Fubarberry already posted a SteamDeckHQ article about this but I wanted to highlight the direct sources.
Per Valve in their Steam Machine FAQ:
If I don’t get a Steam Machine right away, is there anything else I can do?
Thanks to the openness of the PC platform, there are lots of options for devices that will allow you to run games natively or streamed to your TV. There are many PC sites and communities out there that can help you with that. For our part, we are continuing to work toward enabling SteamOS to be used on more hardware than just ours. In fact, with the newly-released SteamOS 3.8, you can run the same code and operating system as Steam Machine on your own living-room PC using whatever PC parts you want: learn more here. Right now, only AMD GPUs are supported, but we’re working on expanding support for the future.
Where has the consensus landed on running this vs bazzite? I’ve got bazzite on my htpc and I quite like it, but I also like installing shiny new OS’s
The single biggest advantage of Bazzite over SteamOS is that it has the option to install programs from the normal software repos. If something you need isn’t available as a flatpak/appimage/etc, you can install it anyways to a package layer, and it will be available after a reboot. This is also really nice for programs that need better system integration, for example getting a flatpak password manager to integrate with a flatpak web browser often doesn’t work.
Avoid layering. The best way to install packages via a package manager is through Distrobox. This has the advantages of not allowing down the update prices, being available immediately without a restart, and also with Distrobox you can use any distro + package manager you want. Layering means using dnf. With Distrobox you can use Ubuntu, Arch, whatever.
I’m also torn. Currently running bazzite but I’ve got it set up the way I want it so I’m probably going to procrastinate on SteamOS for a bit.
SteamOS probably isn’t going to have any advantages over Bazzite unless you find Bazzite to be too complex.
I went from bazzite to cachyos handheld recently and I feel like cachyos is just a much more polished experience.
CachyOS isn’t immutable though, which comes with pros (it’s easier to change major parts of the OS) and cons (such as it being easier to break the system).
“Using whatever pc parts you want”
“As long as it’s AMD”
kind of funny wording to use but also fuck you nvidia
I’ll admit something slightly embarrassing.
This has kinda sorta been the case for quite a while now, people have been installing Steam Deck versions of SteamOS on various AMD machines with various levels of success. It was also acknowledged by Valve, with an “at your own risk” policy.
But idiot me thought “AMD platforms” means the CPU needs to be AMD. So just FYI to anyone in the same boat: no, Intel CPUs should work just fine. The only thing they meant is that the GPU has to be AMD. All the other components can kind of be whatever the heck you want. Including CPU, as long as it’s x86-64.
But actually, I understand they now also support Intel GPUs. I think I’ve read that somewhere. So at this point it’s pretty clear that you can use anything expect nvidia.
When AMD bought ATi everyone knew this would be the case for a lot of people. There are definite benefits to matching an AMD CPU and GPU though.
What are those benefits?
“You can get it in any color you want, as long as it’s black.”
Can’t you just install Nvidia drivers since it’s just Linux?
Wellll… yes, but actually maybe. Nvidia support on Linux is there, but it’s essentially black box drivers and therefore hard to address issues around them when they arise, and they do. It’s a lot more finicky.
Edit: Plus, Nvidia drops Linux support for older video cards that still work (like the 10 series), so the distros effectively need to drop support as well.
*Ones that use the amdgpu kernel driver, youre not going to have fun using a non-Vulkan GPU to play Windows games via proton.
That’s pretty much everything since around 2010 from memory.
