I can't wait. I recently built a gaming PC and installed Windows on it, having only used macOS/Linux since about 2008. People decry the fall in quality of macOS, but damn did using modern Windows make me appreciate macOS more. I'm still now, 6 months later, finding new places I need to disable Edge, new adverts I need to disable, new dark patterns, new subscription trials to dodge. I look forward to the day I can run Steam OS on it and never touch Windows again.
attendant3446 · 4h ago
I also recently built a gaming PC. First I installed Pop!_OS and it worked really well for games. But as I do some work on it, I wanted something with fresh(er) packages, so I installed CachyOS instead. Games still work (Proton is fantastic) and I have access to AUR. Just try installing Linux, gaming on Linux is not bad at all.
CactusRocket · 4h ago
May I ask why you want to wait for Steam OS? Especially if you have Linux experience already.
Last year I was fed up with Windows, and switched to Linux. Since I had a lot of experience with Linux already, I went with Arch. I thought it was going to be really difficult. Sure, the initial setup was a lot of work, but now I'm extremely happy with it. Much happier than I ever was running Ubuntu, Mint, etc.
But anyway, nowadays I don't even think about that I'm running Linux anymore. I have a pretty big Steam library and play a lot of games. I install a game, I run it, and play it. I haven't found any instance where it doesn't work yet. Granted, I don't play multi-player games nor games with DRM (I'm a patient gamer, most games I play are >2 years old).
xnickb · 4h ago
Nothing is stopping you from switching right away. It's not as hard. You can check whether the games you are interested in are supported on protondb
danpalmer · 4h ago
I know, I have a Steam Deck and enjoy Steam OS on that, but what I want is as close to a console like experience (which is what Windows is not giving me). Right now it seems that DIY installs of Steam OS are not yet as simple as I want for that sort of experience, and I'm not looking for another Linux sysadmin hobby machine, I've got enough of those.
I'm waiting until there's a big download button on a Valve page, and ideally a supported upgrade path from an existing Windows install.
aaomidi · 19m ago
Bazzite is what you’re asking for.
constantcrying · 2h ago
There is nothing Steam OS will give you that isn't available right now.
Use any low maintenance Linux distro and install Steam through flatpak and you got the exact experience you want. There is no difference. You are waiting for something which might never come out so that installing might be 10 minutes faster. That is totally absurd.
Steam OS ist not more maintenance than any other low maintenance distro.
rockyj · 4h ago
Nope, do not fall into the hype, i did this and a lot of games did not work. Driver issues, random crashes not to mention games from big studios straight up do not work and are not supported due to anti-cheat software or another layer of sign-in. Yes, some games work but can also stop working with the next driver/kernel update. I also want to completely stop using Windows but it is still very hard for a gaming PC.
Hasnep · 4h ago
That's why they suggested checking protondb, it really depends on the type of games you play. All the games I play work fine on Linux, but if you want to play Fortnite or League of legends then you're out of luck.
rockyj · 3h ago
As I have learned from experience, ProtonDb means nothing. You can have slightly different hardware from SteamDeck and the game may not work for you. I am not talking theory, I am talking from real experience using latest hardware and multiple retires with CachyOS, Bazzite etc.
xnickb · 3h ago
Protondb includes reports from all sorts of hardware.
blahlabs · 4h ago
I would suggest checking out Bazzite, if you haven't already. Fantastic gaming-focused linux distro, based on Fedora Kinoite.
Hikikomori · 4h ago
EU version of windows doesn't have many of these issues.
constantcrying · 2h ago
As some who uses EU Windows for work I can assure you that it is a terrible OS, with a terrible interface and a terrible user experience as well.
constantcrying · 3h ago
Steam OS ob Desktops is entirely pointless.
Why do you care about having that particular Arch derivative? Any mainstream distro (except Ubuntu derivatives) are perfectly usable for gaming.
There really is no point in waiting for Valve to drop their own Arch derivative. It won't do anything you can not do right now.
cyberpunk · 2h ago
Why aren’t Ubuntu derivatives usable for gaming?
constantcrying · 2h ago
Because Ubuntu is the worst mainstream Linux Distribution available.
binary132 · 57m ago
still very usable for gaming ;)
legitster · 5h ago
I'm not a Windows hater, but for the last several years I have been attempting to operate a usable gaming HTPC and the experience could not have been a lousier waste of time.
The thing that sucks the most (and SteamOS doesn't fix) is that the PC ecosystem is fracturing out of control. Steam alone can't do it for me - I have games now in Oculus, Meta, and Xbox. Or my favorite game (Anno 1800 being locked behind a POS Uplay launcher). Windows is the only game in town if you want to do everything, but they can't get out of their own way.
0xDEAFBEAD · 4h ago
I'm having a very similar experience here. I finally got a Windows box, hooked it up to my TV, and assumed that everything would just work since I'm on Windows for once. In fact, lots of games will crash on launch, or glitch the display so bad they're unplayable, or ignore my Windows Night Light settings, or not offer the controller support which was promised. Ironically, the games which work best are the ones that worked on Mac/Linux anyway. Presumably, those are the ones where the devs actually put in the work to ensure broad compatibility.
