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Comment by CactusRocket | Hacker News Reader

May I ask why you want to wait for Steam OS? Especially if you have Linux experience already.

Last year I was fed up with Windows, and switched to Linux. Since I had a lot of experience with Linux already, I went with Arch. I thought it was going to be really difficult. Sure, the initial setup was a lot of work, but now I'm extremely happy with it. Much happier than I ever was running Ubuntu, Mint, etc.

But anyway, nowadays I don't even think about that I'm running Linux anymore. I have a pretty big Steam library and play a lot of games. I install a game, I run it, and play it. I haven't found any instance where it doesn't work yet. Granted, I don't play multi-player games nor games with DRM (I'm a patient gamer, most games I play are >2 years old).

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As mentioned in another comment, I use a Steam Deck which runs Linux, and I love that, but Steam OS isn't available for non-Decks yet in a fully supported manner.

I have enough programming adjacent hobbies (and I'm a SWE/SRE at work). Windows is requiring too much management, and I don't want to move to a DIY gaming setup on Linux, I'd rather wait for Steam OS to be fully supported, or just buy a console.

And before someone pushes back with Linux being easy to manage, that's not really the point. I use Linux, it requires more sysadmining than my Steam Deck does. Just because I can do it doesn't mean I want to.

But what's the aspect of sys-adminning do you find separate from normal use that SteamOS addresses?

Is it the updates that break your system? There are mature immutable distros like Fedora Kinoite, which I personally used for years without reinstalling. Is it hardware workarounds? The only way to solve that is to use OEM-tested hardware, which in the case of Linux laptops is sparse and still requires some research for desktop. If it's Windows compatibility, Steam itself has supported Proton years before the Deck was released.

The only thing SteamOS provides is an immutable base with preconfigured kiosk UI. Unless your use-case is exactly that, a home console, I don't see any added value in it specifically.

What kind of sysadmining is that? I find that after installing, I spent about as much time on "admining" my Linux installation as I was doing my Windows installation. Which is installing updates once a week.

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