Recently we had the big news that Valve (Steam) began a collaboration with Arch Linux, to help fund two very specific parts of the Linux distribution. Now, we have a bit more info on what it means.
After an interview recently from the A1RM4X YouTube channel with an Arch Linux developer, Antiz, they took to Reddit to explain things a little bit further to help people understand what's happening. Here's an excerpt:
Basically, the way packages are currently built / managed still requires a few manual interventions from Package Maintainers (e.g. triggering the build itself and signing the built packages afterwards). As of now, supporting multiple architectures would mean multiplying those manual steps by the number of supported / targeted architectures. With the current number of packages compared to the current number of (volunteers) Package Maintainers maintaining them, Arch is not able to handle the extra amount of effort that it would imply.
A central build service and a central secure signing enclave (the two projects concerned by that Valve "sponsoring") would streamline the overall process by allowing automated build and signing for packages without requiring any manual steps / interventions from Package Maintainers anymore (and it will also allow to increase the security of the process as a side benefit). Only such a streamlined / automated workflow would allow us to start working on supporting multiple architectures without implying to multiply the current amount of required effort.
In other words, those projects are prerequisites to start working on multiple architectures support in a clean & sane way, which is a end goal shared by both Arch and Valve.
So basically, a lot of it is towards supporting multiple architectures. And with the news that Valve are seemingly working on supporting some form of Arm and Android support (likely for a future VR headset), this definitely makes sense. Especially when Valve already use Arch Linux for SteamOS on the Steam Deck, it seems increasingly likely that Valve will use an Arch Linux base for what comes next.
Antiz has also been replying to other comments on Reddit, in one post noting that it is very much their "end goal" for Arch Linux to support multiple architectures.
Check out the full interview on the A1RM4X YouTube channel with the Arch Linux developer Antiz:
Direct Link
Quoting: BlackBloodRumThis is actually good news for Arch. I mean the benefits are very real here, all around. I know some Arch users are worrying over this, but I really don't think they should.most likely preparation for the deckard since there are secret ARM builds of VR Games inside Steam that are non accessible at the moment and the only reason we know this is because of SteamDB
If I had to guess, this is preparation for Steam Deck 2? or perhaps a new SteamOS? Maybe preperation for making SteamOS an OS for anything? Something is happening either way, and with a bit of luck it'll provide that nice easy to use OS we can point all new users to and say "Use this, it works out the box for most things" as opposed to having to say "For nvidia try this distro, for amd try this one, oh and if you need this, try that distro over there, etc.
Last edited by Viesta2015 on 3 October 2024 at 11:31 pm UTC
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