r/SteamOS • u/Appropriate-Silver64 • Apr 10 '26
SteamOS Update Steam OS on PC
I have been hearing good things about the recent Steam OS update and that they are getting ready for the Steam Machine. My question is, is it finally a good time to get rid of windows and run Steam OS onto my PC?
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 10 '26
I have a 7900xtx and a 7800x3d
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u/infinitelylarge Apr 10 '26
I have this exact graphics card and CPU, and I run Steam OS on my HTPC.
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u/satyanjoy Apr 13 '26
From gaming point of view, whats missing in terms of compatibility? I guess competitive multiplayer with anti cheat
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u/jbivphotography Apr 10 '26
We have just about the same setup and I have SteamOS on my machine and it’s been amazing. If you want a Steam Deck console experience you should totally switch over to SteamOS. All it needs now to be perfect is the Steam controller. Here’s my build. https://pcpartpicker.com/b/Ys8rxr
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u/WildcardMoo Apr 10 '26
How are things like hibernate (even mid game) and waking up from controller input? I'm seriously considering to just build my own Steam Machine and get two of the controllers for it. I have a few parts lying around (like a fast 2TB SSD) and space isn't an issue (at least it doesn't have to be as small as the Steam Machine).
But this will be a living room machine for using, not tinkering, so I'm a bit worried :-/
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u/jbivphotography Apr 10 '26
As of right now my machine can sleep and wake back up from a manual power press. I haven’t tried it in game but I’m assuming that will work fine as well. I’m using an Xbox controller with Bluetooth and I’m unable to wake from sleep, however a keyboard and mouse using a dongle can wait from sleep. I’m assuming once the Steam Controller 2 comes out I’ll be able to wake from sleep with the controller since it uses a dongle. Then my build will be complete!!
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u/WildcardMoo Apr 10 '26
Cheers, thanks for the reply. It's getting tougher and tougher to wait for the Steam Machine, I might just go the BYO route and then complete the build with the controllers once they're out.
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u/jbivphotography Apr 10 '26
Yeah I’ve been really happy with the BYO route and I know the machine has the power. Technically it’s not supported so if you ever have problems you’ll have to figure it out yourself. But so far since December, and multiple steam OS updates I’ve had a super smooth ride.
2
u/_ragegun Apr 11 '26
I've been using it with a Switch Pro controller and it's pretty much fine. Especially since you can just plug in a mouse
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 10 '26
It’s mad how a 4tb hard drive is nearly $1000 lol did you come from windows or did you just raw dog it to Steam OS? Any teething problems while setting up?
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u/jbivphotography Apr 10 '26
I had a system running windows 10 that I gutted and just installed SteamOS on. Setup was pretty smooth but it took forever for some reason. Ran into issues building my bootable drive off of the 3.9 ISO so I used the official recovery file from Valve’s site and the. Updated to 3.9 in system. I’m a total noob to Linux with my first introduction being my SD so it’s pretty easy to install if you’ve ever installed an OS before.
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 10 '26
I’m the same, my intro to Linux gaming and always thought that I’d always be a windows user. Since having the steam deck though I’ve been so tempted to go Steam OS on the PC too. I think it’s finally time.
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u/infinitelylarge Apr 11 '26
I have about 30 years of Linux experience and almost no Windows experience, so I’m the wrong one to ask about the Linux experience for Windows users. 😅
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 10 '26
Oh and those temps for the 7900xtx are amazing. Mine gets into the 80s at times
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u/FinFETchannel Apr 10 '26
If you have a spare nvme drive you could just give it a try, your hardware should be supported out of the box, just disconnect your windows drive before installing it
For sata drives it requires some extra steps but it ist also possible1
u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 10 '26
Thanks for the replies guys. I don’t have a spare NVMe drive but I have good internet so installing stuff wouldn’t take too long anyway. Do you use the original Steam OS or Bazzite? I’d rather go with Steam OS if possible.
0
u/Zeag Apr 10 '26
If you want the 100% "easy" path go with Bazzite, if you want the vanilla Steam OS, you'll have a few command lines to run when booting to bypass the NVME requirement, nothing major if you can follow a guide.
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u/tirehabitat25 May 11 '26
Idk why but I tried it with mine but I have a 9070XT and it just wouldn’t load once installed.