I think there is an opening for SteamOS to create console-type compatibility guarantees for a machine which also doubles as a general-purpose PC. Honestly if Valve doesn't get their act together somehow, I might just switch to a traditional console. I love Steam's Big Picture Mode, but if half my games don't even work, what's the point? (And don't get me started on how they killed the Steam Controller...)
fracus · 5h ago
Windows is losing the market. People don't care about programs anymore, everything the common person needs is online. Gamers want to game, and browse, and use discord. For non gamers, Ubuntu covers everything with no threat of viruses or getting cluttered with ads.
johnisgood · 5h ago
Achem, Ubuntu had ads before, I am not sure if this is still the case, but I would not be surprised.
Why the down-vote? Do I need to flood HN with links? It actually had ads. Go ahead and search for it (or ask me), there were ads in more than one places. It even had ads in its motd (and gnome notifications, and somewhere else I forgot)... I do not care if it is your favorite Linux distribution, it ACTUALLY had ads (and might still do) in more than one places.
So "not getting cluttered with ads" is not so certain. Only if they got rid of all ads, but the future is still not certain with regarding to it, as they have done it before without blinking an eye.
True, but Canonical has been a source of issues for a while (as a general rule, I recommend people avoid anything developed/driven by them). I don't see any of the other commercial linux vendors (even Oracle) being that dumb, and the more community-based distros tend to ensure that any kind of tracking is removed, so if you avoid the problematic vendor, you don't have that issue ;)
Gigachad · 4h ago
There “ads” and then there’s “ADS”. Ubuntu might show a bit of text in the ssh motd promoting their own services, but it’s very unobtrusive compared to the ads on other platforms.
johnisgood · 4h ago
It was not just their own services, mate. It showed Amazon ads, too.
So yeah, no. To all the down-voters, they were actual ads, and they actually were in Ubuntu. Sorry.
mmcnl · 4h ago
To be fair this was 10 years ago and they have reversed course for a long time. Windows has ads now.
johnisgood · 4h ago
They may have reversed it, but they put it there in the first place. Who is to say they will not do it again? Do you know of any other distributions that have done the same?
And yeah, Windows is awful, too.
garbagewoman · 4h ago
Microsoft might decide, at any point, to take all of the ads out of windows, too. Is my comment correct? Technically, yes. Is it relevant? No.
johnisgood · 2h ago
Sure, but back when Ubuntu had ads, you could have said the same about Ubuntu.
My point is that the statement that Ubuntu is without ads is not accurate. They already put ads into Ubuntu, and if currently there are no ads, there might be in the future, because now we know that they do not have an issue doing so.
Gigachad · 4h ago
Ah I forgot about that Amazon ad since it was over 10 years ago.
magic_hamster · 5h ago
Windows have definitely lost me. I grew up on Windows (and DOS...) and while there was always loud criticism pointed at Microsoft, personally I loved everything about Windows from 98 to windows 7. I even liked Windows ME (it's really cool, I swear, and it introduced Movie Maker!) and Vista (best Aero theme to date probably) and obviously XP and 7 as the big winners.
But with 10 and 11 Windows became a massive adware, user experience plummeted, and the OS constantly gets in my way.
The only good thing about Windows in 2025 is wsl. So what does that say?
I tried daily driving Mint and I was instantly filled with nostalgia and appreciation for how the OS really tries to help me do whatever I need, gets out of the way, doesn't ask for anything or makes product "suggestions". It's so smooth and simple compared to Windows right now.
Of course it helps that by now I have more than enough Linux experience, but I would still recommend Mint over Windows to most people.
glimshe · 2h ago
What are these Windows ads everybody talks about? I'm a daily Windows user but haven't seen any besides the prompts for making bing the default.
To be transparent, I use Windows Pro and am a Microsoft 365 subscriber for my business. Is this why I don't see ads?
blitzar · 3h ago
Chromebooks were there over a decade ago.
weird_trousers · 5h ago
Very good news!
I believe that Microsoft does not care about Gaming those days, so it is definitely time for Valve to jump in and win some percentages in the market.
We know for sure that Windows shares will not drop drastically based on this move, and that the tendency will progress among years (not months). Now, we have to make sure that Valve is not evil... and I do not believe they are angels they claim since the beginning.
To me Valve is like Google was in beginning of 2000s : invest on open-source, have a good fanbase, ... and once you have a significant percentage of the market share / users then you can move evil.
coffeebeqn · 5h ago
I think they’re showing us how mature user-facing Linux in 2025 really is. With a little focus and investment on the UX for the end user on top of the open source core OS it has already beat any console OS by a mile.
Manfred · 5h ago
SteamOS actually does the opposite.
It does not use any of the popular desktop environments (unless you drop into Desktop Mode). It heavily curates hardware, kernel, and drivers to keep the platform from breaking and install with sane (performance) defaults for gaming. It doesn't rely on a common package manager.
Beside a Steam Deck I also use a Linux PC for gaming and even with 25 years of Linux experience I still struggle sometimes to keep hardware acceleration working after a driver update, sometimes spending an evening of troubleshooting instead of gaming. Certain parts of the desktop environment sometimes lock up to the point where I have to SSH into the PC to fix it. It's like owning a vintage car in a certain way.
And yes, I prefer all of that over the Windows experience, but it's not seamless and not simple enough for anyone to just jump into.
