what a lot of linux users don’t realize is that most gamers either don’t know what linux is or they have preconceived notions of linux as a super technical hacker OS that requires you to have a degree in computer science in order to install a web browser. to those people steamOS isn’t “a variant of linux,” they just see it as valve’s cool new gaming-focused operating system, and are more willing to try that than anything marketed as a linux distro.
My understanding is similar. It's like in order for people to use Linux, the people have to be marketed a solution, have a notable brand behind it, and sold in stores. RHEL is just Fedora but it's advertised and targeted to Enterprise Network and IT folks. Kali is targeted towards Hackers and Pen testers. ChromeOS is targeted to education and people who only use a Web Browser. SteamOS is targeted Gamers who don't want to do all that the set up.
yes and i think that's where valve could make a lot of money with a steam machine 2. we've seen it time and time again where people that use windows on their laptop switch to a chromebook and it's like the easiest thing in the world for them. cause when something comes preinstalled on a device and works out of the box, people can just use it. they may not like it, like in the case with switching from windows to macos, but they can do it.
It's the brand recognition. They recognize valve/steam as a brand name in pc gaming they can trust and this makes the choice of "which distro basket should I put all my eggs into cuz I'm not going to try more than one? " decision very easy. Linux is full of choice and exploration of those choices but choice is the enemy of the layman that just wants one thing that works and doesn't care how long as it doesn't get in the way of their end goal.
It's simple, Valve backing Linux for the Steam Deck led to Proton, which has essentially led to Linux being viable for gaming. If Valve backs Linux for desktops too, then that could easily lead to Linux being viable for desktop usage in general. And whatever people who use Linux might think, it's just currently not viable for desktop usage, it's still a server OS. Here's a good example of what I mean, my audio interface doesn't have Linux drivers, my DAW doesn't have a Linux version, in fact most creative software doesn't exist on Linux, most of the time you have to use a free open source alternative which isn't nearly as powerful (there are rare exceptions to this obviously). Linux doesn't get the support it needs to be a consumer desktop OS. All it needs for that to change, is a big name behind a LInux distro (like Valve) who are willing to give Linux the support it needs to be useful for desktops (like Valve). It WILL lead to more desktops and laptops with Linux installed, which WILL lead to significantly better support. That's not even discussing the fact that there are so many distros it makes your head spin, and so having one major Linux distro with major backing from a huge company makes it an obvious choice. There's a reason that Linux is still a tiny percentage of the market share, and Valve might just be the company to change that.
idk if i mentioned it in the video but i dont really see steamos as focusing on desktop usage whereas bazzite has a lot of stuff out of the box that make it easier to use for stuff outside of steam. steamos even uses their own osk instead of maliit or gjs-osk. since it's designed to run steam on a handheld it misses out on a lot of preconfigured stuff like distrobox or printer drivers. sure you CAN set it up on steamos and run it on a desktop, but a lot of the work to make it decent for desktop use will probably be ported from ublue.
@@RealWaffles Yeah my main worry for SteamOS would be that in all likelihood it would be entirely focused on gaming and nothing else. Which is good for gaming IMO (since it would make PC gaming more appealing for console gamers, and IMO consoles are holding games back today for a variety of reasons I wont go into right now), but not great for Linux. But the other side of it is that all it needs to do is convert enough desktops to SteamOS instead of Windows. If the market share increases, support will increase with it. And that might create a feedback loop which will cause Valve to focus more on the general desktop experience. Even if SteamOS is initially an entirely gaming focused OS at first, just the possibility of making a significant enough dent in the Windows market share might be enough to create some actual competition for Microsoft. Which would in theory improve both Linux in general AND Windows. If nothing else, an increase in Linux's market share is a good thing and I think that SteamOS is exactly the sort of thing that can do that. It already has increased Linux's market share with the Steam Deck.
@@highestsettings I think that Steam's input API is very good for gaming, as it introduces a lot of innovative input methods that otherwise simply can't be replicated. Touchpad support is on Playstation, Gyro is on Switch, Xbox is the baseline for everyone, but PC has access to every console gimmick and more, and that allows developers to release any console game on Steam, and use those unique features on Consoles in innovative ways. It can happen, but I hold little faith while Microsoft hold us back with mediocre input methods
People want something that just works with no hassle. SteamOS works well on the Steam Deck so they're thinking if the same was done for Desktop they'd enjoy that too... They're likely unaware of all the existing distro's and probably don't have much interest in learning how to set them up.
im one of them. i know of linux and have tried it a few times but when i tried it nothing was plug and play, and everything required me to look up a guide (on a windows pc because i was having trouble getting my wifi to work with linux). i want steam OS because i want an OS with a large company behind it working on making things function, as opposed to relying on support from other users. im not going to win 11, i refuse. i did a bunch of work to remove as much tracking from 10 as i could but i know its probably still there in the background. i just want to be able to use my computer to the same things as i do now without bill gates stuffing his hand in places they dont belong. linux can do that, but again its too reliant on random people who know how to code and also use my specific chosen distro to fix the problems i encounter which is a niche of a niche of a niche. and even then i will probably have to know some basic stuff myself to get it tailored to work on my machine. when steam OS comes out it will be the #1 distro, I wouldnt be surprised if in a couple years of it launching it overtakes whatever OS apple is on by then. which means there will finally be a market for companies to pander to, and 3rd party device and software support. you should be supporting this too as any help valve gets will also spill over to the rest of linux. its 100% about volume and support.
This video reminds me that not all gamers have interest in IT. I can see why a gamer that got a SteamDeck poked around in the KDE desktop and enjoyed the experience. So much so that they wanted that same OS on their desktop PC. I know the frustrations of switching between platforms (Android, iPhone, Mac, Windows, Playstation, Nintendo) and am use to navigating different UI, inputs, etc. But for most they don't want that mental overhead of learning something new. We as Linux users need to educate the 'normies' that Steam has purposely held off on releasing their OS for desktop because it isn't ready. We need to recommend others ready made OSs like Garuda that use KDE and have a gaming focus that will get them that experience. Hell even HolloOS doing the leg work of bringing SteamOS to the desktop
yeah pretty much. steamos isn't really a desktop os and there's a LOT i would want valve to do before trying to push it as a desktop os. but i can already recommend bazzite which does the opposite, it takes all the stuff valve did and put it on an atomic distro that's already setup for desktop use. but the immutable aspect of steamos and bazzite (though technically it's atomic not immutable) means there's a learning curve for containers like distrobox and rpm-ostree that garuda or endeavorOS would not have to deal with.
SteamOS has some really nice features that they introduced and maintain. Bazzite and Chimera etc are basically patching them into another distro, and have been working with Valve to some degree. Once SteamOS is released fully, it'll have funding and support that will likely benefit other Linux Distros, and it will definitely support other handheld devices. Ubuntu and Mint, Manjaro and Fedora, none of the main distros disable the desktop process during games to fully allocate resources, for example. SteamOS can be a baseline OS that developers can target too, if only to double check that Proton works okay with it.
I think the appeal of SteamOS would be that you get most of the advantages of Arch, but without worrying about some package update breaking things. Because the updates are basically an immutable snapshot of Arch that Valve tests before pushing out to users. Of course there are distros like Bazzite and ChimeraOS that do something similar, but I think the average user is either unaware of them or just trusts Valve more than a "random" distro maintainer.
A major--if not *main*--reason why is because most distros are *not* as gaming friendly out of the box. They require a lot of additional tinkering to hit the same level of gaming support as a Windows machine does by default (and that's not the highest bar it could be). I'm a *very* experienced computer user at all levels of the system and even I gave up on Linux as my gaming PC OS, and I tried several distros. HDR on Linux is still a nightmare, but HDR enabled monitors are now widespread. X11/Wayland compat tomfoolery is still liable to explode on every other game. Streaming on a Wayland DE is still a joke, but X11 is a dead ship and everyone is (finally) going to Wayland. GPU drivers have less features and are an objectively worse experience to manage (a command line doesn't even come close to the ease of *discovery* a GUI has, and since GPU features vary so wildly from model to model and driver to driver, that's essential for all but the most no-life power user). And yes, Proton is available on distros but because of the unstable Windowing subsystems, you hit a ton of compat issues as soon as you go outside of the gaming interests of the Linux contributors. Valve has solutions to almost everything, not the least of which is gamescope, their own windowing system which is currently only well optimized for the Deck. What we want is a Valve DE top to bottom because they have the resources and knowledge to deliver a GREAT one that can actually give us a reason to get off Windows. Those of us just using the computer to game really don't give a shit if Windows is spyware, the experience is still good enough to stay. And, unfortunately, neither do normie users who *are* using it for more....
i don't really have room to talk since i use gentoo and installing steam from a fresh install takes a few hours, but after setting up steam on most of the major distros it really is as easy as installing the steam package and running a game these days. nvidia drivers will be a nightmare for a bit longer, but steamos afaik has either very poor nvidia support or doesn't support it at all, which would kill like 50% of linux gamers. for distros like opensuse and fedora, the open kernel drivers hopefully should alleviate that and we'll see proper nvidia support in the next few years across the board. gamescope is optimized for steamos but is also available as a nix flake if you're insane enough to run nixos, and bazzite if you just want to run a steamos-like distro. it even has nvidia support. but yeah i definitely agree too that windows will always be there for gamers since most games are still windows programs at the end of the day. and with the draconian measures anticheat does now requesting access to ring 0 of your computer beyond the level of an administrator, it'll eventually come down to gamers rejecting these games and that will allow them to run linux more freely.
@@RealWaffles Not saying is necessarily straightforward, but aren't Nvidia official drivers already supported on Linux in general? I have them installed on my PC and have pretty much no issue gaming other than sometimes preparing Proton just like on the deck.
from what I've gathered opensuse has the best performance out of any distro in regards to gaming, which is really weird. I guess because they do a lot of work with KDE which is inarguably the best DE for gaming atm
One Reason. People just want a OS that just works. SteamOS on the Steamdeck seems to work perfectly. Just turn it on, press install game, play game. No linux distro is that simple. Not even close. Windows also isn't, but at least 99% of games & software work. Trying to get most stuff to run on linux is janky as hell (I tried a few distros. never lasted longer than a week, because trouble shooting got so annoying). My hope is that because Valve is such a huge company with such a huge userbase, that companies will start to specifically develop for linux. At first only game companies but hopefully in the future also other general software companies.
Big agree. The majority of console-only players that I know have an opinion that PC gaming is already too complicated - research parts, build pc, install OS and games, tweak settings for FPS. They just wanna turn on the power, load game and play.
This exactly, just want something that works. I have used Linux on my main system for over half a year and deal with jank every single day. On my Steam Deck (which I have used on and off in desktop and gaming mode) I have experienced very minor issues that are normally fixed after a few updates. I could probably list 5-10 major bugs that I experience all the time on my main pc, while the Steam Deck has only one extremely specific issue that I found yesterday.
yes, on the steamdeck it's nice because on the steam deck you're mostly going to play games. when we talk about desktops, use cases get a lot more complicated in general. you have peripherals you gotta deal with, nvidia graphics, printers, dvd burners, dacs, amps, vpns, mixers, all this stuff people might wanna use on their desktop that has to be easy to setup on steamos. that's where bazzite shines is it's already done all that work for you, and valve is going to end up having to support it, too.
In its current state, yes, it's not really a desktop OS, but it is built off of one (Arch) and any missing features could be added in the future, depending on where Valve takes it. Plus, the Arch team is working directly with Valve now. Also, the reason Valve are making SteamOS, in the first place, is to cut out the middle men and general bloat seen on Windows, Mac, or even other Linux distributions. It's for easy access PC gaming, and it gives Valve greater control over the environment that the games they sell are running in. That's something they don't have on any other operating systems, and it's why they've been able to push out hot-fixes and general performance improvements for specific games on the Steam Deck. While on Windows, Mac, or other Linux distributions, the players, Steam, and/or developers, all get shafted every time someone bricks a bunch of older games/software because they screwed around with the OS in a way that Valve has no control over.
why not Ubuntu? Because it's buggy. why not Bazzite? probably the same, idk, I've never tried it. The expectation is Valve would do what the Linux community couldn't: release an OS that doesn't randomly break and that's not that buggy, so normies can use it, and not run into a dealbreaker issue that they would need to open the terminal to fix.
Curious how many gamers are aware of how much Valve outsources contract work for stuff like SteamOS and the Steam Controller. Even a company of 300(?) full time employees can do so much for relatively decent quality.
ubuntu as far as i know has gotten better in the last year or so. at least on laptops i've set it up on it should be fine for general use. bazzite like steamos is immutable (except bazzite is atomic) so the system image generally should be pretty good. the part i'm concerned about is when steamos is used on a desktop, people are going to run into desktop use cases where suddenly they need to deal with package managers and containers and... using the terminal to fix things. and that's really why i think steamos as a desktop os would be very different from steamos on the deck. it's not like valve is some magic company that can make linux easy to use. they made a device that plays games and made that easy to do. if linux could be made that easy to use on a desktop, someone would have done it.
