SteamOS 2.0 - Based on Debian?

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/announcements/detail/83663183294752597

Valve is pleased to announce the preview of the next SteamOS release, codenamed "brewmaster" and based on the latest Debian 8.1 stable release.

Please note that this is a very early preview release and we have done only limited hardware compatibility and functional testing. We are releasing this early to get feedback from the community. You should not install brewmaster on any machine containing data you are not prepared to lose completely.

Although there are a lot of changes under the covers, the overall functionality and experience of brewmaster is the same as alchemist and most of the SteamOS FAQ applies to both releases.

Known Issues
* Initial splash screen is black on hybrid graphics (both NVIDIA and Intel graphics) systems
* Setting the timezone doesn't work
* On the second boot of the installation process, AMD systems will display an "Oh No! Something has gone wrong" screen. Leave it alone and installation will continue normally.
* Desktop mode on AMD systems does not work, you will just get an "Oh No! Something has gone wrong" screen.

FAQ

Q. Where can I download the brewmaster installer?
A. ISO (for legacy systems) ZIP (for UEFI systems)

Q. How do I install brewmaster?
A. See "How do I install SteamOS?" in the SteamOS FAQ. The process is the same for both brewmaster and alchemist releases.

Q. How do I upgrade alchemist to brewmaster?
A. Upgrade is currently not supported. We are investigating options here, but for now you will need to completely reinstall.

Q. How does this affect my existing SteamOS alchemist installation?
A. There is no change to alchemist support yet. For now, we will continue updating alchemist with the relevant security updates and Steam will continue to support alchemist. At some point we will drop support for alchemist and only support brewmaster.

Q. What version of the Linux kernel does brewmaster use?
A. The brewmaster kernel is based on the 3.18 LTS kernel with additional SteamOS patches. The kernel sources can be found in the steamos_kernel[github.com] repository.

Q. How do I give feedback or report bugs in brewmaster?
A. Please post on the SteamOS Discussion Forum, or file an issue in the SteamOS issue tracker[github.com].

Q. What kind of issues should I report?
A. We are especially interested in any regressions in hardware compatibility or Steam games. If it worked in alchemist and doesn't work in brewmaster, let us know!

Odd that they would switch from Ubuntu to Debian? Thoughts?

SteamOS was never based on Ubuntu. it was always Debian based. Just that Valve built SteamOS on a horribly outdated version of Debian at least from what I remember. i don't remember exactly what version of Debian it was running on but it was old as hell.. Now it's updated Debian 8.1 with SteamOS 2.0

Wonder what kernel version it is.

i looked it up it was on 3.10.11

Says 3.18 in the FAQs.I find this to be a very good thing

Would Valve not just ask for help all ready, Steam OS has and from the looks of things continues to be a massive mess, meanwhile installing Steam on multiple Linux flavours works just fine. They need help.

couldn't you just install SteamOS and manually update everything? it sounds tedious. but i think it would be effective.

Or just skip it an use anything else and just install steam as a program.

Gross

Just go install Sabayon it has a Steambox mode with a way newr kernel (4.1) with auto updated drivers.

@Kat hm I swear I read Ubuntu somewhere. Must have been wrong.

Same here, I had been reading everywhere that it was Ubuntu they built off. I didn't realize it was an older Debian version they started off on, kinda strange they'd do that and not just go straight to 8 or even 7

Ah, I was just wondering about SteamOS recently, seemed like it fell off the face of the earth, despite Valve still advertising it. I'll definitely take a look at this.

They recommend Ubuntu for Steam on Linux, most likely. Valve did look at going with Ubuntu before the beta release but decided against it since Ubuntu's goals are different than their own.

I get why they use Debian because it makes sense to be closer to the source Distro.

Its common place practice to first start development on the easier port and if reasons merit such as host distro goal changes (i.e Ubuntu) it is perfectly reasonable to go straight to the source distro for the basing of the new baseline.. They went with ubuntu first because they wanted it to be a no frills distribution that literally a baby could install...

Now I hope we dont see many "oh its debian.. old kernel crap" They compiled 3.18 for it.. and I am pretty sure they are heading to the v4 Stable once its fully stable and well supported

They are most likely using the Testing branch like Ubuntu. Bet they do the same software/kernel pulls that Ubuntu does to keep compatibility. Mostly they just keep things up to date in between Ubuntu releases.

(Just a guess)

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IIRC they were using Debian 7 x64. Remember, Debian Stable is not known for using the latest kernel.

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Can I point out if they are using proprietary Drivers.. there is nothing wrong with sticking to a Stable Supported kernel.. :D