The Arch Linux team is now working directly with Valve — SteamOS and Arch should both benefit greatly

Arch Linux
(Image credit: Arch Linux)

The Arch Linux team has announced on its public mailing list that it will be entering into a direct collaboration with Valve. This is a big deal for several reasons, but let's start with why and how it happened. If you're familiar with Valve and Steam Deck, you may already know that the Deck uses SteamOS 3, which is built on top of Arch Linux. Thanks to the Arch Linux base and Valve's development of the Proton compatibility layer for playing Windows games on Linux, we now have a far improved Linux gaming scene, especially on Valve's Steam Deck and Deck OLED handhelds. 

While Valve's specific reasons for picking Arch Linux for Steam Deck remain unknown, it's pretty easy to guess why it was picked. Mainly, it's a particularly lightweight distribution maintained since March 2002, which lends itself well to gaming with minimal performance overhead. A more intensive Linux distribution may not have been the ideal base for SteamOS 3, which is targeted at handhelds like Steam Deck first.

As primary Arch Linux developer Levente Polyak discloses in the announcement post, "Valve is generously providing backing for two critical projects that will have a huge impact on our distribution: a build service infrastructure and a secure signing enclave. By supporting work on a freelance basis for these topics, Valve enables us to work on them without being limited solely by the free time of our volunteers."

Polyak continues, "This opportunity allows us to address some of the biggest outstanding challenges we have been facing for a while. The collaboration will speed up the progress that would otherwise take much longer for us to achieve, and will ultimately unblock us from finally pursuing some of our planned endeavors [...] We believe this collaboration will greatly benefit Arch Linux, and are looking forward to share further development on the mailing list as work progresses."

These quotes go to show how bigger corporations like Valve can still be a helpful, desirable influence in the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) community. While the rules of FOSS dictate that Valve was under no obligation whatsoever to give back to the community in any way, it's had a great track record so far through Proton and is now directly funding the continued development of Arch Linux, which forms the foundation of its own SteamOS 3 operating system. It's true that volunteers in FOSS make that part of the tech world go round, but it's always nice when these projects can actually afford to pay people to get the work that needs to be done for the rest of our enjoyment.

In the long-term, the funding touted should, at minimum, allow Arch Linux to improve the security of its distribution and provide more structured releases compared to its current near-continuous update cycle. This could also lead to greater long-term improvements and feature additions, perhaps even ones that will benefit SteamOS 3 and its gaming performance, but for now, that part remains in the air.

Christopher Harper
Contributing Writer

Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.

TOPICS
  • Sleepy_Hollowed
    I’m glad Valve is serious about Linux, for a while I was not sure since Gabe is a Microsoft alumni.

    The state of gaming in Linux is really good if you don’t play games that use DRM (multiplayer online games and certain single player ones).
    Reply
  • TheyCallMeContra
    Sleepy_Hollowed said:
    I’m glad Valve is serious about Linux, for a while I was not sure since Gabe is a Microsoft alumni.

    The state of gaming in Linux is really good if you don’t play games that use DRM (multiplayer online games and certain single player ones).

    Valve's pivot to Linux support has been a longtime thing! It's just matured more noticeably since Steam Deck and SteamOS 3, but the original SteamOS launch was in response to Windows 8 and its introduction of UWP, which Gabe feared would be the future of all PC game distribution if Microsoft had their way.
    Reply
  • usertests
    Sleepy_Hollowed said:
    I’m glad Valve is serious about Linux, for a while I was not sure since Gabe is a Microsoft alumni.

    The state of gaming in Linux is really good if you don’t play games that use DRM (multiplayer online games and certain single player ones).
    He knows the enemy.

    As for the DRM, isn't Windows recently making some security change that would prevent those schemes from working? If I find out what it was, I'll report back.
    Reply
  • ezst036
    I sincerely hope Valve releases official Steam OS 3 ISO files for general use. That's really the final piece.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    This seems like a relatively affordable way for Valve to set the groundwork for a potential wider release of SteamOS. While I don't particularly have any interest in giving up Windows for my primary machine due to the varied workloads and my laziness I'd love for SteamOS to be a simple viable alternative. It's something I'd absolutely use on secondary machines that don't really get used outside of basic tasks and gaming.
    Reply
  • WonkoTheSaneUK
    Sleepy_Hollowed said:
    I’m glad Valve is serious about Linux, for a while I was not sure since Gabe is a Microsoft alumni.

    The state of gaming in Linux is really good if you don’t play games that use DRM (multiplayer online games and certain single player ones).
    The Lutris front end for WINE works with both EAC & BattleEye
    Reply
  • TheSecondPower
    Valve has almost single-handedly taken Linux gaming from the fringes into widespread availability. It's super easy to get most Steam games running in Linux now. It's almost a shame that Arch is getting the help and not Debian. Arch is one of the more time-consuming distros to install and derivatives like Manjaro, ChimeraOS, and Bazzite are not nearly as polished as Debian derivatives like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and PopOS.

    It does make sense though. Arch's rolling release strategy leaves it with early support for the latest hardware and games, and Valve has provided an easy installer and smoothed out the rough edges in SteamOS.
    Reply