Shower thought: Valve could do the ultimate boss-move this year
from cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de to gaming@beehaw.org on 12 May 05:56
https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/36195621
from cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de to gaming@beehaw.org on 12 May 05:56
https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/36195621
If Valve really wanted to make a splash, they could release a desktop version of SteamOS in October, right when support for Windows 10 ends. For additional damage, they could bundle in Half-Life 3. Just imagine the coverage this would get.
threaded - newest
What do people expect out of a desktop SteamOS that they can't already get from any other distro?
Brand recognition. Which apparently is the only thing that matters these days.
For the average technology user yes. Software needs to come packaged in a way people recognise and can use without much setting up needed. I know there are many distros out there that do this. The average person using a computer however does not.
not going to be a steam OS user, but its less what you can’t, and more that any changes that valve patches in via their efforts on AMD drivers, users would get it first and without any fuss.
One example is HDR support. various distros and DEs kinda sat on HDR for the longest time, with mixed results on implementation. Valve just walks in and implements it.
Yeah but Valve also made that open source at the same time.
and even while open source, its implementation on various DE is still spotty, which is kinda the point.
A plug and play system.
It needs to be at least as easy as Windows to install and have good support.
Extra bonus points if they preinstall/bundle it on gaming PCs.
Both of these are possible with many other distros.
Sounds like you just described Bazzite.
Easy, streamlined support
Approachability. Valve is a recognizable name and the Steam Deck is notoriously usable in the sea of Linux uncertainty.
Before you say “Linux is totally usable, just look at <examples>” the first question people are prompted with is “What distribution do you want to install?” and there is no singular place that says “this is what you want for this specific use case.”
Valve is not the first name in Linux gaming, but they are a known and trusted name. It’s not just about brand recognition but about trusting a name to guide you through something brand new and extremely daunting. For the vast majority of PC gamers, SteamOS offers a guided introduction to something that previously was stereotyped as complex and difficult to learn.
Is it the best distro? Probably not, but then again it’s extremely easy to migrate from SteamOS to something else when someone discovers they want something else. Until they understand enough about Linux to find that they want something else, SteamOS is currently one of the best ways to get them there
Plus, Valve is known for technical things!
It’s very usable for a handheld gaming platform. It really isn’t any better for a desktop platform. The thing that makes it so usable is that you boot it and it boots into Steam Big Picture, and you don’t see the desktop. Most users never will. Is that how people are going to want their desktop to work though? Probably not. They probably don’t want to only use Steam. They probably want to use other applications too.
I don’t think it’s about having extra functionality to no one else has.
SteamOS is more restrictive than other distros out of the box. A user with no experience whatsoever would have a harder time messing things up because rootfs is RO and gets wiped on every update. Kinda forces the average user into using flatpak/Discover to mimic Windows and Apple app stores. In other words, it’s all about the psychology, not the distro itself.
Not to mention there is an actual company with an incentive to maintain the distro, with a massive focus on gaming. They have a ton of testing resources that a lot of distro maintainers do not have in that regard.
Having said all that, installing a distro other SteamOS on my Steam Deck was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve been using Linux for 32 years, I do not like SteamOS because they are trying to make it dumb for general consumption. Similar reasons why I despise Windows, besides the whole being owned by Microsoft thing.
I would probably use it over bazzite for my HTPC, but yeah, I don’t recommend either for a daily driver PC.
Isn’t SreamOS already available for download? It has been for months actually… What do you mean by “release a desktop version of SteamOS”?
SteamOS has been available for years but no general purpose desktop release as of yet. Or anytime in the near future.
That’s a different iteration of SteamOS than the current Arch-based immutable image the Deck uses.
Yes there’s a new iteration every few weeks
Right, but it’s a different distro than the one being referred to here. I know because I made the same mistake.
That one is based on Debian and has existed since 2013. The version on Steam Deck is Arch-based immutable and has not been publicly released yet (EDIT: For anything besides Steam Deck).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SteamOS#Releases_and_perfor…
The current Arch-based immutable SteamOS distro is and has been publicly available for years.
Like the wiki says:
So OK sure, but you can literally only use it on the Steam Deck which already comes with it pre-installed.
