Valve's own operating system "SteamOS", based on a specific Linux distribution called Arch Linux, alongside their own Wine fork titled "Proton", have both opened up the doors for modern and AAA gaming on Linux machines, with their OS being developed specially for their Steam Deck handheld device. Since the release of the Steam Deck and SteamOS, many have wondered if the company could consider releasing their OS for general use as a distributable Linux distro to be installed in other devices and computers outside the Steam Deck.

That could all be a reality very soon, as Valve's designer Lawrence Yang has confirmed in an interview with The Verge that they are planning on bringing SteamOS support for other handheld devices in the market, more specifically, the ROG Ally.

Valve announced a few days ago a new update to the Beta channel of SteamOS, with version 3.6.9 adding a very specific general change which namedropped the ROG ally with the message "Added support for extra ROG Ally keys". While it was possible that Valve was simply adding support for the Steam Client on Windows to support these keys (given that the ROG Ally runs under Windows), The Verge asked directly if this was simply a Big Picture mode change, or if Valve is indeed planning to bring SteamOS to other systems:

The note about ROG Ally keys is related to third-party device support for SteamOS.
The team is continuing to work on adding support for additional handhelds on SteamOS.

Lawrence Yang mentions that work on bringing SteamOS to other devices, and even PCs, is currently "making steady progress", but their work is not ready quite yet, so it could still take some time to see SteamOS in other powerful handhelds and main PCs.

The Verge also asked about the possibility of dual-booting Windows on a Steam Deck, to which Yang replied:

As for Windows, we’re preparing to make the remaining Windows drivers for Steam Deck OLED available (you might have seen that we are prepping firmware for the Bluetooth driver). There’s no update on the timing for dual boot support—it’s still a priority, but we haven’t been able to get to it just yet.

Even though it could take some time to see SteamOS in other systems, the future for Valve's SteamOS, and Linux gaming as a whole, is looking better by the day, with more and more users using Linux and Steam for their gaming needs as days go by.

Source

 

[The Catboy]

Let's hope more handhelds come with SteamOS instead of Windows!

 

[AndorfRequissa]

good to see widening support for this model of gameplay. im much more of a docked player but think handheld gaming brings alot to the community

 

[SecureBoot]

Nothing but good news. It will be a PITA to migrate my ally to steam OS for the performance boost, but may be worth it (with a small windows partition for games that don't run on steam)

 

[Ryab]

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Valve's own operating system "SteamOS", based on a specific Linux distribution called Arch Linux, and alongside their own Wine fork titled "Proton", these two opened up the doors for modern and AAA gaming on Linux machines, with their OS being developed specially for their Steam Deck handheld device. Since the release of the Steam Deck and SteamOS, many have wondered if the company could consider releasing their OS for general use as a distributable Linux distro to be installed in other devices and computers outside the Steam Deck.

That could all be a reality very soon, as Valve's designed Lawrence Yang has confirmed in an interview with The Verge that they are planning on bringing SteamOS support for other handheld devices in the market, more specifically, the ROG Ally.

Valve announced a few days ago a new update to the Beta channel of SteamOS, with version 3.6.9 adding a very specific general change which namedropped the ROG ally with the message "Added support for extra ROG Ally keys". While it was possible that Valve was simply adding support for the Steam Client on Windows to support these keys (given that the ROG Ally runs under Windows), The Verge asked directly if this was simply a Big Picture mode change, or if Valve is indeed planning to bring SteamOS to other systems:



Lawrence Yang mentions that work on bringing SteamOS to other devices, and even PCs, is currently "making steady progress", but their work is not ready quite yet, so it could still take some time to see SteamOS in other powerful handhelds and main PCs.

The Verge also asked about the possibility of dual-booting Windows on a Steam Deck, to which Yang replied:



Even though it could take some time to see SteamOS in other systems, the future for Valve's SteamOS, and Linux gaming as a whole, is looking better by the day, with more and more users using Linux and Steam for their gaming needs as days go by.

