I started with Mint about a year ago on my daily driver and it has exceeded my expectations. I’ve put it on a mini-pc as well.
I’ve still got a PCVR machine running Win10 Enterprise. That’s going to get SteamOS when I get around to it.
SteamOS isn’t publicly available and is very unlikely to be fully open source if/when that changes. Your best bet is probably either Bazzite or Cachy (I would say use Bazzite if you still feel like a noob).
Or just get shit running in Mint; it’s very doable. But when it comes to non-steam games, Bazzite is better at working “out of the box,” as it were.
Bazzite is my secomd choice but the SteamOS image has been available for awhile now. It’s intended for Valve devices but my understanding is that people have been getting it to run on regular PC’s. I haven’t been keeping up with the latest news though, so I’m mot sure what the success rate is.
I just don’t see why you’d wanna deal with all that jank to get Valve’s proprietary OS running. In my experience, Steam games pretty much Just Work to about the same degree on any Linux distro thanks to how Proton works. And if you have any interest in non-Steam games, Bazzite is going to be a much better choice than SteamOS.
This box is 100% dedicated to running SteamVR and nothing else. Just makes sense to me to run SteamOS. If it really is janky though I’ll switch to Bazzite. I’m months away from doing anything yet so I’ll evaluate when the time comes.
If SteamOS doesn’t work on your mini PC you can try the CachyOS “handheld” edition. It launches with the Steam game mode front end and looks exactly like SteamOS but has support for more hardware.
I put it on my Steam Deck and it’s been great, bit snappier. I would totally throw it on a HTPC type box and hook it up to a TV.
I started with Mint about a year ago on my daily driver and it has exceeded my expectations. I’ve put it on a mini-pc as well. I’ve still got a PCVR machine running Win10 Enterprise. That’s going to get SteamOS when I get around to it.
SteamOS isn’t publicly available and is very unlikely to be fully open source if/when that changes. Your best bet is probably either Bazzite or Cachy (I would say use Bazzite if you still feel like a noob).
Or just get shit running in Mint; it’s very doable. But when it comes to non-steam games, Bazzite is better at working “out of the box,” as it were.
Bazzite is my secomd choice but the SteamOS image has been available for awhile now. It’s intended for Valve devices but my understanding is that people have been getting it to run on regular PC’s. I haven’t been keeping up with the latest news though, so I’m mot sure what the success rate is.
I just don’t see why you’d wanna deal with all that jank to get Valve’s proprietary OS running. In my experience, Steam games pretty much Just Work to about the same degree on any Linux distro thanks to how Proton works. And if you have any interest in non-Steam games, Bazzite is going to be a much better choice than SteamOS.
This box is 100% dedicated to running SteamVR and nothing else. Just makes sense to me to run SteamOS. If it really is janky though I’ll switch to Bazzite. I’m months away from doing anything yet so I’ll evaluate when the time comes.
If SteamOS doesn’t work on your mini PC you can try the CachyOS “handheld” edition. It launches with the Steam game mode front end and looks exactly like SteamOS but has support for more hardware.
I put it on my Steam Deck and it’s been great, bit snappier. I would totally throw it on a HTPC type box and hook it up to a TV.
Cool suggestion! My Mini-PC is primarily a NAS/Jellyfin server tho, so no need for Steam there. Mint does fine.