After thinking about a lot of what you covered (and other linux channels), I think there is another dimension to freedom. There is the freedom of choice of distro, but another free dynamic is that each option isn't expending ludicrous effort towards winning you over. They'll likely enjoy Bazzite, Nobara, etc if they just jumped in, but I bet gamers are waiting for a distro to be sold to them. That's their picking algorithm, "Who is marketing to me?" Of course they want Valve to do it, cause they can sell them something. And of course they gotta make things super comfy or you'll withold your debit card details. Meanwhile the people working on Nobara will patch kwin to work on some Chinese Handheld I've never heard of, and the gaming normies couldn't be bothered to give a shit.
yeha that's why i was so confused is steamos isn't even close to a desktop distro. and when valve actually makes desktop steamos and supports everyone's desktop use cases, it's not gonna be much different from bazzite. it won't be as easy to use when you can't install a flatpak for everything or you want a vpn client or a printer driver or you need to setup your nvidia card. and at that point we'll have yet another linux distro that people say is too hard to use because their use case changed.
They want steamdeck experience on their desktop, that's mostly it. Just like they have been taught that you buy devices with windows, they now want another system that is bought with hardware, that everyone else uses. People still want big daddy that will hold their hand and lead them around.
yes now that proton is mostly mature, a steam machine 2 would be a great idea from valve. i think people using a steam machine purely as a console rather than trying to replace their entire desktop with it would make people happy. if it's going to replace their desktop though, steamos is going to get a lot more complex because it'll have to support everyone's use case. it'll quickly lose that charm of being simple to use when there's a million different configurations of hardware and software they have to support and ublue has shown what you have to do to make an immutable distro usable for that.
@@RealWaffles Pretty much, but my proposition for valve would be slightly different. Steam Machine 2 with dual-boot. SteamOS and some other distro for regular use so that SteamOS stays simple. As for configurations - technically on windows nothing works out of the box either, and people still spend a lot of time on driver and issues.
Consoles are so horribly limited despite being made of powerful hardware, SteamOS makes for a system that can game and do basic desktop stuff, which meets the needs of millions of people.
People are looking to Valve to take the lead because of the trust they inspire. A multi-billion-dollar company like Valve, a beloved gaming giant, could provide the credibility and support needed to encourage developers to prioritize Linux when creating games.
This is exactly the thing I want to happen and why I really want SteamOS to succeed and get people to install it. It creates pressure for game developers/publishers to finally care about Linux gaming and not just let Proton do all the work or just blocking the users out of the game by using anti-cheats that do not support Linux.
Of course we would prefer a lightweight, stable, gaming optimized, and free operating system over getting endlessly exploited, plundered, and spied upon by Micro$oft.
Manjaro may not be the most user-friendly option for beginners. Furthermore, installing software from unofficial sources can lead to system instability, and many users might find a long-term support distribution like Debian more suitable than a rolling-release distribution such as Arch Linux.
u could do manjaro, but the concept of it doesn't really make much sense since arch uses the aur as a crutch for its repositories and manjaro breaks that by withholding updates for 2 weeks which can cause version mismatches in dependencies. endeavor or garuda would work fine for this. however, steam is based on arch but that does not mean it behaves like arch. since steamos is immutable it is inherently much more stable because the system image is built on a delay from upstream and made for compatibility. if you just switched out steamos for an arch based distro, you would have a very different experience in the way you install packages and how updates would work.
yeah my next foray into debian is probably going to be trying to setup debian as a mostly up to date distro with containers. debian is a great base to build on but the software you install on top of it should be up to date. but at that point you could just install popos, mint or ubuntu and get all the qol stuff with it that debian doesn't have.
Doesn't SteamOS already exist? Yeah it's like a small fork of Arch (formerly Debian), but I have a feeling its closer to a distro made for testing stuff like KDE Neon or Clear Linux also are.
there was a build of steamos for desktops but that's long gone. brodie robertson did a video on it a while ago. they're working on a desktop version of steamos 3 now. it's currently what runs the steam deck and is an immutable fork of arch.
Which distro would you recommend to get close to a windows like experience but perhaps better? I have always used windows but I'm open to trying something new.
yeah mint would be a good option. has a similar desktop which is what people really get hooked on with windows. everything else is still gonna have its learning. you install applications through either their store or command line, the file hierarchy is different so you'll still have to learn where your system puts stuff, and you'll start learning about all these new applications that are alternatives to the stuff you ran on windows. instead of task manager you can use btop, instead of windows media player or fb2k you have audacious, vlc or mpv for video, image editors like gimp, screenshotting works differently. i do recommend trying it, as it's a great thing to learn and can quickly become a hobby. just remember this will never be a drop-in replacement for windows. the philosophy of open source software is completely different from what you're used to.
Xfce is a great DE, my only problem with it is that it does not have enough customization for me personally. So on my big heavy rig I use KDE and on my laptop switching to Xfce from Ubuntu
Once Valve releases SteamOS for the desktop, the goalposts will move for these people. They’re never going to switch to Linux. They like to feel as though they’re willing to switch, but that Linux just isn’t ready yet. So, they come up with reasons in their heads to justify why Linux isn’t ready. As you mentioned, it’ll shift to things like ring 0 anti-cheat. Then it’ll be Wine not having 100% native performance. After that, it’ll be the lack of Copilot, and so on. The only reason they have these "requirements" is to make themselves feel better. It lets them blame their continued use of Windows on Linux, not on themselves. People don’t like to feel like something is their fault. They want to believe they’re doing everything they can, and that someone or something else is stopping them from doing what they supposedly want. As a community, we can’t help these people. Anyone still complaining about Linux not having XYZ features at this point is just rationalizing why they haven’t put in the effort to switch.
So SteamOS isn't its own OS it's Arch (BTW). Which unlike Ubuntu and some other Linux distributions has a rolling release schedule. So it gets update much more frequently). The packaged image includes core integrations outside of just the Steam client. That is my caveman brain understanding of it anyway.
kind of yeah. iirc it's not on the same release schedule as arch. it's got arch as a base but i made a video talking about how just because something is based on another distro does not mean it will behave the same. especially in this case where steamos is immutable while arch is not.
