A recent interview with Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais sheds some light on the rollout of SteamOS.
A new wide-ranging interview with Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais has shared some tidbits on public release plans for SteamOS.
The interview, conducted in French, took place during the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. At the show, Valve and Lenovo introduced the Legion Go S, the first handheld — other than Valve's own Steam Deck — to officially use the Steam-friendly, Linux-based operating system.
The interview highlights how this SteamOS project has now been twelve years in the making, and how Valve are ready for it to now be used on products outside of their control.
"I've been personally busy managing this since the creation of SteamOS in 2012. [...] Since the release of the Steam Deck OLED, we have done a lot of work to extend the compatibility of SteamOS".
— Pierre-Loup Griffais
Of course, this new partnership with Lenovo is just one side of the story, as Valve also plan to release their operating system more broadly, allowing anyone to use it as they see fit. The interview asked specifically about these plans, and Griffais noted that there are several factors (as spotted by GamingOnLinux) to still consider before such an open, public release is fully realised.
“on some platforms, the support is still very basic. Intel, it works a little better than before, but our teams of drivers and Intel are working on it. NVIDIA, the integration of open source drivers is still quite incipient. There is still a lot of work to do on that side... So it's a little complicated to say that we're going to release this version when most people wouldn't have a good experience".
— Pierre-Loup Griffais
So, if you were hoping to stick SteamOS on your ROG Ally or AYANEO Air 1S you'll be waiting a while yet. It's a work in progress, but the fact it's happening on the Legion Go S is a huge step forward for this exciting OS effort.
The full interview can be found below, with an audio dub option available: