Open-source firm Collabora, which collaborates with Valve on Steam-related projects, has announced a preview of SteamOS Holo Core. This release provides an AArch64 port of Arch Linux specifically intended for the Steam Frame, Valve’s upcoming hardware.
Development Challenges and Goals
Valve’s SteamOS is currently built upon a snapshot of Arch Linux augmented by proprietary patches. Adapting this environment for the Arm architecture presented significant hurdles, as Arch Linux does not officially support the platform. Collabora’s preview release includes prepared binaries, source code, and development containers to allow for experimentation with Arch Linux on AArch64.
According to the project announcement, the team is working to solve two primary technical challenges:
- Building binaries from recent Arch package versions for a foreign architecture.
- Establishing a CI (Continuous Integration) system capable of building binaries for a distribution that lacks native CI infrastructure, while ensuring dependency compatibility as the rolling-release distribution updates.
Collabora noted that they have not yet rebuilt the entire universe of packages available in standard Arch Linux repositories. Their current focus is limited to the subset of packages essential for development and image creation for the Steam Frame. Despite this limited scope, the project still involves thousands of packages and their associated runtime and build dependencies.
Broader Impact and Community Benefits
Collabora aims to refine this port with the ultimate goal of contributing the work back to the upstream Arch Linux project. They hope this will benefit the broader open-source community by improving AArch64 support within the distribution.
This development follows a recent update to the SteamVR UI, which appears to be part of Valve's broader preparations for the Steam Frame launch. As Collabora continues to provide the technical foundation for the software, the ecosystem for the hardware is beginning to take shape ahead of its eventual release.