We are excited to announce that Arch Linux is entering into a direct collaboration with Valve. Valve is generously providing backing for two critical projects that will have a huge impact on our distribution: a build service infrastructure and a secure signing enclave. By supporting work on a freelance basis for these topics, Valve enables us to work on them without being limited solely by the free time of our volunteers.
This opportunity allows us to address some of the biggest outstanding challenges we have been facing for a while. The collaboration will speed-up the progress that would otherwise take much longer for us to achieve, and will ultimately unblock us from finally pursuing some of our planned endeavors. We are incredibly grateful for Valve to make this possible and for their explicit commitment to help and support Arch Linux.
These projects will follow our usual development and consensus-building workflows. [RFCs] will be created for any wide-ranging changes. Discussions on this mailing list as well as issue, milestone and epic planning in our GitLab will provide transparency and insight into the work. We believe this collaboration will greatly benefit Arch Linux, and are looking forward to share further development on this mailing list as work progresses.
Would someone elucidate as to what this means for a normie PC gamer and begrudging windows user?
I would say this is great news all around. With SteamOS pushing the Linux market share higher than it’s ever been, and a partnership with Arch to boost direct development, this could mean other companies taking a hard look at Linux and either developing native software or ensuring proton compatibility out of the gate.
I’m imagining “Runs on Arch” markers on software like the old “Works on Windows '95” stickers I used to see everywhere.
Pretty much just that Arch Linux will be more secure, stable and reliable.
And for Valve, producing SteamOS images could be easier, meaning they can focus their dev efforts on something else.
And it supports competition against a locked down Windows-only gaming ecosystem that restricts Valve/Steams potential market. This is a great move for anyone interested in gaming or Linux.
Probably nothing. This is more steamdeck related stuff since the SteamOS is based on ArchLinux. And even then, it does not mean much for SteamDeck users. They wont notice much at all really. This might help with development a bit on valves end. The big news is really for ArchLinux users and maintainers which will see more effort in the development of that distro.
There is some wild speculation that maybe this makes arm for Arch Linux more official in the future. Which is based of the other recent news that Valve are creating an ARM emulation layer for running games on ARM devices. Which means maybe they are working on an ARM device and maybe need to start working on getting ARM support for Arch. Though again this is all wild speculation.