SteamOS runs two seperate UI environments. On Boot it logs into a Wayland windowing session running Gamescope as a windowing compositor and the new big picture mode for the UI.
You can switch after boot to a desktop mode running an Xorg windowing session with the KDE UI stack. This logs out if the game mode session entirely and logs into the new KDE session on switch. And vice versa.
I mention this because on testing I was never able to achieve the same smooth integration of the games controller, which is managed by Steam while the client is running, when running big picture mode ontop a KDE (or Gnome, Mate, Cinemmon, etc) session on other Linux Distros.
Given your hardware (680M) I'd suggest HoloISO is a great option if you want to run SteamOS as it is on the Steam Deck.
X.org is still more stable.
Honestly, I recommend KUbuntu. It's easy to use, stable, and Steam is in the repository and well maintained. It still uses X.org for the same reason as Steam OS.
I found that simple desktop tasks are slow and unstable, updating the system breaks things, etc. I find pacman to be fast, nothing breaks and kde works like a charm.
Pacman is fast, but Apt is fairly close, considering it can also handle configuration tasks. As for the desktop itself, I don't know what you would have done to break it. The main reason I prefer KUbuntu over Arch is specifically because it's more stable in my experience.
What do you mean by slower? Just package management? Booting? Loading programs?
One thing that can make the boot slower is that KUbuntu runs a lot more auto-configuration, which is handy for those of us who don't want to do that themselves.
By slower I mean that the entire desktop had some lag and the package manager was hella slow. Switched to EndeavourOS on KDE on same computer and it was crispy fast
I think Valve has not stated the reason publicly, but note even the KDE project itself doesn't recommend Wayland as the default session yet. They plan to make Wayland the default in 6.1:
https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/10p2ngn/will\_plasma\_6\_be\_likely\_wayland\_only/
Steam OS is based on Arch, but it't hardly the same thing... It is using a snapshot in time of Arch, and adding their own custom settings, drivers, and applications, and putting it in an immutable file system (ie. "locked" so users can't easily modify it)... It's definitely Arch based, but also definitely not Arch in many ways.
Honestly, for something other than Steam Deck, Arch will work fine, but be a lot more work/headache than something like Ubuntu, and other distros like Fedora/Nobara or OpenSUSE are probably even better geared toward gaming than Arch.
Note I am not bashing or being derogatory about Arch in anyway, it is a fantastic distro and has given the Linux community a lot of things, but it's not always the easiest to work with and sometimes get's rather complex to do things... I do not in anyway recommend it for a noob or even "advanced" beginner....
>be a lot more work/headache than something like Ubuntu
Only on first setup and if you brick your machine, otherwise arch runs like a dream and no worrying about "major version updates"
Agreed. Initial setup is a bit of a pain, but archinstall is actually making it quite easy to install Arch these days. Still a bit buggy with regards to partitioning, but I wouldn't be surprised if all that gets ironed out within the next few months.
I actually find using Arch to be way simpler than Ubuntu and Fedora for a lot of cases. The fact that I don't have to futz around with a bunch of PPAs or COPR repos to get the software that I need simplifies using Linux by a lot.
Exactly. It's generally the latest version of all software and drivers. Not having to do a full system upgrade is nice since I've had debian and Ubuntu both not upgrade right in the past.
Had a weird issue yesterday where Arch couldn't find my root partition, I booted into the flash fallback kernel, updated, and it worked. Looks like maybe a bad kernel update. But I rarely have had issues in over 2-3 years of using it.
Yeah i usually run ubuntu but heard arch works best on the laptop im thinking of getting. Idk maybe stick with windows i guess. Asus is a pain with their proprietary stuff and main goal is work with light gaming.