Gigachad · 4h ago
They have a custom window manager because they had to build a controller friendly UI from scratch since one didn’t exist already. Not because existing DEs are broken.
Their package management also isn’t that exotic. It’s a lot like Fedora Silverblue where the OS is an immutable image and user software is installed with Flatpak.
selivanovp · 5h ago
Quit using Arch. Normal linux distros have no such problems.
Ekaros · 4h ago
By in essence using none of desktop Linux... Steam Deck shows just how bad things are. Regular users will spend their entire time in very limited application launching other applications. Distant way from any traditional personal computer model.
tuna74 · 4h ago
There is no "desktop Linux". There is desktop infrastructure and Desktop environments that run ON Linux.
Ygg2 · 5h ago
Linux biggest problem as a consumer OS was rarely tech and mostly just the schizoid amount of options, and lack of consensus on what to use.
In essence Linux suffers from a Lisp curse. Whenever two OS nerds disagreed on something they made their own slightly different distro.
This means wasted effort on multiple DE, window managers, app flavors, installed libraries. To this day, almost no two distros can agree on baseline libraries every Linux must have.
spookie · 5h ago
I love how in this context people call it wasted effort while in other areas is just competition.
Ygg2 · 8m ago
Yeah, duplicating/triplicating/n-cating bugs, feature development and support effort, really paid off for the Linux desktop ecosystem. Which year will be the year of the Linux desktop? One, when we get brain to brain communication and abandon desktops entirely?
ashdnazg · 4h ago
Competition works because the more successful a company is, the more resources it gets (money from the customers).
If a free Linux distribution is more successful, its resources don't scale accordingly.
Affric · 4h ago
Cooperation/Symbiosis: win-win
Predation: win-lose
Competition: lose-lose
This is how dynamically coupled systems work.
tuna74 · 4h ago
Linux is not a full OS. It is "only" an OS kernel. Linux can't replace Windows. Fedora or Ubuntu can.
ekianjo · 5h ago
> Linux biggest problem as a consumer OS was rarely tech and mostly just the schizoid amount of options, and lack of consensus on what to use.
It's only a problem if you think it is. In practice I use at least 3 or 4 different distros on a daily basis and I never have any issue juggling between them. For most of the typical use cases it does not even matter, and on the desktop side flatpak resolves many issues.
Ygg2 · 3h ago
> It's only a problem if you think it is.
No. It's a problem, if you as distro maker support non-technical consumers as well.
Imagine troubleshooting Windows but you also have to figure out which DE, WM, libraries the user updated and so on.
> desktop side flatpak resolves many issues
You mean AppImage, Snap, etc.
tuna74 · 1h ago
The point of a distro is to select what you support. SteamOS only has one DE etc.
Ygg2 · 5m ago
Except the user-base wants infinite customizability, and users are often to mess with it. And getting the code to just work together nicely is a nightmare, where OS updates can break drivers, forcing you to try to jerry rig a solution that partially works.
nfg · 5h ago
> I believe that Microsoft does not care about Gaming those days.
I’d be interested in hearing you expand on that!
Disclaimer: I work there :-)
petepete · 5h ago
I suspect it's not about Gaming not working well on Windows but that gamers are likely enthusiasts and Windows 11:
* is difficult/impossible to install without tying up a Microsoft Account
* has ads baked in
* is trying to force feed everyone Copilot when most people just don't care
* comes preinstalled with bloat
It's a pity. There's a great OS hiding in there somewhere. A consumer version of LTSC would probably make gamers very happy.
charcircuit · 4h ago
>is difficult/impossible to install without tying up a Microsoft Account
Gamers probably already have a Microsoft account as its required for games like Minecraft or services like Gamepass. A Microsoft account is needed for Windows Hello to function.
>has ads baked in
Do you have an example. I think it's more likely the user installed malware if ads are showing up unexpectedly. Gamers are more likely to install malware like this and Windows's security is not good enough to stop it especially when gamers use admin accounts and disable uac.
>is trying to force feed everyone Copilot when most people just don't care
How is it being forced? I haven't seen it on my machine. I assume people who don't care could just ignore it or disable the feature if they don't want it. Being able to look up help for games using Copilot seems like a feature that gamers may find valuable.
>comes preinstalled with bloat
Bloat is subjective. Actual performance issues caused by unneeded things running while in games would be. The mere existence of unused pteinstalled applications doesn't necessarily cause problems to gamers.
petepete · 4h ago
> Gamers probably already have a Microsoft account as its required for games like Minecraft or services like Gamepass. A Microsoft account is needed for Windows Hello to function.
If I want to use these things let me opt in.
> Do you have an example [of ads]
There are hundreds or thousands of articles on the subject. Here's one.
If I install an operating system and there's a Netflix logo in the application menu when I don't havw a Netflix account and was never asked if I wanted it, it's bloat.
When people have taken the time to write debloating scripts it's fair to say some people think it's bloated.
If you enjoy using it don't let my high standards stop you.
charcircuit · 3h ago
>If I want to use these things let me opt in.
This is a case of whether the device should be secure by default or if the user should have to opt in to security. Microsoft has chosen the position that account security should be there by default which is why it's not opt in for using an Microsoft account. I think this is a reasonable design decision to make.
