Valve have released SteamOS 3.7.0 Preview, which they noted has the beginnings of support for non-Steam Deck handhelds! So we're closing in on the previously announced Beta for more handhelds. Although this release is still just for Steam Deck.
I think that if you’re looking for a Linux distribution that is as polished as the Steam Deck, then SteamOS on desktop might not be the right play. SteamOS will probably (rightfully) be developed solely for handheld, low-power devices, and won’t work unless you’re using the specific APUs that they’ll include drivers for.
If that sort of streamlined experience interests you, Bazzite has very similar goals to SteamOS (good OOTB gaming experience, safe updates etc.), except that they also target wide hardware compatibility. Other gaming distros exist, but I’m probably just not aware of them.
Practically speaking, we are at a turning point regarding Nvidia on Linux. Things were bad before but they have improved significantly. Newer drivers from Nvidia are partially open-source and they seem good so far.
As long as your GPU isn’t too old, it should be fine. Bur you should verify before commiting.
I’ve had some issues with NV cards, but those were prior to the newer open-source driver architecture which should be available for Turing cards and beyond:
I think that if you’re looking for a Linux distribution that is as polished as the Steam Deck, then SteamOS on desktop might not be the right play. SteamOS will probably (rightfully) be developed solely for handheld, low-power devices, and won’t work unless you’re using the specific APUs that they’ll include drivers for.
If that sort of streamlined experience interests you, Bazzite has very similar goals to SteamOS (good OOTB gaming experience, safe updates etc.), except that they also target wide hardware compatibility. Other gaming distros exist, but I’m probably just not aware of them.
Thanks for this!
Out of interest, how is the driver support for Nvidia cards? This is the thing that has always put me off bailing on Windows for games.
Practically speaking, we are at a turning point regarding Nvidia on Linux. Things were bad before but they have improved significantly. Newer drivers from Nvidia are partially open-source and they seem good so far.
As long as your GPU isn’t too old, it should be fine. Bur you should verify before commiting.
I’ve had some issues with NV cards, but those were prior to the newer open-source driver architecture which should be available for Turing cards and beyond:
https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-transitions-fully-towards-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/
I’ve actually got a laptop with a 2070 so I’ll try that out myself and see if it resolves some of the issues I know I had with the proprietary drivers