I clarified my previous comment.
Yes, as I said in my initial comment, there is no general purpose release.
It’s not true that you can “literally only use it on Steam Deck” either, lots of people have already demonstrated it working fine on a wide variety of devices. It’s just not intended for that purpose.
The new version on the Steam Deck isn’t available - the old version of course is, but you might as well use Bazzite.
I dont think Valve would bother trying to convert people to Linux - regardless of where people’s OSes are, they are the gaming store. Plus, Valve really doesn’t think developers should develop Linux native ports, so I dont think they’re really push people to use Linux - just use whatever you want and play shit with Proton if needed.
If they wanted to “make a splash” they could have released it 3 years ago. I don’t know what they’re waiting for. With the launch of Steam Machines it was made available to everyone on day 1.
They are actively monitoring for “HL3 confirmed” and adds a hour to the release time for each they find.
The current release date is in the year 252525.
That’s dumb. The only technology in 252525 will be a rusty sword for practicing proctology.
I heard we don’t even need our eyes by 4545 and in 5555 our arms are going to be limp. Guess the game is going to run all in our brains.
In the year 9595 I’m kinda wonderin’ if man is gonna be alive
Likely not tbh. At least not in any way we currently understand a human to be.
You think that’s bad, wait for the giraffes.
That won’t be for another 747475,5 years, worry about that later.
It’s not as simple as just releasing something. They need to develop it first, and making it a good experience with arbitrary hardware is actually pretty hard.
Not hard enough that it hasn’t already been done for years by volunteers with zero budget.
There is no distro that supports arbitrary hardware as well as SteamOS supports the Steam Deck.
There are several.
Really? Which distro has a button I can press to open a menu to change the power budget on my Ryzen 5 5600? Which distro has everything configured for me to be able to use my VKB joysticks without needing to mess with the registry in the proton prefixes of Windows games?
Bazzite. Chimera. Nobara. HoloISO?
Lol, I’d be surprised if they could do either of those things, let alone both. I know Bazzite can’t; I have it on my laptop and that shit can’t even update itself properly.
Roflcopter, they can do both of those things.
Power levels are changed via the quick access menu and input options are configured via Steam input, which doesn’t even have anything to do with the distro in question, it’s part of the Steam client.
Steam input doesn’t work with VKB joysticks, lol.
edit: figured out how to open the quick access menu on my laptop and I can’t change my power levels. So yeah, as I suspected Bazzite can’t do either of those things. I doubt any other distro can either.
Let’s say it’s not true, Valve can choose to release a distro that is mostly-complete and add additional features later or they can update it in secret for some strange reason while sitting on it…?
It’s not simply “some strange reason”. There will be a lot of press coverage when they release a desktop version so naturally they want it to be as good an experience as possible. They may not ever get another chance for that kind of coverage after all, and they wouldn’t want SteamOS’s reputation to be damaged (again) because it wasn’t good enough for most people to use (again).
The other distros I already mentioned are already more than “good enough for most people to use”. So I disagree.
OP clearly overestimates how many people would use SteamOS or any other Linux distro for that matter. Most users are casual gamers these days, they are not changing OS just because there is a forced Windows update.
I don’t know, I think you’re clearly underestimating how many people would install Valve’s OS. The number of people with a Steam Deck that don’t know that what it’s running is a Linux distro is pretty high. The other piece to this is that it’s not just a forced Windows update for a huge chunk of users, it’s a forced device upgrade. Valve offering a free upgrade that negates the need to buy new hardware would absolutely capture people’s attention.
Yes and no, people can still use win10, it just won’t receive patches anymore. And in this particular case, my best guess is, that most people would rather use and outdated OS for a long time, rather than changing the OS altogether. Not every game is on steam, also not every non game programm is easily available for Linux. Humans are lazy.
I don’t disagree in principle, but from what I’ve heard the full screen “buy a new computer” pop-ups are pretty bloody annoying!
You’re forgetting that valve can also drop support for EOL versions of windows, which so far they have.
True, but for example for Win7 they dropped support last year I think. So quite some time.