>Here's one.
An app store recommendation is not an ad. The OS is helping the user find content that they may be looking for. It isn't an ad surface where companies are bidding to show up for keywords. The word ad is used by the article to stir drama and drive clicks.
>If I install an operating system and there's a Netflix logo in the application menu when I don't havw a Netflix account and was never asked if I wanted it, it's bloat.
But there are plenty of people who do have a Netflix account and Netflix showing up there is helping them accomplish something they want to do with their new computer. You have to understand that most people are not that good with computers and surfacing these things in more places can legitimately help them out.
tauoverpi · 2h ago
I'm sorry if I seem completely out of the loop as I haven't used windows at all for at least a decade at this point.
> This is a case of whether the device should be secure by default or if the user should have to opt in to security. Microsoft has chosen the position that account security should be there by default which is why it's not opt in for using an Microsoft account. I think this is a reasonable design decision to make.
Opt-out security is the better model to have but I don't see how security features require a microsoft account to function. This isn't the case on any other operating system as security is not bound to having an account for some external service. Rather this seems like an artificial limitation that microsoft has created to push other microsoft services on the user as someone that only uses windows to play steam games that don't use a microsoft account have no use for one regardless if they use windows or not.
Can you point to a particualr security feature that would stop functioning and that needs to have an account and that couldn't use a hardware security key for 2FA (if 2FA is a requirement)?
> But there are plenty of people who do have a Netflix account and Netflix showing up there is helping them accomplish something they want to do with their new computer. You have to understand that most people are not that good with computers and surfacing these things in more places can legitimately help them out.
Helping users use the app store which the majority are capable of should be sufficient unless the app store is so complex that it's practically unusable for the majority. The majority are also capable of using phones to install games, netflix, and other applications without having to be tech savy to do so.
Those users which aren't capable of operating the app store (usually the elderly) either have family that help them set things up or simply aren't your customers as they don't own computers.
Gigachad · 4h ago
Last time I used windows I kept getting pop up ads for Microsoft teams and their cloud storage product.
weird_trousers · 2h ago
Reducing costs in Xbox and development partners, the state of the Xbox games submission (and the SDK... as a game engine developer it is the worst and the buggiest of all three major consoles), and finally all the communication and the investment in (crappy) AI from Microsoft and the large reduction of investment in gaming from them.
I know this comes from the Microsoft management side, and not from the devs.
ekianjo · 5h ago
When something is a default, it's not by choice. So people play on Windows because they have a computer running Windows, not because it's made for that.
0xDEAFBEAD · 4h ago
I would love to see Valve partner with hardware companies to sell "Steambooks" which run SteamOS out of the box. I'll bet they could capture a significant fraction of the market for gaming laptops, and expand the market for Linux preinstalls.
Linux is nicer than Windows for developers and power users; the main issue is hardware compatibility. Preinstalls address that.
Valve tried “steam machines”, OEM devices intended to provide a console-like experience. It wasn’t a big success (although that might have been a botched implementation rather than something fundamentally wrong about the concept, IDK)
0xDEAFBEAD · 4h ago
Fair point. I still think they'd have a shot if they explicitly marketed it as a dual-use work/play device.
Here's one way to think about it. The Steam Machine was asking gamers to buy a new device so they can game on their TV. Its failure shows that most Steam users were happy to keep gaming on their PC.
But, almost everyone wants to buy a laptop every once in a while. And as long as you're buying a laptop, if you're a gamer, you might as well buy the gaming laptop which is running SteamOS and has really strong gaming compatibility.
Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part.
gpderetta · 3h ago
The OS and software support just wasn't there.
Steam OS is much more refined now and with proton there is significantly better compatibility.
I would be definitely interested on a Steam Deck consolle-like appliance.
Of course you can just connect the steam deck to the TV, but it seems wasteful, you could have a better CPU/GPU while not need battery and screen. Also we need a new version of the steam controller!
Maybe one day.
thor-rodrigues · 4h ago
If you're serious about using SteamOS for your gaming computer or home theater PC, I highly recommend Bazzite.
Bazzite is a Linux operating system, built on SteamOS, that's designed to make it easy to use with different hardware and controllers. It simplifies the installation process and works really well with other game launchers that aren't on Steam, and you can set it up to look like a game console with the SteamOS interface or a regular computer with a desktop.
The only real problem I had was with competitive multiplayer shooter games require kernel-level anti-cheat software, that doesn't work with Linux.
But if playing online multiplayer isn't your main thing and you’re sick of windows being as intrusive as it is, Bazzite is an outstanding choice for a gaming or home theater computer.
One small correction, Bazzite isn't built on Steam OS, it's based on Fedora.
constantcrying · 2h ago
I HIGHLY recommend that you do not install niche distros. Larger distributions give you more stability and more features, they are better maintained and supported.
If Valve was serious about Mac as a platform, they would port their Source games, like they ported Portal 1&2 for the Switch. To some extend I understand this, because Apple isn‘t serious either, no matter how often they show me a Dual Sense loitering near a Mac screen.
jillesvangurp · 5h ago
There were some volunteers working on this topic that kind of backed away from this topic. But they got quite far with this.
