In an IGN interview, Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais said that "[they] want [SteamOS] to be at the point where at some point you can install it on any PC". Below is a transcript of the interview. I tried to clean it up to my best ability.

Just like Steam Deck paved the way for Steam OS on a variety of third-party handhelds, we expect that Steam Machine will pave the way for Steam OS on a bunch of different machines in either similar form factors, different perf envelopes, different segments of the market, and get to a good outcome there. We definitely want to encourage people to try it out on their own hardware. We'll be working on expanding hardware support for the drivers and the base operating system. Just last week, we fixed something that was preventing us from booting on the very latest AMD CPU platforms. Last month, we added support for the Intel Lunar Lake platforms. We're constantly adding support and improving performance. We want it to be at the point where at some point you can install it on any PC, but there's still a ton of work to do there.

If the embedded video doesn't take you to the correct part of the video, the correct timestamp is 5:37.

EDIT: Here’s the written article of the video:
https://www.ign.com/articles/valves-next-gen-steam-machine-and-steam-controller-the-big-interview

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[–] 174 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Whether you like the idea of SteamOS or not, this will be the easiest way to get Linux into the mainstream for gamers. And at a time when Windows is forcing everyone to buy a new PC it really couldn't come sooner. If Steam timed this right they could really fuck over Microsoft. I honestly can't think of a more hilarious scenario in which Windows potentially gets dethroned.

Steam gets a lot of deserved flak for their anti-consumer practices and gambling, but it's honestly amazing how much they can do as a company. It's amazing the things you can accomplish when you don't have shareholders to deal with.

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  • [–] 49 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    I've seen a lot of folks waiting for this to make the switch, it's silly but having a familiar name attached to it gives them a sense of comfort, and SteamOS is solid for what it is.

    I'm not a fan of its whole "read only filesystem" shenanigans and wiping things on upgrade, so I switched my Deck to CachyOS Handheld, but I acknowledge it does those for a reason, adding a safety net to the "console-like" experience for most users. Admittedly that feature may be just the thing some inexperienced users would need in order to not break the thing.

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  • [–] 30 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    It may limit stuff for a more technical user But for common folks? It makes it reliable, a lot reliable

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    It's more reliable, but more tedious. Kind of like a walled garden, like Apple and Android phones. You can't just go download random software and install it willy nilly like Windows. I mean you can, but that process is more involved. Flatpaks and Appimages are what most users will be limited to.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    Absolutely, it is a huge drawback, but the good part of it is that the user is less prone to accidentally fuck it up.

    It's quite a trade-off, the more raw control you give to the end user, the more prone they are to breaking things. Of course, exceptions always apply, but in a "generic Joe" kind of user, it tends to follow that

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    It's kind of a microcosm of switching to Linux in general, but more emphasised. Beginners will have no issue at all playing within the boundaries; experts will find the workarounds like nix, containers or switching to a different distribution; semi-skilled users might be driven away or become frustrated.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    I’ve seen a lot of folks waiting for this to make the switch, it’s silly but having a familiar name attached to it gives them a sense of comfort, and SteamOS is solid for what it is.

    And should they be not native English speakers, they'll wonder why the desktop is only in English, why they can't even check the spelling of their native language. Or why playback of WebM videos glitches.

    I really like my Steam Deck and actually use it as desktop PC from time to time but you can tell desktop mode is an afterthought. Traditional Linux distributions are actually a better choice for regular users. Valve luckily open sources and upstreams everything of SteamOS other than the actual Steam client, so it's not like SteamOS has some special sauce nobody else gets.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago

    While I generally agree with your overall assessment. The thing you have to understand is that Microsoft has largely written off home users. At least written them off as a concern. They are much more focused now on corporate, government, and AI. Whether or not home users remain trapped on their products, matters less to them. Compared to the other groups.

    The recent revelations about meddling by Microsoft corporate into their gaming division, closing so many successful studios. Canceling massive projects. Without regard to how much time, energy and resources were poured into them. All to meet some arbitrary 30% margin of profitability. They're betting in the short term on the other groups to keep home users trapped and helpless. And short term it will work to an extent.

    But the time is right for valve to push right now regardless.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    I 100% agree about this being the opportunity for Linux to be brought into the mainstream but for a different reason.

    This will divorce Linux from Linux bros. Most people aren't interested in doing any of the stuff Linux is good at like running servers, they just want to run their apps.

    Right now the only way normie users hear about Linux is by stumbling into a Linux bro who started ranting at them.

    While Linux bros have been great for popularizing Linux on the backend and with technical people you literally could not pick a worse demographic to represent a product to the general public.

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