People want stuff to work. The steam deck is by far the best Linux has been but it still leaves so so so much to be desired. Linux users need to learn not everyone wants to spend all day messing with stuff. Was arch fun when i was a teen? Yeah but as an adult i really dont have time for it anymore.
The Reason people want a Steam OS for desktop, is because people know and trust valve, and they know that valve would produce somethign that can be used by "everyone" not just the elitist neckbeards who want to overcomplicate everything in an effort to "look clever". An OS isnt supposed to be "clever" or do things in a realy interesting way for no other reason than "because it can" an OS should be simple, unintrusive and not get in the way of general use, a perfect OS wouldnt even be noticed, its the foundation you build everything else on top of it, it should be unseen and ignored in day to day computer use.
I would love it if I didn't play star citizen. I have too many windows only peripherals in my set up for that game. aside from that literally my only use for the pc is steam. if star citizen didn't exist i could fully operate off steamos
I agree that if you want more control then bazzite or others are a better choice. Steam OS is just more embedded and primarily intended for gaming, and only secondarily as a linux based os. It is a choice to make. There are reasons for and against it. I think when you talk about "gamers" then you still just mean a subset of people that play games. Not all gamers. How large that group is, is up to debate. Have you had statistics about what people that play games actually want? You can't used those that just shout loud for that. Also you should be aware that quite a bit of what makes bazzite is based on Steam OS, it would not exist as it is without it.
"doesn't seem like many people know about it" - this is your answer. nobody wants to do research or anything. they want to be told that something has been packaged and is ready for general consumption. also maybe educate yourself about the subject matter before you go on a rant that doesn't mean anything.
Dude it's not that hard to understand. People want the Official thing. Stop breaking it down, it's simple. THE OFFICIAL THING from the people who run their game libraries.
"As I am a power-user and I am not a gamer....I dont know why normal ppl dont want to use any of the 500+ distros..." You are just high as a kite and delusional. When you have a life that is not related to spend hours testing distros or finding the right terminal commands to open a new browser tab you just want something that works And you know it will work. Ubuntu is very polished but far from ready to use for the average joe. Normal ppl just want to get back from work and relax a few hours with some games and youtube. Linux is not that currently. Valve could polish that and the normal guy could be rest assured that it will work.
oh no not people having brand recognition and don't want to figure out alot of commands to understand OR what REGULAR people do already use which is fucking copy paste from github, oh god think of the TORTURE of someone using linux with steamOS oh god help them the amount of times you said "gamers" is insane almost like you were using it like a slur xD like the EGOISM in this video is innsaaaane like the laughing everytime you tried to even try and understand why steamos might be a good thing or that "gamers be gaming they just want to have Chinese spyware -_-" was ridiculous steamOS exists because they want to make console like pcs, steam has even said this themselves, so yes there is a reason SteamOS exists cause again BRAND RECOGNITION, like most people don't use linux cause they don't want to be In IT and it's incredibly difficult to understand at the start, there's a reason Linux is only used by like 3% of the PC user base, it's because "gamers" just want to game and even then that narrows it down even further like fuck my friend has to run a virtual machine to play several games because he runs linux xD why would steam as a COMPANY use fucking bazzite or ubuntu xD
People hope SteamOS will be better than other linux distros and Valve will figure out anticheat situation in the future. Or they will just keep use Windows. I hate stupid people like you on linux who thinks that if you don't play online games with anticheat other people don't need to, just open Twitch games category and see that most top online games aren't work on linux. Im CachyOS user & dual booting Windows 10 because linux can't give me fully what i want from my PC and i can't play most online games with my friends (CS2 on faceit, Valorant, CoD Warzone, EA SPORTS FC, PUBG, GTA V with Rage Multiplayer etc.)
well also a lot of the top twitch games aren't on steam. fortnite, world of warcraft, league of legends, minecraft. but yeah i choose not to play games with kernel level anticheat because i don't like programs having that level of access to my computer when they have historically been exploited. if a game won't run on linux, there's most likely a reason i don't want to run it in the first place.
Gamers fundamentally misunderstand what SteamOS even is, and they misunderstand what Linux is. They're influenced by the previous FUD about Linux that it's an opaque, obtuse, and difficult OS that requires a computer science degree to even use. For some reason, they see a potential SteamOS as somehow separate from Linux. They don't realize that SteamOS is a Linux distro designed around the Steam Deck, and soon other PC handhelds and HTPC setups. They want an "out" from Windows, and they see SteamOS as potentially being that out, but for some reason they don't see other Linux distros the same way, and they don't understand that SteamOS won't be ideal as a desktop OS. I'm a little concerned that this will scare people back to the more-familiar Windows. Maybe Valve should produce a more desktop focused version of SteamOS as well.
i think for that they'll have to kill the immutable aspect. i managed to run bazzite as a daily for a few months after learning about containers but a lot of the time i was thinking there's so much stuff people use that can't be done on an atomic distro yet without having to distrobox things. of course when you kill the immutable part of steamos it'll start to show the holes arch linux has when it can't rely on a stable system image to keep it from breaking itself.
"gamers" that use steam know about linux. most gaming pc's are thousands of dollars and and are built by the user, the days of just buying a dell from walmart ended at least a decade ago. they know enough about pc's to have at least heard of and probably have seen linux in use. valve is going to make a desktop version of steamOS, theyve said this multiple times. leaks and datamining has shown theyre working on a console-like product to be announced probably in the next six months, and after that their goal is a full desktop OS. much of the work for this will be accomplished with their "freemont" codenamed product.
what a lot of linux users don’t realize is that most gamers either don’t know what linux is or they have preconceived notions of linux as a super technical hacker OS that requires you to have a degree in computer science in order to install a web browser. to those people steamOS isn’t “a variant of linux,” they just see it as valve’s cool new gaming-focused operating system, and are more willing to try that than anything marketed as a linux distro.
My understanding is similar. It's like in order for people to use Linux, the people have to be marketed a solution, have a notable brand behind it, and sold in stores. RHEL is just Fedora but it's advertised and targeted to Enterprise Network and IT folks. Kali is targeted towards Hackers and Pen testers. ChromeOS is targeted to education and people who only use a Web Browser. SteamOS is targeted Gamers who don't want to do all that the set up.
yes and i think that's where valve could make a lot of money with a steam machine 2. we've seen it time and time again where people that use windows on their laptop switch to a chromebook and it's like the easiest thing in the world for them. cause when something comes preinstalled on a device and works out of the box, people can just use it. they may not like it, like in the case with switching from windows to macos, but they can do it.
