Valve Will Finally Let You Build Your Own Steam Machine With SteamOS For Desktop

With the price of the new Steam Machine starting at $1,049, you might want to consider making your own Steam Machine instead. An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Valve says that "starting with the SteamOS 3.8 release, you can put together your own Steam Machine using whatever PC parts you want."

SteamOS 3.8.10 launched last week with a slew of updates, including "improved compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms." Alongside that improved compatibility, Valve is giving gamers the green light to install SteamOS on their own desktops.

Nvidia Support on the Horizon

In an interview with The Verge, Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais said Valve has been "rolling out improvements to [SteamOS] so it's more compatible with desktop hardware," including eventual support for Nvidia graphics. Griffais says Valve has "a growing team" working on Nvidia driver support for SteamOS, adding, "We're collaborating with Nvidia very closely." While he mentioned that Nvidia support might not come this year, Griffais emphasized that "it's certainly something that we're working on in the background."

Current Compatibility and Installation

It's technically been possible to run SteamOS on your own hardware for a while now, but compatibility has been mostly limited to AMD systems. So far installing it has also required using a Steam Deck recovery image, a process that, speaking from experience, is much less straightforward than the installation process for most other Linux distributions. Trying to run SteamOS on Intel or Nvidia hardware has not been easy so far.

According to Griffais, Valve is working to change that, which could mean that down the line, you'll be able to run SteamOS on just about any gaming PC hardware you want, including Nvidia.

Immediate Use Cases and Limitations

For the more immediate future, Griffais says SteamOS in its current state should offer a "good experience" on console-like PC setups:

"If you have something that is similar to the use case of a Steam Machine, where you have a PC that's gonna be plugged into a TV, and has a single hard drive that you're not going to try and dual boot [] you can put SteamOS on there, and you'll have an experience that is very similar to a Steam Deck docked or a Steam Machine, with some caveats, of course," like a lack of HDMI-CEC support.

But "the core bits of the experience are there. The SteamOS graphics driver, the shader precompilation [...] you can get at all of that with the SteamOS."

Griffais says SteamOS does not yet offer an easy way to dual-boot alongside Windows or another operating system, but envisions "a time where it's a better experience to install on your desktop and have it coexist with a different operating system."

Community Reactions

• People have been begging to install SteamOS on their own hardware basically since Steam Decks have been on sale.
• Is there something wrong with the SteamOS .iso I downloaded a month or two ago, or is Slashdot just running that far behind?
• If only there were some sort of linked article that explained. Maybe /. could link to such articles, and then if people looked past the headline, they would know what's what? We could have some sort of phrase, maybe an acronym that . . . Nah.
• "It’s technically been possible to run SteamOS on your own hardware for a while now, but compatibility has been mostly limited to AMD systems. So far installing it has also required using a Steam Deck recovery image, a process that, speaking from experience, is muc"
• It's technically been possible to run SteamOS on your own hardware for a while now, but compatibility has been mostly limited to AMD systems. So far installing it has also required using a Steam Deck recovery image, a process that, speaking from experience, is much less straightforward than the installation process for most other Linux distributions. Trying to run SteamOS on Intel or Nvidia hardware has not been easy so far. According to Griffais, Valve is working to change that
• Glad I didn't try installing it then. Or maybe I did, and it wouldn't install. Either way, it didn't make it into consideration after my distro shootout.
• Wasn't SteamOS released before the Steam Deck even came out? Sure, it wasn't every good back then, but it was certainly available even though it wasn't officially supported.
• Datacenters have effectively killed gaming
• Re:Datacenters have effectively killed gaming (Score:4, Interesting) The article quotes that $1000 figure as if it's something outlandish. It was a normal price for lower-mid-tier gaming PC last year. And this year the $1000 mark is more of a floor, a minimum you have to spend to get a gaming PC. Anything under that, you might as well get a Playstation. Although those are raising up now too.
• Yeah the problem isn't valve
• half a dozen companies that could be up and running in 6 months to a year This is pretty hard to reconcile with why it's taken 4 years for Micron to get to breaking ground [enr.com] and their plant is going to take 4 more years to complete. That a newcomer without experience can get it done in 1/16th of the time, seems rather unlikely.
• The article quotes that $1000 figure as if it's something outlandish. It was a normal price for lower-mid-tier gaming PC last year. And this year the $1000 mark is more of a floor, a minimum you have to spend to get a gaming PC. Anything under that, you might as well get a Playstation. Although those are raising up now too. People expected console pricing.. and it would've been if not for the AI run.
• Year of the Linux Desktop This may be the catalyst. Historically, focus has been placed on “converting” existing users. This is an uphill battle against adults set in their ways. Kids, meanwhile, are largely blank slates, have free time, and want to play games. Get the kids to install SteamOS, and you can have your year.
• The "Year of the Linux Desktop" started a long while ago, we're not waiting. It intensified when Win10 was abandon. We will never get the 1 req folks seem to think we need which is laptops and desktops with Linux preinstalled sold at BestBuy. It won't happen. BUT that doesn't mean Linux is niche anymore.
• If their not editing Xorg config to add modelines, then is it really Linux anymore?
• Good Lord, what distro are you using to have to add modelines to the Xorg.conf?? I use Debian and it's pretty close to PNP these days. When I started, though, yes Xorg.conf editing was one of the first things to do.
• If I have steam installed on top of Linux Then why would I bother with this? Does SteamOS give me more access to games that the regular Steam platform cannot do? I guess I literally don't see the point in SteamOS if you already have a desktop already. Maybe someone can enlighten me on this one.
• The purpose of SteamOS is to streamline the setup for a device that will primarily function as a gaming console. It doesn't give you any more access to content than your current setup cannot already provide. Someone building a TV-attached living room gaming PC may find this appealing. If you're already happy with what you have, this won't offer you any advantage. But if you wanted to build a
• Then why would I bother with this? Does SteamOS give me more access to games that the regular Steam platform cannot do? I guess I literally don't see the point in SteamOS if you already have a desktop already. Maybe someone can enlighten me on this one. Yes, SteamOS has the Proton layer for running Windows games on top of Linux.