Source

Hey if Valve truly wants to make Linux the future of gaming then here is their big chance. I mean they've already caused the user base to triple but lets see that number go higher.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Nothing but good news. It will be a PITA to migrate my ally to steam OS for the performance boost, but may be worth it (with a small windows partition for games that don't run on steam)

I think the only drawback at the moment for using SteamOS over Windows is either those pesky anti-cheat online games like Rainbow Six Siege and probably some handful of older PC titles that might require an additional setup or something to get them properly working on SteamOS (I can remember RE1 from the top of my head, and probably the Silent Hill PC ports).

 

[MayorBryce]

SteamOS on a modded Switch, anyone?

 

[LoggerMan]

Wish Apple and Android ARM chips and software could just run all PC games. PC games are the one thing stopping a true post-PC world, if you're still into PC games.

 

[Scarlet]

Damn this is huge, took them long enough!

 

[The Catboy]

Wish Apple

Crossover and Apple's Game Porting Toolkit 2/Whisky actually make gaming more possible on Macs. But they aren't as easy as SteamOS is for Linux

 

[Jintenzo]

I hope this won't affect windows handhelds

 

[Marc_LFD]

Good to see Windows losing ground and Linux gaining, but it's still a long way.

Still, with M$ screwing up so often it won't be hard for users to give Linux a chance as they're probably used to Android/iPhone as it is.

 

[RHOPKINS13]

As for Windows, we’re preparing to make the remaining Windows drivers for Steam Deck OLED available (you might have seen that we are prepping firmware for the Bluetooth driver). There’s no update on the timing for dual boot support—it’s still a priority, but we haven’t been able to get to it just yet.

There's really no excuse for how long this has taken. Most people who want dual-boot, have managed to do it either using the built-in Boot Manager in BIOS, or using rEFInd, or Clover, or even Grub. Almost every major distribution of Linux out there has an installer, that comes with the functionality of setting up Dual-Boot. SteamOS doesn't really have an "installer" at all, it's just an image.

I switched to Bazzite on my Steam Deck. It's not perfect, but I'm a lot happier with it than I was with SteamOS. I really hope Valve spends the time and effort to get things right with SteamOS though.

 

[DragonMals]

I did not know that Steam OS ran on Arch.... But this is still an outstanding acheivement.

- someone who runs windows 11

 

[emmanu888]

The moment we get more handhelds with SteamOS, we might end up seeing Linux going up in the charts for gaming.

I'm still gonna run Windows but if i had a handheld, i would favor SteamOS over Windows just for better battery life since it wouldn't have a million Windows services running in the back and draining the battery.

 

[Scarlet]

The moment we get more handhelds with SteamOS, we might end up seeing Linux going up in the charts for gaming.

I'm still gonna run Windows but if i had a handheld, i would favor SteamOS over Windows just for better battery life since it wouldn't have a million Windows services running in the back and draining the battery.

That's really my big curiosity with the original Ally. I'm openly pretty happy with Windows on it, but now I have the Odin 2 Mini for my emulation, I feel a little more eager to experiment. Especially if it means it'll give me better battery.

Also kinda curious if they got in touch with ASUS to support the XG Mobile... Doubtful on that, but it would be nice.

 

[Dawn_Chaos]

Crossover and Apple's Game Porting Toolkit 2/Whisky actually make gaming more possible on Macs. But they aren't as easy as SteamOS is for Linux

It's true, Whisky is great. I can run Palworld on my M2 MBA 16GB at pretty decent framerates.

 

[Gunstorm]

Hope that Brazillian zeenix got a steam os version

 

[Sukiyo]

SteamOS on a modded Switch, anyone?

that's what I'm saying

I want to play TF2 at 5FPS portably, dang it!

 

[NotUsingAnAltAccount]

Everything that makes at least one person switch to Linux makes me happy. Especially when it comes to gaming.