Linux users couldn't care less, we just want game developers to care about us and make their games compatible
It's the brand recognition. They recognize valve/steam as a brand name in pc gaming they can trust and this makes the choice of "which distro basket should I put all my eggs into cuz I'm not going to try more than one? " decision very easy. Linux is full of choice and exploration of those choices but choice is the enemy of the layman that just wants one thing that works and doesn't care how long as it doesn't get in the way of their end goal.
It's simple, Valve backing Linux for the Steam Deck led to Proton, which has essentially led to Linux being viable for gaming. If Valve backs Linux for desktops too, then that could easily lead to Linux being viable for desktop usage in general. And whatever people who use Linux might think, it's just currently not viable for desktop usage, it's still a server OS. Here's a good example of what I mean, my audio interface doesn't have Linux drivers, my DAW doesn't have a Linux version, in fact most creative software doesn't exist on Linux, most of the time you have to use a free open source alternative which isn't nearly as powerful (there are rare exceptions to this obviously). Linux doesn't get the support it needs to be a consumer desktop OS. All it needs for that to change, is a big name behind a LInux distro (like Valve) who are willing to give Linux the support it needs to be useful for desktops (like Valve). It WILL lead to more desktops and laptops with Linux installed, which WILL lead to significantly better support. That's not even discussing the fact that there are so many distros it makes your head spin, and so having one major Linux distro with major backing from a huge company makes it an obvious choice.
There's a reason that Linux is still a tiny percentage of the market share, and Valve might just be the company to change that.
idk if i mentioned it in the video but i dont really see steamos as focusing on desktop usage whereas bazzite has a lot of stuff out of the box that make it easier to use for stuff outside of steam. steamos even uses their own osk instead of maliit or gjs-osk. since it's designed to run steam on a handheld it misses out on a lot of preconfigured stuff like distrobox or printer drivers. sure you CAN set it up on steamos and run it on a desktop, but a lot of the work to make it decent for desktop use will probably be ported from ublue.
@@RealWaffles Yeah my main worry for SteamOS would be that in all likelihood it would be entirely focused on gaming and nothing else. Which is good for gaming IMO (since it would make PC gaming more appealing for console gamers, and IMO consoles are holding games back today for a variety of reasons I wont go into right now), but not great for Linux.
But the other side of it is that all it needs to do is convert enough desktops to SteamOS instead of Windows. If the market share increases, support will increase with it. And that might create a feedback loop which will cause Valve to focus more on the general desktop experience. Even if SteamOS is initially an entirely gaming focused OS at first, just the possibility of making a significant enough dent in the Windows market share might be enough to create some actual competition for Microsoft. Which would in theory improve both Linux in general AND Windows.
If nothing else, an increase in Linux's market share is a good thing and I think that SteamOS is exactly the sort of thing that can do that. It already has increased Linux's market share with the Steam Deck.
@@highestsettings I think that Steam's input API is very good for gaming, as it introduces a lot of innovative input methods that otherwise simply can't be replicated.
Touchpad support is on Playstation, Gyro is on Switch, Xbox is the baseline for everyone, but PC has access to every console gimmick and more, and that allows developers to release any console game on Steam, and use those unique features on Consoles in innovative ways.
It can happen, but I hold little faith while Microsoft hold us back with mediocre input methods
You always sound like you're on the verge of busting out in laughter in your videos
People want something that just works with no hassle. SteamOS works well on the Steam Deck so they're thinking if the same was done for Desktop they'd enjoy that too... They're likely unaware of all the existing distro's and probably don't have much interest in learning how to set them up.
im one of them.
i know of linux and have tried it a few times but when i tried it nothing was plug and play, and everything required me to look up a guide (on a windows pc because i was having trouble getting my wifi to work with linux). i want steam OS because i want an OS with a large company behind it working on making things function, as opposed to relying on support from other users.
im not going to win 11, i refuse. i did a bunch of work to remove as much tracking from 10 as i could but i know its probably still there in the background. i just want to be able to use my computer to the same things as i do now without bill gates stuffing his hand in places they dont belong. linux can do that, but again its too reliant on random people who know how to code and also use my specific chosen distro to fix the problems i encounter which is a niche of a niche of a niche. and even then i will probably have to know some basic stuff myself to get it tailored to work on my machine. when steam OS comes out it will be the #1 distro, I wouldnt be surprised if in a couple years of it launching it overtakes whatever OS apple is on by then. which means there will finally be a market for companies to pander to, and 3rd party device and software support. you should be supporting this too as any help valve gets will also spill over to the rest of linux.
its 100% about volume and support.
This video reminds me that not all gamers have interest in IT. I can see why a gamer that got a SteamDeck poked around in the KDE desktop and enjoyed the experience. So much so that they wanted that same OS on their desktop PC.
I know the frustrations of switching between platforms (Android, iPhone, Mac, Windows, Playstation, Nintendo) and am use to navigating different UI, inputs, etc. But for most they don't want that mental overhead of learning something new.
We as Linux users need to educate the 'normies' that Steam has purposely held off on releasing their OS for desktop because it isn't ready. We need to recommend others ready made OSs like Garuda that use KDE and have a gaming focus that will get them that experience. Hell even HolloOS doing the leg work of bringing SteamOS to the desktop
yeah pretty much. steamos isn't really a desktop os and there's a LOT i would want valve to do before trying to push it as a desktop os. but i can already recommend bazzite which does the opposite, it takes all the stuff valve did and put it on an atomic distro that's already setup for desktop use.
but the immutable aspect of steamos and bazzite (though technically it's atomic not immutable) means there's a learning curve for containers like distrobox and rpm-ostree that garuda or endeavorOS would not have to deal with.
SteamOS has some really nice features that they introduced and maintain. Bazzite and Chimera etc are basically patching them into another distro, and have been working with Valve to some degree.
Once SteamOS is released fully, it'll have funding and support that will likely benefit other Linux Distros, and it will definitely support other handheld devices.
Ubuntu and Mint, Manjaro and Fedora, none of the main distros disable the desktop process during games to fully allocate resources, for example.
SteamOS can be a baseline OS that developers can target too, if only to double check that Proton works okay with it.
I think the appeal of SteamOS would be that you get most of the advantages of Arch, but without worrying about some package update breaking things. Because the updates are basically an immutable snapshot of Arch that Valve tests before pushing out to users.
Of course there are distros like Bazzite and ChimeraOS that do something similar, but I think the average user is either unaware of them or just trusts Valve more than a "random" distro maintainer.
