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Omniman · Fri Dec 13, 2013 4:22 pm

Didn't everyone say that today the public beta for Steam OS would be released? I haven't seen anywhere on where to download it yet

Fri Dec 13, 2013 4:25 pm

Valve time.

bittermann · Fri Dec 13, 2013 5:21 pm

Maybe they'll act like AMD and ignore the pre-order BF4 edition 290X's they promised to open up early and hope everyone forgets and goes away.

Diplomacy42 · Fri Dec 13, 2013 8:52 pm

Ryu Connor wrote:
Valve time.

wouldn't be right to just break with tradition. I'm sure it will be ready before 2020ish, though.

Dysthymia · Fri Dec 13, 2013 8:57 pm

I think it's here: http://steamdb.info/blog/35/

Deanjo · Fri Dec 13, 2013 8:59 pm

Diplomacy42 wrote:
Ryu Connor wrote:
Valve time.

wouldn't be right to just break with tradition. I'm sure it will be ready before 2020ish, though.

It's already out.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamu ... 787298909/

SoM · Fri Dec 13, 2013 11:24 pm

heads up FYI

There are two different install methods for SteamOS. '''WARNING: BOTH METHODS WILL ERASE EVERYTHING ON THE MACHINE'''

The easiest method is an image-based install using CloneZilla. You will need to create a SteamOS System Restore USB stick to perform this install. The image provided here requires at least a 1TB disk.

Format a 4GB or larger USB stick with the FAT32 filesystem. Use "SYSRESTORE" as the partition name
Unzip the contents of SYSRESTORE.zip to this USB stick to create the System Restore USB stick
Put the System Restore USB stick in your target machine. Boot your machine and tell the BIOS to boot off the stick. (usually something like F8, F11 or F12 will bring up the BIOS boot menu).
Make sure you select the UEFI entry, it may look something like "UEFI: Patriot Memory PMAP"
Select "Restore Entire Disk" from the GRUB menu.
System Restore will proceed automatically. When it is complete it will reboot into your freshly re-imaged SteamOS

The second method is based on the Debian Installer. It requires multiple configuration steps:

Unzip the SteamOSInstaller.zip file to a blank, FAT32-formatted USB stick.
Put the USB stick in your target machine. Boot your machine and tell the BIOS to boot off the stick. (usually something like F8, F11, or F12 will bring up the BIOS boot menu).
Make sure you select the UEFI entry, it may look something like "UEFI: Patriot Memory PMAP"
Pick "Automated Install" from the next menu.
The rest of the installation is unattended and will repartition the drive and install SteamOS.
After installation is complete, log onto the resulting system (using the Gnome session) with the predefined "steam" account. The password is "steam". Run steam, accept the EULA, and let it bootstrap. Logoff the steam account
Log on with the "desktop" account. The password is "desktop"
From a terminal window, run ~/post_logon.sh. This will prompt for a password - enter "desktop". This script will perform the post-install customizations, delete itself, then reboot into the recovery partition capture utility.
Confirm "y" to continue and the recovery partition will be created. When it is finished, reboot into your freshly installed SteamOS

puppetworx · Fri Dec 13, 2013 11:59 pm

Looks like it's time to fire up a VM.

Update: Nevermind, it doesn't play nicely with VirtualBox and from those who have used it they say it's just Debian with Steam Big Picture on top, nothing much to see.

PenGun · Sat Dec 14, 2013 3:58 pm

Debian wheezy is what it is. I think I'll give it a spin.

Unhook all the hard drives, but one, and let here rip. Hook em' back up and have either LILO from Slackware or GRUB from my other wheezy install set up multiple boot. Then I will have 2 Wheezys, one Slackware and a win 7 install, should be enough for now.

Now where did I put that 500G drive?

Philldoe · Sat Dec 14, 2013 4:53 pm

PenGun wrote:
Debian wheezy is what it is. I think I'll give it a spin.

Unhook all the hard drives, but one, and let here rip. Hook em' back up and have either LILO from Slackware or GRUB from my other wheezy install set up multiple boot. Then I will have 2 Wheezys, one Slackware and a win 7 install, should be enough for now.

Now where did I put that 500G drive?

Just don't do what I did to my laptop and pull the /wrong/ drive out... Now I'm out $50 to get Asus to send me a recovery USB stick.

Thorburn · Tue Dec 17, 2013 3:43 am

Made a video of running through the USB stick build, install, first boot and running through a few games here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkzsIrf7LDE

As you say, be careful if you give it a try, the install process in automatic mode will literally erase your hard drive without asking ANY questions. Fortunately I tested it out on a spare system, but it will only install on PCs that can do a UEFI mode boot so pre-Sandy Bridge machines are probably out, and at present they only support NVIDIA graphics cards.

System I tried it with was a Haswell Core i7 with a GeForce GT430 and everything seemed to work pretty much flawlessly, other than having to switch my audio output from HDMI to analogue output for my capture card.

Tested with Super Meat Boy and Portal and both worked straight off, no fiddling required. Literally just installed the OS, logged in to Steam, downloaded updates and then downloaded the games.

Tue Dec 17, 2013 6:00 am

Thorburn wrote:
At present they only support NVIDIA graphics cards.

Valve currently recommends an NVidia GPU for the steam box OS (though AMD Radeons are reported to be supported).

Arclight · Tue Dec 17, 2013 6:15 am

The only advantage SteamOS will have for a long time compared to Windows, will be that it's free. Support for odd configurations of hardware and support for games will take a long time to get where it needs to be, not to mention that SteamOS is just the base for Steam Big picture which is sort of a console interface that also accepts mouse and keyboard but it does not prefer them.

Personally i never wanted to game from the couch with a controller, but i can see why many would like to do so without giving up the option of upgrading their rig.

nikkimerrill · Wed Jul 16, 2014 6:19 am

Even if you try to make a separate partition, either Steam OS installer will attempt to and wipe your entire hard drive. The only way right now to try it is by installing it to a virtual machine.

Forge · Wed Jul 16, 2014 8:19 am

nikkimerrill wrote:
Even if you try to make a separate partition, either Steam OS installer will attempt to and wipe your entire hard drive. The only way right now to try it is by installing it to a virtual machine.

A bit of a thread necro, last post was >6 months ago, but your comment is valid, so let's continue!

Actually, the install options are infinitely flexible if you want them to be. I actually converted an existing Debian Jessie install to SteamOS, took about 5 minutes. The full installer from Valve does require blanking all disks, though, else the restore partition would restore anything else on the machine as well. Valve may or may not ever change that, SteamOS is really targetted to the Steam Machines, and those won't have any other OSes preinstalled. For anyone else, who is tinkering, it's really quite simple to install Debian by other means and add the SteamOS repos, after an update you are SteamOS.

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