Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why SteamOS Switched from Debian to Arch Linux

rockpapershotgun.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 68 posts

Re: Why SteamOS Switched from Debian to Arch Linux

#3

Post by edgyquant »

Would not ubuntu or fedora be better if you wanted faster release? In my experience when I used to run arch (~4 years ago) I had breaking changes every couple of months where with Fedora I never had one except when I was the culprit by adding a graphics card with proprietary drivers.

Re: Why SteamOS Switched from Debian to Arch Linux

#5

Post by libcg »

I've been running Arch on multiple machines for 10 years at this point. Been through the systemd transition. In my experience there is very little breakage, and it's easier to deal with than a huge upgrade every 6 months or more.

I'm guessing Valve will not deploy Arch packages directly to the Deck, but instead do weekly/monthly releases that are properly QA'd. It should be very smooth while giving them flexibility to deploy the patches they didn't upstream yet.

Re: Why SteamOS Switched from Debian to Arch Linux

#6

Post by dundarious »

PikachuEXE wrote: post #2

Previous related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28119317

This RPS article adds nothing to that original PC Gamer piece. From the RPS article:

> PC Gamer got the scoop on this. Valve designer Lawrence Yang told them: "So, Arch Linux, one of the main reasons - there's a couple - but the main reason is the rolling updates of Arch allows us to have more rapid development for SteamOS 3.0. We were making a bunch of updates and changes to specifically make sure that things work well for Steam Deck, and Arch just ended up being a better choice for them."

Re: Why SteamOS Switched from Debian to Arch Linux

#7

Post by encryptluks2 »

libcg wrote: post #5

I've been running Arch on multiple machines for 10 years at this point. Been through the systemd transition. In my experience there is very little breakage, and it's easier to deal with than a huge upgrade every 6 months or more. I'm guessing Valve will not deploy Arch packages directly to the Deck, but instead do weekly/monthly releases that are properly QA'd. It should be very smooth while giving them flexibility t…

Even if they did release packages directly, it is trivial to create automatic snapshots that should breakage occur, relevant system directories can be reverted.

Re: Why SteamOS Switched from Debian to Arch Linux

#8

Post by encryptluks2 »

edgyquant wrote: post #3

Would not ubuntu or fedora be better if you wanted faster release? In my experience when I used to run arch (~4 years ago) I had breaking changes every couple of months where with Fedora I never had one except when I was the culprit by adding a graphics card with proprietary drivers.

No, Arch uses recent kernel and releases packages significantly quicker than what is available on Ubuntu/Fedora. I'd like to say I've been running Arch for 4 years now and any breaking change was directly due to my own action(s). With them largely in control of the OS, I doubt there would ever be a breaking change that could not be quickly reverted via adequate snapshots and ability to boot a backup root file image.

Re: Why SteamOS Switched from Debian to Arch Linux

#9

Post by guerrilla »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #7
libcg wrote: post #5

I've been running Arch on multiple machines for 10 years at this point. Been through the systemd transition. In my experience there is very little breakage, and it's easier to deal with than a huge upgrade every 6 months or more. I'm guessing Valve will not deploy Arch packages directly to the Deck, but instead do weekly/monthly releases that are properly QA'd. It should be very smooth while giving them flexibility t…

Even if they did release packages directly, it is trivial to create automatic snapshots that should breakage occur, relevant system directories can be reverted.

No, not if such breakage causes data loss and damage.

Edit: Did everyone replying here forget we're talking about an embedded device, a game console, before responding? It behooves Valve to do QA above and beyond what Arch has done is what I'm saying. Valve wouldn't want to take the chance of just passing on upstream Arch directly. Devices may end up bricked, customers upset, etc. Testing is good actually. Furthermore, their hardware may not even be something Arch tests on, so it could literally brick the device if they just passed through updates.

Post reply on HN