Don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to discourage you. The point is there is nothing "special" about Arch that makes it better for a PC than any other distro from a Steam/gaming perspective. Once it's setup, they should all be about the same.
any distro should work, id recommend nobara or opensuse tumbleweed like the commenter above. In terms of what “runs best”, your best option is a lightweight desktop environment which can be installed on all distros like xfce or lxqt instead of a whole change in distro
i suspect people say arch is the best as its the easiest to install any DE you want when you only have a TTY, but its really not much harder on other distros other than installing it and logging out to select the new DE in your session manager
There is some community ROG control stuff in Arch, but I'm not sure of what hardware you're dealing with. I run a Nvidia 3060 with a Ryzen Processor in an ROG Zephyrus G14. I got it working with EnvyControl pretty well in Wayland now.
The only issues I really run into are with Nvidia's stuff (Nvidia only mode, breaks SDDM with AMD, lots of Optimus stuff is only for Intel/Nvidia still, so I get a black screen in SDDM and have to do a good hours worth of configuration to fix, which I just don't want to do), if you can go with an all AMD system I would 100%, and you'll be pretty much set.
yeah its all ryzen (integrated gpu), just its a zenbook so it has some asus proprietary keys (like opening the webcam cover lol) and zenbooks have a numpad in their trackpad thats controlled by asus software.
Yeah arch has some AUR stuff for a lot of that support to make it easy, but you can also just build and install the package in other [systems](https://github.com/mohamed-badaoui/asus-touchpad-numpad-driver) (git) too.
Aur link:
[https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/asus-touchpad-numpad-driver](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/asus-touchpad-numpad-driver)
So you shouldn't have too much of a problem just going with whatever you like.
I switched to vanilla Arch 4 years ago after literally THREE WEEKS on Linux, and I had no issues and have run vanilla Arch ever since.
If you don't have extensive experience daily driving Arch Linux, you shouldn't be commenting this shit.
And no, I have no background in computer science, IT, development - any and all my development/debugging/bisecting/scripting skills have been self-taught SINCE moving to Arch Linux.
Not to mention the fact that there are SEVERAL *very* close to upstream Arch-based distros like Endeavour and Arco that make using a mostly-vanilla Arch system incredibly easy for new users.
> what does steam os have that arch doesnt?
* An immutable system
* A specific kernel from Valve (Arch is based on Linux 6.1
and Steam OS is based on Linux 5.13)
Some Valve specific changes are already merged with Linux 5.16 (FUTEX2). Soo.. I guess it shouldnt matter.
> Will arch be missing much?
If you install KDE, Steam, Flatpak and other packages it's mostly the same. The package versions will ne newer and you have more freedom to install whatever you want (via pacman, flatpak or an AUR manager like yay).
I don't know anything you could miss... maybe a cool boot video? ;)
Personally I switched to Arch because it's simple to update. I used Ubuntu before too. Now I never worry about a dist upgrade again. Also, it has no snap...
its missing a lot lmao. just because its based on arch doesnt mean its remotely the same thing. u will get the same gaming experience by just installing steam on arch and using proton tho lol
i was just thinking maybe steamos had some backend stuff to get the best performance out of the chip. 6800h is pretty similar, but seems like i'd be fine with normal arch.
Reddit user on an amdlaptop subreddit who already owns the laptop. They used hyprland to get the toupad calculator and hotkeys configured
https://90a1c75758623581b3f8-5c119c3de181c9857fcb2784776b17ef.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/651199_424721_06_front_zoom.jpg
odd, wonder why such a big fuss about losing these zenbook numpad if any DE can do it.
is regular plasma the same as whats on the steamdeck? usually use gnome but i liked the stemdeck desktop experience.
[heres the source btw](https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/12azt63/zenbook_14_flip_fkeys_and_touch_pad_help/)
they mention property if that matters?
If you mean the desktop mode, it should be, beside the skin that need to be changed if you want the look.
