steam os Should I bother switching to SteamOS?

[Orion Byrd]

Hey there! I've been watching LTT since I started at my technical high school, where I eventually settled in on Hardware, Service & Support as my study, which was basically just tech support for people; Teachers and students would come in for free and I was usually the one tasked with fixing devices both hardware and software. As you can imagine I almost feel embarrassed reaching out for help but Windows has me at my whits end. So here is the situation.

 

My computer is a bit of a Frankenstein's monster, made of fairly ancient parts. Due to personal problems it isn't financially viable to upgrade my PC to modern spec right now. (I priced out a $1500 build with all the storage I need as most of my drives are very old and/or damaged I will list my rig at the end) Windows has essentially presented me with an ultimatum as Windows update is non-functional because I tampered with it to force it to stop updating and I didn't think to make it reversible. Since I can't update to 22H2 and am stuck on 21H2 I cannot do the "upgrade" for lack of a better word to AtlasOS, so I need to decide; reinstall Windows 10 so that I can use AtlasOS or Install SteamOS via HoloISO unless Steam has allowed SteamOS 3.0 to be used on any hardware.

 

I could really use guidance on this since I have only dabbled with using Linux as my main computer where I do a lot of work and gaming in the past and still feel uncomfortable moving if it means I can no longer use programs I nearly daily drive such as FL Studio, After Effects, Blender, Unreal Engine 5, etc. As well as my slew of games I rapidly interchange such as, Red Dead, Deep Rock, Star Citizen, Sea of Thieves, Tarkov (Which I don't mind too much on giving up on, haha), etc. I hope someone from LTT can help me out as well as this community!

 

Thanks In Advance,

Orion

 

--MY BUILD--

-Main

MOBO - ASUS P8Q67-M DO/TPM

CPU    - i5-2400 @ 3.10GHz (Stock Cooling)

RAM   - 2x8 Ballistix @1333MHz

RAM   - 2x8 Patriot @1333MHz

GPU   - XFX RX560 (Stock Cooling)

PSU   - Thermaltake Smart 500W

CHS  - Thermaltake V250 (Stock Fans Only)

-Storage

SSD - 2.5" SanDisk Ultra 120GB (2012? - Star Citizen)

HHD- 3.5" WD Blue 5200RPM 250GB (2009 - Boot)

HHD- 3.5" WD Blue 5200RPM 500GB (2010 - B-List Games)

HHD- 2.5" Seagate Firecuda 7400RPM 1TB Hybrid (2018 - The Big D)

 

P.S. If anyone from LTT does end up reading this, please do more of some of the wacky jank builds like Scrapyard Wars or the Car Radiator build! I love you guys and hope you guys keep rolling forward, even if it never goes to plan!

[Orion Byrd]

And if you think my build is crusty, you don't even wanna know what my server is running. Haha! I should also mention I do have plenty of Linux experience and even have a few certifications for it and run Ubuntu Server for general purposes so there isn't much of a learning curve, it's more or less making sure I can run the software I need!

[Lixa]

Is there any particular reason you cannot reinstall windows? Windows 10 isn't at the eol yet. If you want to switch to linux regardless, I don't see any particular reason to use steamOS or it's derivative HoloISO over linux Mint or plain old Debian. Not that you can't but why? For the software you're using, at least half of it either works fine on linux trough proton (for your games) or has a native linux version (for blender and ue5). You should check on protondb.com and do a quick google search to see if your software works on linux.

[Orion Byrd]

11 hours ago, Lixa said:

Is there any particular reason you cannot reinstall windows? Windows 10 isn't at the eol yet. If you want to switch to linux regardless, I don't see any particular reason to use steamOS or it's derivative HoloISO over linux Mint or plain old Debian. Not that you can't but why? For the software you're using, at least half of it either works fine on linux trough proton (for your games) or has a native linux version (for blender and ue5). You should check on protondb.com and do a quick google search to see if your software works on linux.

So my problem is with Windows bloat. It just sucks having to reinstall OS's generally and I was just curious about it. I like the look of the Plasma desktop and I really wasn't aware that Proton could be used on any distro. (I was under the impression that steam locked that down) Reinstalling windows takes a while on disk so I was curious about alternatives as Windows breaks constantly and it is always a hassle to fix, if it can be fixed at all. Sorry if this sounds incoherent as I got incredibly sick overnight so my brain is kind of on backup power. Haha. I'll check out protondb and see what works!