What I don't get is why Valve isn't backing such efforts financially. There are millions of wealthy mac owners out there with pretty capable hardware. That should translate into quite a bit of steam purchases.
I just got a shiny m4 max laptop. I run Steam on a much less capable crappy old Samsung laptop (via manjaro). Would I run that on my mac if I could? Yes. Would I be tempted to spend a bit of cash on some fun games. Probably. Am I doing that currently? No, because that crappy old Samsung is too old and most games don't run on it. And I'm not in a mood to buy a dedicated gaming machine. I might at some point but just not a priority. But I don't mind dropping a few euros on a game to entertain myself once in a while.
And with Apple's hostility towards gamers with moves like refusal to support OpenGL or Vulkan (adding extra Metal support work to their developers) and refusal to keep stable APIs for a long time for game developers, it makes sense for them to rather focus on a crowd that is easier to support.
When it comes to gaming, Apple is its own enemy since forever and has been similarly failing to gain serious traction even on iOS (considering how powerful the iOS hardware is). iPads could be Steam Decks of their time and Apple just never cared enough.
jillesvangurp · 3h ago
Unsurprising because unlike Linux, almost no games work on steam for mac. There's barely any point in running it on a mac. It's actually a pretty high percentage if you consider that.
My point was that volunteers got quite far getting steam and many games running on macs with decent framerates. The main person driving this recently moved on from working on that. Likewise, Asahi linux is getting quite capable at running steam and lots of games. That too is being driven by a handful of people.
Supporting stuff like that doesn't sound like it should break the bank for Steam. Basically sponsor a few people; maybe hire a few more to support them. It's basically all working at this point, it just needs a bit of love and attention. This wouldn't take years of additional development. And once steam runs properly on macs with thousands of games running smoothly, a lot more people might be using steam on their macs.
Yes, they'd be picking a fight with Apple. But as Epyc (Unreal engine) is showing, those fights can be won if you have deep pockets. And Apple is under a lot of pressure to moderate their anti competitive behavior. Perfect timing for Valve to make some money of all this with a minimum of investment.
xethos · 4h ago
Overall I agree, and I'm not about to refute the statement, but I never thought the phrase "Linux users are easier to support" would be taken seriously - I find that marvelous and hilarious.
izacus · 4h ago
The way to support Linux gamers these days is to write a Windows game and test with Proton (to make sure it's not using unsupported APIs).
It's kind of hilarious and sad... but it works darn well and it's less work than porting to Metal and 64-bit macOS.
hnlmorg · 4h ago
Steam is already available for macOS and there are numerous games available for the platform.
If Valve were getting high numbers of people installing the macOS Steam client, and you can bet they do already have that telemetry, then they would take the platform more seriously. But most macOS users aren’t interesting in gaming on their Mac.
CaliforniaKarl · 5h ago
You may be interested in purchasing a Steam Deck, or similar product. I am in a similar situation, where home machine is a Mac Mini. I wanted to play various games, but did not want to purchase (and maintain) a Windows machine. A Steam Deck—plus USB-C dock, connected to monitor and speakers—has been a good substitute for me.
mmcnl · 4h ago
Curious to why they (both Apple and Valve) are not serious about it. The MacBook Air could actually be a great gaming device. It has extremely capable hardware at a very low price point. And for Valve it would be an instant expansion of their user base with a large number of new potential customers.
michaelt · 3h ago
Apple had the opportunity to stay on x86, where the 20+ year back catalog of games is.
Apple decided the benefits of moving to ARM outweighed the loss of gamers.
nialv7 · 2h ago
Switch has (certified) OpenGL and Vulkan. Mac has none of them.
mschuster91 · 5h ago
The problem is, Epic is not going to tie themselves to the arbitrary deprecation whims of another company again, and Apple is truly infamous for that. No matter if there could actually be some serious money to be made from the huuuuge catalog of titles that already have a Nintendo Switch port.
Ygg2 · 5h ago
I think Valve counts Macs as lost.
vaylian · 4h ago
Apple's app store is hard to compete with. Which is probably also why Valve invested aggressively into Linux when Microsoft tried to establish a similar closed environment.
ekianjo · 5h ago
Even was Steam had a good client for Mac, most gamers on Mac just relied on Bootcamp to play games, so this is what you get...
Gigachad · 4h ago
Boot camp was just a way to literally run windows.
Gaming on Mac died when they killed 32bit support and didn’t support Vulkan. Apple has pretty consistently shown almost no effort in making gaming on Mac work so everyone else has just ignored it.
This is great. The more players are on this, the more visible this effort is, the more the bugs will get fixed and developers incentivized to support SteamOS. Valve is in a real position to dethrone Windows as the de-facto PC platform. Such an excellent company for user value.
larodi · 4h ago
So Steam OS is not based on Wine and other OSS libs? What does it mean really that Valve takes steps forward to making some OS windows-compatible? is it only ever a single company doing it?
LeoPanthera · 4h ago
SteamOS is an Arch Linux derivative with a games compatibility layer called Proton, which is indeed based on Wine.
It has a proprietary launcher for games, but also comes with Plasma Desktop.
Gigachad · 4h ago
There’s like a million little bits of software valve has created over many years all bundled together that make steamos incredible. It’s hard to properly do justice because it’s all tiny bits of polish that are individually fairly uninteresting but all stack up.
