Clever Pun
Member
seems to be downloading better now. Only about 600 KB/s but stable at least.
Edit: of course I say that and it drops to 20 KB/s....
FAQ is live:
Q: What is SteamOS?
SteamOS is a fork (derivative) of Debian GNU/Linux. The first version (SteamOS 1.0) is called 'alchemist' and it is based on the Debian 'wheezy' (stable 7.1) distribution.
The major changes made in SteamOS are:
Backported eglibc 2.17 from Debian testing
Added various third-party drivers and updated graphics stack (Intel and AMD graphics support still being worked on)
Updated kernel tracking the 3.10 longterm branch (currently 3.10.11)
Custom graphics compositor designed to provide a seamless transition between Steam, its games and the SteamOS system overlay
Configured to auto-update from the Valve SteamOS repositories
Q: What are the SteamOS Hardware Requirements?
Intel or AMD 64-bit capable processor
4GB or more memory
500GB or larger disk
NVIDIA graphics card (AMD and Intel graphics support coming soon)
UEFI boot support
USB port for installation
Q: Is SteamOS open source?
All of the base operating system components are open source. The Steam client itself is proprietary, as are some proprietary third party drivers.
Q: Where is the source for SteamOS?
http://repo.steampowered.com/steamos
Q: How do I get fixes or new features in SteamOS?
All SteamOS machines are set to auto-update their OS from Valve's public repositories on a regular basis through the standard Debian APT package manager.
Q: What software runs on SteamOS?
SteamOS is designed to run Steam and Steam games. It also provides a desktop mode which can run regular Linux applications. SteamOS makes use of the standard APT package manager for software updates; you can add third-party sources to your subscribed repositories to gain access to more applications. SteamOS 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.
Q: What is Debian? What is wheezy?
Debian is a particular distribution of the Linux operating system, details about it can be found here. Wheezy is the current stable release of Debian, which was used as the basis for the SteamOS distribution.
Q: 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.
Q: Can I run Microsoft Windows games and applications on SteamOS?
No, SteamOS is based on Debian GNU/Linux and is not compatibile with Microsoft Windows games and applications. However, SteamOS will soon support seamlessly streaming your games from your Windows computer;
watch this page for more information about the In-Home Streaming Beta.
Q: How often does SteamOS get updated?
We will push out security fixes and critical bugfixes as soon as we are comfortable shipping them. The beta update channel will receive regular fixes and improvements on a daily or weekly basis and every few months we will roll up these updates into the released channel. We are just starting to evaluate what the best process is and the release cadence might vary in the future.
Q: How do I install SteamOS?
There are two different install methods for SteamOS. '''WARNING: BOTH METHODS WILL ERASE EVERYTHING ON THE MACHINE'''
The easiest method is an image-based install using CloneZilla. 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.
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"
Select "Restore Entire Disk" from the GRUB menu.
System Restore will proceed automatically. When it is complete it will reboot into your freshly re-imaged SteamOS
The second method is based on the Debian Installer. It requires multiple configuration steps:
Unzip the SteamOSInstaller.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"
Pick "Automated Install" from the next 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
Q: How do I get to the desktop on SteamOS? All I see is Steam.
To access the SteamOS desktop, it must be enabled from the Steam Settings menu. Select Settings (the gear icon in the top right) then select Interface and check the "Enable access to the Linux desktop" box. Now the Exit button will have an additional option, "Return to Desktop" that will switch to the SteamOS desktop.
From the desktop, click on the "Return to Steam" icon to switch back to Steam.
Q: How are the SteamOS accounts configured?
SteamOS comes with two predefined accounts. The first is "steam" and it is the account where Steam and all its games run. This is a non-privileged account. The second account is "desktop" and this is where the SteamOS desktop and any non-Steam applications run. This account can use 'sudo' to gain administrative privileges after you set a password for it.
Note that these are SteamOS accounts and are not associated with any Steam Login. Even though you can login multiple Steam users, all those users will currently be sharing the same SteamOS desktop and accounts.
Q: How do I get root access to SteamOS?
The desktop account can gain root access, but ships with no password. Before you can use this account to gain root access, you need to assign it a password. From the desktop session, start a terminal window and type "passwd". Enter your new password twice. Now you can use the "sudo" command to perform privileged operations.
Q: I am a Hardware Beta Participant, how do I get support for SteamOS?
If you have a Steam Machine, you should have received an email with an invitation to create an account on the public Valve bug tracker. Once you have created this account, you can use the Valve Bug Reporter application that is available from the SteamOS desktop. You will need to attach a keyboard to your SteamOS machine to enter the bug details. You can also invoke the Valve Bug Reporter with the Win-B hotkey. Using Win-B is very helpful if you are reporting a bug in Steam or a game since it will include a screenshot.
