Imagine a Google Pixel level phone made by Valve, running Steam OS (Linux) on ARM. That’s my nerd wet dream.
I’d be happy with just installing full blown Linux on my pixel a la graphene.
Surely this Pixel 7 Pro has enough oomph to do some of my games.
I think memory is going to be the limiting factor. 12 gigs is very limiting on non-console systems
For a typical desktop Linux 12 GiB should be fine.
It depends on what you do with the system, of course. If you regularly compile big and template-heavy C++ codebases, work with Blender,… then 12 GiB won’t be enough.
(What really surprised me was how much can still be done with just 4 GiB of memory. My laptop is currently limited to 4 GiB, and with some effort to set up a minimalist system it’s working surprisingly well. I barely ever hit the memory limit - actually only when compiling big template-heavy C++ codebases 😉.)
Gaming, as they were wondering if their phone had the oomph to do it.
This is just nuts to me… My first laptop came with 512MB of RAM and only supported up to 2GB. They were still selling Macbook Pros with only 8GB of memory a year or two ago.
12GB SHOULD be enough to do everything, especially if it’s running a linux OS. But I guess we can’t have nice things because of memory hogs like Chrome.
I considered Bazzite with Steam Game Mode on a recently purchased mini PC I’m using as a HTPC to replace Android TV. In addition to not working well with a remote, the data Valve collects via Steam is a concern. Not sure I’d consider a proprietary, closed-source front-end as the main UI on a phone to be much of an improvement over Android, though I’m sure Valve’s other related efforts to get Linux working well on a phone that get open sourced would be good.
If it runs linux you’ll easily be able to run whatever you want on it
I guess my overall point is that DEs like KDE or Gnome don’t work well on other form factors like TVs, phones, and tablets. Just having Linux on a device without an appropriate UX isn’t that useful. Steam Game Mode acts like a DE for SteamOS that provides a good UX for a controller, but it’s not something I care to use unless it’s blocked from the internet so Valve can’t collect data and spy on me. If Valve makes a phone that isn’t private, the main value would be that the hardware can run Linux, but it would still need an appropriate DE to make it actually usable.
There is Plasma Bigscreen that’s a modification for HTPCs. For touch screen based devices, a tiling WM is available for both Gnome and Plasma, though not baked in. IMHO bigger issue for both is a poorly working touch screen keyboard. This is something that SteamOS solves quite well.
It’s useful because it provides a development target, part of the reasons they currently aren’t great on phones is because there isn’t a target and nobody has one.
I’d imagine that once the mobile walled garden ecosystems are fully opened up, we should look for the debut of Android and iOS Steam clients. Let’s see how that pans out in 2026…
That seems a bit too optimistic IMO. While it is possible to run PC games on a phone, a fully functional Steam client would still be quite a surprise.
a fully functional Steam client would still be quite a surprise.
What’s running stand-alone games on Frame then if not a fully functional Steam client?
It is, but my assumption is that ARM-based linux and ARM-based android require a different codebase.
I’m not a dev though, maybe I’m wrong and it’s easier than I thought.
The main difference between arm Linux and arm android is how applications are packaged, (and android really wants you to build Java interfaces) partly because under the hood, android is Linux. It takes some development, but doesn’t need to be a “new codebase”. The harder problems are making the ux work with different from factors.
Actually, Linux is a good example of how this works, since you can build Linux for dozens of different CPU architectures (x86, x86_64, arm, risc-v, powerpc, and the list goes on)
There are places in the code where there are bespoke instructions to optimize for a given architecture, but overall, it’s still one massive “codebase”
The arm instruction set should be the same. Different processors might have different extensions. The main problem is the drivers. That’s why you can’t just flash any arm image on an arm phone, it has to have the drivers for the components that come with the phone
It is, but my assumption is that ARM-based linux and ARM-based android require a different codebase.
https://www.androidauthority.com/run-desktop-linux-apps-on-android-how-to-3586539/
That approach uses virtual machines. While that is possible (otherwise we wouldn’t see it), it is probably not really optimized for gaming.
Wine / Proton / Box64 (already used for gaming on android) is using translation layers, not a full virtual machine.
There was also an option to just install a Debian chroot on Android, with no virtualization in-between.
The app was called Lil’Debi, but isn’t maintained any more since 2018.
That approach uses virtual machines. While that is possible (otherwise we wouldn’t see it), it is probably not really optimized for gaming.
Whether or not it’s optimized for gaming is up to Google. The technology to bring Frame’s ARM Steam client onto Android exists.
The difference there is it likely builds on the work they did for the Steam Deck and SteamOS. Writing a full Steam client for iOS or Android would be a huge amount of work independently from that.
Writing a full Steam client for iOS or Android would be a huge amount of work independently from that.
https://www.androidauthority.com/run-desktop-linux-apps-on-android-how-to-3586539/
It looks like they ran Linux apps inside a virtual machine on an Android phone. That has been possible for a long time now. That is certainly a route Valve could go down, but it won’t be a very good user experience.