I’ve tried using Fedora as my TV gaming rig but steamos is much better as it out of the box has everything you need. No installing extra drivers for things like Xbox controller support. And it has a fully controller navigable OS that lets you do a lot of advanced system management stuff that you’d otherwise need a mouse and keyboard for.
Also for a while now Valve has been the main contributors towards wine and other gaming on Linux projects.
jokoon · 4h ago
I wonder how Microsoft will react to this.
I also think that nvidia might not like it, and I wonder if there are actors who can undermine steamos.
barbs · 5h ago
I wonder if Riot Games will ever make their games run natively on Linux? AFAIK some of their games ran via wine but they introduced an anti-cheat system that now prevents that from working.
guax · 4h ago
Only market share will change that. The Proton making linux gaming this good is an incredible trojan horse to a more open OS market. The more people use it, the more incentive companies have to support it entirely, not only by making the game run well on the compatibility layer but making it native.
My pipe dream is that Proton becomes so successful that it kills itself by making linux gaming profitable enough to be first party supported. My long wish of having a decent gaming and development environment will finally come true, just in time for me to not care so much about one or the other.
Last year I was fed up with Windows, and switched to Linux. Since I had a lot of experience with Linux already, I went with Arch. I thought it was going to be really difficult. Sure, the initial setup was a lot of work, but now I'm extremely happy with it. Much happier than I ever was running Ubuntu, Mint, etc.
But anyway, nowadays I don't even think about that I'm running Linux anymore. I have a pretty big Steam library and play a lot of games. I install a game, I run it, and play it. I haven't found any instance where it doesn't work yet. Granted, I don't play multi-player games nor games with DRM (I'm a patient gamer, most games I play are >2 years old).
I'm waiting until there's a big download button on a Valve page, and ideally a supported upgrade path from an existing Windows install.
Use any low maintenance Linux distro and install Steam through flatpak and you got the exact experience you want. There is no difference. You are waiting for something which might never come out so that installing might be 10 minutes faster. That is totally absurd.
Steam OS ist not more maintenance than any other low maintenance distro.
Why do you care about having that particular Arch derivative? Any mainstream distro (except Ubuntu derivatives) are perfectly usable for gaming.
There really is no point in waiting for Valve to drop their own Arch derivative. It won't do anything you can not do right now.
The thing that sucks the most (and SteamOS doesn't fix) is that the PC ecosystem is fracturing out of control. Steam alone can't do it for me - I have games now in Oculus, Meta, and Xbox. Or my favorite game (Anno 1800 being locked behind a POS Uplay launcher). Windows is the only game in town if you want to do everything, but they can't get out of their own way.
I think there is an opening for SteamOS to create console-type compatibility guarantees for a machine which also doubles as a general-purpose PC. Honestly if Valve doesn't get their act together somehow, I might just switch to a traditional console. I love Steam's Big Picture Mode, but if half my games don't even work, what's the point? (And don't get me started on how they killed the Steam Controller...)
Why the down-vote? Do I need to flood HN with links? It actually had ads. Go ahead and search for it (or ask me), there were ads in more than one places. It even had ads in its motd (and gnome notifications, and somewhere else I forgot)... I do not care if it is your favorite Linux distribution, it ACTUALLY had ads (and might still do) in more than one places.
So "not getting cluttered with ads" is not so certain. Only if they got rid of all ads, but the future is still not certain with regarding to it, as they have done it before without blinking an eye.
See some links https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44079458 for Amazon ads.
Also https://askubuntu.com/questions/1083504/how-to-disable-the-a... for bit.ly links in motd.
If you need more, I am willing to provide.
https://www.thefastcode.com/en-idr/article/how-to-disable-th... (How To Disable the Amazon Search Ads in Ubuntu's Unity Dash)
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/10asnf/ubuntu_will_n...
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/10hmmb/ubuntu_privac...
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/privacy-ubuntu-1210-am...
So yeah, no. To all the down-voters, they were actual ads, and they actually were in Ubuntu. Sorry.
And yeah, Windows is awful, too.
My point is that the statement that Ubuntu is without ads is not accurate. They already put ads into Ubuntu, and if currently there are no ads, there might be in the future, because now we know that they do not have an issue doing so.
But with 10 and 11 Windows became a massive adware, user experience plummeted, and the OS constantly gets in my way.
The only good thing about Windows in 2025 is wsl. So what does that say?
I tried daily driving Mint and I was instantly filled with nostalgia and appreciation for how the OS really tries to help me do whatever I need, gets out of the way, doesn't ask for anything or makes product "suggestions". It's so smooth and simple compared to Windows right now.
Of course it helps that by now I have more than enough Linux experience, but I would still recommend Mint over Windows to most people.
To be transparent, I use Windows Pro and am a Microsoft 365 subscriber for my business. Is this why I don't see ads?
I believe that Microsoft does not care about Gaming those days, so it is definitely time for Valve to jump in and win some percentages in the market.
We know for sure that Windows shares will not drop drastically based on this move, and that the tendency will progress among years (not months). Now, we have to make sure that Valve is not evil... and I do not believe they are angels they claim since the beginning. To me Valve is like Google was in beginning of 2000s : invest on open-source, have a good fanbase, ... and once you have a significant percentage of the market share / users then you can move evil.
