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Valve are still taking SteamOS beyond the Steam Deck, though dual booting is a ways offThe Asus ROG Ally could be first up for SteamOS support
The Asus ROG Ally could be first up for SteamOS support
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
Valve have made no secret of their plans to makeSteamOS– the Linux-based operating system that powers theSteam Deck– available to other games-playing devices, including rival handhelds. After arecent beta updatementioned adding support for theAsus ROG Ally’s inputs,The Vergeconfirmed with Valve that SteamOS support for non-Steam Deck portables is still very much in the works. The Deck’s long-promised dual booting capability, on the other hand, sounds further down the to-do list.
“The note about ROG Ally keys is related to third-party device support for SteamOS”, Valve engineer Lawrence Yang told The Verge. “The team is continuing to work on adding support for additional handhelds on SteamOS”.
While Yang also warns that this third-party support “isn’t ready to run out of the box yet”, it’s likely a comforting development for those who crave the Deck-beating performance of its big rivals – the ROG Ally,ROG Ally X,Lenovo Legion Goand so on – but don’t fancy their preference for Windows 11. Which is understandable, as unpleasantness abounds when trying to wrestle a desktop-optimised operating system with a tiny touchscreen and thumbsticks. The ability to run more of your PC games collection without SteamOS’s occasional compatibility trip-ups is a compelling one, though even the most basic Steam Deck can work around this, be it throughstreaming games from the cloudor manually installingnon-Steam launchers.
Nevertheless, there also exists a contingent of Steam Deck owners/admirers who’d like to dual boot their handheld with both SteamOS and Windows. Best of both worlds, innit. Unfortunately, this feature sounds even further off than the spread of SteamOS, despite being floated as a possibility back when the Deck first launched. So sayeth Yang:
“As for Windows, we’re preparing to make the remaining Windows drivers for Steam Deck OLED available (you might have seen that we are prepping firmware for the Bluetooth driver). There’s no update on the timing for dual boot support – it’s still a priority, but we haven’t been able to get to it just yet.”
