SteamOS expands beyond Steam Deck

What about my alternatively acquired games? I've tried using Mint and Steam with whatever that is that runs compatibility. Sometimes doesn't work for them.

What about non steam games? Maybe I’m in the extreme minority, but my most played games are things like Microsoft Flight Sim, DCS, Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous, which not only have their own launchers etc (one of which is tied directly to MS), they also require peripherals… sometimes lots of em, that have config and/or telemetry software that is all built in windows.

That is exactly why many of us want it. We know what we’re asking for. And yes we know bazzite exists.

Bump for Garuda. It's decent, as simple as any installation I've ever had to do, comes well configured out of the box, and has a very active forum that the Devs keep an eye on and answer questions quite quickly.

The main thing stopping me is that I only use my PC for gaming, and I know the support for drivers etc isn't as good on Linux (though I know this is debated).

However if Linux became more centralised, with a "gaming first" distro like this, the graphics drivers would have a "main test case" to work with.

This is my theory anyway.

Yes we’ve all heard of bazzite and what we want is SteamOS.

I hate to go against the flow here, but I absolutely do not recommend Bazzite as a desktop OS. Surely as a living room or handheld PC thing, but not your main OS.

Immutable distros create a lot of pain when you need a package outside of the also problematic Flatpak world, and whilst there are ways to install them on Bazzite, regular users with no Linux knowledge would scream.

Or literally any other distro.

Pop is probably much easier to be up and running vs. Bazzite.

Anecdote alert: I mean, I went to Mint thinking this to be true. The first release I tried didn’t even support my (years old) WiFi drivers, and then the second couldn’t run levels in Hitman. (Bazzite did, however, so distro apparently matters)

I think that the big thing for the general public is not that Linux will now be easy to use/accessible, it currently is pretty much there with many different distros, it's that there's a known face behind it. In the general public Linux is just this weird thing that isn't really attached to anything besides the super tech savvy, so they think they can't use it because they aren't super tech savvy. By making it steam's Linux, they can go "oh I know steam, they do stuff really well for people like me! This is probably easy enough that I can use!"

Another thing that will help is a centralization of support. With enough people using it questions and bugs will be more common and more accessible as well as answered. Currently for you to find help for your issue you need to look for your specific distro and try to also parse if the answers for other distros would help you with your issue.

There are plenty of distros that have been doing that for years now

It's not going to happen in this iteration of SteamOS. It remains mostly a gaming "only" distribution.

Have you tried getting help on a basic question from a Linux forum?

No, it's based on arch. There's a bunch of polish on top of it that makes it more stable and such

I didn't think it's just Arch , though. IIRC it's also immutable.

Yeah I don't see any need for desktop use, except for making a Steam console under your TV.

You can use Steam with Proton on whatever distro you want.

It's built on top of Arch. The distro I'm using is Garuda, which is also built on Arch, and there's a gaming version that includes everything you need to play games immediately. No one should use SteamOS probably for a desktop. They should use something like Garuda. SteamOS is for a console-like experience.

Teams can run as a chrome app, I use it daily.

Using it from chrome is how I use it.

Two limitations:

• You cannot let someone else control your screen. This is fine by me, I never want someone controlling my screen anyway. If I want to collaborate with them, I use any number of better ways to get them shared access.
• You cannot control other folks screen. This is often a challenge as too many people offer this up as the only way to remotely help them. I hate doing this because even in Windows the experience is utter garbage, but sometimes the other party just forces my hand.

Krdc

https://itsfoss.com/remote-desktop-tools/

I already jumped to linux and I abandoned adobe as a graphic designer. I feel so free now. The tool don't make the profesional.

it's almost an entirely different OS that happens to run the same binaries

What?

As far as I know, it's literally just an immutable build of Arch Linux.

Bazzite is full fledged desktop OS. Perfect for beginners

I use my steam deck with steamOS as a desktop OS several days a week.

No this is a super out of date version that was not designed for general desktop use. It is specifically designed for the steam machine which was a failure. Value really needs to take this page down so people arent downloading a 9 year old version of linux.

Why is my Android copy of Balatro unable to use the same cloud save system as Steam?

I'm going to be honest because this sounds like a frivolous reason, but this is pretty much the only reason I haven't bought Balatro for Android.

It's one of my favourite games, and it's not even the price holding me back.

I'm just trying to get all of the achievements and I don't want to unlock one and then have to do it again on the computer version.

A decade or more ago, I thought surely that was what the app was going to do, considering Humble would package Steam + Android keys in the same purchase back then.

A Steam phone with Steam Mobile OS. If there's anyone that can pull a Linux phone is them.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/09/valve-appear-to-be-testing-arm64-and-android-support-for-steam-on-linux/

Running x64 Windows games on x64 Linux with Proton is way easier than running x64 binaries on arm. That said, Apple have managed it so maybe one day!

Dude off the top of my head Balatro (won many Game of the Year awards), Vampire Survivors, Terraria, and Minecraft all have Android ports.

I wonder if Valve plans to release an Arm version of SteamOS

The problem here is you'd be relying on a translation layer similar to Proton, but would probably have to be built off of something like Box64 for it to work. There just may not be enough horsepower on these small devices for that to do well.

Anbernic rg34xx?

I have an rg35xx h (just a generic square thing) and I'm pretty happy with it. I play mostly GBA and some PSP games on it

Anbernic recently released the RG 34XX. It doesn't have SteamOS, but it's still Linux.

The miyoo flip is a GBA SP form factor and it’s more powerful. It can run n64 and Dreamcast games

There are dozens of similar products in just about any form factor you'd like, including ones explicitly themed after classic handhelds.

None of them run SteamOS yet though, they're all either Android or a customized lightweight ARM Linux running Retroarch.

I had the Win 2. You needed fairly large pockets, and I wouldn't really trust its build quality there anyway.

Linux not supporting kernel level anti-cheats is an amazing feature, in my honest opinion.

And so Cod works now? Yeah, that's not a thing. Does Paladins work? Oh, yeah crap. Was GTA V online compatibility killed? It was? Oh, damn. Does Destiny 2 work? Oh, you mean the developers threatened people with bans if they tried to play the game on Linux? Oh, oh crap. How is VR going on Linux? Not well.Oh, damn. 🤔