For a stable experience, and ease of use for less technical users.
A major--if not *main*--reason why is because most distros are *not* as gaming friendly out of the box. They require a lot of additional tinkering to hit the same level of gaming support as a Windows machine does by default (and that's not the highest bar it could be). I'm a *very* experienced computer user at all levels of the system and even I gave up on Linux as my gaming PC OS, and I tried several distros.
HDR on Linux is still a nightmare, but HDR enabled monitors are now widespread. X11/Wayland compat tomfoolery is still liable to explode on every other game. Streaming on a Wayland DE is still a joke, but X11 is a dead ship and everyone is (finally) going to Wayland. GPU drivers have less features and are an objectively worse experience to manage (a command line doesn't even come close to the ease of *discovery* a GUI has, and since GPU features vary so wildly from model to model and driver to driver, that's essential for all but the most no-life power user). And yes, Proton is available on distros but because of the unstable Windowing subsystems, you hit a ton of compat issues as soon as you go outside of the gaming interests of the Linux contributors.
Valve has solutions to almost everything, not the least of which is gamescope, their own windowing system which is currently only well optimized for the Deck. What we want is a Valve DE top to bottom because they have the resources and knowledge to deliver a GREAT one that can actually give us a reason to get off Windows. Those of us just using the computer to game really don't give a shit if Windows is spyware, the experience is still good enough to stay. And, unfortunately, neither do normie users who *are* using it for more....
i don't really have room to talk since i use gentoo and installing steam from a fresh install takes a few hours, but after setting up steam on most of the major distros it really is as easy as installing the steam package and running a game these days. nvidia drivers will be a nightmare for a bit longer, but steamos afaik has either very poor nvidia support or doesn't support it at all, which would kill like 50% of linux gamers. for distros like opensuse and fedora, the open kernel drivers hopefully should alleviate that and we'll see proper nvidia support in the next few years across the board.
gamescope is optimized for steamos but is also available as a nix flake if you're insane enough to run nixos, and bazzite if you just want to run a steamos-like distro. it even has nvidia support.
but yeah i definitely agree too that windows will always be there for gamers since most games are still windows programs at the end of the day. and with the draconian measures anticheat does now requesting access to ring 0 of your computer beyond the level of an administrator, it'll eventually come down to gamers rejecting these games and that will allow them to run linux more freely.
@@RealWaffles Not saying is necessarily straightforward, but aren't Nvidia official drivers already supported on Linux in general? I have them installed on my PC and have pretty much no issue gaming other than sometimes preparing Proton just like on the deck.
from what I've gathered opensuse has the best performance out of any distro in regards to gaming, which is really weird. I guess because they do a lot of work with KDE which is inarguably the best DE for gaming atm
It is simple, they just don't care to install an os, they just want to play games. Normies don't care.
One Reason. People just want a OS that just works. SteamOS on the Steamdeck seems to work perfectly. Just turn it on, press install game, play game. No linux distro is that simple. Not even close. Windows also isn't, but at least 99% of games & software work. Trying to get most stuff to run on linux is janky as hell (I tried a few distros. never lasted longer than a week, because trouble shooting got so annoying).
My hope is that because Valve is such a huge company with such a huge userbase, that companies will start to specifically develop for linux. At first only game companies but hopefully in the future also other general software companies.
Big agree. The majority of console-only players that I know have an opinion that PC gaming is already too complicated - research parts, build pc, install OS and games, tweak settings for FPS. They just wanna turn on the power, load game and play.
This exactly, just want something that works. I have used Linux on my main system for over half a year and deal with jank every single day. On my Steam Deck (which I have used on and off in desktop and gaming mode) I have experienced very minor issues that are normally fixed after a few updates. I could probably list 5-10 major bugs that I experience all the time on my main pc, while the Steam Deck has only one extremely specific issue that I found yesterday.
yes, on the steamdeck it's nice because on the steam deck you're mostly going to play games. when we talk about desktops, use cases get a lot more complicated in general. you have peripherals you gotta deal with, nvidia graphics, printers, dvd burners, dacs, amps, vpns, mixers, all this stuff people might wanna use on their desktop that has to be easy to setup on steamos. that's where bazzite shines is it's already done all that work for you, and valve is going to end up having to support it, too.
In its current state, yes, it's not really a desktop OS, but it is built off of one (Arch) and any missing features could be added in the future, depending on where Valve takes it. Plus, the Arch team is working directly with Valve now.
Also, the reason Valve are making SteamOS, in the first place, is to cut out the middle men and general bloat seen on Windows, Mac, or even other Linux distributions. It's for easy access PC gaming, and it gives Valve greater control over the environment that the games they sell are running in.
That's something they don't have on any other operating systems, and it's why they've been able to push out hot-fixes and general performance improvements for specific games on the Steam Deck. While on Windows, Mac, or other Linux distributions, the players, Steam, and/or developers, all get shafted every time someone bricks a bunch of older games/software because they screwed around with the OS in a way that Valve has no control over.
why not Ubuntu? Because it's buggy.
why not Bazzite? probably the same, idk, I've never tried it.
The expectation is Valve would do what the Linux community couldn't: release an OS that doesn't randomly break and that's not that buggy, so normies can use it, and not run into a dealbreaker issue that they would need to open the terminal to fix.
Curious how many gamers are aware of how much Valve outsources contract work for stuff like SteamOS and the Steam Controller. Even a company of 300(?) full time employees can do so much for relatively decent quality.
My god you're dumb. They're all Linux, underneath. Ubuntu, Bazzite and SteamOS.
Dang the dumbest comment I'll real all week and its only Monday.
ubuntu as far as i know has gotten better in the last year or so. at least on laptops i've set it up on it should be fine for general use.
bazzite like steamos is immutable (except bazzite is atomic) so the system image generally should be pretty good.
the part i'm concerned about is when steamos is used on a desktop, people are going to run into desktop use cases where suddenly they need to deal with package managers and containers and... using the terminal to fix things. and that's really why i think steamos as a desktop os would be very different from steamos on the deck.
it's not like valve is some magic company that can make linux easy to use. they made a device that plays games and made that easy to do. if linux could be made that easy to use on a desktop, someone would have done it.
After thinking about a lot of what you covered (and other linux channels), I think there is another dimension to freedom. There is the freedom of choice of distro, but another free dynamic is that each option isn't expending ludicrous effort towards winning you over. They'll likely enjoy Bazzite, Nobara, etc if they just jumped in, but I bet gamers are waiting for a distro to be sold to them. That's their picking algorithm, "Who is marketing to me?"
