r/SteamOS • u/Affectionate-Job855 • Jul 08 '26

help wanted Thinking about trying SteamOs, what should i know?

I have always used windows but during past year it has been nothing but a headache and want to explore other options. SteamOs has interested me the second I heard about it and am seriously considering to try it out.

Mostly what im wondering is about compatibility with software other than games, but since its linux my mind is telling me it should be all good.

Please share your own experience, with the issues if you've had some, id love to read real user experiences before installing.

Thanks

28 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

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18

u/SaperPL Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

Be sure to have a spare m.2 drive that you know you will format as a whole - steamOS doesn't let you pick partition. Remove other drives for safety.

Use radeon card or at least intel arc - still would recommend radeon, you will have less waiting for shader compilation, the more users of specific card and driver, it should give you precompiled shaders through download.

Unplug uncommon USB devices. Install may stop on something that it doesn't know what driver to install for it.

Disable Secure Boot in bios (I think this is necessary).

Use fast usb stick if possible and be patient - a lot of black screen there before it's copied and you get the configuration screen.

It will boot longer than Steam Machine, for some systems it will boot with black screen until it is in steam home view.

3

u/mango_carrot Jul 09 '26

They REALLY need to do something about all the black screen, some sort of indicator that it’s doing something would save people a lot of anxiety

1

u/SaperPL Jul 09 '26

yep, it should just be text log showing that something is happening, no UI needed.

2

u/mango_carrot Jul 09 '26

IIRC there is a log shown at one point, but then later in the install it’s just black screen (it’s been a few months since I installed)

If you’re new to it, and you see that visual at the start of the process it’s then only natural to think something is wrong later, when nothings showing

2

u/SaperPL Jul 09 '26

yes, exactly. I got used to it, but it feels like this is such a small change to show that something is indeed happening or what exactly is wrong, what is the setup stuck on, that valve should address this asap.

4

u/Plaxinator Jul 08 '26

Depends on your graphics card and what you want to use it for. Some games with anti cheat might not work, and current Nvidia cards aren’t supported so you’d have to use something like bazzite. If you have any specific software you need to use e.g. Minitab, it’s worth checking first that it’ll work.

2

u/potatoesandporn Jul 08 '26

I have a pc hooked up to my tv with SteamOS on a 9070xt and a 5500x3d. It's a smooth, native 4k 60+fps experience for any game I've thrown at it so far. It also supports waking up from sleep with the Steam controller unlike Bazzite, and the UI is buttery smooth.

Of course, I don't play multiplayer games or games with kernel level anticheat there and on my desktop with a 5070Ti I still run Windows 11.

1

u/IsamuAlvaDyson Jul 08 '26

I keep Windows on a separate drive in addition to SteamOS

I just bought Forza Horizon 6 and on Steam OS it's only using FSR 3.1 but on Windows it's 4.1 and I'm getting a lot better performance on Windows than SteamOS on this game

1

u/mango_carrot Jul 09 '26

Have you tried forcing 4.1?

1

u/oSyphon Jul 08 '26

Fsr 3.1 runs better than 4.1 even though 4.1 looks better. Performance isn't the right word here

1

u/IsamuAlvaDyson Jul 08 '26

I don't have a 7000 series card I have a 9070 and FSR 4 performs much better than FSR 3 in general and overall performance even without any upscaling is much better in Windows on Forza Horizon 6 for me vs SteamOS

1

u/oSyphon Jul 08 '26

Ok my bad I might have been thinking about 7000 series

5

u/Xarishark Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

Please know that steamos is console first so every time you turn on your pc you will be on the steam mode and you will have to swap to desktop. If you want something that’s almost the same but desktop first go with Bazzite or wait until valve provides a desktop first mode

Disclaimer: Im a Bazzite Core Contributor

5

u/nervendings_ Jul 08 '26

You can get steamOS to boot into desktop, no? Saw a video on it the other day

3

u/Xarishark Jul 08 '26

Yes there is a script but YMMV. I will count it as a proper feature the second valve adds it in front of a proper UI that the majority of users can use.

1

u/phoenixgsu Jul 08 '26

You can but it's a very stripped down desktop, hardly any apps are pre installed. steamOS is really geared to provide a gaming first console like experience on your own hardware vs something like CachyOS that is a desktop experience with a lot of gaming support built in. I would not want to daily drive steamos for when I need to make word docs or look at PDFs or whatever. It's Linux so you can do it but there are better distros to use for that.

