The old SteamOS version has been dropped

Oct 7, 2015 14:10 GMT  ·  By

Valve is making SteamOS 2.0 the official version supported by the company, and it looks like it might ship with the Steam Machines after all.

The Valve developers said a while back that they didn't intend to upgrade to Debian 8 "Jessie" anytime soon, but they now have a branch of the OS that's using this particular distro. They still maintain SteamOS based on Debian 7, and that's a little bit strange. What's interesting is the fact that SteamOS 2.0 "Brewmaster" has been getting quite a few updates in these past few weeks, which only means that it's getting ready for launch.

Unfortunately, Valve hasn't made any official comments on this matter, and they are not saying which particular version of SteamOS will ship with the Steam Machines, but they have taken the time to update the official FAQ so that it reflects the new Debian base.

SteamOS 2.0 is stable

One of the things that the new Valve FAQ is teaching us is the fact that SteamOS 2.0 is considered a stable version. The fact that it uses a new base is also illustrated, and the developers say that a new kernel has been added as well.

"SteamOS is a fork (derivative) of Debian[www.debian.org] GNU/Linux. The current version (SteamOS 2.0) is called 'brewmaster' and it is based on the Debian 'jessie' (stable 8.x) distribution. The major changes made in SteamOS are: added various third-party drivers and updated graphics stack, updated kernel tracking the 3.18 longterm branch, custom graphics compositor designed to provide a seamless transition between Steam, its games and the SteamOS system overlay, and configured to auto-update from the Valve SteamOS repositories," it is said.

The old SteamOS based on Debian 7 is no longer sticky in the forums, so that's another important clue. Maybe we'll see some kind of official announcement soon. In the meantime, you can download SteamOS 2.0 from Softpedia.