this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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It's tuned in a way: It has drivers preinstalled It auto launches to steam bigscreen at start.
Rest is just regular arch.
From what I know about it, it has a modified kernal that is smaller cutting out support for a few things . Smaller kernal, standardly more efficient and stable. Throw in that it comes in a read only setup that will wipe changes added via pacman the next time you do an update. Customizability is also limited. Flatpacks better than snap many will argue, but snap won't even run on SteamOS from what I've read even after manually dialing the read only mode and knowing you will have to reinstall all your changes after the next update.
That doesnt sound like regular arch to me.
95% of the kernel is just drivers, so ofc it makes sense to cut out what you don't need when you know exactly which hardware you will have forever.
Same with everything else. It's a video game console. The real point is that Linux with Proton, which you can install anywhere, can now beat Windows at its own game so to speak.
So everything you are saying agrees with me. People are just upset that I said the OS was designed for handheld game consoles
What you're saying is false though.
You can read about what kernel SteamOS is using. The kernel itself is only like ~150MB, there isn't really a need to slim it down. I think, if anything, Valve contributes to the mainline kernel for linux.
Proton is the "fine-tuning", the OS is just Arch Linux with a paint job.
Still an hobbyist server os that doesnt even run games created by a man who does not even give a single damn about games. And it runs games better than the os for which all games and hardware is made for.
Despite linux needing a compatability layer.
Windows is just utter dogshit no matter which way you cut it.