It does not use any of the popular desktop environments (unless you drop into Desktop Mode). It heavily curates hardware, kernel, and drivers to keep the platform from breaking and install with sane (performance) defaults for gaming. It doesn't rely on a common package manager.
Beside a Steam Deck I also use a Linux PC for gaming and even with 25 years of Linux experience I still struggle sometimes to keep hardware acceleration working after a driver update, sometimes spending an evening of troubleshooting instead of gaming. Certain parts of the desktop environment sometimes lock up to the point where I have to SSH into the PC to fix it. It's like owning a vintage car in a certain way.
And yes, I prefer all of that over the Windows experience, but it's not seamless and not simple enough for anyone to just jump into.
Their package management also isn’t that exotic. It’s a lot like Fedora Silverblue where the OS is an immutable image and user software is installed with Flatpak.
In essence Linux suffers from a Lisp curse. Whenever two OS nerds disagreed on something they made their own slightly different distro.
This means wasted effort on multiple DE, window managers, app flavors, installed libraries. To this day, almost no two distros can agree on baseline libraries every Linux must have.
If a free Linux distribution is more successful, its resources don't scale accordingly.
Predation: win-lose
Competition: lose-lose
This is how dynamically coupled systems work.
It's only a problem if you think it is. In practice I use at least 3 or 4 different distros on a daily basis and I never have any issue juggling between them. For most of the typical use cases it does not even matter, and on the desktop side flatpak resolves many issues.
No. It's a problem, if you as distro maker support non-technical consumers as well.
Imagine troubleshooting Windows but you also have to figure out which DE, WM, libraries the user updated and so on.
> desktop side flatpak resolves many issues
You mean AppImage, Snap, etc.
I’d be interested in hearing you expand on that!
Disclaimer: I work there :-)
* is difficult/impossible to install without tying up a Microsoft Account
* has ads baked in
* is trying to force feed everyone Copilot when most people just don't care
* comes preinstalled with bloat
It's a pity. There's a great OS hiding in there somewhere. A consumer version of LTSC would probably make gamers very happy.
Gamers probably already have a Microsoft account as its required for games like Minecraft or services like Gamepass. A Microsoft account is needed for Windows Hello to function.
>has ads baked in
Do you have an example. I think it's more likely the user installed malware if ads are showing up unexpectedly. Gamers are more likely to install malware like this and Windows's security is not good enough to stop it especially when gamers use admin accounts and disable uac.
>is trying to force feed everyone Copilot when most people just don't care
How is it being forced? I haven't seen it on my machine. I assume people who don't care could just ignore it or disable the feature if they don't want it. Being able to look up help for games using Copilot seems like a feature that gamers may find valuable.
>comes preinstalled with bloat
Bloat is subjective. Actual performance issues caused by unneeded things running while in games would be. The mere existence of unused pteinstalled applications doesn't necessarily cause problems to gamers.
If I want to use these things let me opt in.
> Do you have an example [of ads]
There are hundreds or thousands of articles on the subject. Here's one.
https://uk.pcmag.com/migrated-3765-windows-10/151992/microso...
> How is it being forced?
Maybe force was too strong a word, but 'incessantly nagged regardless of previous rejection' sums it up nicely
https://tech.yahoo.com/general/articles/microsofts-latest-co...
> comes preinstalled with bloat
If I install an operating system and there's a Netflix logo in the application menu when I don't havw a Netflix account and was never asked if I wanted it, it's bloat.
When people have taken the time to write debloating scripts it's fair to say some people think it's bloated.
https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat
If you enjoy using it don't let my high standards stop you.
This is a case of whether the device should be secure by default or if the user should have to opt in to security. Microsoft has chosen the position that account security should be there by default which is why it's not opt in for using an Microsoft account. I think this is a reasonable design decision to make.
>Here's one.
An app store recommendation is not an ad. The OS is helping the user find content that they may be looking for. It isn't an ad surface where companies are bidding to show up for keywords. The word ad is used by the article to stir drama and drive clicks.
>If I install an operating system and there's a Netflix logo in the application menu when I don't havw a Netflix account and was never asked if I wanted it, it's bloat.
But there are plenty of people who do have a Netflix account and Netflix showing up there is helping them accomplish something they want to do with their new computer. You have to understand that most people are not that good with computers and surfacing these things in more places can legitimately help them out.
> This is a case of whether the device should be secure by default or if the user should have to opt in to security. Microsoft has chosen the position that account security should be there by default which is why it's not opt in for using an Microsoft account. I think this is a reasonable design decision to make.
Opt-out security is the better model to have but I don't see how security features require a microsoft account to function. This isn't the case on any other operating system as security is not bound to having an account for some external service. Rather this seems like an artificial limitation that microsoft has created to push other microsoft services on the user as someone that only uses windows to play steam games that don't use a microsoft account have no use for one regardless if they use windows or not.
Can you point to a particualr security feature that would stop functioning and that needs to have an account and that couldn't use a hardware security key for 2FA (if 2FA is a requirement)?