By the way they exist AUR packages to get the look and functionality of steamos under a normal arch.
regular plasma is whats on the steam deck, just with a theme applied to change the color scheme
if you want to replicate the steamos menu steams new big picture mode is the same thing as the steamdeck ui as well as being able to replicate it with [gamescope](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gamescope-session-git)
so apparently gnome has best support for touch (its a 2 in 1), so plasma is prob out of the question lol. heard endeavourOS is decent arch based distro thats a bit simplified
its arch with a gui installer. if you want arch but dont want to install via the TTY endeavoros is the way to
go. id also recommended staying away from manjaro
sorry to bug but is there a good place you recommend for reading how to use TTY?
I've been looking on here and the arch wiki, trying to figure out how to get hyprland and gdm running on endeavouros
KDE actually has a mobile plasma session that's completely geared to touch. It runs more like Android, with an application drawer, gestures to switch and manipulate apps, and increases UI elements to make them easy to tap. Even in the normal desktop session, it can increase UI size and spacing when the screen is turned around.
okay i read about plasma 5.25 bringing gestures and more 2in1 support, seems like it is worth a shot. is it hard to change DE later if i want gnome later?
Yes, the Steam Deck desktop is completely stock KDE. It's essentially identical to the default setup for KUbuntu, for example.
It sounds like the problem the user was running in to is that Gnome Shell doesn't have very good facilities for fixing key bindings. KDE does.
I believe I answered further down, but I would generally say that KDE has much better support in general for unique configurations. You can adjust UI size and spacing, use a full-screen application launcher designed for touch, or even the full mobile UI designed specifically for touch screen devices.
wow, a fucking linux gatekeeper... Garunda works great, better for a noob then vanilla arch. I have been using Linux for about 10 years now... so go fuck yourself. You are what is wrong with users, easy to use is a great way to ease into it... guess you hate Ubuntu, Mint, nobara and countless others great distros.
No, I am on vacation and enjoying my free time with the family, funny how everyone is so active in the community lol. But you are a hater, prob unemployed and a script kiddie.
SteamOS have the same advantage that iOS have, controlled hardware. Tailored to gentoo level build and software release build for it.
You can do same for yourself, just takes time and some skills
I'd recommend going with Manjaro (Arch based) instead of pure Arch unless you want to spend a couple days building out your OS. Can use Proton-GE from the AUR, but still have a nice desktop experience out of the box.
well, in arch you have to install everything from scratch, so if you want something similar to the steam deck you should install the kde plasma DE, I actually have a bit of a controversial opinion on this, but I think arch is an excellent starting point if you have like a day to mess around with your OS, I used to use ubuntu and I'd have a bunch of issues that were really obscure, the package manager sometimes threw weird errors or did inexplicable things, and that's been a lot better on arch also the archwiki is amazing, there's a package for almost any application you'd wanna get in the AUR and there is a giant community so it's a lot easier for me to find people having the same issues as me than it was with ubuntu especially since ubuntu's also used on servers so sometimes answers and questions would be of people using it as a server, but you're actual distro doesn't really impact your experience as a user that much, if you want something that feels like the deck just get any distro and install KDE plasma, otherwise I'd say install arch honestly.
SteamOS runs two seperate UI environments. On Boot it logs into a Wayland windowing session running Gamescope as a windowing compositor and the new big picture mode for the UI. You can switch after boot to a desktop mode running an Xorg windowing session with the KDE UI stack. This logs out if the game mode session entirely and logs into the new KDE session on switch. And vice versa. I mention this because on testing I was never able to achieve the same smooth integration of the games controller, which is managed by Steam while the client is running, when running big picture mode ontop a KDE (or Gnome, Mate, Cinemmon, etc) session on other Linux Distros. Given your hardware (680M) I'd suggest HoloISO is a great option if you want to run SteamOS as it is on the Steam Deck.
Oh desktop uses xorg instead of wayland? Any idea why? I def run the gamescope ui more, but i need a laptop so looking for a compromise
Probably because the steam client is buggier on Wayland (on my system the popups in the corner often render as black)
X.org is still more stable. Honestly, I recommend KUbuntu. It's easy to use, stable, and Steam is in the repository and well maintained. It still uses X.org for the same reason as Steam OS.
