Valve today (12 November 2025) announced their new Steam Machine (x86 CPU, 6x more powerful than Steam Deck) and Steam Frame (self-contained and PCVR streaming VR headset with ARM CPU & “FEX” translation of x86 to ARM) to be released in early 2026. No prices yet.
I’m trying to speculate what effects this will have on the wider Linux ecosystem. Both devices will be running Steam OS and be open so you can run any OS.
First, I’ve read many people state that the Steam Deck considerably increased the number of devices running Linux, so it seems to me that these two new devices will accelerate that trend.
Second, it seems to me that the Steam Frame will significantly increase VR use and development for Linux.
Third, I wonder what the implications of Frame’s x86 to arm translation layer (based on FEX, an open source project that I only learned about today) as well as Android compatibility (they state it can sideload Android APKs) will be. Could this somehow help either Linux on Apple silicon or Linux phone efforts? I’m very unfamiliar with what’s going on with either of these efforts, so I may be way out on a limb here.
What do you think about all this?
Edit: this article may prompt some additional thoughts with its discussion of the openness of the Frame - https://www.uploadvr.com/valve-steam-frame-catalog-whole-compatible/
Embarrassingly, make a Windows 10-like OS. (More specifically, a window manager, probably.) Or have an affirmative vision for the future (non-Windows 95-derived) like Niri or (fascist-adjacent) Omarchy. 15+ years ago I booted my first distro. I ran Ubuntu with Unity on a side PC for years. Good for single screen use. I daily drove Debian for 3 months in 2018 but never got it to look more modern than Windows 2000. I never “enjoyed” it. This matches my thoughts. https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/10/deduplicating_the_desktops/
Going to try out https://www.anduinos.com/ and Zorin. Have done distro hop roulette for months and a lot of them are unsatisfying. KDE looks close to how I want but runs slow e.g. https://lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz/post/58790510
I’m big on super+arrow to move windows from one screen to another. I rarely need more than 4 active windows per display. But my big problem with tiling is that I like seeing the windows I have open at the bottom of my screen. (this was for my laptop but similar points https://lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz/post/58681232 )
My side OS on my main PC is Mint with MATE, but I also don’t gel with it. Ran it on a family PC for years and it did the job for casual use. Random gripe off the top of my head I think applies in MATE: sorting is in byte order, not in brain order. Many linuxes sort
10, 1, 2instead of1, 2, 10. MATE and Xfce (iirc) have terrible file operation handling compared to Windows or (the gold standard?) Teracopy in Windows.Every default GUI archive/extract program in Linux sucks, that I could find. I prefer Peazip but even 7z-gui (the stock one) is good. Even native windows zip support feels more pleasant. This goes back to a bazzite/omarchy philosophy of shipping software that is good, instead of defaults that suck.
Oddly enough I kind of respect AntiX + IceWM, as well as Lxqt / Lubuntu more than most of the crap modern WMs I’ve used.
SSH key exchange / setup is a fucking nightmare and I don’t know why I’m copy pasting keys into text files or piping multiple commands together for the 50% odds that my OS setup allows it. I still don’t really understand the Linux threat model where passwords on a local account make sense. (Is it to prevent local scripts from escalating to admin?)
I’ve run Linux servers for 5 years and I run WSL, but nothing clicks per se. I’m always more at home in Windows. Niri feels close to what I want, but too high a learning curve. I may make a post about it someday.
https://social.linux.pizza/@BigHeadMode/114843921051139964
There is a mix of very precise issues with very detailed examples but also a thread of not being “comfortable” which makes it challenging for me to make practical suggestions.
If that’s OK I’d suggest to start with the top 5 problems you have then I, and hopefully others, can give potential paths forward.
One generic advice though the learning curve might feel threateningly high but I’d argue it’s if you consider this a short term adventure. If you think about the next year or so, discovering the intricacies of a distribution or shortcuts for a desktop environment look like a bad investment of your time. If now you consider this, especially as you mentioned managing servers for years, relying on WSL, etc a long term investment. If you imagine than in 10 years, heck even 50 years, console, servers, VR headsets, desktop, phones, tablets… all run Linux (which to be clear basically is the case now, even before the Valve recent announcement) then it’s a totally different dynamic. I don’t mean “behind the scene” kind of things, I mean today you can use
adb shellon your standalone VR HMD, on your video projector, on your phone, etc. You can also have the console on your Mac laptop. It doesn’t make learning easier, it’s just a lot more motivating IMHO.Also on that topic, my “trick” is to write down notes. It can be actual notes or just my ~/.bashrc or ~/bin in a more pragmatic day to day solutions. They do add up, day after day, years after years. Each challenge once overcome can be composable and a new opportunity to do more.