SteamOS Beta Now Out In The Wild

Well it has happened, SteamOS has arrived in beta form for all you tinkers to mess about with and tell us how awesome it is.

As usual though with Valve it happens while I am asleep so I have a little bit of catching up to do.

SteamOS is not actually based on Ubuntu at all, but on what Ubuntu uses as a foundation which is Debian, Debian Wheezy 7.1 to be exact. It does include a desktop mode which runs Gnome Shell although since it runs on Debian I am sure you will be able to install a different desktop environment if you so choose to do so.

What is interesting is their FAQ which states a few little tidbits like:

QuoteCustom graphics compositor designed to provide a seamless transition between Steam, its games and the SteamOS system overlay

That's really interesting, it's actually Xcompmgr so it's not as "custom" as they make it out to be, according to Phoronix that is. According to that article linked they have done massive patching to the Kernel as well, can't wait to see its performance.

QuoteSteamOS currently provides a limited set of packages, but many Debian wheezy packages work fine on SteamOS. We plan to make a wider variety of packages vailable directly from the SteamOS repositories over time.

So basically you can install most Debian Wheezy 7.1 supported app of course, but they will be adding more into their own repositories, I do wonder what exactly they will add to their own, any thoughts?

QuoteQ: Valve recommends Ubuntu for regular Linux desktops. Why is SteamOS built on Debian and not Ubuntu?
Building on top of the Debian core is the best way for Valve to deliver a fully custom SteamOS experience to our customers.

So Valve do suggest you still use Ubuntu for a regular desktop, keep that in mind before you switch to SteamOS folks. It's meant as a gaming centre not as a full desktop OS, so it's meant to compliment desktop Linux not destroy or replace it.

Hardware Requirements
Processor: Intel or AMD 64-bit capable processor 
Memory: 4GB or more RAM 
Hard Drive: 500GB or larger disk 
Video Card: NVIDIA graphics card (AMD and Intel graphics support coming soon!) 
Additional: UEFI boot support, USB port for installation

So it's curretly NVIDIA only for a moment, I am sure the tinkers will get it running on AMD and Intel without major issues soon enough though (if they haven't already).

Currently it's not super-easy to install due to it being an early testing version, there are two ways Valve has given right now we have included below. If you have been able to get it running in a VM let us know your steps in the comments, help everyone out!

How To Install

QuoteWARNING: Both installation methods will erase all content on the target computer

Default Installation
You will need to create a SteamOS System Restore USB stick to perform this install. The image provided here requires at least a 1TB disk.

• Download the default SteamOS beta installation
• Format a 4GB or larger USB stick with the FAT32 filesystem. Use "SYSRESTORE" as the partition name.
• Unzip the contents of SYSRESTORE.zip to this USB stick to create the System Restore USB stick.
• Put the System Restore USB stick in your target machine. Boot your machine and tell the BIOS to boot off the stick. (usually something like F8, F11 or F12 will bring up the BIOS boot menu).
• Make sure you select the UEFI entry, it may look something like "UEFI: Patriot Memory PMAP". If there is no UEFI entry, you may need to enable UEFI support in your BIOS setup.
• Select "Restore Entire Disk" from the GRUB menu.
• When it is complete it will shutdown. Power on the machine to boot into your freshly re-imaged SteamOS.

Custom Installation
The second method is based on the Debian Installer. It requires multiple configuration steps:

• Download the custom SteamOS beta installation
• Unzip the SteamOS.zip file to a blank, FAT32-formatted USB stick.
• Put the USB stick in your target machine. Boot your machine and tell the BIOS to boot off the stick. (usually something like F8, F11, or F12 will bring up the BIOS boot menu).
• Make sure you select the UEFI entry, it may look something like "UEFI: Patriot Memory PMAP". If there is no UEFI entry, you may need to enable UEFI support in your BIOS setup.
• Selected "Automated install" from the menu.
• The rest of the installation is unattended and will repartition the drive and install SteamOS.
• After installation is complete, log onto the resulting system (using the Gnome session) with the predefined "steam" account. The password is "steam". Run steam, accept the EULA, and let it bootstrap. Logoff the steam account.
• Log on with the "desktop" account. The password is "desktop".
• From a terminal window, run ~/post_logon.sh. This will prompt for a password - enter "desktop". This script will perform the post-install customizations, delete itself, then reboot into the recovery partition capture utility.
• Confirm "y" to continue and the recovery partition will be created. When it is finished, reboot into your freshly installed SteamOS.

Source

Where is my source code?! Don't worry Valve have that covered too here, the client is still closed though remember as our some drivers like the NVIDIA blob.

I do hope they adjust their installer a little in future to account for dual boots, after all it's one of Linux's strengths that it has boot loaders ready and capable of letting you boot into multiple systems on your computer.

Last note, I have worked on GOL since 2009 through the stress of trolls and even posting articles while very ill, remember that when all the bigger gaming sites pick up more and more Linux gaming news, we have been here for quite a long time before any of them even thought about Linux (or when they did articles bashing it), please do keep sharing our content and help us to keep growing, I can't do it without you. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.