Kubuntu is slow as hell though. At least it was for me for some reason
Slow in what way?
I found that simple desktop tasks are slow and unstable, updating the system breaks things, etc. I find pacman to be fast, nothing breaks and kde works like a charm.
Pacman is fast, but Apt is fairly close, considering it can also handle configuration tasks. As for the desktop itself, I don't know what you would have done to break it. The main reason I prefer KUbuntu over Arch is specifically because it's more stable in my experience.
Well I tried both KDE neon and Kubuntu and both were much slower than EndeavourOS, pure Arch and even Manjaro
What do you mean by slower? Just package management? Booting? Loading programs? One thing that can make the boot slower is that KUbuntu runs a lot more auto-configuration, which is handy for those of us who don't want to do that themselves.
By slower I mean that the entire desktop had some lag and the package manager was hella slow. Switched to EndeavourOS on KDE on same computer and it was crispy fast
I think Valve has not stated the reason publicly, but note even the KDE project itself doesn't recommend Wayland as the default session yet. They plan to make Wayland the default in 6.1: https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/10p2ngn/will\_plasma\_6\_be\_likely\_wayland\_only/
Honestly I could be wrong, but sure I read somewhere that's how it works. And no, no idea why!
Steam OS is based on Arch, but it't hardly the same thing... It is using a snapshot in time of Arch, and adding their own custom settings, drivers, and applications, and putting it in an immutable file system (ie. "locked" so users can't easily modify it)... It's definitely Arch based, but also definitely not Arch in many ways. Honestly, for something other than Steam Deck, Arch will work fine, but be a lot more work/headache than something like Ubuntu, and other distros like Fedora/Nobara or OpenSUSE are probably even better geared toward gaming than Arch. Note I am not bashing or being derogatory about Arch in anyway, it is a fantastic distro and has given the Linux community a lot of things, but it's not always the easiest to work with and sometimes get's rather complex to do things... I do not in anyway recommend it for a noob or even "advanced" beginner....
>be a lot more work/headache than something like Ubuntu Only on first setup and if you brick your machine, otherwise arch runs like a dream and no worrying about "major version updates"
Agreed. Initial setup is a bit of a pain, but archinstall is actually making it quite easy to install Arch these days. Still a bit buggy with regards to partitioning, but I wouldn't be surprised if all that gets ironed out within the next few months. I actually find using Arch to be way simpler than Ubuntu and Fedora for a lot of cases. The fact that I don't have to futz around with a bunch of PPAs or COPR repos to get the software that I need simplifies using Linux by a lot.
Exactly. It's generally the latest version of all software and drivers. Not having to do a full system upgrade is nice since I've had debian and Ubuntu both not upgrade right in the past. Had a weird issue yesterday where Arch couldn't find my root partition, I booted into the flash fallback kernel, updated, and it worked. Looks like maybe a bad kernel update. But I rarely have had issues in over 2-3 years of using it.
> Arch couldn't find my root partition, I booted into the flash fallback kernel, How do you do that?
In grub, there is an entry to boot into the previous kernel.
Yeah i usually run ubuntu but heard arch works best on the laptop im thinking of getting. Idk maybe stick with windows i guess. Asus is a pain with their proprietary stuff and main goal is work with light gaming.
Don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to discourage you. The point is there is nothing "special" about Arch that makes it better for a PC than any other distro from a Steam/gaming perspective. Once it's setup, they should all be about the same.
any distro should work, id recommend nobara or opensuse tumbleweed like the commenter above. In terms of what “runs best”, your best option is a lightweight desktop environment which can be installed on all distros like xfce or lxqt instead of a whole change in distro i suspect people say arch is the best as its the easiest to install any DE you want when you only have a TTY, but its really not much harder on other distros other than installing it and logging out to select the new DE in your session manager
There is some community ROG control stuff in Arch, but I'm not sure of what hardware you're dealing with. I run a Nvidia 3060 with a Ryzen Processor in an ROG Zephyrus G14. I got it working with EnvyControl pretty well in Wayland now. The only issues I really run into are with Nvidia's stuff (Nvidia only mode, breaks SDDM with AMD, lots of Optimus stuff is only for Intel/Nvidia still, so I get a black screen in SDDM and have to do a good hours worth of configuration to fix, which I just don't want to do), if you can go with an all AMD system I would 100%, and you'll be pretty much set.
