Possible Project - Steam Distro

[Vanscot]

Since the linux client is coming along, would it be good idea to make a "steam distribution"?
I mean, a distro optimized for the steam client with/without the big picture and nothing else so you could install it, login, get your games and play?
I would love to see something like that oriented to controller-friendly games since I have some PC spare parts I could use to build a rig and have it beside the TV always ready to play.

Not to mention the posibility that, given a steam distribution, there are other advantages for steam itself, or so I think.

I know that it could be done now with a vanilla ubuntu and the steam client, but an optimized version is interesting to me.
(Would help if I knew how to, xD)

Anyone else interested on this?

[Vanscot]

But I don't want to buy a console.
I'm more a PC guy, I just want the steambox to be there if some friends come and want to play something for a while (I already have some consoles collecting dust from time to time, since I don't play on them that much).
Also, a steam-console could mean to buy specific hardware or a new console from time to time instead of using my spare parts.

[ThOR27]

As I understand valve is doing something similar as that. I'm also, slowly developing a similar project in a "just for fun" basis. First I did steam-login project, that is found here https://github.com/thor27/steam-login after that I've already done some drawing about a computer settings menu that uses joystick/keyboard/mouse in the way bigpicture does, and only after this I may grow this into a full distro. I'm still too far from achieving this point, and maybe valve will reach this before me.

Anyway, if you want to help hack on this project, contact me. :)

[fac3l3ss]

Hi ThOR27, nice to meet you. I installed your steam login package some days ago and after entering the steam session all I got was a black screen with a mouse cursor, no big picture. My OS is Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, kernel 3.5 with amd drivers 12.11. Thanks and good luck on your project :) that would be awesome

[ThOR27]

Ursprungligen skrivet av fac3l3ss:

Hi ThOR27, nice to meet you. I installed your steam login package some days ago and after entering the steam session all I got was a black screen with a mouse cursor, no big picture. My OS is Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, kernel 3.5 with amd drivers 12.11. Thanks and good luck on your project :) that would be awesome

I've uploaded a new version. If you get a black screen try to press ALT+TAB and see if steam goes back up, if not, it may be because steam has crashed. For the next version there is a better handling from when Steam crashed at beggining. There is already a bug report there about this specific issue here: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/408

[brianinthered]

I think its a great idea for Valve to develop their own Steam distro. They could optimize it just for games. It wouldn't have to be a complete operating system like Ubuntu or Fedora, but will run the bare minimum to keep processes low and the frame rates high.

I understand why they are using Ubuntu, because its development is taken care of by the Ubuntu Developers. I'm sure working on native Linux Steam is a LOT right now, but as they progress it would be nice to have an almost Chrome-like Operating System but its Steam.