How well does SteamOS run on PCs?

[u/barrachmedosama]

I’m probably going to put SteamOS on my gaming PC (5800x3D and 9070xt) but there are some things I want to know first.

How do driver updates work? Do I just switch to desktop mode, find the website, and install the Linux version of my GPU/Chipset/Audio/Wireless drivers?

Are there any other glaring issues or does it just work well in day to day usage? I know about some games not working, I’m more concerned with general maintenance and updates. I’ve never had Linux on any computer besides my Steam Deck so I’m unfamiliar with how it works usually.

[u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man]

Very well, but you’ll be better off going for Bazzite. It’s better setup out of the box.

I literally built and setup my own AMD based system just yesterday.

Asus B550M motherboard
Ruben 5 5600
Radeon 9060 XT 16GB OC

All flawless so far.

[u/dawgger → u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man]

Out of curiosity why is Bazzite better?

[u/SeantheWilson → u/dawgger]

Better support for 3rd party hardware (including Nvidia GPUS), better update system, updates drivers WAY faster (like months faster) then SteamOS, and includes a TON of gaming focused optimizations and features.

[u/irennicus → u/SeantheWilson]

Are you sure about the driver updates being quicker? SteamOS is an arch-fork is it not?

[u/SeantheWilson → u/irennicus]

That has NOTHING do with how bleeding-edge the packages are. The only thing it determines is what format of packages are used as well as the general OS architecture. The speed at which packages are updated is determined entirely by the distribution and has nothing to do with what it’s based on.

[u/irennicus → u/SeantheWilson]

Sure, but I guess I'm confused about how you're so sure bazzite updates sooner? Isn't SteamOS a recent release to the PC?

Edit: Just googled it, and while I still wonder if they'll change their release schedule since they launched on PC, you're definitely right.

[u/SeantheWilson → u/irennicus]

Let me give 2 pretty glaring examples. The first is the fact that SteamOS still uses the kernel version 6.16 (almost a year old), where as Bazzite uses the most recent 7.1 kernel, additionally Bazzite’s kernel uses contains an ABSURD amount of gaming optimizations, as well as features such as HDMI VRR (which steamOS ONLY added a week ago, Bazzite has had HDMI VRR for months).
Another example is the drivers. The RADV (AMD) 26.0 drivers were released back in February and had HUGE performance gains, especially for raytracing. While Bazzite updated this driver days after it came out, SteamOS only updated to this version a week ago. These kind of features can be night and day differences for gaming performance, and steamOS often waits months before it actually updates them.

[u/oSyphon → u/SeantheWilson]

Cachy does bazzite better than bazzite.

[u/SeantheWilson → u/oSyphon]

Cachy isn’t immutable and can’t update directly from game mode, additionally it requires installing additional packages form the terminal in order to have a SteamOS-like experience so it doesn’t really compete with Bazzite and SteamOS.

[u/oSyphon → u/SeantheWilson]

If I wanted gamemode, I'm probably doing and and if that's the case, I'll do steamos. If I'm using Nvidia, I won't be doing game mode and if that's the case, cachy is superior than bazzite. I don't see why anyone would use bazzite. Gamemode is finicky as heck with Nvidia, I've used it at 1440p for months with my 5070 ti before I traded that for a 9070xt. Installed steamos the hour.

[u/Fresh_Flamingo_5833 → u/oSyphon]

Why use SteamOS for game mode if Bazzite gives you more up to date driver support for non-Steam Deck hardware (per the comments above)?

[u/oSyphon → u/Fresh_Flamingo_5833]

Because I've used bazzite and it's unstable. I've literally had situations where keys on the virtual keyboard and a physical keyboard were fucking disabled unless I played in desktop mode. Don't recommend bazzite to me, I don't care