Is there any sense in installing steam os today

[Eeshan Mulye]

I have a machine in office which has the gt 1030 i5 6400t and 16 gb of ram. I am bringing it home and have no use for it since I use my home PC for all work. I was thinking about converting it into a steam os machine but since I heard that Valve themselves are not interested in them should I use steam os on this machine

[Shark]

SteamOS is the only option if you want a gaming operating system which can be controlled with just a controller iirc. If you are going to use a mouse and keyboard anyway, you should use something else.

[LeChiffre]

Hello,

If you have an HDMI free slot on your TV or a second TV and if you like indie games or retro games it could make sense to turn it into a "steam machine" with full controller support. I've done so with an unused older computer (core2duo GT710 4GB Ram), it is a good alternative to a console if you want to play some PC games on your couch.

Some (a lot ?) of the best indie/retro game get a linux version. I can't tell for bigger games since I can't run them.

The OS itself runs as "Big Picture Mode", quite boring/awful skin but almost all menus/options from desktop mode are easy to use.

If you have some free space next to a TV, some time to install steam os (quite easy) and some games with linux + controller support on your library... why not ? :)

Hope it helps ;)

[robgriff444]

Valve still support SteamOS, they stopped selling Steam machines but that is not the same thing in practice.

The cool thing now is that many Linux OS's are getting better at running Steam games so SteamOS isn't such a Prince anymore! I would say that the prime reason to use SteamOS today is that any Linux game you run has the highest chance of working because the developers will mostly use SteamOS as their main testing rig, But the downside is if you also wanted it to run as a desktop, it uses debian stable with gnome (all of which is quite a bit behind) and doesn't get set up nicely - you have to add repos and do a bit of terminal tinkering.

If I were you and all I wanted was to use the PC as a gaming rig, I would probably use SteamOS because it should JUST WORK. BTW, the Big Picture mode that is all you see in SteamOS is possible on any machine with Steam installed so it only comes down to the limted use of games only and the best supported Linux OS for games.

[gibblets]

Absolutely, same as there always was. SteamOS is by far the best solution out there if you have a computer that does not have a mouse or keyboard, which is and has always been its target market.

If this computer is for desktop use or you want to use keyboard/mouse apps, look to Ubuntu or something else.

[dubigrasu]

Originally posted by Eeshan Mulye:

I have a machine in office which has the gt 1030 i5 6400t and 16 gb of ram. I am bringing it home and have no use for it since I use my home PC for all work. I was thinking about converting it into a steam os machine but since I heard that Valve themselves are not interested in them should I use steam os on this machine

What Valve has to say about this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/1696043806550421224/

[dirk.dierickx]

Valve is not abondening SteamOS!
You got the pc for free, the OS is a free download, you have nothing to lose, give it a try.

[Dad Dog]

If you like the ease of purchase and download of games with very little interference by the operating system then steamos is a good solution. I have been using it for a year or so, started with a core 2 duo, now have an i3-8100. The key is the graphics card as with most gaming machines, to play the later games in high resolution and with little delay a good graphics card makes for a better experience. There are a reasonable selection of games if you haven't been gaming for a while and want to catch up on an older selection.

One thing I found useful after installing steamos, switch to the debian desktop and install steam as desktop user. Sometimes if steamos has issues the desktop version may not and provides a more familiar GUI to access your account. But don't install games on both steam versions, stick to one for install.

[De Bruyne]

THATS ONE BEEFY OFFICE PC

[Safe Da Erf]

1. What Valve has to say about this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/1696043806550421224/

2. Compartmentalizing your gaming into a Gamine PC and work into a Work PC can be a smart move as you can do both at the same time without bottlenecking the CPU for either.

3. If you fuck up one the other one will be unaffected, so dicking around with drivers or some beta shit will not fuck up your work pc, and vica verca -- your gaming pc will not get bogged down with compiling shit to install, massive updates that are annoying, etc...

[Klauth]

SteamOS is more and more relevant IMO.

Linux gaming was not even a thing 7-8 years ago, but now, we have many games that are later converted to Linux and next generation of games are done with existing multi-platform API like Vulkan.

If you're not using Windows-exclusive technos for your games, they can be compiled for Linux.

In terms of maintenance of your rig, it's a no brainer. My rig is almost 3 years old and 0 issue, just let it update itself.