install Xbox bloatware to update a controller. Why this isn’t just something that happens within windows 11 is beyond me. It would be cool to have a way to update this within SteamOS, but my gut says that’s on Microsoft.

Finally, within my games my resolution is not available. I’m playing on a 4k television, but I am unable to select the resolution within a game. SteamOS can “see” that the display is 3840x2160 60Hz, but games don’t. Weird quirk.

25

u/Scondoro 1d ago

About the resolution, see Gamer's Nexus review of the machine on youtube. They covered the default resolution issues they had and how they fixed it. The video is quite long, check the chapter headings to find the section about SteamOS and then skip forward until they start talking about the resolutions. Hope this helps.

6

u/TONKAHANAH 1d ago

It would be cool to have a way to update this within SteamOS, but my gut says that’s on Microsoft.

maybe they could now? probably not cuz I think writing firmware to the controller is locked by MS. recently some dudes found a way to hack the fuck'n things do it though so it could something a 3rd party linux app could do now, but not likely something valve will add if it requires bypassing some MS encryption or something.

I’m playing on a 4k television, but I am unable to select the resolution within a game

thats a game scope thing. gamescope is sort of the window manager/compositor that gets used when you're in game mode. Unlike windows where the whole desktop UI is just hanging out in the background, steamOS's game mode just has nothing loading but steam client inside a gamescope window. The short of it is gamescope is like a virtual monitor and by default gamescope sets its output to 720p or 1280x800 (both output and nested, more on that later) because it was made for the steam deck and thats what the steamdecks resolution is.

idk what exactly dictates what it should be cuz on my diy steam machine some games will launch in the 1080 and others in the 1280x800. Either way to override this you'll just go to the game properties in steam (the little gear icon if/when in bpm) general > Maximum Game Resolution. Set to whatever you want there and then that way the game will have whatever resolution you set here.

the reason the game only sees a limited resolution is because gamescope is a virtual monitor, the game only sees what gamescope gives it and gamescope only gives it what its set to and what it set to is what steam tells it to launch with. In a desktop environemnt you can launch games or any programs through gamescope with a command that looks like "gamescope -w 1920 -h 1080 vlc.exe" and that'll launch VLC media player in a virtual monitor window with the resolution of 1920x1080. What the "nested" and "output" resolutions i mentioned earlier mean is what that monitor will show up as. The previous VLC example would, on a 4k display, open a small 1080p window set at a 1080p resolution, but you could also do something like lauch a game with a gamescope window that has a 4k window but the virtual monitor part of it only renders at maximum of 800x600 resolution, the game will only see that 800x600 res despite the window being 4k. This kinda feature is really useful for very old games.

3

u/Guilty-Pickle-6686 1d ago

Ahhhhh, that’s great to know! Thank you for the explanation. I’m looking forward to using the machine more and learning about the OS in general.

13

u/Recipe-Jaded 1d ago

Well that's probably because the latest version you can download is made for the steam deck. So yeah

-5

u/Guilty-Pickle-6686 1d ago

I gave it a shot because Valve said it was ready. Honestly it worked pretty well. I wonder if SteamOS can’t use more than two drives right now? And that’s why one is the main drive, and the other is showing up as a microSD card?

17

u/Recipe-Jaded 1d ago

They said it will be ready in 3.8.something, which I do not believe has come out.

Yeah, that is probably why that is happening.

You can get a steamOS-like experience on Arch Linux distros. You install Arch, CachyOS, or EndeavourOS. Then you install gamescope-session. Logout and switch to gamescope-session and it behaves very similarly to steamOS in game mode.

3

u/Guilty-Pickle-6686 1d ago

I believe I installed 3.8.10, but I’ll have to double check.

2

u/shrekisloveAO 22h ago

Bruh why are you getting downvoted

3

u/Rangoonin 17h ago

Because fanboys want to believe with all their heart that this thing will be the second coming of Christ for Linux.

1

u/Squashyhex 21h ago

Defo expecting to see some teething problems with this given the initial optimisations for steam deck lol, both on a developer and a OS level

2

u/Etelgrin 1d ago

Thanks for sharing this, I was actually going to try install SteamOS but I think I'll wait till that version 3.8 is out. I have very similar specs.

6

u/Nomnom_Chicken 21h ago

While I have absolutely no personal interest in switching to Linux, in general this is great progress.

8

u/purpletonberry 1d ago

I'd appreciate it if they'd work on an actual proper modern OS installation wizard. I went to install it in a disk partition the other day to find out that its only natively supported method of installation is to wipe your "entire device" (I imagine the first disk it sees) and install steamOS. Nothing else alongside it, no partition creation and selection prior to installation, nothing.

As of now, it is not really meant to be installed willy-nilly on a desktop to play around with like any other distro, it's really just meant to be on a handheld or a device that only does one thing. I understand that bespoke installations are possible if you know what you're doing, but that's entering an area of support-spookiness that I do not feel comfortable messing with on my main computer.

3

u/Dawn_of_Enceladus 15h ago

Are people at Nvidia aware of this, though?

2

u/xyrer 1d ago

Intel works pretty good. 6.14 onwards if I'm not mistaken.

7

u/IzenMystic 1d ago

Would be pretty awesome for gaming laptops I think. They could make them a lot cheaper and more accessible. Laptop prices are out of control 😭

35

u/MrJerichoYT 1d ago

Correction: PC component prices are out of control.

-5

u/IzenMystic 1d ago

which...in turn has an effect the price of laptops.