I think that was them drawing a line on eol windows. They cut both 7 and 8.1 at the same time. Could just be the policy now.
Part of me wants them to take the opportunity to push people to switch to Linux, the other part of me thinks that will be perceived no differently from msft’s badgering about win11.
That would be quite the power move, but unfortunately Steam doesn’t hold that much power alone, I think. There are still enough games that are not on Steam. As of today , Microsoft is the biggest games publisher (with Bethesda, Blizzard, Obsidian, ID, Mojang etc. belonging to them) and there are also giants like LoL or Fortnite.
It’s hard to say. I agree, it seems like the MAU data for each of League and Fortnite is roughly the same as MAU for all of Steam (which is nuts). Of course there’s no way to know how much overlap is there. Still, both of these titles would be a hard stop for people deciding whether to switch to Linux.
As for msft themselves though, ironically I don’t know what titles they have that keep players on windows. Battle.net works on Linux, Minecraft Java ed works on Linux (not sure about bedrock ed compatibility or player count, but afaik most of those players are on non-PC platforms), all their zenimax titles are sold through steam and work great on Linux. CoD might be their biggest hold.
I disagree on number of games, but I agree on player count. The number of PC games that are not on steam (or don’t work on linux) is tiny these days. But the number of PC gamers who don’t need steam, or need something that doesn’t run on linux is probably still quite high. Still, even if valve was able to push a few % of PC gamers to Linux, that would be huge. We’re currently at 2% on Linux in steam surveys. I could see a power move by valve around win10 eol bringing that closer to 10%.
Yeah that’s true, I think the biggest hurdle are games that use anticheat that don’t work on Linux, which are afaik usually multiplayer games. So they might be able to pull gamers, that only play Singleplayer games.
This isn’t about people not wanting to use Windows 11 this is about people not wanting to purchase a new computer
They don’t have to purchase anything if they just keep using an unsupported OS.
Most people don’t care enough to change.
They are if they can’t afford a new computer.
Windows 10 won’t just stop working. I still see businesses rocking Windows Vista occasionally.
No one is trying to play games on those vista machines, though. Valve pulled steam support for win 7 and 8.1 over a year ago because they were EOL. If they also pull support from win 10 once it’s EOL, then people will need to make a change to keep playing their games. If msft refuse to support existing hardware with win11, then many people will be forced to choose between buying a new laptop/PC, or trying Linux.
They won’t stop supporting 10 unless its use drops significantly. They’d not shoot themselves in the foot.
.
SteamOS would be a particular poor choice as a desktop operating system compared to basically any other Linux distribution. It uses an immutable file system and reverts all system changes upon every update. That’s nice if you don’t want to fuck up your handeheld gaming device with some dumb changes, but it’s generally not what you will want on a device you use for all kinds of things. Of course, with some effort you can work around this, but then, why don’t use a system that doesn’t just use such a paradigm in the first place and won’t roll back your workaround to make it usable with the next update?
I’d personally prefer to have an OS dedicating to playing, one I can’t broke by installing too many stuff or, on the hand, I could reinstall quickly without having to reinstall all the other stuff (printer, cloud syncing, etc…)
So having a multi-boot for gaming and regular (although rare) computer use. There’s a good chance I’ll still sadly have a Windows boot option for some multiplayer online games (anticheat 😐)
I use Bazzite on my main laptop (basically SteamOS) and it’s fantastic.
It’s really not that difficult to learn his immutable works, and it’s really not that limited at all, just different.
Hows it work with rtx(looks supported now?) and vr? last time i tried and said i had nvidia it said “Go away!”
I use AMD and have not tried VR, so I cannot say.
Fedora bluefin is a much bigger project and a much larger paradigm shift in how Linux distros can be understood than what you make out to be. Tweaking system files might be a good choice for users who need to go beyond what comes with the standard, but it’s not something a wide majority of users will or should need.
When you can easily spin up virtual operating systems with distrobox, you never need to. You might, for some hardware support reasons, need to layer in some additional packages, but I’m curious how true even that is.
Not true. Steam OS is not the only immutable distro. Lots of people actually prefer that for their desktops.