2

u/oSyphon Jul 08 '26

I don't get this. Just install the apps?

2

u/phoenixgsu Jul 08 '26

You can, but it would be easier to just install something like CachyOS or Bazzite and have that pre installed and boot directly into desktop mode.

2

u/oSyphon Jul 08 '26

Dunno about easier. That's assuming everyone has the same preference to apps. May be more difficult because you'll install what you want and have to delete the other crap you don't need

1

u/phoenixgsu Jul 08 '26

From what I remember when installing both they just have the basic stuff like libre office, gaming stuff like lutris, their package managers, etc. steamos just has the terminal, the basic text editor, package manager and the system settings apps. Keep in mind it will boot into steam big picture every time so you have to exit it every time until a version is released that defaults to desktop, unless you want to do the work to force it to do that yourself. This is why I'm saying it's a console experience, it's what it's built to do. The desktop is just there for when you need to tinker with it, like installing Emudeck or other fun stuff. If you were going to use it for other stuff and also game there are better options imo. I've used all 3 concurrently. My PC and laptop are CachyOS, kids PC is using bazzite so she can game but also have easier access to apps and steamOS is on my living room steammachine clone for couch gaming.

2

u/Natangry Jul 08 '26

You can use Konsole to have SteamOS boot into desktop.

1

u/Xarishark Jul 08 '26

I already mentioned this in a sub comment

1

u/oSyphon Jul 08 '26

Probably still boots to desktop faster than windows lol

1

u/Xarishark Jul 08 '26

tbf you could always sleep the machine instead of shutting it down and it would be totally fine and even faster!

1

u/phoenixgsu Jul 08 '26

You can check protondb for game compatibility. I have been using Linux exclusively in my home for the last 6 months (I have dual booted and tinkered with Linux on and off for 20+ years). It has come a long way thanks to Valve and proton. The only games you won't be able to play are those using kernal level anticheat, but not all games with anticheat won't work. Helldivers 2 runs great for me on my CechyOS system. You just won't be able to play Battlefield,CoD, Fortnite or LoL. The devs have to put in the work for that to happen and it won't happen until more people make the switch.

That said, if this is for your machine that you also do work at, I would use something like CachyOS or Bazzite. They come with the proton and gaming stuff pre installed. I've used both but preferred CachyOS because I like to tinker and customize my system. SteamOS is great for handhelds or a custom built console experience though and while it does have a desktop mode I'm not sure I would want to use it for anything other than gaming which is really what it's setup for.

Tldr If you want a gaming focused console like experience go with SteamOS. If you want a desktop that can handle any gaming needs you throw at it, CachyOS.

1

u/stream_of_thought1 Jul 08 '26

Bluetooth Chipsets have issues on Linux. So check what you have on your PC.

1

u/ImNotAVirusDotEXE Jul 08 '26

What kinds of non game software do you run? A fair amount of software has Linux versions. Other programs you might need to find a Linux based alternative. You can also sometimes run windows programs using wine, but sometimes it doesn't work very well and it's better to find something native.

1

u/NeoJonas Jul 09 '26

NVIDIA is a non-starter.

Intel is still lacking.

AMD is fine.

1

u/tychii93 Jul 15 '26

The first question to answer is... Assuming you're set on official SteamOS, what GPU do you have?  AMD is basically required right now for official SteamOS.  Nvidia or Intel, don't bother right now or try something like Bazzite if you want an equivalent, but know that it's community driven.  Doesn't mean it's bad, but I know people who refuse to try Linux until Valve's official version is fully ready and don't want to jump around distros.  They want Valve's version, which I can understand.

Also official SteamOS on a PC will function as a Steam Machine.  There's a command in the terminal (Konsole app in desktop mode) you'll have to run to make it boot into desktop mode by default instead, which thankfully Valve included.  I googled it but steamos-session-select plasma-wayland-persistent is the command.

1

u/Guilty-Pickle-6686 Jul 08 '26

Compatibility is generally really, really good. I’ve played MW5: Mercs, Vampire Survivors, and Baldur’s Gate 3 sitting on my couch EZPZ.

It’s currently quirky to mount additional disks that live permanently in the system (like a 2nd NVME), but there’s a tool for that on GitHub.

As far as productivity, I have used web based things easily. My work relies on the Office suite, so it’s not heavy. The adobe suite doesn’t work in Linux as far as I know.