SteamOS was released in December 2013 coupled with Valve’s launch of branded linux computers called Steam Machines. The goal was to make PC gaming as approachable as gaming consoles; a gamer plugs a steam machine into a TV, presses the power button, and can use either a controller or keyboard/mouse to play PC games. It was a righteous and lofty goal. Valve sought to end the war between PC and console gamers, and figured regular people are not obsessed with computer hardware, do not have the time, money, nor willpower to assemble a gaming PC from parts ordered separately from different vendors, and so their solution for those people is to buy this thing, a Steam Machine.
I didn’t buy one of these things. I installed SteamOS into a pre-built gaming PC I had bought from some dude on letgo during May 2018. I had moved into my apartment a month prior, and definitely needed to stop commuting to a gaming cafe every weekend in the next city over to play computer games. The thing is, the letgo dude I bought it from said the computer came with Windows 10. We met at a library and he plugged it into a monitor and showed me it booted into Windows and all was well. But then things got weird. Before I gave him the money for it, he started unscrewing the side panel, and I quickly became nervous because it suddenly looked like me and this dude were constructing a bomb in a library. He then removed his “personal hard drive” from the computer, and assured me Windows was installed on one of the remaining two hard drives.
It was not. When I got home and plugged it into my monitor, I was met with a “no bootable devices found” error, so it was at that moment I knew I had just been scammed. I decided I would make light of the situation (what else could I do) and install a linux distro. That’s when it occured to me: I could install SteamOS into this computer since that would be it’s primary function, after all: to allow me to play Valve games like Dota 2 and CS:GO.
I took this picture when I successfully installed SteamOS and started downloading my favorite game, Dota 2. It was a joyous moment for me because 1) I wouldn’t have to go all the way to fucking Fairfax to play at a gaming cafe anymore (as an aside, I had been doing this for nearly a year, every weekend; it became a routine for me on Saturdays to eat breakfast at a diner, get on the metro, and bike the rest of the way there; this was inconvenient because A) the commute took about 2 hours every Saturday, B) sometimes it was very cold, and C) sometimes I wouldn’t go back to wherever I was living; I would stay at the gaming cafe until Sunday morning, go back to my airbnb and sleep until the afternoon) and 2) it was a “fuck you” in spirit to the guy who scammed me on letgo; no way was some asshole going to stop me from playing computer games!
SteamOS lived in my desktop computer for the rest of 2018. I looked forward to coming home from work and playing Dota or Counter Strike until it was time for sleep. The more time you spend with someone or something, the more flaws you notice. This was the case for my ex, and definitely the case for SteamOS. My first gripe is SteamOS boots into Big Picture Mode because it’s intended for couch gaming. It’s Steam’s controller-friendly interface for selecting games you want to download and play, so everything is basically a big button. SteamOS let users switch into Desktop Mode, where Debian running a gnome windows manager would be shown.
When I was done playing Dota, I could switch into desktop mode and browse the web, so it suited all my needs. My second gripe comes into play here: what if I want to do both? In Windows and Mac operating systems, this isn’t a problem because it’s as simple minimizing your game, opening an internet tab, then going back to your game. This is not the case for SteamOS. In order to achieve this, one would have to constantly switch between Big Picture Mode and Desktop Mode through a settings menu. When my dota friends logged on and wanted to chat on discord, I would have to log off of Dota, switch to desktop mode, open discord, switch back to Big Picture Mode, and re-start Dota.
My last and final gripe is mouse speed. I had purchased a fancy new mouse, but no where in Big Picture Mode is there an option for mouse speed simply because it’s meant to be played with a controller. So I go into Desktop Mode and change mouse speed there pretty easily, but get this: I would have to do that every time I turn on my machine. The moment I power off my machine, the setting is basically reset. I actually found a solution to automatically set the mouse speed when SteamOS starts up, and it involves going into its configuration files and adding a line of code.
This past weekend, I decided I had enough of Valve’s bullshit. Here lies “RIPsteamOS”, my newly NTFS-formatted, solid state drive which served as SteamOS’s home in my desktop computer for the majority of 2018.
As you can see in the screenshot, I am no longer using Valve’s linux distro, but Windows 10 Pro Edition. The product key turns out to be two hundred fucking dollars (I might already be regretting this). Microsoft gives out images for free and lets users use them for 30 days without a product key, so I’m riding this wave for as long as I can. The S drive is now SteamOS’s grave stone.
Rest in Peace. You brought me joy when I needed it, and although putting up with your flaws became a bit much, I appreciate what you’re doing.