As someone who uses my desktop for gaming (and maybe web browsing) exclusively, and as someone mildly but not very familiar with OSes, I read this as “SteamOS is bad because of reason I personally don’t like that many people don’t understand, so do more research about Linux”
The barrier to Linux as an OS is not how good it is but how understandable it is. After Pewdiepie’s video went up I’m confident the search phrase “Linux OS download” skyrocketed in popularity because people don’t know let alone understand what a distribution is.
SteamOS is a great intro to Linux for the majority of PC gamers because it’s not only basically ready to use as soon as you boot it up, but also because it is being maintained by a team of people intent on making it the optimal PC gaming platform.
Once Windows users are introduced to a basic Linux experience why not let them take their time learning more about the variables in distros?
Maybe SteamOS is not the perfect distribution because <list your gripes here> but is there a perfect distribution?
Maybe you don’t understand it, but that doesn’t mean you don’t rely on it. If I said an OS was unusable by 99% of people because it didn’t support multithreading, it doesn’t matter if 99% of people know what multithreading is, that’s clearly a true statement. Similarly, if you’ve ever expected your PC to have the same files on it tomorrow that you put on it today, then you might find it annoying when that’s not the case.
It’s easy to dismiss this as something that won’t ever matter to you, but this is something that can cause problems in all sorts of ways even for gamers. The first thing that came to mind is not being able to install custom drivers to support weird hardware, like a racing wheel or something.
I’m not vouching for SteamOS as a permanent OS. I’m just defending the strengths of a corporation-maintained distribution of Linux as an introduction to Linux, of which I think SteamOS has many. After being introduced, I think more people will get curious about other things they can do with Linux. It’s really just that starting hump that people need to get over
Btw I appreciate the brief explanation. I was actually having trouble with that sort of thing myself on Bazzite the other day and I was curious why SteamOS differed from Fedora on some specific things.
It doesn’t revert things stored in /home according to my experience, that’s good enough for most users
Yeah anything I put in /home has always stayed there, and things like customizations to KDE and whatnot always persist. I’m sure it changes a bunch of system files being an immutable OS, but I really don’t think it’d be anything a layperson coming fresh from Windows would ever really notice.
I see all of these “Why SteamOS and why not another distro?” comments and it kinda blows me away how much the idea of approachability designed by a trusted name seems like a foreign concept here.
Then again, we’re talking about Linux fanatics who probably also argue over whether emacs, vim, or vi are the best text editor lol
real linux users don’t need a graphical session!!! everything can and should be done on the terminal!
/s
I love running Elden Ring in the terminal. Hells yeah, foul tarnished
the ASCII graphics are stunning, aren’t they?
You guys are getting graphics? Mine is just a Matrix-style series of special characters.
That’s called dwarf fortress
VIM is the best because once you try it you are unable to quit.
Just like meth! :D
I keep seeing this, is it actually hard to close? Surely Linux has a version of alt f4, does that also fail?
Alt + F4does not fail to quit the terminal window where Vim is running in if that shortcut is configured so. But if that terminal has other things going on in it, they’ll be closed as well. It’s like demolishing a house to undo some text written on a fridge note, albeit exaggerated.If Vim is not running in a terminal window, then that shortcut will indeed fail and users without knowledge of the commands below become stuck, sometimes to the point of a hard reboot.
Vim Cheat Sheet
- -
✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.
It’s actually
ed.Those editors are toys. Use something with real power. Use nano.
edlin or bust
Nano’s a knockoff, use pico.
Nano is the one true fork.
Fuck. I would have to seriously consider that if they did. But imagine valve running kernel design and security support. There’s no way they would do that as a competitive alternative to Windows. None. No way. It would ruin them and so much of what makes them special and a positive influence to everything.
Valve wouldn’t be running kernel design. SteamOS is just a heavily modified version of Arch. Arch runs the kernel design and security, while Steam just runs on top of it.
Reminder that supporting a single GPU is a lot simpler than supporting all of them…
Also, SteamOS would make a dogshit desktop OS. It’s designed specifically for Steam’s Big Picture Mode. It has Arch running in the background, but that’s not the primary focus of the OS.