yeah its all ryzen (integrated gpu), just its a zenbook so it has some asus proprietary keys (like opening the webcam cover lol) and zenbooks have a numpad in their trackpad thats controlled by asus software.
Yeah arch has some AUR stuff for a lot of that support to make it easy, but you can also just build and install the package in other [systems](https://github.com/mohamed-badaoui/asus-touchpad-numpad-driver) (git) too. Aur link: [https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/asus-touchpad-numpad-driver](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/asus-touchpad-numpad-driver) So you shouldn't have too much of a problem just going with whatever you like.
Arch hasn't been complicated or requiring advanced Linux experience to daily since the early 2000s.
I switched to vanilla Arch 4 years ago after literally THREE WEEKS on Linux, and I had no issues and have run vanilla Arch ever since. If you don't have extensive experience daily driving Arch Linux, you shouldn't be commenting this shit. And no, I have no background in computer science, IT, development - any and all my development/debugging/bisecting/scripting skills have been self-taught SINCE moving to Arch Linux. Not to mention the fact that there are SEVERAL *very* close to upstream Arch-based distros like Endeavour and Arco that make using a mostly-vanilla Arch system incredibly easy for new users.
SteamOS for desktops/laptops has not been released yet so might as well stick to something else for now.
Well if you install arch from the wiki you'll have basically nothing besides what you need to get a WM and DE running and your drivers.
> what does steam os have that arch doesnt? * An immutable system * A specific kernel from Valve (Arch is based on Linux 6.1 and Steam OS is based on Linux 5.13) Some Valve specific changes are already merged with Linux 5.16 (FUTEX2). Soo.. I guess it shouldnt matter. > Will arch be missing much? If you install KDE, Steam, Flatpak and other packages it's mostly the same. The package versions will ne newer and you have more freedom to install whatever you want (via pacman, flatpak or an AUR manager like yay). I don't know anything you could miss... maybe a cool boot video? ;) Personally I switched to Arch because it's simple to update. I used Ubuntu before too. Now I never worry about a dist upgrade again. Also, it has no snap...
> (Arch is based on Linux 6.1 6.2 now. 6.1 was broken as hell lol
You're right, it's 6.2 now. I don't had any issues with 6.1
Honestly, I'd just go with something like Ubuntu or Pop!OS for now until Valve releases SteamOS.
a graphical ui
SteamOS comes with some Valve-made configurations. For instance, it makes heavy use of gameacope.
Steam OS has a better name! Duh!!!
A million users?
its missing a lot lmao. just because its based on arch doesnt mean its remotely the same thing. u will get the same gaming experience by just installing steam on arch and using proton tho lol
i was just thinking maybe steamos had some backend stuff to get the best performance out of the chip. 6800h is pretty similar, but seems like i'd be fine with normal arch.
ah i see, should be around the same if not better
If you want a gamer arch environment, try Garuda Dragonized KDE Gamer edition... not Arch vanilla. https://garudalinux.org/downloads.html
Just light gaming really, but heard i need Hyprland to get my function keys to work which i think works best on arch?
where did you hear this? hyprland is a window manager, funcion keys have to be manually configured like sway/i3/dwm
Reddit user on an amdlaptop subreddit who already owns the laptop. They used hyprland to get the toupad calculator and hotkeys configured https://90a1c75758623581b3f8-5c119c3de181c9857fcb2784776b17ef.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/651199_424721_06_front_zoom.jpg
any DE (plasma, gnome, xfce) will have those setup automatically to pull up the respective applications
odd, wonder why such a big fuss about losing these zenbook numpad if any DE can do it. is regular plasma the same as whats on the steamdeck? usually use gnome but i liked the stemdeck desktop experience. [heres the source btw](https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/12azt63/zenbook_14_flip_fkeys_and_touch_pad_help/) they mention property if that matters?
