What is the SteamOS Operating System for Games?

[back_by_demand]

For a lot of people they only have 1 PC, so to use SteamOS will require sorting a dual-boot or removing Windows, otherwise it is aimed at new builds. New builds are either existing Steam users getting an additional PC or new users without a PC. Even if it's a good idea it may prove difficult to motivate those 40 million Windows PC users to switch. Still, great idea in principle, as long as you can run software you would also be able to run through any other Linux distro - that is the question nobody has answered yet, get me a yes to that and I'm all on board.

 

[cobra5000]

This seems like a great thing! I can put together some of the extra hardware I have laying around and don't have to fork over the cash for a new copy of Windows. Ahh, sweet freedom, at last!

 

[Guest]

The main thing I am interested in is the streaming component. I have a projector which I would love to play games on, however I don't want the hassle of moving my PC from room to room. If I could stream the game using SteamOS on a relatively low powered machine that would be cool.

Half Life on a 5 meter screen... Mmmm... LOL

 

[Usersname]

Anything that means game devs shifting focus from crappy locked-in MS DirectX to OpenGL would be okay with me.

 

[Durandul]

Well, just for the sake of clarity, one of the more interesting features is to stream games from an existing PC in your house. An old laptop goes from collecting dust in the corner to being a media/gaming hub away from your desktop (living room, bed room, maybe even kitchen). So it can't natively run any game, but it can stream any game.

 

[GreatWizard]

Don't forget that the vast majority of steam games that run on a Mac can be easily ported to Linux (since mac is a unix based system). So given the incentive (Steam OS) all mac games will be ported quickly. I would not be surprised if the move to support MAC on steam was a step on the way to support both Mac and Linux.

 

[czerro]

@medamax It will not include WINE. It will not be in the official repositories, of course there is nothing preventing one from installing WINE on SteamOS...but it's kinda missing the point. Like every other linux distro, there will be third party repositories and most definitely one featuring an easy WINE install. There is good news though, OpenGL/OpenAL is as fully functional as DX and the advent of Mantle means many good things as well. So there is the possibility of games migrating away from DX if SteamOS and Mantle take off. Mantle seems like a good bet now given it's performance increases and the fact that the next gen consoles will need to take advantage of it for maximum performance. So there are two answers to your question: 1.) SteamOS will never support all the games currently in your steam library, nor will it support WINE integration 2.) You can install WINE if you choose but it will probably be a chore for average joe schmoe to figure out the dependencies, but like every linux community, a third party repository will quickly scoop this and do the work for you. So it's a NO from an out of the box perspective, but there is nothing preventing WINE integration and it will assuredly be packaged by someone.

 

[fynamite echo]

Add the question 'Will SteamOS run WINE?'

 

[FlyingMongoose]

I must point out that 1: Steam already has a voice chat system that works with groups.

I also must point out that this faq is a LITTLE misleading, essentially "What Games run on SteamOS?" is a bit vague, if you add the ending qualifier to that question of "natively" then the response is correct because supposedly, any game will run through SteamOS (windows games will be able to be played via a streaming system from a windows pc to the steamos).

 

[Poimin]

Origin, desura, uplay etc support? Whats the point of ~500$ Pc running SteamOs if i cant play Battlefield 3 or 4? With windows, xbox360/one and ps3/4 i can.

 

[Poimin]

Origin, desura, uplay etc support? Whats the point of ~500$ Pc running SteamOs if i cant play Battlefield 3 or 4? With windows, xbox360/one and ps3/4 i can.

 

[ProfessorKaos64]

There is* a Bioshock title, Inifinite, available. Also you links need a space before the actual link

Anyone interested in adding software or retrogaming to SteamOS can checkout my scripts located at:

https://github.com/ProfessorKaos64/SteamOS-Tools/

 

[ProfessorKaos64]

But can it run...office. Seriously though I hope they integrate more software into their library what's compatible with SteamOS

It is not, and will never be intended to be a deskop OS...

 

[ProfessorKaos64]

Add the question 'Will SteamOS run WINE?'

Yes it does, as does Crossover and PlayOnLinux. However, Big Picture Mode, and SteamOS are not meant to use it, so it does not work well. I have been testing this in my git repo though.

https://github.com/ProfessorKaos64/SteamOS-Tools/

 

[ProfessorKaos64]

Origin, desura, uplay etc support? Whats the point of ~500$ Pc running SteamOs if i cant play Battlefield 3 or 4? With windows, xbox360/one and ps3/4 i can.

Not being able to play every single title and all the "Bro shooters" isn't my concern. I love how it works, and support, like anything*, will take time. It already has more games than Xbox One and PS4 combined. But because it doesn't have the latest crap FPS? Who cares.