SteamOS FAQ

Q: What is SteamOS?

[www.debian.org]

Added various third-party drivers and updated graphics stack



Updated kernel tracking the 4.1 longterm branch



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



250GB or larger disk



NVIDIA, Intel, or AMD graphics card



USB port or DVD drive for installation

Q: Is SteamOS open source?

Q: Where is the source for SteamOS?

Q: How do I get fixes or new features in SteamOS?

Q: What software runs on SteamOS?

Q: What is Debian? What is jessie?

[www.debian.org]

Q: Valve recommends Ubuntu for regular Linux desktops. Why is SteamOS built on Debian and not Ubuntu?

Q: Can I run Microsoft Windows games and applications on SteamOS?

Q: How often does SteamOS get updated?

Q: How do I install SteamOS?

Unzip the SteamOSInstaller.zip file to a blank, FAT32-formatted USB stick (MBR, not GPT).



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, the system will reboot and automatically log on and install Steam. At this point an internet connection is required. If you have an internet connection, Steam will automatically install itself. If you do not have an internet connection (for instance, if you need to connect to a WiFi access point) you will get a popup telling you this. Close the popup and you will get the network configuration UI where you can set up your network. Once you are connected to the internet, close this UI and Steam will install itself.



After Steam finishes installing, your system will automatically reboot and create a backup of the system partition.



When the backup completes, select "reboot" to boot into your freshly installed SteamOS

Q: How do I get to the desktop on SteamOS? All I see is Steam.

Q: How are the SteamOS accounts configured?

Q: How do I get root access to SteamOS?

Q: SteamOS is malfunctioning, how do I restore a working version?

Q: SteamOS doesn't support my hardware. How do I install new graphics and chipset drivers?

Q: Didn't you tell me to develop for Ubuntu? Do I need to install Debian to build for SteamOS?

[github.com]

Q: How do I report bugs or request a feature?

[github.com]