It would be great for something like an arcade cabinet or a family TV, but not so great for a desktop.
Yup.
I’ve spent a good while running Deck in desktop mode compared to my laptop running Manjaro, and so far the only thing I’ve noticed is that the Deck has that handy “add to steam” context menu item that automatically sets a 3rd party game to run in proton through steam.
And there’s an AUR package for that.
So unless there’s something major I’ve managed to miss, Manjaro + that package gets you the entire desktop SteamOS experience on any device.
They can make SteamOS Lite at any point.
My point is that it already basically exists… It’s called Arch.
That could be what they’re waiting for.
However, I do not believe SteamOS is going to be the silver bullet people think it is. I’m somewhat of a fanboy of Valve but SteamOS is really only good for a console-like PC experience.
People who want to ditch Windows need to look at Linux as a whole, not just SteamOS.
Michael Horn talks about this in greater detail: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4g1dZfF5KA
If people want to ditch Windows then the gaming industry needs to stop gating the community. Either get rid of the shitty anti Linux anticheat or tell them to turn on Linux support naturally. For fucks sake I can’t believe I find out most anticheat just needs a simple email to turn it on for Linux.
I agree entirely. An argument could be made about native Linux releases being too much but most games run with Proton if the devs don’t intentionally cripple it through kernel anticheat or other arbitrary limitations.
The thing is, I don’t think valve wants to become a desktop OS provider. Becoming the provider and maintainer of an OS for hundreds of millions of users is so far beyond their scope as a company. They’ve got a third the employees of Canonical and a fiftieth the employees of RedHat, the companies behind Ubuntu and Fedora. Maintaining a limited scope console/handheld OS that runs on a handful of hardware set ups is one thing, but supporting a fully fledged daily driver desktop OS meant to operate on any system is something else entirely.
Right now, most of their users are on windows, which makes them nervous because Microsoft is a known monopolist and has been slowly creeping deeper in to the PC games space. That’s why Valve has put so much effort in to software to support compatibility on Linux, so there is a viable alternative if Microsoft try’s to push them out. I think the steam deck and steamOS were a means to that end, create a business reason to develop and support those tools, not a first step towards becoming an operating system developer.
A better route forward for them would be to use their reach and public trust to help people make the switch to other extant distros. For example an all in one utility on the steam store that helps people select the right distro for their use case and set it up, have a hardware scan and a little quiz to choose a distro, a hard drive partitioning tool to set up dual boot, a tool to write the ISO to a USB drive (or maybe even just set up a bootable on the disk using the partitioner IDK), and migrate important files over using their cloud system.
If the issue is that people trust stuff with the valve branding on it, but are not willing to try Linux on their own, then Steam acting as a guide is much more practical than Valve taking on all the work needed to maintain a proper distro.
That is an excellent suggestion!
I recognise that for almost any one task, Linux has a solution that works better than Windows. My issue is just getting Linux to run not only one specific thing but all the dozens of programs with each having their own dependencies and possible quirks without losing my mind, weeks of my life, data or all three.
If Valve (or really any other large entity capable of handling this for tens of thousands of users) stepped in to act as the guide for setting it all up in a safe manner and such that it just works without constant need for tweaking (unless you want to stray from the “installation wizard”), I could see Linux gain a big surge in users.
SteamOS is a nice modified version of Arch, however and for good reasons it has its limits regarding installing new packages/software. I am not sure this is the best for linux newbies.
I would argue that using an image based system with flatpak is one of the best ways for newbies to transition to Linux. Whether that’s SteamOS, Bazzite, Bluefin or Aurora, that doesn’t matter all that much.
They should go for it.
The Commodore 64 was the highest selling computer model of all time, until around 2020, because of it’s game library.
SteamOS probably has the best easily accessible game library of all time.
The Commodore 64 taught us that games will carry a personal computer to massive popularity and sales, even if the computer has trade-offs.
I agree with others who have commented that there’s better versions of Linux for the average user.
But I don’t think it matters.
A Steam machine with a cheap keyboard and mouse would be hugely popular this Fall, and would make it’s users fall in love with Linux, in spite of issues - because we all love video games.