• I knew they were working on a general Steam OS release. Can’t wait to switch my gaming rig over.

    • AFAICT they probably won’t be advertising it as a general distro because they want some control of it (broad hardware compatibility is hard) but they do want other OEMs to use it and contribute patches to make it work on their hardware, which is easier on Linux if the distro is simply available to test on other hardware freely and patches can be upstreamed via the Linux kernel for drivers, etc

      Tldr the public release will probably be full of disclaimers and oriented to PC makers

    • Beware of steamOS as main distro. It’s immutable without support for layering.

      If you want anything other than gaming, it can get tricky. In my case some developer tools, printer/scanner… Were borderline impossible when I tried some time ago.

      Things might have changed, but Bazzite is a damm good alternative for a similar feeling.

      YMMV

      • 3 months

        FYI, there is now an overlay for /etc that stores changes in /var and files can also be noted as persistent in /etc/atomic-update.conf.d.
        Valve has also added a persistent /nix folder for declarative package management if you’re into that kind of thing, it has been glorious in my little world.

    • Have you looked at Bazzite? Seems similar while being (a) already available and (b) designed for both gaming and general use on any hardware

        • Bazzite is likely everything you’re hoping SteamOS will be. So don’t wait for SteamOS, just go for it.

  • 3 months

    Have we gotten price announcements yet, or still not cause of the parts shortages and price increases? I haven’t really followed things

    • Price and release date unknown still.

      I want the frame, hopefully available before June.