Of course they want Valve to do it, cause they can sell them something. And of course they gotta make things super comfy or you'll withold your debit card details. Meanwhile the people working on Nobara will patch kwin to work on some Chinese Handheld I've never heard of, and the gaming normies couldn't be bothered to give a shit.
yeha that's why i was so confused is steamos isn't even close to a desktop distro. and when valve actually makes desktop steamos and supports everyone's desktop use cases, it's not gonna be much different from bazzite. it won't be as easy to use when you can't install a flatpak for everything or you want a vpn client or a printer driver or you need to setup your nvidia card. and at that point we'll have yet another linux distro that people say is too hard to use because their use case changed.
They want steamdeck experience on their desktop, that's mostly it.
Just like they have been taught that you buy devices with windows, they now want another system that is bought with hardware, that everyone else uses.
People still want big daddy that will hold their hand and lead them around.
yes now that proton is mostly mature, a steam machine 2 would be a great idea from valve. i think people using a steam machine purely as a console rather than trying to replace their entire desktop with it would make people happy. if it's going to replace their desktop though, steamos is going to get a lot more complex because it'll have to support everyone's use case. it'll quickly lose that charm of being simple to use when there's a million different configurations of hardware and software they have to support and ublue has shown what you have to do to make an immutable distro usable for that.
@@RealWaffles Pretty much, but my proposition for valve would be slightly different. Steam Machine 2 with dual-boot. SteamOS and some other distro for regular use so that SteamOS stays simple.
As for configurations - technically on windows nothing works out of the box either, and people still spend a lot of time on driver and issues.
The person who wants SteamOS on their desktop is very likely the kind of person who wouldn't want to figure out stuff on linux
Consoles are so horribly limited despite being made of powerful hardware, SteamOS makes for a system that can game and do basic desktop stuff, which meets the needs of millions of people.
don't underestimate brand trust also i use i3 wm so what do i even know about anything lel
They simply don't know it exists !
I saw a guy using steamOS saying "wow this is better than windows! Why is this doesn't exist as an OS on laptop?!"
People are looking to Valve to take the lead because of the trust they inspire. A multi-billion-dollar company like Valve, a beloved gaming giant, could provide the credibility and support needed to encourage developers to prioritize Linux when creating games.
This is exactly the thing I want to happen and why I really want SteamOS to succeed and get people to install it. It creates pressure for game developers/publishers to finally care about Linux gaming and not just let Proton do all the work or just blocking the users out of the game by using anti-cheats that do not support Linux.
Of course we would prefer a lightweight, stable, gaming optimized, and free operating system over getting endlessly exploited, plundered, and spied upon by Micro$oft.
SteamOS is based on Arch if I'm correct. If so, just get Manjaro with KDE.
Manjaro may not be the most user-friendly option for beginners. Furthermore, installing software from unofficial sources can lead to system instability, and many users might find a long-term support distribution like Debian more suitable than a rolling-release distribution such as Arch Linux.
@@Mustradamus using Debian for gaming is even worse than using Arch due to all the outdated packages
u could do manjaro, but the concept of it doesn't really make much sense since arch uses the aur as a crutch for its repositories and manjaro breaks that by withholding updates for 2 weeks which can cause version mismatches in dependencies. endeavor or garuda would work fine for this.
however, steam is based on arch but that does not mean it behaves like arch. since steamos is immutable it is inherently much more stable because the system image is built on a delay from upstream and made for compatibility. if you just switched out steamos for an arch based distro, you would have a very different experience in the way you install packages and how updates would work.
yeah my next foray into debian is probably going to be trying to setup debian as a mostly up to date distro with containers. debian is a great base to build on but the software you install on top of it should be up to date.
but at that point you could just install popos, mint or ubuntu and get all the qol stuff with it that debian doesn't have.
Doesn't SteamOS already exist? Yeah it's like a small fork of Arch (formerly Debian), but I have a feeling its closer to a distro made for testing stuff like KDE Neon or Clear Linux also are.
there was a build of steamos for desktops but that's long gone. brodie robertson did a video on it a while ago. they're working on a desktop version of steamos 3 now. it's currently what runs the steam deck and is an immutable fork of arch.
Which distro would you recommend to get close to a windows like experience but perhaps better?
I have always used windows but I'm open to trying something new.
Linux Mint. It is by far the most "Windows" experience. I daily drive it and have installed it on my parents PC and they get along just fine
yeah mint would be a good option. has a similar desktop which is what people really get hooked on with windows. everything else is still gonna have its learning. you install applications through either their store or command line, the file hierarchy is different so you'll still have to learn where your system puts stuff, and you'll start learning about all these new applications that are alternatives to the stuff you ran on windows. instead of task manager you can use btop, instead of windows media player or fb2k you have audacious, vlc or mpv for video, image editors like gimp, screenshotting works differently.
i do recommend trying it, as it's a great thing to learn and can quickly become a hobby. just remember this will never be a drop-in replacement for windows. the philosophy of open source software is completely different from what you're used to.
also xfce update soon, hope it catches up on a lot because it's the only sane DE
Xfce is a great DE, my only problem with it is that it does not have enough customization for me personally. So on my big heavy rig I use KDE and on my laptop switching to Xfce from Ubuntu
oh yeah that'll be baller. love xfce.
Most all Linux desktop gamers run a distro + Steam. You've wasted your time on a pointless video. 17 likes to 12 dislikes tells the story.
Once Valve releases SteamOS for the desktop, the goalposts will move for these people. They’re never going to switch to Linux. They like to feel as though they’re willing to switch, but that Linux just isn’t ready yet. So, they come up with reasons in their heads to justify why Linux isn’t ready. As you mentioned, it’ll shift to things like ring 0 anti-cheat. Then it’ll be Wine not having 100% native performance. After that, it’ll be the lack of Copilot, and so on.
The only reason they have these "requirements" is to make themselves feel better. It lets them blame their continued use of Windows on Linux, not on themselves. People don’t like to feel like something is their fault. They want to believe they’re doing everything they can, and that someone or something else is stopping them from doing what they supposedly want.
As a community, we can’t help these people. Anyone still complaining about Linux not having XYZ features at this point is just rationalizing why they haven’t put in the effort to switch.
yeah gamers r sadly like completely braindead and god himself cannot save them
Tell em to try Windows Subsystem for Linux.
