Some of the secrets of SteamOS 3.0 from the Steam Deck, according to Collabora, like Pacman in developer mode

Steam OS 3.0

When last summer Valve ad his Steam Deck, there were more questions than answers. For users like a server, at first it seemed a bit (too) expensive, especially if we take into account that only Steam titles could be played. Over time we learned that no, that this device is much more than a console, and even different operating systems can be installed. The one that comes installed by default is Steam OS 3.0, and Simon McVittie, of Collabora, explains us a little how it works.

But before continuing, we have to warn that this is not a "review" or test of any user. McVittie works at Collabora, who have partnered with Steam to make this all possible. In other words, it is information from someone who has been involved in the project, but information nonetheless. He starts by explaining something we already knew, that SteamOS 3.0 is based on Arch Linux, a Rolling Release distribution with support for the latest version of Mesa.

SteamOS 3.0 is based on Arch Linux, leaving Debian behind

McVittie says a device like this needs updated frameworks, and that's one of Collabora's biggest contributions to SteamOS 3.0, helping make updates fast and seamless. He also explains to us that with his "A/B" design, there are now two operating system partitions with two different versions of SteamOS. When upgrading, a new system image will be installed on the partition that is not in use before the system is rebooted. A special bootloader module automatically chooses the latest version of the operating system and starts it. If the update was successful, the new operating system will be used, and the old one will be replaced by the future version of SteamOS.

This "A/B" layout is interesting because it assures us that nothing will go wrong. That is, if the operating system is updated and it does not start correctly, the bootloader it will go back to what was on the working partition, and we can update again later.

KDE Plasma is the default installed desktop

As we already mentioned, different operating systems can be installed on it, and that is because it is actually like a “mini” type computer. When we exit the gaming software, SteamOS 3.0 leaves us in the kde plasma desktop which is installed by default. Plus, it's all designed to be hard to mess up:

In normal use, the active OS partition is read-only, to keep the Steam Deck as robust as possible. However, unlike most game consoles, it is a fully open device, and can be switched to a developer mode where the OS partition is read/write and modifiable. Arch Linux's "pacman" package manager is available for use in developer mode.

Without forgetting that the important thing is the games

McVittie ends by reminding that almost none of this would make sense without games, which is why they created the Steam Deck. In this sense, he reminds us that we have access to all available Steam games for Linux and many others for Windows, thanks to Proton and software like WINE or DXVK.

Of course, none of this is very interesting without some games, and in addition to the native Linux titles available on Steam, the Steam Deck can also run many games that were built for Windows. It does this using Proton, a compatibility framework built around WINE and DXVK by Codeweavers, Valve, and the WINE community. Proton is not just for the Steam Deck: thanks to the stable, Debian-based container environment provided by the Steam Linux Runtime, and launched by the pressure-vessel tool developed by Collabora, it can run in a consistent environment on most distributions. of desktop Linux, ranging from the latest rolling releases like Arch Linux, to older LTS distributions like Ubuntu 14.04.

The Steam Deck is available from the end of February. The first users to receive it will be those who reserved it, and they will do so in the order in which they requested it through a queue-based system.


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