is Steam OS a thing of the past now?

ExoMale · 7 Jan 2019 at 23:58

havent tried it since 2 maybe 3 years ago, was decent i suppose at the time when i was a bit more in to steam, but nowadays i have been buying games under the platform.

i am going to be selling my system in my sig in exchange for a laptop, so that spec will be irrelevant, but thinking of building a small dedicated steam machine, but curious if steam OS is valid these days?

pete910 · 8 Jan 2019 at 01:07

It is and still actively developed by valve but tbh just use "favourite distro" and install steam, You can still use it as a desktop if needed + other things like Kodi ect .

opethdisciple · 8 Jan 2019 at 10:34

I noticed yesterday that at CES (I think) Red Hat had a booth promoting gaming on Linux. I noticed the steam client running in the background. What operating system they where using tho I'm not sure.

Tute · 22 Jan 2019 at 17:17

Offering Steam for Linux basically killed the whole point of SteamOS. Why hamstring your PC to make it behave like a console with a controller when you can use it with a mouse and keyboard and still switch to controller for when you need it?

The time spent on SteamOS should have been spent on Proton instead, that's a far more worthwhile cause.

pete910 · 22 Jan 2019 at 17:53

Tute said:
Offering Steam for Linux basically killed the whole point of SteamOS. Why hamstring your PC to make it behave like a console with a controller when you can use it with a mouse and keyboard and still switch to controller for when you need it?
.

Not really, there's nothing stopping you using said KB/mouse on SteamOS . SteamOS was aimed at the console users if you look at it like that it actually works rather well.

Tute said:
The time spent on SteamOS should have been spent on Proton instead, that's a far more worthwhile cause.

Proton is a double edged sword and to be frank I think it's a mistake.

InfiniteNoise · 22 Jan 2019 at 22:25

Why do you think that Proton is a mistake?

For me, it's amazing, I find it works quite well (but that has quite a bit to do with games I have, support isn't perfect but it's not bad), I was really glad when I came across it, and when you add in things like Lutris (which I use to play WoW and Hearthstone), Linux isn't so bad for gaming.

pete910 · 24 Jan 2019 at 11:52

Idartalis said:
Why do you think that Proton is a mistake?

Don't get me wrong Wine/Proton are great for old/legacy apps but not good for helping in getting game devs/publishers doing native Linux games/software.

Tom B · 27 Jan 2019 at 13:49

pete910 said:
Don't get me wrong Wine/Proton are great for old/legacy apps but not good for helping in getting game devs/publishers doing native Linux games/software.

Personally I think we need Wine/Proton. Most gamers have a library of hundreds of games. They simply won't switch to Linux if most of their library doesn't work. Until Linux is usable as a gaming platform and supports peoples existing favourite games, gamers won't switch. If gamers are all using Windows, developers have no reason to support Linux. As more people use Linux, developers will take it more seriously.