Valve has officially greenlit the installation of its SteamOS operating system on custom-built PCs, with the caveat that current support is limited to systems equipped with AMD GPUs. This change, introduced with SteamOS 3.8, empowers users to construct their own "Steam Machines" without purchasing Valve's own hardware.
The flexibility to install SteamOS on various hardware configurations was not entirely new, as demonstrated by previous community efforts. However, Valve's explicit endorsement with the latest update provides official backing and is expected to streamline the installation process for users. The company detailed this expansion in the FAQ for its Steam Machine hardware, stating, "we are continuing to work toward enabling SteamOS to be used on more hardware than just ours. In fact, with the newly-released SteamOS 3.8, you can run the same code and operating system as Steam Machine on your own living-room PC using whatever PC parts you want."
While AMD GPU owners can now proceed with installing SteamOS on their custom builds, support for other GPU manufacturers is still in development. Valve acknowledged this, noting, "Right now, only AMD GPUs are supported, but we're working on expanding support for the future." This development may present a hurdle for users with NVIDIA graphics cards, as Linux driver support for NVIDIA hardware can be more complex compared to the generally seamless integration of open-source Mesa drivers used by AMD GPUs. Consequently, users with NVIDIA hardware may need to wait longer for full SteamOS compatibility. Valve's guide for installing SteamOS is now available for users with compatible AMD hardware.