If you cannot use the Valve Bug Reporter for some reason, you can also log into the bug reporter directly from any web browser.
Q: SteamOS is malfunctioning, how do I restore a working version?
The standard SteamOS installation includes a recovery partition on the hard drive. You can use this partition to restore the system drive to its original state. Your Steam installation, games, and any desktop changes you have made will be preserved. To use the recovery partition, you will need a keyboard attached to your SteamOS machine. Turn the machine off and back on. Press the ESC key repeatedly as the system starts and you will get the SteamOS boot menu. Select "Restore System Partition" from the menu. The system will starts and prompt you for confirmation. After restoring your system disk, your system will boot back into SteamOS
If the recovery partition does not fix the problem, every Steam Machine also includes a USB recovery disk. This will completely reimage your hard drive and return the machine to its factory state. Any Steam games or desktop changes will be lost. To use the recovery disk, you will need a keyboard attached to your SteamOS machine. Turn the machine off, insert the USB recovery disk, and turn it back on. Press F11 as the system starts and you will get the firmware "Select Boot Device" menu. Select the first "UEFI: Centon Centon USB 8.07" entry and you will get the SteamOS recovery disk boot menu. Select "Restore Entire Disk" from the menu. Your machine will be completely reinstalled. When the process completes, the machine will shutdown. Turn the machine back on to boot into SteamOS.
Q: SteamOS doesn't support my hardware. How do I install new graphics and chipset drivers?
The drivers for SteamOS are provided as part of the system image and integrated by Valve. Valve will be integrating new and updated drivers over time. The process for installing new drivers should not
be different from any other distribution in that the Debian community or Valve will re-package new driver releases and re-distribute them. If an end-user wants to install a new driver package on top of their existing SteamOS installation we expect to remain largely compatible with the Debian packaging scheme.
Q: Didn't you tell me to develop for Ubuntu? Do I need to install Debian to build for SteamOS?
All Steam applications execute using the [https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime Steam Runtime] which is a fixed binary-compatibility layer for Linux applications. This enables any application to run on any Linux distribution that supports the Steam Runtime without recompiling. As long as your development environment targets Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with the Steam Runtime, it will run without change on SteamOS. If you are a Steam partner, see the Linux development page for more details on creating Steam applications for Linux and SteamOS.
Edit: of course I say that and it drops to 20 KB/s....
FAQ is live:
Q: What is SteamOS?
SteamOS is a fork (derivative) of Debian GNU/Linux. The first version (SteamOS 1.0) is called 'alchemist' and it is based on the Debian 'wheezy' (stable 7.1) distribution.
The major changes made in SteamOS are:
Backported eglibc 2.17 from Debian testing
Added various third-party drivers and updated graphics stack (Intel and AMD graphics support still being worked on)
Updated kernel tracking the 3.10 longterm branch (currently 3.10.11)
Custom graphics compositor designed to provide a seamless transition between Steam, its games and the SteamOS system overlay
Configured to auto-update from the Valve SteamOS repositories
Q: What are the SteamOS Hardware Requirements?
Intel or AMD 64-bit capable processor
4GB or more memory
500GB or larger disk
NVIDIA graphics card (AMD and Intel graphics support coming soon)
UEFI boot support
USB port for installation
Q: Is SteamOS open source?
All of the base operating system components are open source. The Steam client itself is proprietary, as are some proprietary third party drivers.
Q: Where is the source for SteamOS?
http://repo.steampowered.com/steamos
Q: How do I get fixes or new features in SteamOS?
All SteamOS machines are set to auto-update their OS from Valve's public repositories on a regular basis through the standard Debian APT package manager.
Q: What software runs on SteamOS?
SteamOS is designed to run Steam and Steam games. It also provides a desktop mode which can run regular Linux applications. SteamOS makes use of the standard APT package manager for software updates; you can add third-party sources to your subscribed repositories to gain access to more applications. SteamOS 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.
Q: What is Debian? What is wheezy?
Debian is a particular distribution of the Linux operating system, details about it can be found here. Wheezy is the current stable release of Debian, which was used as the basis for the SteamOS distribution.
Q: 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.
Q: Can I run Microsoft Windows games and applications on SteamOS?
No, SteamOS is based on Debian GNU/Linux and is not compatibile with Microsoft Windows games and applications. However, SteamOS will soon support seamlessly streaming your games from your Windows computer;
watch this page for more information about the In-Home Streaming Beta.
Q: How often does SteamOS get updated?
