SteamOS

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TheoM

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#230308 18-Feb-2018 09:10

The Prologue

A bit of background before I get into it. I'm an Enterprise Linux fan. I run RHEL Maipo (7) with LightDM and Cinnamon. I also use a custom kernel for backported Ryzen support, and to stop the random reboots happening on Ryzen-based rigs. You can probably guess that since I was using EL I was looking for something like Debian Oldstable but even more oldstable than that. As a side note I use RHEL as a VM host, so that factors in to what I'm doing. Anyway, here's a look at my desktop, and what my commit looks like halfway through startup.

RHEL 7 Desktop

Commit halfway through bootup

Now that's out the way, let's get on to

The Introduction

SteamOS is built on Debian Oldstable (Jessie), so it's relatively stable compared to the rolling-release Arch, and even to Fedora. It's got everything you need to start gaming on Linux in a few minutes.

The Review

The install process was incredibly simple, even when choosing to do an expert install. As usual, since this is *nix, customisation is easy enough. I have 2 disks in my desktop, one SSD and one HDD giving me a total of 2.25TB of storage. My partition layout looks like this:

SSD

/boot 500M

/boot/recovery 16G

swap 16G

/ 1G GROW

HDD

/home 1G GROW

Nice and simple there. Lightning fast boots for the OS, and the games on the slower but larger HDD. The UI for SteamOS looks nice, and if you enable it, you can return to the default GNOME DE. Of course you'll want to see it, so here it is

Steam!

and this is what the commit looks like (while running Half-Life 1 and with no VMs yet)

Current commit

The Summary (aka TL;DR)

It plays games nicely, and has all the right drivers integrated into the OS, so win-win there. It's based on Jessie, so anything that works there should also work here. And yes, it does play Half-Life

Overall it's clean and polished, and very console-like. That said, if you want to, you can look under the hood and tune it till it works like you want, it is Linux after all. I'd probably recommend SteamOS to people who are building their first gaming PC (and of course the Linux fans who want games to Just Work™ but still have some level of control over the OS). It's insanely easy to install and once installed it's as easy as downloading, installing and running your games.

So that's it for now. TTFN!

Hi! I'm TheoM, but you know that already. I run Linux mirrors in NZ together with 2degrees. Like a mirror added? PM me!

https://theom.co.nz | https://theom.nz | https://mirrorlist.mirrors.theom.nz | Providing Free Mirrors Since Ages Ago™

Lias

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#1959840 18-Feb-2018 11:38

Only a fraction of the available games on Steam will run on SteamOS however, never mind all the non steam Windows only games on other platforms.

For the full PC gaming experience you require Windows.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup. Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

TheoM

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#1959841 18-Feb-2018 11:41

Lias:

Only a fraction of the available games on Steam will run on SteamOS however, never mind all the non steam Windows only games on other platforms.

For the full PC gaming experience you require Windows.

This is true. I've found all the Valve games will, as will quite a few of the nearly 200 games I own, so I'm good there, however if I want to play the division I do have to go back to Win32

Hi! I'm TheoM, but you know that already. I run Linux mirrors in NZ together with 2degrees. Like a mirror added? PM me!

https://theom.co.nz | https://theom.nz | https://mirrorlist.mirrors.theom.nz | Providing Free Mirrors Since Ages Ago™

Varkk

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#1960803 20-Feb-2018 10:52

Lias:

Only a fraction of the available games on Steam will run on SteamOS however, never mind all the non steam Windows only games on other platforms.

For the full PC gaming experience you require Windows.

That is changing fairly rapidly however. More and more new releases are crossplatform. Most Valve titles and games using Valve engines work. More developers are adding Linux ports all the time, E.G the Civilization series since Civ 5 work. Some are even going back and porting older titles.

TheoM

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#1960813 20-Feb-2018 10:59

Varkk:

Lias:

Only a fraction of the available games on Steam will run on SteamOS however, never mind all the non steam Windows only games on other platforms.

For the full PC gaming experience you require Windows.

That is changing fairly rapidly however. More and more new releases are crossplatform. Most Valve titles and games using Valve engines work. More developers are adding Linux ports all the time, E.G the Civilization series since Civ 5 work. Some are even going back and porting older titles.

Indeed it is. I love playing Valve's games, and the fact they work on SteamOS (and Mac, and Windows and Xbox -- true cross platform play) is a bonus

Hi! I'm TheoM, but you know that already. I run Linux mirrors in NZ together with 2degrees. Like a mirror added? PM me!

https://theom.co.nz | https://theom.nz | https://mirrorlist.mirrors.theom.nz | Providing Free Mirrors Since Ages Ago™

reven

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#1960816 20-Feb-2018 11:01

Varkk:

Lias:

Only a fraction of the available games on Steam will run on SteamOS however, never mind all the non steam Windows only games on other platforms.

For the full PC gaming experience you require Windows.

That is changing fairly rapidly however. More and more new releases are crossplatform. Most Valve titles and games using Valve engines work. More developers are adding Linux ports all the time, E.G the Civilization series since Civ 5 work. Some are even going back and porting older titles.

is it, is it really? ubisoft games no, origin games no, wb games no, the only AAA game i can think of is witcher 3. and is that really a AAA game? it was made by an indie studio, sure its the best game ever, but its still indie.

i would love for all these games to be released on linux, so I could just use steamos, but realistically i dont see this ever happening. hopefully i reread this in 10 years and laugh at that comment... hopefully...

Lias

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#1961011 20-Feb-2018 15:04

According to SteamSpy, there are 19,716 games on Steam.. according to Steam, 2242 games support SteamOS.

Then you have either limited or zero steam releases from the major publishers (e.g. Ubisoft, Blizzard, EA, etc), and it paints a pretty grim picture.

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pctek

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#1963157 23-Feb-2018 19:24

What made me go Linux finally was steam put me off in the first place.

I had HL Orange Box and god what a PITA.

Friend ripped it and de-steamed it....right the way through.

The difference in performance was incredible,

Then there was the RPG, forget which now, the forced update trashed it, screams were heard all over the net until the patch to fix the patch came along and gaming resumed.

So I stopped playing steam only games, which meant games became few and far between.

So when win10 came long and I had the misfortune to install it (on sons), I thought thats it. never again, and went Linux.

It is a lot better....but really, if it never becomes the gaming platform like the rest, who cares, I can also go buy a console (Yes I know, I USED to be a PC gamer remember).

But nothing will make me return to MS...so if it has to be a console, then a console it will be.

So far I am enjoying the Linux experience and not missing gaming that much now.

Old age perhaps...been there, done that?

Lias

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#1963318 24-Feb-2018 10:02

I maintain both Linux and Windows servers as part of my employment, I think Linux is _great_ for many things in the server space, but I don't personally think it's ever going to make serious inroads into the desktop environment as we know it. Maybe in a future where everything is cloud based and the "desktop" OS is just a front end to cloud things (e.g. Android/ChromeOS/IOS), but I just can't see it happening like that any time soon, if ever. If nothing else Win32 is such a huge juggernaut of legacy applications vital to millions of businesses.