Valve today (12 November 2025) announced their new Steam Machine (x86 CPU, 6x more powerful than Steam Deck) and Steam Frame (self-contained and PCVR streaming VR headset with ARM CPU & “FEX” translation of x86 to ARM) to be released in early 2026. No prices yet.
I’m trying to speculate what effects this will have on the wider Linux ecosystem. Both devices will be running Steam OS and be open so you can run any OS.
First, I’ve read many people state that the Steam Deck considerably increased the number of devices running Linux, so it seems to me that these two new devices will accelerate that trend.
Second, it seems to me that the Steam Frame will significantly increase VR use and development for Linux.
Third, I wonder what the implications of Frame’s x86 to arm translation layer (based on FEX, an open source project that I only learned about today) as well as Android compatibility (they state it can sideload Android APKs) will be. Could this somehow help either Linux on Apple silicon or Linux phone efforts? I’m very unfamiliar with what’s going on with either of these efforts, so I may be way out on a limb here.
What do you think about all this?
Edit: this article may prompt some additional thoughts with its discussion of the openness of the Frame - https://www.uploadvr.com/valve-steam-frame-catalog-whole-compatible/
Interesting comments, thanks!
I fully agree that this will sell way more than Vision Pro. I think this is pretty much guaranteed. The highest price I’ve seen estimated for the Frame is $1200, so it will much cheaper and much more versatile.
I also think that Theater mode for media is pretty much a guarantee at release, given that they’ve already demoed playing regular non-VR games in Theater mode.
I’ve also seen some mentions of Linux desktop on it, but haven’t seen any concrete details about it.
Desktop is a built-in feature of SteamOS. They’d have to actually work to remove that by default. No reason for it not to be there.
Yeah, but I don’t think KDE has VR capabilities. So it’ll be interesting to see how that’ll work. They mentioned the ability of opening desktop applications in VR. So I think you’ll be able to position those in space.
It wouldn’t need to. They would just need to include a virtual desktop manager or interface to render the usual compositor in a VR sort of way. That’s why I put it in the list. Same thing that would make a theater mode would also allow a desktop to render in a space on a VR compositor.
They’re releasing an SDK, which most likely will include a linux compatibility. Windowing desktops may not be the right starting point for a VR desktop, but hopefully some of the teams will grab the developers kit and consideration VR centric ways of working with applications.
Not sure you’re getting it…
SteamOS runs KDE desktop. Frame will also have KDE Desktop, be use it’s just running the ARM build of the same SteamOS that will be on all of these devices.
Making a VR-reaey compositor display for this is fairly simple after this point, you just need to hook all the sensors into camera movement for the screen, and that screen can show many composite views…like the desktop, or a media screen, or the Steam Library.
It’s a basic function of VDD. It will definitely be in there.
I tuink that I understand what steam is selking, but I don’t think that a windowed wm is ideal as a desktop with VR. I get that we are takking about a computer strapped to your head.
The karousel guy could take a stab at it, but if Steam releases a dev kit, then any team could try developing a wm with workflows that are designed around a VR interface.
They aren’t going to make their own desktop. That’s just not gonna happen. They’ll use KDE as before, and that’s just the facts. I’m not saying they will make anything other than a VR-style compositor to select standard 2D virtual desktops. That’s simple and effective, and doesn’t require building a whole new thing.
I am thinking of different “theys”. I am not wait8ng for steam to give me a desktop. I am not waiting for kde to take this seriously.
I am hoping that some of the very talented teams that manage small wms, who come up with interesting ways to interact with your apps, to get interwsted in tue developer kit.
I think that I said it above, that I think that paperwn / niri / karousel are the best starting points.
Yeah, I can understand that. I had heard that Steam Deck had a desktop feature built-in. Some of the videos and articles about the Machine have shown and mentioned desktop apps and KDE, but not regarding the Frame, so I wasn’t sure, especially considering that Frame will be using a different hardware architecture.
To be fair, I think they’re slightly different markets.
The AVP is a “Productivity” device and seems more focused on “Mixed Reality” use with it’s super high quality passthrough and what not, vs the Frame which is more focused on gaming, has black and white passthrough and (I’m assuming) no Real World mapping so you can’t have floating windows that stay where you put them in your physical space for example.
That being said I think more sales than the AVP is a guarantee, on the price alone.
If anything, the real question is if that “VR Productivity” market that Apple is targeting really exists. (didn’t the HoloLens fail?)
That’s true about them being different markets and also the comparison to HoloLens!
Where have you heard that Frame won’t have Real World mapping?
That was just an assumption, I should probably make that clearer on my comment.
Got it, thanks for the clarification. I would be surprised if any VR headset with inside-out tracking wouldn’t have real world mapping today, but we’ll see!