Valve and the independently developed Linux distro, Arch Linux announced a surprise collaboration today. Valve has been pushing Linux gaming forward for a while, and this partnership should help fuel progress.
Gaming on Linux had always been iffy at best, but recent developments in the Proton compatibility layer and the popularity of the Steam Deck have helped make it reach a wider audience, pushing more developers to commit to Linux gaming via Proton or a native port.
The rather short post detailed a ‘direct’ collaboration with Valve. Valve is providing support for both ‘build service infrastructure’ and a ‘secure signing enclave’.
The move should further propel Arch Linux’s development, and its popularity as a Linux distribution.
This move shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise though, given that the Steam Deck (and thus SteamOS) runs on an Arch Linux base. Valve did experiment with Debian many years ago with the first iteration of SteamOS, but recently shifted to a more updated, rolling-release base.
Arch does come with bleeding edge packages after all, and should thus support upcoming hardware (such as the fabled Steam Deck successor) better.
Valve’s work on the Proton compatibility layer has also been instrumental in getting Linux gaming to the state where it is at currently.
In terms of what to expect, only time will tell. One thing’s for certain though, gaming on Linux is set to become a lot more mainstream and painless.
Something I would like to see happen though would be more game developers explicitly supporting Linux, especially in competitive shooters which block out Linux gamers due to ‘compatibility reasons’ – even with a virtual machine.
Arch’s growing user base and popularity is sure to increase even further in the upcoming years, and just maybe we will get a little bit closer to The Year Of the Linux desktop.