[Lixa]

1 hour ago, Orion Byrd said:

So my problem is with Windows bloat. It just sucks having to reinstall OS's generally and I was just curious about it. I like the look of the Plasma desktop and I really wasn't aware that Proton could be used on any distro. (I was under the impression that steam locked that down) Reinstalling windows takes a while on disk so I was curious about alternatives as Windows breaks constantly and it is always a hassle to fix, if it can be fixed at all. Sorry if this sounds incoherent as I got incredibly sick overnight so my brain is kind of on backup power. Haha. I'll check out protondb and see what works!

Proton is essentially a customized wine, a compatibility layer which already existed on linux on wine. If you wanted, you could download and compile the proton source code without having steam installed. To make steam use proton, you have to enable steam play.

You can use any linux software on whatever distro you want, including the desktop environment, so the preinstalled DE shouldn't be your primary concern since you seem willing to thinker with your os a little bit. You have to keep in mind that since you will be gaming, you will want a distribution that is more on the bleeding edge side of things in terms of software updates. The other thing is that you don't need to install or virtualize a linux distro to be able to experience it, if you boot your pc from a linux iso it'll give you a live environment. You can test several distros in this way before settling on one and installing it.

[Rayyan9400]

I really don't think that most people should be installing SteamOS or windows. If you wanna use windows, debloat it. If you wanna use steamOS, don't. I read that you liked KDE plasma so i think Nobara is a good distro for your needs.

https://nobaraproject.org/

 

[GoodBytes]

Windows "bloat' isn't affecting anything besides drive space.

 

The issue is that you have Windows 10, which now optimized for SSDs (Windows 11 has SSD a requirement), installed on an HDD instead of your SSD. Microsoft basically gradually worked on it during Windows 10 life. 

 

So, make sure in your UEFI/BIOS.

(Assuming your UEFI is at default / Load optimized Default)

• UEFI mode is enabled (if you have the option)
• CSM Disabled
• XMP set to Enable/Profile 1
• AHCI mode for your SATA drive enabled.
• High Precise Event Timer (HPET) set to Enable/64-bit
• When you boot to your USB Flash drive for installing Windows, if you have the option: "UEFI:<USB Flash drive model>", pick it. Don't pick the one that is just: "<USB Flash drive model>".
• Disconnect all SATA drives beside SSD where Windows will be installed (drive will be formatted. All data will be lost). This is highly recommended as we don't know your motherboard. Windows will put it's boot loader on whatever drive the motherboard reports as main/first one. NOT the one you actually picked. Usually it's not an issue, but motherboard manufacturer likes to do things special, sadly, and just doesn't give you the option to define this. Also, we don't know how you built your system. Main drive (your SSD) should be on SATA 0 port (if you don't have SATA 0, then the count starts at 1, so SATA 1 port). Once Windows is installed, you can shutdown the system, and connect back all your drive.

Once Windows is installed on your SSD, make sure all drivers are installed. This includes, Audio, chipset, Keyboard and mouse. Make sure that Device Manager shows no error. 

 

Keep Windows power plan to Balance. Any other options hurts performance for the majority of people. It is a myth for most to use anything else to gain performance. High Performance leads to a hotter CPU, which prevents it from boosting as high and as long when performing is needed. Hence why the Power Plan is getting completely burried, and marked as deprecated. Laptops don't even have any other plans option, than Balance.

 

[MrCutiePatootie]

Have you looked into Windows 10 IoT LTSC? It is essentially Windows 10 without the bloat. It doesn’t even have Microsoft Store but can be installed if required.

 

I’d also steer clear of debloating tools as they often break things in the long run.

[thevictor390]

You don't have to go all-in to upgrade to a modern $1500 PC. "All the storage you need?" It adds up to less than 2 TB. That's one $60 SSD. And any used office PC has better guts in terms of CPU/mobo.

However if sticking with this hardware I completely agree with moving your boot drive to your SSD. Booting froma  5400 rpm HDD is painful. And try not to screw around with Windows too much despite what everyone talks about with "bloat", it's what put you into this situation in the first place. Or just be aware that it can cause these kinds of problems down the line.

If you do go in a Linux direction, I'll second Nobara as the gaming-focused distro of choice for a beginner.

[Babybee3329]

SteamOS isn’t that bad but the only downfall I’ve experienced is the game support being limited. Good things is that Linux gaming are getting better over time and more games are getting verified for Linux. So overall if you have the games you like that works on Linux, worth doing so.

[The Hope]

Don't forget to consider ChimeraOS

https://linuxgamingcentral.com/posts/chimeraos-review/