We will push out security fixes and critical bugfixes as soon as we are comfortable shipping them. The beta update channel will receive regular fixes and improvements on a daily or weekly basis and every few months we will roll up these updates into the released channel. We are just starting to evaluate what the best process is and the release cadence might vary in the future.
Q: How do I install SteamOS?
There are two different install methods for SteamOS. '''WARNING: BOTH METHODS WILL ERASE EVERYTHING ON THE MACHINE'''
The easiest method is an image-based install using CloneZilla. 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.
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"
Select "Restore Entire Disk" from the GRUB menu.
System Restore will proceed automatically. When it is complete it will reboot into your freshly re-imaged SteamOS
The second method is based on the Debian Installer. It requires multiple configuration steps:
Unzip the SteamOSInstaller.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"
Pick "Automated Install" from the next 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
Q: How do I get to the desktop on SteamOS? All I see is Steam.
To access the SteamOS desktop, it must be enabled from the Steam Settings menu. Select Settings (the gear icon in the top right) then select Interface and check the "Enable access to the Linux desktop" box. Now the Exit button will have an additional option, "Return to Desktop" that will switch to the SteamOS desktop.
From the desktop, click on the "Return to Steam" icon to switch back to Steam.
Q: How are the SteamOS accounts configured?
SteamOS comes with two predefined accounts. The first is "steam" and it is the account where Steam and all its games run. This is a non-privileged account. The second account is "desktop" and this is where the SteamOS desktop and any non-Steam applications run. This account can use 'sudo' to gain administrative privileges after you set a password for it.
Note that these are SteamOS accounts and are not associated with any Steam Login. Even though you can login multiple Steam users, all those users will currently be sharing the same SteamOS desktop and accounts.
Q: How do I get root access to SteamOS?
The desktop account can gain root access, but ships with no password. Before you can use this account to gain root access, you need to assign it a password. From the desktop session, start a terminal window and type "passwd". Enter your new password twice. Now you can use the "sudo" command to perform privileged operations.
Q: I am a Hardware Beta Participant, how do I get support for SteamOS?
If you have a Steam Machine, you should have received an email with an invitation to create an account on the public Valve bug tracker. Once you have created this account, you can use the Valve Bug Reporter application that is available from the SteamOS desktop. You will need to attach a keyboard to your SteamOS machine to enter the bug details. You can also invoke the Valve Bug Reporter with the Win-B hotkey. Using Win-B is very helpful if you are reporting a bug in Steam or a game since it will include a screenshot.
If you cannot use the Valve Bug Reporter for some reason, you can also log into the bug reporter directly from any web browser.
Q: SteamOS is malfunctioning, how do I restore a working version?
The standard SteamOS installation includes a recovery partition on the hard drive. You can use this partition to restore the system drive to its original state. Your Steam installation, games, and any desktop changes you have made will be preserved. To use the recovery partition, you will need a keyboard attached to your SteamOS machine. Turn the machine off and back on. Press the ESC key repeatedly as the system starts and you will get the SteamOS boot menu. Select "Restore System Partition" from the menu. The system will starts and prompt you for confirmation. After restoring your system disk, your system will boot back into SteamOS
If the recovery partition does not fix the problem, every Steam Machine also includes a USB recovery disk. This will completely reimage your hard drive and return the machine to its factory state. Any Steam games or desktop changes will be lost. To use the recovery disk, you will need a keyboard attached to your SteamOS machine. Turn the machine off, insert the USB recovery disk, and turn it back on. Press F11 as the system starts and you will get the firmware "Select Boot Device" menu. Select the first "UEFI: Centon Centon USB 8.07" entry and you will get the SteamOS recovery disk boot menu. Select "Restore Entire Disk" from the menu. Your machine will be completely reinstalled. When the process completes, the machine will shutdown. Turn the machine back on to boot into SteamOS.
Q: SteamOS doesn't support my hardware. How do I install new graphics and chipset drivers?
The drivers for SteamOS are provided as part of the system image and integrated by Valve. Valve will be integrating new and updated drivers over time. The process for installing new drivers should not
be different from any other distribution in that the Debian community or Valve will re-package new driver releases and re-distribute them. If an end-user wants to install a new driver package on top of their existing SteamOS installation we expect to remain largely compatible with the Debian packaging scheme.
Q: Didn't you tell me to develop for Ubuntu? Do I need to install Debian to build for SteamOS?
All Steam applications execute using the [https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime Steam Runtime] which is a fixed binary-compatibility layer for Linux applications. This enables any application to run on any Linux distribution that supports the Steam Runtime without recompiling. As long as your development environment targets Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with the Steam Runtime, it will run without change on SteamOS. If you are a Steam partner, see the Linux development page for more details on creating Steam applications for Linux and SteamOS.
