this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025
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I'm still bit confused about steamOS, I thought it was supposed to be a full on operating system for gaming centric PCs but it seems to need Plasma in order to do any traditional computer things.
Which aspect of that confuses you? That it uses a Desktop Environment to do desktop things, or that they are using KDE Plasma instead of something else (say, gnome)?
So steamOS is in fact not an operating system it's just a program that runs on plasma. Or is steamOS actually an operating system, but just quite a limited one, and you dual boot into plasma.
KDE Plasma is just the desktop environment. It's not an OS. SteamOS is a full OS, built off of Arch Linux. It has both a Gaming mode, which looks a lot like Steam Big Picture does these days, and a desktop mode that uses Plasma as the graphical shell/interface. It doesn't matter OS-wise which one you "boot" into, as both are SteamOS.
SteamOS is a linux distro based on Arch Linux, similar to any other. It's a amalgamation of different pieces of software, including a traditional desktop environment (plasma). But it does not boot into the desktop mode by default, instead it boots into their own graphical environment (gamemode) by default, running their steam client.
That's because their main focus is gaming machines, and that's why they want gamers to be greeted with a consolized, 10-foot UI.
I think you're confused because you think of steamOS being the UI (i.e. "Desktop Environment") that welcomes you when you boot into it, instead steamOS is the entire package, including a "traditional" desktop environment (which is KDE Plasma), as well as their own (gamemode), etc.
A desktop environment is just a GUI program that your computer boots into by default. SteamOS just boots into Steam Big Screen Mode by default instead, and you can launch into the desktop afterwards. Plasma is the program that Valve chose to use for their desktop environment.
If you wanted to, you could skip all this entirely and launch your games or programs directly from the terminal without ever loading into your desktop.
A desktop environment is not a prerequisite for an operating system.
I mean it kind of is. If I have a gaming focused operating system it still needs to occasionally be able to do all the other computer things otherwise I have to have two computers or dual boot or something. If I had a console I would still need a computer, well the saying this can be all things and we can just switch from windows to this, so it also has to be able to do all of the other stuff too.
I think you're quite confused about what an operating system actually is.
People need a system that is capable of all things, it needs to be able to run games but it also at the same time needs to be able to open the word document your manager has sent you.
If it cannot do both of those things it is not an operating system, it's a games console. Which is a fun thing to own, but it's not the same thing as a fully fledged computer. He fully capable operating system is necessary in order to replace a windows system. In order to replace Microsoft it has to do all of the jobs of windows, or else it will never succeed.
It's ok to be ignorant. It's not so great to defend rather than remedy your ignorance.
Kiddy, computer gaming existed WAY before any desktop environments. Imagine, even multiplayer online games existed before Windows 95...
Which it is, it is a fully fledged OS that runs steam in big picture mode when you start it. It also says on the page for this device that if you want you can install any OS onto it.
you seem to be confusing an operating system for the user interface. An os can (and regularly does) have more than one interface. In this case steamos ships with two of them. One they designed which is targeted for games. And they also ship plasma as a desktop environment for those who need it. The operating system lies under all that, and you can launch any piece of software from either of the interfaces. (or the terminal, that counts as a 3rd way to interact with the computer, I guess)
Basically SteamOS is just a tweaked version of Arch Linux that boots Steam Big Picture Mode by default and launches games with Proton. It’s not a full blown OS by itself.
It is a full blown Linux OS. You can switch out of the gaming specific mode/UI to a Linux desktop environment using KDE. There you can install your own software and use it like a normal computer.
The only limiting factor is that the root file system is read only by default (can be disabled). If you want to install system level packages, you can work around this by using something like distrobox.
Yes I know I own a Deck. I’m just saying that the Steam layer is not, since the comment I was replying to was asking why you’d still need Plasma and not use the Steam UI to use it as a desktop
Because the Steam UI is limited to their software, you would still need a desktop environment and they chose KDE Plasma, if you want you could can customize it to look like anything or just replace it with Gnome (or other desktop environment for that you fancy). My guess to why they would not do this is you would create a dependency on you as a company to apply/check the changes for every update, instead of just relying on the desktop supplier (KDE) if you use the default UI.