Valve unveils Linux-based Steam operating system

Valve’s support for Linux has been a well-documented series of events so far, and it looks like the support is going to go further; the company has announced that it will be releasing a new operating system, named SteamOS, which is specifically centred around gaming. The operating system will be completely free, and according to Valve, will be designed specially for TVs and the living room.

Valve is hoping to cut out Microsoft entirely with SteamOS

The company claims that it has achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing. It is now working on audio performance and reducing input latency at the OS level, thus giving a better overall gaming experience. A few developers also seem to be working with Valve to bring their games to the new OS.

More from News Analysis

There are four key features in the new OS that Valve hopes to deliver at launch: in-home streaming, music, TV and movies, family sharing and family options. With in-home streaming, you will be able to stream games from your PC to any device running on SteamOS over your home network wirelessly. Steam will also act as a media hub of sorts and will allow you to access your content wirelessly, much like in-home streaming.

Family sharing, as revealed earlier, will let you share your game library with a specific PC. However, this does come with its own restrictions; only one person can access the library at any given moment. Family options will just be a suite of parental controls so that parents can manage what games their children can and cannot play.

This is the first of three products that Steam is unveiling slowly on its Living Room page. It has a countdown, which at the time of writing sits at 34 hours.