> But there are plenty of people who do have a Netflix account and Netflix showing up there is helping them accomplish something they want to do with their new computer. You have to understand that most people are not that good with computers and surfacing these things in more places can legitimately help them out.
Helping users use the app store which the majority are capable of should be sufficient unless the app store is so complex that it's practically unusable for the majority. The majority are also capable of using phones to install games, netflix, and other applications without having to be tech savy to do so.
Those users which aren't capable of operating the app store (usually the elderly) either have family that help them set things up or simply aren't your customers as they don't own computers.
I know this comes from the Microsoft management side, and not from the devs.
Linux is nicer than Windows for developers and power users; the main issue is hardware compatibility. Preinstalls address that.
Valve tried “steam machines”, OEM devices intended to provide a console-like experience. It wasn’t a big success (although that might have been a botched implementation rather than something fundamentally wrong about the concept, IDK)
Here's one way to think about it. The Steam Machine was asking gamers to buy a new device so they can game on their TV. Its failure shows that most Steam users were happy to keep gaming on their PC.
But, almost everyone wants to buy a laptop every once in a while. And as long as you're buying a laptop, if you're a gamer, you might as well buy the gaming laptop which is running SteamOS and has really strong gaming compatibility.
Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part.
Steam OS is much more refined now and with proton there is significantly better compatibility.
I would be definitely interested on a Steam Deck consolle-like appliance.
Of course you can just connect the steam deck to the TV, but it seems wasteful, you could have a better CPU/GPU while not need battery and screen. Also we need a new version of the steam controller!
Maybe one day.
Bazzite is a Linux operating system, built on SteamOS, that's designed to make it easy to use with different hardware and controllers. It simplifies the installation process and works really well with other game launchers that aren't on Steam, and you can set it up to look like a game console with the SteamOS interface or a regular computer with a desktop.
The only real problem I had was with competitive multiplayer shooter games require kernel-level anti-cheat software, that doesn't work with Linux.
But if playing online multiplayer isn't your main thing and you’re sick of windows being as intrusive as it is, Bazzite is an outstanding choice for a gaming or home theater computer.
https://bazzite.gg/
https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/1kpggmu/the_stat...
What I don't get is why Valve isn't backing such efforts financially. There are millions of wealthy mac owners out there with pretty capable hardware. That should translate into quite a bit of steam purchases.
I just got a shiny m4 max laptop. I run Steam on a much less capable crappy old Samsung laptop (via manjaro). Would I run that on my mac if I could? Yes. Would I be tempted to spend a bit of cash on some fun games. Probably. Am I doing that currently? No, because that crappy old Samsung is too old and most games don't run on it. And I'm not in a mood to buy a dedicated gaming machine. I might at some point but just not a priority. But I don't mind dropping a few euros on a game to entertain myself once in a while.
And with Apple's hostility towards gamers with moves like refusal to support OpenGL or Vulkan (adding extra Metal support work to their developers) and refusal to keep stable APIs for a long time for game developers, it makes sense for them to rather focus on a crowd that is easier to support.
When it comes to gaming, Apple is its own enemy since forever and has been similarly failing to gain serious traction even on iOS (considering how powerful the iOS hardware is). iPads could be Steam Decks of their time and Apple just never cared enough.
My point was that volunteers got quite far getting steam and many games running on macs with decent framerates. The main person driving this recently moved on from working on that. Likewise, Asahi linux is getting quite capable at running steam and lots of games. That too is being driven by a handful of people.
Supporting stuff like that doesn't sound like it should break the bank for Steam. Basically sponsor a few people; maybe hire a few more to support them. It's basically all working at this point, it just needs a bit of love and attention. This wouldn't take years of additional development. And once steam runs properly on macs with thousands of games running smoothly, a lot more people might be using steam on their macs.
Yes, they'd be picking a fight with Apple. But as Epyc (Unreal engine) is showing, those fights can be won if you have deep pockets. And Apple is under a lot of pressure to moderate their anti competitive behavior. Perfect timing for Valve to make some money of all this with a minimum of investment.
It's kind of hilarious and sad... but it works darn well and it's less work than porting to Metal and 64-bit macOS.
If Valve were getting high numbers of people installing the macOS Steam client, and you can bet they do already have that telemetry, then they would take the platform more seriously. But most macOS users aren’t interesting in gaming on their Mac.
Apple decided the benefits of moving to ARM outweighed the loss of gamers.
Gaming on Mac died when they killed 32bit support and didn’t support Vulkan. Apple has pretty consistently shown almost no effort in making gaming on Mac work so everyone else has just ignored it.
It has a proprietary launcher for games, but also comes with Plasma Desktop.
I’ve tried using Fedora as my TV gaming rig but steamos is much better as it out of the box has everything you need. No installing extra drivers for things like Xbox controller support. And it has a fully controller navigable OS that lets you do a lot of advanced system management stuff that you’d otherwise need a mouse and keyboard for.
Also for a while now Valve has been the main contributors towards wine and other gaming on Linux projects.
I also think that nvidia might not like it, and I wonder if there are actors who can undermine steamos.
My pipe dream is that Proton becomes so successful that it kills itself by making linux gaming profitable enough to be first party supported. My long wish of having a decent gaming and development environment will finally come true, just in time for me to not care so much about one or the other.