SteamOS expands beyond Steam Deck
store.steampowered.com
store.steampowered.com
In fact, they have made a sleek step-by-step guide on how to do it:
https://store.steampowered.com/steamos/buildyourown
If you don't like being dependent on a distro which more or less is in full control of Valve you could also try Bazzite, which includes a ton of nice to have extra features aswell:
SteamFork - https://github.com/steamfork
ChimeraOS - https://chimeraos.org/
Take your pick.
My point is that you have all kinds of choices (including Bazzite and a earlier version of SteamOS) to run Steam in a couch/console setup RIGHT NOW.
I’d really like a way to have my PC in one room and use it on any TV. I know Steam Link exists but it’s a bit clunky.
I'd argue its far more important to the Linux userland than GNU is.
Yes it is (https://chimera-linux.org/) and even if they're are on the OS, they're not the most important part of the userland, they're there for CLI users to use. They're not important for setting up the userland, systemd is.
> Also the principles and values of freedom and openness and promotion of those are much stronger with GNU than with systemd.
I don't think that's relevant in the context of a proprietary distro.
All this cheering is for a cold bath, the day Microsoft decides Proton has been a nuisance long enough, and introduces either API changes, or requirements on PC/XBox ecosystem that invalidates it.
Bring Loki back.
[0] - Yes, I do know how WINE and Proton works, do not need corrections.
Wouldn’t that mean that games would need to be constantly updated every few years to continue working?
Windows/DirectX seems like a much more stable system for proprietary/binary software
Well, Flatpak fixes the "continue working" part, but only by letting applications fix to a runtime version, that means they won't get updated graphics userspace drivers, which could spell trouble for newer GPUs.
DirectX/Win32 is far better for Linux gaming.