Huh. I never even considered the possibility of putting SteamOS on a laptop/desktop... I have a spare engineering laptop sitting around, might try it.
this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
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I completely advocate for it. It costs you nothing but time and disk space. You can still run games from other sources with only slight tinkering.
Open source is so beneficial for humanity and for gaming there aren't really downsides for tons and tons of games.
You lose all the spyware from microsoft, the incessant mandatory patching and upgrade notifications and loads of other things that provide no value.
Nothing stops you from being able to dual boot windows or run it in a VM either.
AFAIK, VM gaming is still a pain in the ass. You need to jump through a lot of hoops for any kind of GPU passthrough.
Think they meant run Windows in a VM if you need it
Lots of/some soft doesn't support it, like photoshop and 3dstudio, but it might work if you're lucky!
I thought that was still not officially available, only forks or rebuilds of sorts?
They have to publish kernel edits,
As far as I am aware it’s just Arch with gamescope though so you aren’t gaining anything from using SteamOS 3 compared to a typical Linux build
Boots up gaming PC
Windows: "YOU IN DANGER ZONE! NEED WINDOWS 11! BUY NEW PC U SCRUB!!!111"
Load up Steam
Steam: "Hey, I see MS are being assholes - click here to install SteamOS instead"
Reboot PC
Millions of people never run windows again
I'm dreaming but that would be amazing. That would make this the year of the Linux desktop. C'mon GabeN, make it happen!
Are you sure you don't want to create a microsoft ID? Microsoft believes that you should only trust them with all of your data and credentials. They promise they won't hand over your information to the government unless the government serves them a subpoena or has an agreement to access the data that is lawful or they detect something they have been asked to report.
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You forgot the endless pages of trick questions you have to periodically step through to get into Windows. One wrong move and you owe Microsoft money every month.
If Linux had better nvidia support I would swap in a heart beat.
I have been running OpenSUSE with nVidia for 7 years. No issues here.
AMD's RT performance is getting quite close to Nvidia. Each generation gets them closer and closer.
CUDA will always be proprietary but there's a ton of resources being put against alternative solutions.
Using Pop for almost 2 years on nvidia laptop and pc, no problem, whats the issue?
...Ok no problem is a lie, but it wasn't GPU related problems..
I had issues with my specific hardware combo of i9 14900k and 4090 and multi display issues that windows doesn’t seem to have. Though that could just be my ignorance.
Depending on the issue it may be fixed now that Wayland is better supported on Nvidia.
X.org always had issues running multiple displays with different refresh rate for example.
But don't know your exact problem of course. May be something different. I think there will be some big leaps made with nkv (the new open source drivers for Nvidia cards), but it gonna take some time.
You can always try something like pop_os on a live usb. They have the Nvidia drivers installed and use Wayland I think.
I had an issue with 2 4k screens through my dock, but that was apparently my docks fault.
Things which are holding this back
- Collaboration with OEMs to provide SteamOS OTTB (Lenovo is an exception)
- Nvidia support. Most gamers use Nvidia GPU unfortunately
- Certain industry-standard software which don't have a Linux port. PSA: Most people don't want to learn alt software. Johnny Mainstream is scared of new softwares. This cannot be changed
- End-users suffer from choice paralysis and Linux offers endless choice. Maybe SteamOS can help.
What we know so far, SteamOS won't be a general purpose OS, so it might not support every random piece of h/w.
We might not have the year of the Linux Desktop, but we can expect 2025-2026 to be the year of the Linux handheld.
SRC: Linux fanboy for the last decade
Nvidia works flawlessly in my system, didn't have to tweak anything.
Choice paralysis is a surprisingly big issue.
I'm waiting for the parts for my new gaming PC build to arrive, and the amount of time I've spent choosing a distro has been asinine.
But I did make the choice to leave both the NVIDIA and Windows eco systems on my desktop after seeing most my games run fine on the steam deck ( along with disliking windows 11, and NVIDIA ending gamestream support)
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Yeah, I don't think Microsoft has ever understood or cared how much pc gaming has added value to windows.
Which makes the strategic defeat here of failing to understand they are fucked longterm all the more satisfying.
Microsoft understood in the 90s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2V9TFrmQ_Q
St. John recognized the resistances for game development under Windows would be a limitation, and recruited two additional engineers, Craig Eisler and Eric Engstrom, to develop a better solution to get more programmers to develop games for Windows. The project was codenamed the Manhattan Project, like the World War II project of the same name, and the idea was to displace the Japanese-developed video game consoles with personal computers running Microsoft's operating system.
To get more developers on board DirectX, Microsoft approached id Software's John Carmack and offered to port Doom and Doom 2 from MS-DOS to DirectX, free of charge, with id retaining all publishing rights to the game. Carmack agreed, and Microsoft's Gabe Newell led the porting project. The first game was released as Doom 95 in August 1996, the first published DirectX game. Microsoft promoted the game heavily with Bill Gates appearing in ads for the title.
[...]codenamed the Manhattan Project, like the World War II project of the same name, and the idea was to displace the Japanese[...]
a bit on the nose huh
Yeah, Microsoft has had brief moments like this but systematically they have behaved consistently like the only thing that matters to them is enshittifying the work environment of office workers.
The examples you gave are interesting precisely because they are a brief departure from the norm.
Microsoft made Flight Simulator before they made Windows, so I'm sure they must have cared about games more during that time period.
I am not saying microsoft hasn't dipped their toes in to pc gaming but for a company of that size that is really the most you can say of their efforts compared to the immense solidity, staying power and loyalty pc gaming embued in windows for younger people growing up with computers (not saying this category of people liked windows just that they valued it).
This is ALL gone and microsoft is about to figure out that while business tools are their main industry the supposedly impenetrable moat they thought that gave them was far more a byproduct of a generation of nerds growing up pooring time into windows before they ever even entered the workforce than it was a dynamic of their dominance in corporate business software.
Whoopsie!
I know it's correct but reading "Microsoft's Gabe Newell" actually made my eye twitch.
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I hope that SteamOS finds more of its way into desktop computers. Sure, I don't trust Valve; just like I don't trust any other corporation. But it's like fighting a big cancer with a smaller meta-cancer, if they hurt Windows/Microsoft I'm happy.
Plus its current relationship with GNU/Linux is symbiotic.
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Microsoft recently announced a handheld for Xbox. They’re going to half ass this they way they did with windows phone.
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