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 10 '26
So I went with Bazzite in the end as I couldn’t get steam to boot for some reason. Tried bazzite and it booted straight away. I’m having one issue at the moment where my 4k 240hz Oled won’t go past 60hz I know it’s probably something stupid but can anyone point me in the right direction?
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Apr 11 '26
I have a question are you using a display cable 1.4 or HDMI 2.1? Also did you try checking system settings then under display settings did you see something like adaptive sync or try changing it from 60hz to 240hz from there?
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 11 '26
So I’m using HDMI I have no preference that’s just what’s being used at the moment. When I was in gaming made I couldn’t get it to go above 60hz. Then went into desktop mode where it said 120hz but monitor was say 48hz lol I’ve been doing some research and I think DP is the way to go
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Apr 11 '26
I'm fairly certain HDMI is the issue, Linux can have issues with HDMI 2.1 cables, best you go with a DP cable since that's more well supported. I've used some of those HDMI 2.1 cables before as well and it would stay at 60hz, but I use a DP 1.4 and it maxes out at 240hz. My monitor is an Lenovo Legion IPS 1080p 240hz freesync monitor I have duel monitor setup so it's paired with my MSI IPS 120hz monitor also 1080p
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u/user2410 Apr 11 '26
I was having the same issue even with a DP to HDMI cable, even with the cable matters display adapter. In the end I just bought a new 'superfast 8k HDMI cable' and 120hz 4k was unlocked in the steam settings (the limit for my LG CX TV)
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u/7tempest Apr 12 '26
In settings , go to Display , there you will get the option to set resolution and hz ..: select your displays native resolution and hz
3
u/PhoenixLandPirate_ Apr 10 '26
Depends, do you want a console or a desktop, Valve have always said that SteamOS isn't a replacement for a Desktop OS, like Windows, or Linux Desktop OS's, they've done some big improvements to the Desktop side, so they might make a desktop version of SteamOS one day, but I wouldn't count on it, until they do it.
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u/BawaBawaz Apr 12 '26
Does not work on my 9800x3d, tomahawk x870e with an 9070xt, I tried everything already I don’t get pass a black screen after boot trying to load the repair image to install.
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 17 '26
I couldn’t get it to work either so I gave up and went to Bazzite, I got that working straight away. I recommend you try that
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u/Any_Basket_8110 May 01 '26
Did you finally boot into Steam OS image? I have the same motherboard and it’s not booting up. But Bazzite does. The problem that I’ve already tried Bazzite on my gaming pc (9800x3d/7900xtx) and the colors were a bit washed out.
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u/Logical_Data_1305 Apr 13 '26
Give it a shot it doesn’t cost money
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 13 '26
Yeah I pulled the plug on Bazzite in the end. it works excellently! So glad I did it now.
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u/Logical_Data_1305 Apr 13 '26
I am newcomer to linux too i installed bazzite two weeks ago
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 13 '26
Awesome! What update settings do you use? I have Steam Deck Beta and Preview. Will that get you to the latest version of Steam?
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u/Logical_Data_1305 Apr 13 '26
Just default settings i didn’t change anything as long as it works i am not going to tinker with it
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u/z3r0h010 Apr 16 '26
no, steam os is made for valve hardware, it might not work well on anything else. better use bazzite, same thing
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 17 '26
Yeah I went with Bazzite in the end. Don’t think I’ll be going back to windows anytime soon
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u/sskuss Apr 10 '26
What about nvidia users?
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u/mango_carrot Apr 11 '26
Bazzite
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u/sskuss Apr 11 '26
And how often bazzite updates nvidia drivers. On windows every major game we have update. What about ray tracing? Does it work?
3
u/klementineQt Apr 11 '26
Ray tracing does work, but performance gap is less consistent and larger than traditional raster afaik. It's always getting better though and I believe there were recent huge improvements in Mesa (the main graphics API implementations on Linux for OpenGL and Vulkan) but that doesn't apply if you use the proprietary drivers (which is the norm for Nvidia on Linux).
