Of course they have considered it. It is literally their model for handheld form factor gaming laptops (aka “Steam Deck”). And it is what they tried with round 1 of Steam Machines.
The real problem is going to be… all the problems that those of us with a Linux HTPC have. Streaming of media won’t be a thing since most services have DRM that relies on HDCP handshakes these days. Also people are going to learn the fun way why that AMD setup only supports “HDMI 2.0” (although there are workarounds to get most 2.1 functionality out of a display port adapter). Let alone just general weirdness that tends to not come up when everything is one integrated device.
Consoles have gone a LONG way towards ruining “it just works”. But I spent an hour or so yesterday finally flashing my display port dongle and it involved a second device to SSH into my HTPC and, in the process, I ended up needing to re-pair my xbox controller afterwards. I am used to that kind of bullshit and think it is fun. The first time that happens to someone you can expect all of social media to start caring that GabeN is a weird rich lunatic and insisting that Kojima-san and Sony will fix everything with the PS6 or whatever bullshit.
fonix232@fedia.io 8 hours ago
Most definitely.
Valve's main success here will be establishing SteamOS as a de facto replacement for some 60-70% of PCs. Hell, I've built a gaming PC a little over a year ago, and am still running Windows on it, but only for one reason: no first party support from SteamOS.
Once that's sorted... My need for Windows will disappear basically, aside from the very occasional ancient Windows utility I might need to use (old Rockchip flashing tools come to mind), but those usually run quite well enough in a VM.
Make a baseline Steam Machine, let people adapt their PCs to it easily, and you won over the gaming market. Expand that with support for third party launcher integration and you've literally got every single fanboy, gamer, etc., on your platform.
pivot_root@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
For the most part, it SteamOS isn’t really necessary to get a serviceable desktop gaming experience. Pick a well-supported rolling release distro or a derivative, install Steam and Proton, and games mostly just work.
It’s not perfect, but it’s usable. The only real pain point around gaming is getting HDR working properly.
Closed-source software is a different story, however. Discord’s Wayland support is basically nonexistent and the AFK detection thinks you’re always in front of the computer, suppressing mobile notifications.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Actually, you can get most of Valve’s work without SteamOS. I’m running Mint and it works great.
fonix232@fedia.io 3 hours ago
Actually, that's not what I want or need.
First party support here needs to include system drivers (including GPU) from primary sources (aka no "just add this repo and install this DKMS and run that installer", it should work OOTB for the most common hardware).
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
That’s what has happened to me. I haven’t installed a single driver yet, in about a year.
But I dunno. Maybe I just won the lottery.