Valve’s SteamOS is about to go public—New leak points towards imminent release

[Redaktion]

New info from a reliable source suggests Valve's SteamOS release is imminent. Code changes hint towards expanded hardware support, which aligns with official reports that SteamOS will soon be available beyond the Steam Deck.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Valve-s-SteamOS-is-about-to-go-public-New-leak-points-towards-imminent-release.979397.0.html

[Forge64]

"Jupiter" is the Valve reference for SteamOS itself. Nothing to do with the hardware.

The original Steam Deck is Valve Jupiter, running on Neptune (OG deck hardware) which was Aerith (the APU). The Steam Deck OLED is also Jupiter, but running on an updated Neptune with the Sephiroth APU.

Deckard is the VR headset standalone-ish project.
Roy are the next-gen VR/Index controllers.
Ibex is the standalone Steam Controller 2, which will likely launch near/with
Fremont is the set-top Steam Machine.

[Hotz]

The biggest problem with SteamOS - in terms of breakthrough on the desktop - imo is, that it's based on Arch, which isn't known to be userfriendly. If it were based on Debian or Fedora it probably would be more appealing for the common folk.

[OverwhelmingExcitement]

Does anyone really care about this at this point?

It's been delayed for so long.

Handheld users have bazzite now, so what's the point of this?

Desktop users will just stick to any other regular Linux distro and were never interested in the first place.

[A]

The biggest problem with SteamOS - in terms of breakthrough on the desktop - imo is, that it's based on Arch, which isn't known to be userfriendly. If it were based on Debian or Fedora it probably would be more appealing for the common folk.

Normally that is true, but also not true. The reason why Arch isn't very user friendly is because by default, it comes with no GUI package manager. It being a bleeding edge rolling release also creates possibilities of breaking stuff.

But in this case, Arch is simply the base of the OS. To put it into perspective, Gentoo is harder than Arch and it makes up the base of ChromeOS.

End of the day, all Linux distros are made from scratch, be it Debian, Arch or Fedora. Just some base their distros on others to save themselves the time of doing repeat work. It's like Ubuntu is based on Debian, and it is more user friendly than Debian. And Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, and is more user friendly than Ubuntu. User friendliness is all about what you include on top.

Does anyone really care about this at this point?

It's been delayed for so long.

Handheld users have bazzite now, so what's the point of this?

Desktop users will just stick to any other regular Linux distro and were never interested in the first place.

Yes, because even if we ignore whether there are other options or not. Valve pushing for it means that other handhelds will have it. It also creates more possibility of laptops coming preinstalled with SteamOS, thus avoiding the windows tax and helps with drivers as well. Even if you never plan to use SteamOS, if you plan to use any other Linux it still helps.

[GeorgeS]

The biggest problem with SteamOS - in terms of breakthrough on the desktop - imo is, that it's based on Arch, which isn't known to be userfriendly. If it were based on Debian or Fedora it probably would be more appealing for the common folk.

Normally that is true, but also not true. The reason why Arch isn't very user friendly is because by default, it comes with no GUI package manager. It being a bleeding edge rolling release also creates possibilities of breaking stuff.

But in this case, Arch is simply the base of the OS. To put it into perspective, Gentoo is harder than Arch and it makes up the base of ChromeOS.

End of the day, all Linux distros are made from scratch, be it Debian, Arch or Fedora. Just some base their distros on others to save themselves the time of doing repeat work. It's like Ubuntu is based on Debian, and it is more user friendly than Debian. And Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, and is more user friendly than Ubuntu. User friendliness is all about what you include on top.

Does anyone really care about this at this point?

It's been delayed for so long.

Handheld users have bazzite now, so what's the point of this?

Desktop users will just stick to any other regular Linux distro and were never interested in the first place.

Yes, because even if we ignore whether there are other options or not. Valve pushing for it means that other handhelds will have it. It also creates more possibility of laptops coming preinstalled with SteamOS, thus avoiding the windows tax and helps with drivers as well. Even if you never plan to use SteamOS, if you plan to use any other Linux it still helps.

Indeed.

The MORE platforms running ANY Linux for gaming is good for Gamers as more market share leads to more attention and hopefully more support.

Uncounted numbers of users everywhere would love to ditch the 'Windows Tax' entirely.

IMHO: Having more 'prepackaged' options readily available is a step in the right direction!