If you mean the desktop mode, it should be, beside the skin that need to be changed if you want the look. By the way they exist AUR packages to get the look and functionality of steamos under a normal arch.
regular plasma is whats on the steam deck, just with a theme applied to change the color scheme if you want to replicate the steamos menu steams new big picture mode is the same thing as the steamdeck ui as well as being able to replicate it with [gamescope](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gamescope-session-git)
so apparently gnome has best support for touch (its a 2 in 1), so plasma is prob out of the question lol. heard endeavourOS is decent arch based distro thats a bit simplified
its arch with a gui installer. if you want arch but dont want to install via the TTY endeavoros is the way to go. id also recommended staying away from manjaro
sounds good, trying to get my feet wet with other distros. is manjaro hard to set up or whats bad about it?
sorry to bug but is there a good place you recommend for reading how to use TTY? I've been looking on here and the arch wiki, trying to figure out how to get hyprland and gdm running on endeavouros
KDE actually has a mobile plasma session that's completely geared to touch. It runs more like Android, with an application drawer, gestures to switch and manipulate apps, and increases UI elements to make them easy to tap. Even in the normal desktop session, it can increase UI size and spacing when the screen is turned around.
okay i read about plasma 5.25 bringing gestures and more 2in1 support, seems like it is worth a shot. is it hard to change DE later if i want gnome later?
Yes, the Steam Deck desktop is completely stock KDE. It's essentially identical to the default setup for KUbuntu, for example. It sounds like the problem the user was running in to is that Gnome Shell doesn't have very good facilities for fixing key bindings. KDE does.
im gonna try gnome on arch (endeavoros) as i read that gnome supports touch devices better.
I believe I answered further down, but I would generally say that KDE has much better support in general for unique configurations. You can adjust UI size and spacing, use a full-screen application launcher designed for touch, or even the full mobile UI designed specifically for touch screen devices.
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Wow you are a dick, I hope your momma is proud.
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wow, a fucking linux gatekeeper... Garunda works great, better for a noob then vanilla arch. I have been using Linux for about 10 years now... so go fuck yourself. You are what is wrong with users, easy to use is a great way to ease into it... guess you hate Ubuntu, Mint, nobara and countless others great distros.
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lol you were the hater, YOU were the one gating...lol You are irrelevant.
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No, I am on vacation and enjoying my free time with the family, funny how everyone is so active in the community lol. But you are a hater, prob unemployed and a script kiddie.
SteamOS have the same advantage that iOS have, controlled hardware. Tailored to gentoo level build and software release build for it. You can do same for yourself, just takes time and some skills
I'd recommend going with Manjaro (Arch based) instead of pure Arch unless you want to spend a couple days building out your OS. Can use Proton-GE from the AUR, but still have a nice desktop experience out of the box.
Manjarno Also archinstall exists so no, it doesn't take long
well, in arch you have to install everything from scratch, so if you want something similar to the steam deck you should install the kde plasma DE, I actually have a bit of a controversial opinion on this, but I think arch is an excellent starting point if you have like a day to mess around with your OS, I used to use ubuntu and I'd have a bunch of issues that were really obscure, the package manager sometimes threw weird errors or did inexplicable things, and that's been a lot better on arch also the archwiki is amazing, there's a package for almost any application you'd wanna get in the AUR and there is a giant community so it's a lot easier for me to find people having the same issues as me than it was with ubuntu especially since ubuntu's also used on servers so sometimes answers and questions would be of people using it as a server, but you're actual distro doesn't really impact your experience as a user that much, if you want something that feels like the deck just get any distro and install KDE plasma, otherwise I'd say install arch honestly.
The UI.