SteamOS is based on arch, but it has major differences. The steam deck’s update mechanism is completely different from normal arch Linux.
Arch normally immediately updates to the latest version of every program. This is usually fine, but when a big bug is missed by the developers, it can cause problems.
The steam deck updates a base image that includes all the programs installed by default, and by the time it releases a lot of them aren’t the absolute newest version. When valve updates SteamOS they definitely run a lot of tests on the base image to make sure it’s stable and won’t cause any issues.
SteamOS is also an immutible distro, meaning the important parts are read only. This also means updates are done to everything at once, and if something goes wrong, it can fall back to a known good version.
Not to say arch Linux is unstable (its been better for me than Ubuntu), but SteamOS is at a completely different level. It’s effectively a completely different distro if we’re talking about stability. I think what they’re hoping is this support would allow arch to build out testing infrastructure to catch more issues and prevent them from making it to users.
SteamOS is based on arch, but it has major differences. The steam deck’s update mechanism is completely different from normal arch Linux.
Arch normally immediately updates to the latest version of every program. This is usually fine, but when a big bug is missed by the developers, it can cause problems.
The steam deck updates a base image that includes all the programs installed by default, and by the time it releases a lot of them aren’t the absolute newest version. When valve updates SteamOS they definitely run a lot of tests on the base image to make sure it’s stable and won’t cause any issues.
SteamOS is also an immutible distro, meaning the important parts are read only. This also means updates are done to everything at once, and if something goes wrong, it can fall back to a known good version.
Not to say arch Linux is unstable (its been better for me than Ubuntu), but SteamOS is at a completely different level. It’s effectively a completely different distro if we’re talking about stability. I think what they’re hoping is this support would allow arch to build out testing infrastructure to catch more issues and prevent them from making it to users.