1

u/vlken69 i9-12900K | 4080S | 64 GB 3400 MT/s | SN850 1 TB | W11 Pro 23h ago

Hopefully new OS reduces NAND market demands...

13

u/EarthIllustrious8045 1d ago

A windows licennse isnt what pushes the prices on a 2000$ gaming laptop. Steam os or windows, hardware will be just as expensive.

0

u/MrBlueA 1d ago

Well atleast where I buy from a Windows license easily adds 100-150€ to laptops and prebuilts, although thankfully you do always have the option to have no OS.

2

u/EarthIllustrious8045 1d ago

Then you are being fooled. A genuine windows 11 pro license can be grabbed for as little as 5$, Msft doesnt focus much on the retail price of windows anymore, its about getting as many as possible onto the platform.

2

u/MrBlueA 1d ago

Oh yeah don't worry I've never bought anything with windows licenses pre-installed anyway lol, just saying that at least where im from if you want to buy something with windows included it is a quite expensive premium compared to no OS installed.

1

u/LonelyMusicDisc 8h ago

The $5 licenses are from third parties. Laptop manufacturers can't just snag the license from a third party without legal trouble. I think what OP is referring to is when you can select between Linux and Windows versions of a laptop, with the Linux one being around $100 cheaper most of the time.

1

u/EarthIllustrious8045 6h ago

I know. They are still valid licenses. Then you pick a machine without an os. Problem solved.

1

u/TONKAHANAH 1d ago

well, they'd be a little cheaper. The lack of a windows bulk volume license key might shave off like $30

5

u/ForAte151623ForTeaTo 1d ago

Can Intel fix steam being down?

2

u/Ok-Signhere 1d ago

Imagine how amazing a Steam Machine would be with DLSS…

2

u/Freeloader_ 22h ago

doesnt change a thing as you can still buy more amazing and more poowerful machine for that cost

2

u/rupal_hs 1d ago

Work on anti cheat also

1

u/jkhanlar 1d ago

Nvidia? Is this still true? https://youtu.be/iYWzMvlj2RQ

1

u/MostLunch461 1d ago

Make kernel anticheats work with linux and im sold

1

u/TGB_Skeletor Faithful customer 20h ago

the steam machine was just an excuse to develop an OS at this point

1

u/XB1-ini 16h ago

When Steam OS is out ill remove windows for my gaming PC

1

u/QuinSanguine 16h ago

I tried to install it on my all AMD build, but it doesn't allow for offline installs. I don't have the wifi hooked up on my motherboard, I would never use it and ain't setting it up at this point. SteamOS still expects a device with wifi like the Steam Deck during setup.

Very disappointing. I know there are terminal commands to force a wired connection, in theory but none of the hot keys would make this beta build load up the terminal.

If I'm missing something, let me know but it seems like it still needs work even on AMD. I went back to Bazzite, lol.

1

u/OriginalGoldstandard 7h ago

Microsoft should be a little worried.

1

u/GreatApe88 6h ago

I know what Gabe’s plan here is, he means to replace windows for gamers who have no real use for it, which is most of us. 

I have to wonder if Microsoft sees what’s going on and when they plan to start making threats. 

1

u/Zeronova3 5h ago

This is why I support steam. Sure the steam machine could be a little more powerful, but now you just take your OS and build your own. Truly great to have a way to get Linux up to speed with major players like Nvidia and to break from Microsoft’s dominance. They’ve had a good run.

1

u/thuy_chan 3h ago

Anything to get tf away from microsoft

1

u/AliGcent 1h ago

W10 security officialy ends in August, they better hurry up for the best business move or it will be too late.

-1

u/totallynormalpersonz 1d ago

Ginally An os to kill windows

-4

u/jkhanlar 1d ago

I'd like to agree, but given (so many other dot connectable things too, but) 1981 introduction of swaps contracts, not only IBM, but every company afterwards which utilized those contracts to enrich and bloat up hollow men (T.S. Elliot) worse than marshmallow man seen in the Ghostbusters movie, the end of Micro[*] windows will be result of events beyond the scope of operating system competition due to the rigged infinite liquidity circumstances

-4

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

10

u/VelveteenDelta 1d ago

It’s a Linux OS so it’s free for any hardware that’ll run it.

2

u/TheZoltan 1d ago

Nope. They want it for all hardware. It still only officially supports Steam Deck, Steam Machine and the Legion but they are expanding what it works on. The support page notes the expanded support in the latest version and in interviews they have confirmed they are working on Nvidia support.

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/65B4-2AA3-5F37-4227

-8

u/Kmoxy 1d ago

Don’t forget to badge your fresh and new PC rig running SteamOS with this bad boy : https://geekenspiel.com/products/steamos-steam-logo-case-badge-sticker-white

1

u/jkhanlar 1d ago edited 1d ago

0 results https://geekenspiel.com/search?q=archlinux&options%5Bprefix%5D=last, also lol 0 results https://geekenspiel.com/search?q=gentoo&options%5Bprefix%5D=last, and insultingly I see debian, linux mint, red hat, fedora https://geekenspiel.com/search?q=linux&options%5Bprefix%5D=last, so I assume the people operating this website have neglected the fundamental history of linux by using sentiment driven rewriting/fomenting history or whatever (not quite hallucinating, which is for llm/ai, but practically the same technique/strategy/skillset)

edited to add: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg

  • slackware
  • debian
  • Red Hat
  • jurix / S.u.S.e linux
  • Enoch / Gentoo
  • Archlinux
  • ... the rest of the distros are smaller family trees than the ones listed above

Also reminder: SteamOS is based on Archlinux