Ten years back, Valve got worried about leaning too much on Microsoft’s stuff, which it did not own. This worry turned big with Windows 8’s launch in 2012. Gabe Newell, head of Valve, called Windows 8 a major mess for game makers, pointing to a big change for Valve’s plans ahead.
On September 16, 2013, at LinuxCon, Newell said that Linux is where games are headed. Back then, many doubted this. Games were tied tight to Microsoft’s tools, like DirectX, and moving games to Linux was real tough and often not great.
To cut down on its need for Windows, Valve helped game makers get their games to work with Linux. This big push really got going at the end of 2015 with the Steam Machine launch. It used SteamOS, a type of Linux (Debian based). But even with new tech, the Steam Machine did not sell well, mostly because it didn’t have many games. It got pulled from the Steam Store later on.
Still, some liked the thought of a gaming OS based on Linux, like a dev named Alesh Slovak. He liked the SteamOS idea and how it made managing games easy, like on a game console. So, he made ChimeraOS, a new system from Arch Linux. It keeps itself the same and you can’t change it while it is on. When it updates, it needs a restart and runs apps in a safe, separate space, just like game consoles do.
In 2021, Valve came out with the Steam Deck, and it sold a lot – over a million. It ran on SteamOS v3, a system you can’t change that comes from Arch Linux. The Steam Deck let people play games or use it like a computer, a lot like ChimeraOS did. Many were shocked to see big games run well on SteamOS v3, and they wanted to know why it was so good.
Valve’s Project Proton was key here. Proton, a compatibility Layer that’s built on Wine, lets Windows games run on Linux by changing Windows APIs into Linux ones. This even included some anti-cheat programs, helping lots of games work on Linux setups.
In a surprising turn, some games even ran better on Proton than on Windows 11, showing Linux’s power in gaming. This shows how important Linux is getting in games, changing old views, and making new ways to make and share games.
