I’m sure either the workarounds will get to be trivial, or Valve will make it work sans Steam. It just needs time to cook

It’s a good start. It only supports showing already downloaded games, not downloading other games at the moment.

I read their release notes though and if you make game purchases from Heroic they get some referral credits, so hopefully that helps them keep iterating.

The small size is probably the biggest factor since it fits well under the TV, as is the I/O including HDMI-CEC, dedicated radio for controllers, reference hardware for games to work well on, everything just works.

Desktop PC is where I do my customizations, 20 HDD bays & 6 SSD, etc, but I run Debian on there

Wooo! I am ready to purchase the Steam Machine whenever it comes out and install CachyOS on it. Can’t easily install KDE Bigscreen + Waydroid TV on SteamOS. Lifetime software & security updates regardless. I expect with the AI bubble it will be at least $1k unfortunately, and won’t be available in white at launch.

Then the Nvidia Shield + SSD + Game Native on the main floor where the Steam Machine will go, will replace the Raspberry Pi in the bedroom, the Raspberry Pi will become another MotionEyeOS security camera, and the main desktop will remain connected downstairs. It is the perfect middle ground between the Shield and Desktop PC. And the Steam Controller is the best controller for couch/bed gaming. Only thing that would make it better is a detachable keyboard on the bottom, but maybe there will be aftermarket Bluetooth ones.

My siblings and I have about 2000 games between us with family sharing and on other platforms (shout out to freegames@feddit.uk & SteamDB sale tracking for helping us get a lot of the way there), it will be more appealing to play multiplayer games there in the living room. And that’s not including all of the legally available retro console games from the Internet Archive via IAGL for “research”. Yes, it’ll be more than a PS5 or Xbox One X 1 S 720 or whatever they call the latest generation, but no console could ever match this experience; we even have PS and Xbox “exclusives” for sale on Steam these days. What a time to be alive!

Absolutely. Can you imagine hearing the big picture mode starting every time you slide out the modern equivalent of this bad boy that was ahead of its time

Easiest way at the moment for the latest QT6 version would be install an Arch-based distro like PostmarketOS and install plasma-bigscreen-git

I have not, but that is a great idea given there are definitely more TV Optimizations in their dedicated Android TV app than switching the interface to TV on the native GNU/Linux app. I don’t see any reason why it may not at least play content, but not sure about things like HDR.

I wish they just had one standard binary that adapts better.

Didn’t know that. Go OpenSUSE!

I would love if it could display in-progress shows and play next right in the interface like Android TV, though it would require native app integration, perhaps there’s also a way via Waydroid or Android Translation Layer (ATL) by hooking up to those existing APIs

From what I can tell Valve has no interest in it (yet), but hopefully one day. Recent updates have been from individuals who want to ensure it doesn’t get left behind.

I checked with Debian Sid, one of the reasons it is not there yet is they haven’t fully migrated to QT6 including Plasma, so hopefully it means there is less friction to get the QT6 version into NixOS’ packages if it already forces QT6 by default.

I edited my post to clarify. The older table QT5 version is available today to use on most distros, but there are some known issues, and things that no longer work like Mycroft. It will be great when the QT6 version is stable though, I agree.

Best way for the QT6 version is to build from source, which is what I’m doing for my Pi, as I’m using Rasbian Trixie. I would love if someone CI/CD packaged builds for Debian Sid via KDE or Debian resources to more easily install on the Rasbian, but yes it’s been setup in AUR for Arch-based distros like SteamOS, PostmarketOS.

For those that want a better UI in Desktop Mode when docked playing from the couch, there is Plasma Bigscreen

There is a better QT6 version available if you build from source and I think in the AUR under

plasma-bigscreen-git

It’s rough around the edges still, but hopefully with the Steam Machine more people will take interest in it who are looking to use it as a media centre instead of a Nvidia Shield Android/Google TV

If you want to preserve your battery, follow the same principles for any battery, avoid having above 80% and below 20%. I’m not sure for KDE, but on GNOME I have a GUI utility that lets you set this and enable/disable with a toggle.