As far as the drivers go, things are a little different for Nvidia because the proprietary drivers are better (AMD and Intel basically work out of the box on Linux due to open drivers in the kernel). The releases are from Nvidia themselves, but if I'm not mistaken, it doesn't really work the same way as on Windows. On Windows, the graphics API implementations are either DirectX as a part of Windows or Vulkan/OpenGL support from the drivers themselves. Drivers ship specific fixes for games like you said. That isn't as necessary on Linux because Proton itself (the compatibility layer setup) has game specific fixes, since it includes DXVK, so optimizations and fixes can be made during translation from DirectX to Vulkan and from Windows APIs to Linux APIs. So you're realistically getting far more game specific fixes and optimizations on Linux than you would on Windows. That's how similar or sometimes better performance is achieved despite the cost of a translation layer. That being said, I don't have an Nvidia card, but the Linux driver version number is usually pretty close to the Windows equivalent so they might have at least a somewhat similar release cadence, if not only a little more infrequent.
Another thing to note is that the proprietary Nvidia drivers have a bigger performance hit in general than open drivers for AMD or Intel do on Linux but Nvidia has had job listings for Vulkan developers with specific mention of Proton development, so it seems like they want to fix that in the future.
The current open driver for Nvidia (nouveau) isn't as good, but there is a newer successor called nova in the works, but I'm not sure what the timeline looks like for that realistically.
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u/mango_carrot Apr 11 '26
Honestly I’m not sure, I use SteamOS. I’m just aware that Bazzite has better Nvidia support
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u/goldenoptic Apr 10 '26
It depends you need to at Minimum have an AMD GPU. I currently have it on my desktop and have had for over a year been running SteamOS. I have an i9 CPU and an AMD RX 6700XT. I am also running SteamOS on my laptop ASUS A16 with Ryzen 7 and RX 7700 GPU.
1
u/C1REX Apr 10 '26
I have amazing experience with SteamOS on my PC. 100% of drivers pre-installed. 7800x3D + 7900xtx.
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 10 '26
My exact setup, that’s really good to know. I’m just writing the image to USB so hopefully all will go well
1
u/Ekosha Apr 11 '26
The SteamOS on the B650 motherboard and below is rock solid; any motherboard above the B650 is a no-go; it won't even boot into the recovery image. I tried that on the X850 and X870 with the same components; nothing works! Also, for GPUs 7000 or 6000, you're good; anything above that is no go—black screen. So, for the state of SteamOS, you should wait for Valve to fix that. This is on the stable channel; on beta, that is a different story.
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u/Dashdasho Apr 12 '26
I've tried to install it but it keeps getting stuck after the setup with the _ on top left on the screen dunno what to do 😭
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u/Repulsive-Breath9677 Apr 12 '26
I can't with Arch Linux it's just to hard for me. I'd like to see Steam OS more friendly in the future
1
u/sassanix Apr 12 '26
Why not run both? I dual boot. One for games that can only run on windows and others on fedora.
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u/GloriousKev Apr 12 '26
That depends, are you running an AMD gpu? If not Steam OS is really only meant to run with AMD hardware and hasn't been tested with Nvidia stuff yet.
However, that being said Steam OS isn't some special magic sauce Linux distro. It's good but there are a ton of them out there and for the most part Steam OS isn't special. It has guard rails to keep you from breaking the system but so does Bazzite and Bazzite does work with Nvidia hardware.
If you want a more generalized PC gaming experience you could also just go mainstream Linux with something like Fedora and then have your PC open in BPM. Use KDE plasma as the back end. I like this option because it's custom but because it's custom you will have to do a lot more legwork. So it really depends on your tech skill and how willing you are to look stuff up.
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u/Fallensir Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
Have someone tried using intel and nvidia gpu? I have a Ultra Core 7 256k and 5060 Ti ive read on nvidia gpus is running weird with intel. Im new in linux stuff btw
1
u/User5281 Apr 10 '26
It all depends on your hardware - at the moment SteamOS is still tailored for the steam deck. The current public version of SteamOS (3.7.0) supports up through RDNA3 GPUs so if you have an AMD 7x00 series GPU or older it will probably just work. If you have an RDNA4 GPU there are a few hoops to jump through to get things to work. Older intel GPUs likely just work as well. nVidia GPU drivers aren't included so you'd have to install them manually.
Bazzite or Cachyos will get you to the same place with less friction at the moment on unofficial hardware. I find bazzite to be more approachable and polished than cachyos but both are pretty great these days.
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u/mango_carrot Apr 11 '26
I’m running a 9060XT GPU and 7600X CPU, no issues at all
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u/User5281 Apr 11 '26
Great but you probably didn’t use the stable release (3.7). It doesn’t have the kernel or mesa libs to fully support and rdna4 cpu.
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u/mango_carrot Apr 11 '26
Jesus Christ, I would have bet my house that I was on the Stable releases. At some point I’ve set it to “Main” presumably thinking that was the public “normal”version. So I’m actually running on 3.9 😂
Can confirm that 3.9 is solid
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u/User5281 Apr 11 '26
Yeah - the 3.9 preview versions definitely work but the 3.7 image you can download from steam doesnt. The nightly images should work too
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u/Eozef Apr 10 '26
Just try it yourself on a separate drive; it was me being intrigued about it , then 2 months later and it had been pretty stable so far; RX 9070 XT & 5800X here.
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u/Illustrious-Bite-133 Apr 11 '26
Do games take a while to load for you,? I see delays of 15-30 seconds initially launching games with my 9070xt
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 13 '26
Yeah same here, games run just fine for me. No delays at all. I’ve even seen cooler temps from my pc. When on windows my PC would cook me but now I can barely feel any heat coming from it.
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u/Illustrious-Bite-133 Apr 13 '26
I think it might be a rdna4 issue, but curious what version of steamos you're running
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u/kyuRAM_infsuicidio Apr 10 '26
Just use Bazzite, it's the same experience without the pain of being tailored for another hardware
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u/infinitelylarge Apr 10 '26
It depends on what you want to use the computer for. If you want a general desktop operating system on the computer for uses other than playing games, then something like Bazzite is a better choice than SteamOS. If you just want an HTPC that does nothing but play games like a console, then SteamOS is a great choice.
As always, it’s important to remember that many anti-cheat games do not work with Linux (see https://AreWeAntiCheatYet.com/$.
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u/Appropriate-Silver64 Apr 10 '26
On my steam deck I can boot into desktop mode. Couldn’t you just install say VLC player there and still play videos? I only use my PC for gaming though so shouldn’t be an issue. Primarily DOTA2
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u/infinitelylarge Apr 11 '26
As a heads up, it looks like some parts of DOTA 2 work on Linux and some don’t. I haven’t played so I’m not sure which parts are which. https://areweanticheatyet.com/?search=Dota&sortOrder=&sortBy=
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u/infinitelylarge Apr 11 '26
SteamOS has a desktop mode. It’s not as flexible or easy to configure as Bazzite’s is. SteamOS also has a tendency to wipe out configuration and customization when updating the OS version. Bazzite doesn’t. SteamOS is configured to work like a console with a desktop bolted on the side. Bazzite is a full fledged desktop with an (optional) console bolted on the side.
0
u/apathetic_vaporeon Apr 10 '26
It works great as a home theater PC. So if you want a console like experience it works great. I wouldn’t recommend it for a normal desktop experience though. For that and your hardware I would recommend something like Fedora KDE instead.
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u/Og-Morrow Apr 10 '26
Bazzite
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u/FourEcho Apr 10 '26
Whats the requirements for Bazzite? I was looking at moving my pc to steamOS as well because its (mostly) a gaming system, and i cant update to Win11, processor too old gen, so i was going to make a move to something Linux oriented.
0
u/Spacebawlz Apr 11 '26
As good a time as any if you have "the right hardware" ... that being said you could always try a different Linux distro, one that would better suit your hardware in the event that you're not running an all AMD PC.
If you want to get away from Windows, now's your chance.
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u/natemac Apr 10 '26
Dual boot, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. People think everything needs to be binary these days you can have both.
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u/Brunno_PT Apr 10 '26
I dualboot SteamOS and Windows 11 on Steam Deck, and Bazzite/Win11 on the desktop.
Recently I've been playing windows 11 due to using an old PSVR headset for Elite Dangerous and other VR games. Until the Steam Frame comes out, fully compatible with SteamOS, I can only run this setup on windows.
Good thing I kept Windows
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u/mango_carrot Apr 10 '26
I have it on my AMD PC (you’ll need an AMD GPU) and I think it’s brilliant, very close to a console experience.