So SteamOS isn't its own OS it's Arch (BTW). Which unlike Ubuntu and some other Linux distributions has a rolling release schedule. So it gets update much more frequently). The packaged image includes core integrations outside of just the Steam client. That is my caveman brain understanding of it anyway.
kind of yeah. iirc it's not on the same release schedule as arch. it's got arch as a base but i made a video talking about how just because something is based on another distro does not mean it will behave the same. especially in this case where steamos is immutable while arch is not.
pftttt you never record videos when i'm there, your FAVORITE person
bro how high were you when you made this?
People want stuff to work. The steam deck is by far the best Linux has been but it still leaves so so so much to be desired. Linux users need to learn not everyone wants to spend all day messing with stuff. Was arch fun when i was a teen? Yeah but as an adult i really dont have time for it anymore.
Naw bro these loud linux promoters don't understand that the average gamer does NOT want to have to use a guide to use an OS's basic functions
The Reason people want a Steam OS for desktop, is because people know and trust valve, and they know that valve would produce somethign that can be used by "everyone" not just the elitist neckbeards who want to overcomplicate everything in an effort to "look clever".
An OS isnt supposed to be "clever" or do things in a realy interesting way for no other reason than "because it can" an OS should be simple, unintrusive and not get in the way of general use, a perfect OS wouldnt even be noticed, its the foundation you build everything else on top of it, it should be unseen and ignored in day to day computer use.
"why dont you use ubuntu" kek'd
I would love it if I didn't play star citizen. I have too many windows only peripherals in my set up for that game. aside from that literally my only use for the pc is steam. if star citizen didn't exist i could fully operate off steamos
I agree that if you want more control then bazzite or others are a better choice.
Steam OS is just more embedded and primarily intended for gaming, and only secondarily as a linux based os.
It is a choice to make. There are reasons for and against it.
I think when you talk about "gamers" then you still just mean a subset of people that play games. Not all gamers. How large that group is, is up to debate.
Have you had statistics about what people that play games actually want?
You can't used those that just shout loud for that.
Also you should be aware that quite a bit of what makes bazzite is based on Steam OS, it would not exist as it is without it.
Look at it from a normie perspective: steamOS, made by Valve vs whobuntu, made by whononical. Easy decision.
"doesn't seem like many people know about it" - this is your answer. nobody wants to do research or anything. they want to be told that something has been packaged and is ready for general consumption. also maybe educate yourself about the subject matter before you go on a rant that doesn't mean anything.
Dude it's not that hard to understand. People want the Official thing. Stop breaking it down, it's simple. THE OFFICIAL THING from the people who run their game libraries.
I'm one of those.
"As I am a power-user and I am not a gamer....I dont know why normal ppl dont want to use any of the 500+ distros..."
You are just high as a kite and delusional.
When you have a life that is not related to spend hours testing distros or finding the right terminal commands to open a new browser tab you just want something that works And you know it will work. Ubuntu is very polished but far from ready to use for the average joe.
Normal ppl just want to get back from work and relax a few hours with some games and youtube.
Linux is not that currently.
Valve could polish that and the normal guy could be rest assured that it will work.
oh no not people having brand recognition and don't want to figure out alot of commands to understand OR what REGULAR people do already use which is fucking copy paste from github, oh god think of the TORTURE of someone using linux with steamOS oh god help them
the amount of times you said "gamers" is insane almost like you were using it like a slur xD
like the EGOISM in this video is innsaaaane like the laughing everytime you tried to even try and understand why steamos might be a good thing or that "gamers be gaming they just want to have Chinese spyware -_-" was ridiculous
steamOS exists because they want to make console like pcs, steam has even said this themselves, so yes there is a reason SteamOS exists cause again BRAND RECOGNITION, like most people don't use linux cause they don't want to be In IT and it's incredibly difficult to understand at the start, there's a reason Linux is only used by like 3% of the PC user base, it's because "gamers" just want to game and even then that narrows it down even further
like fuck my friend has to run a virtual machine to play several games because he runs linux xD
why would steam as a COMPANY use fucking bazzite or ubuntu xD
We want valve to make the OS because they would actually make it work... as opposed to whatever linux beggars are doing
Fr
People hope SteamOS will be better than other linux distros and Valve will figure out anticheat situation in the future. Or they will just keep use Windows. I hate stupid people like you on linux who thinks that if you don't play online games with anticheat other people don't need to, just open Twitch games category and see that most top online games aren't work on linux. Im CachyOS user & dual booting Windows 10 because linux can't give me fully what i want from my PC and i can't play most online games with my friends (CS2 on faceit, Valorant, CoD Warzone, EA SPORTS FC, PUBG, GTA V with Rage Multiplayer etc.)
well also a lot of the top twitch games aren't on steam. fortnite, world of warcraft, league of legends, minecraft. but yeah i choose not to play games with kernel level anticheat because i don't like programs having that level of access to my computer when they have historically been exploited. if a game won't run on linux, there's most likely a reason i don't want to run it in the first place.
Gamers fundamentally misunderstand what SteamOS even is, and they misunderstand what Linux is. They're influenced by the previous FUD about Linux that it's an opaque, obtuse, and difficult OS that requires a computer science degree to even use. For some reason, they see a potential SteamOS as somehow separate from Linux. They don't realize that SteamOS is a Linux distro designed around the Steam Deck, and soon other PC handhelds and HTPC setups. They want an "out" from Windows, and they see SteamOS as potentially being that out, but for some reason they don't see other Linux distros the same way, and they don't understand that SteamOS won't be ideal as a desktop OS.
I'm a little concerned that this will scare people back to the more-familiar Windows. Maybe Valve should produce a more desktop focused version of SteamOS as well.
i think for that they'll have to kill the immutable aspect. i managed to run bazzite as a daily for a few months after learning about containers but a lot of the time i was thinking there's so much stuff people use that can't be done on an atomic distro yet without having to distrobox things.
of course when you kill the immutable part of steamos it'll start to show the holes arch linux has when it can't rely on a stable system image to keep it from breaking itself.
"gamers" that use steam know about linux. most gaming pc's are thousands of dollars and and are built by the user, the days of just buying a dell from walmart ended at least a decade ago. they know enough about pc's to have at least heard of and probably have seen linux in use.
valve is going to make a desktop version of steamOS, theyve said this multiple times. leaks and datamining has shown theyre working on a console-like product to be announced probably in the next six months, and after that their goal is a full desktop OS. much of the work for this will be accomplished with their "freemont" codenamed product.