Valve Adds SteamOS Support For Its Steam Deck Rivals

Valve's SteamOS 3.7.8 update brings official support for AMD-powered handhelds like Lenovo's Legion Go and Asus' ROG Ally, along with a new "Steam OS Compatible" library tab and key bug fixes. Other features include a battery charge limit, updated graphics drivers, and a shift to Plasma 6.2.5. Polygon reports: Valve outlines two requirements for the third-party devices not explicitly named in the update to run SteamOS on the handheld: they must be AMD-powered and have an NVMe SSD. Specific instructions for installing the operating system have been updated and listed here.

Before this huge update, players had to use an alternative like Bazzite to achieve a similar SteamOS experience on their devices. The new update also piggybacks off of Valve expanding the Steam Deck Verified categorization system to "any device running SteamOS that's not a Steam Deck" in mid-May. To make matters sweeter, a SteamOS-powered version of the Lenovo Legion Go S is scheduled to release on May 25. You can learn more about SteamOS 3.7.8 here.

Valve needs to go after EOL Windows 10 and 7 users

[xack]

I've said it before and I said it again, SteamOS needs to be marketed to Windows 10 and 7 gamers as an escape route to keep their expensive gaming hardware going from Microsoft's end of support, make proton officially compatible with common desktop apps and Microsoft could finally have a real competitor.

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[AgTiger]

If I had mod points, you'd be getting a +1 insightful. That is a great idea.

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[sinij]

Fully agree, Microsoft abused gamers for decades, many will run away if they are offered direct alternative.

Re:Valve needs to go after EOL Windows 10 and 7 us

[drinkypoo]

make proton officially compatible with common desktop apps

That's a very big job, and meanwhile Microsoft is making it less relevant by moving Office towards being a web app. Sooner or later they are going to retire the desktop version and only offer office as-a-service. Supporting those desktop apps is Wine's focus. What would ideally happen is that wine and proton would merge so everyone can get all of the benefits of both projects.

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[thegarbz]

Sooner or later they are going to retire the desktop version and only offer office as-a-service.

They won't. The business world will lose its shit. There is a strong use case for offline ability to use office apps.

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[packrat0x]

Anything that hastens the demise of Microsoft, is a blessing to humanity.

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[kurkosdr]

The problem with this approach is that literally every little hardware peripheral on those PCs has to be supported: Obscure fan speed and RGB controls, brightness and volume controls for gaming laptop keyboards (and obscure stuff such as Alienware TactX macro keys), audio drivers for hi-end sound chips, various Ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth drivers, the list goes on. And keep in mind some of that hardware has proprietary drivers that will have to be reverse-enginered. And no, gamers don't want to hear you s

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[not flu]

They failed? I didn't even notice since I've never had sound, ethernet, wifi, bluetooth or brightness and volume controls not work because of drivers on linux.

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[kurkosdr]

You didn't clarify whether you are using a gaming rig or gaming laptop, and anyway, people want to know whether THEIR hardware will work with Linux, not yours. With Windows they can visit the manufacturer's website to get drivers, with Linux is a toss-up. There is so much diversity of hardware in the PC ecosystem that no general promise can be made that a given piece of hardware will work with Linux. That's why Valve abandoned plans to offer SteamOS as a download and went with supporting a small selection o

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[drinkypoo]

I've had all of those things not work and more, some even recently. My motherboard before last had Killer ethernet that didn't work for quite a long time. My current bluetooth wasn't supported until a very recent kernel that my distribution still isn't shipping.

Re:Valve needs to go after EOL Windows 10 and 7 us

[MachineShedFred]

Most of the stuff you talk about is already supported on Linux unless it's completely proprietary crap, in which case it's on the proprietary vendor to make it work (Alienware / Razer garbage).

High-end sound chips basically already work because they target standard interfaces. 5.1 audio hardware is basically already recognized and used under Linux. Ethernet drivers are basically ubiquitous unless it's some really weird cheapo off-brand chip nobody has ever heard of. Same with WiFi and Bluetooth. Brightness and volume controls are an HID standard, supported for quite some time now even on weird laptop shit that changes by the model.

I installed Ubuntu on an HP laptop that I thought there was no way half the shit in it would work on first boot, but sure enough the only thing that didn't is the fingerprint reader, and there's a libprintf branch on their github that fixes that. And that includes a thunderbolt dock which has a USB 5.1 audio device on it that I thought would never work, and yet there it is working like a champ with full functionality except for what Creative put into their proprietary config app, but it's fine because it stores the settings on-device.

Expecting an OS vendor to have to reverse engineer every piece of proprietary gamer garbage ever produced is ridiculous. Microsoft didn't do that - the proprietary garbage vendor wrote a driver / config app for Windows. Why should Valve have to take on such a complex and undefined forever-build just to satisfy you, because you don't want to replace or forego a $100 overpriced widget you bought 5 years ago from a vendor who acts like an asshole?

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[kurkosdr]

unless it's completely proprietary crap, in which case it's on the proprietary vendor to make it work (Alienware / Razer garbage).

See? This is what you don't understand: As a gamer, I want such "Alienware / Razer garbage" to work and don't care who's responsibility is to make it work, I'd rather stay with some Windows 10 LTSC than bother my beautiful mind with blame games about "who's responsibility it is to make it work with Linux" that offer me no value. Also, I am not interested in hearing your rants ab

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[MachineShedFred]

See? This is what you don't understand: As a gamer, I want such "Alienware / Razer garbage" to work and don't care who's responsibility is to make it work

So instead of letting the original manufacturer know what you need from their product, you just expect a 3rd party with absolutely no spec or documentation make it work for you, for free. We'll see just how far you get with bitching about proprietary garbage being proprietary garbage from shitty companies selling you a "solution" that doesn't solve your problem. FYI, this isn't new, and has literally been something that you could have avoided for the last 30 years, like millions of other people manage to

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[kurkosdr]

So instead of letting the original manufacturer know what you need from their product, you just expect a 3rd party with absolutely no spec or documentation make it work for you, for free.

When I bought the hardware (Alienware 17 R1), I needed it to do one thing: run Windows. And it keeps doing that and will keep doing that for several years more when I'll install ESU updates and even Windows 10 LTSC 2021 IoT on it (supported until 2032). The Alienware Area-51m can even run Windows 11.

It's OP who proposed

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[thegarbz]

in which case it's on the proprietary vendor to make it work

Be that as it may, that doesn't help the end user who will see only that something doesn't work and revert to Windows. They're not going to go out and campaign to have a different OS supported. They'll just ignore it out of frustration.

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[kurkosdr]

I really hope Valve keeps working on Proton and Wine, Windows has been gradually reducing win32/win64 compatibility to the absolute minimum they can get away with. They've already killed Secdrv support (which made most CD and DVD games unplayable), and they've recently introduced a change in Windows 11 memory management that broke some games (that relied on certain memory garbage being in certain places). Proton and Wine may soon be more compatible even for post-XP games than Windows itself.

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[drinkypoo]

I really hope Valve keeps working on Proton and Wine

They are. They just dropped a new proton beta (10).

eMMC

[darkain]

Steam Deck: "we're shipping with eMMC"
Valve to others: "YOU MUST HAVE NVME!"

Granted, its been a few years now, and I whole heatedly agree with the "you should be on NVMe" idea.