Kevin Purdy
In our review of the Asus ROG Ally last year, many of our complaints focused on having to fiddle with an “awkwardly scaled” version of Windows. That's especially true when you compare the ROG Ally experience to Valve's Steam Deck and its finely tuned handheld SteamOS 3.
The complaints about ROG Ally may no longer be relevant going forward, as Valve has confirmed that it is working on officially supporting SteamOS 3 installations on Asus' handheld.
The first hint of the move came when support for “additional ROG Ally keys” popped up out of nowhere in the latest SteamOS release notes from last week. Now, Valve's Lawrence Yang, speaking to The Verge, confirms that the note is indeed “related to third-party device support for SteamOS. The team continues to work on adding support for additional handhelds on SteamOS.”
On the other side of the portable OS equation, Yang also said that Valve continues to work on the drivers necessary for official “dual boot” support for Windows on the Steam Deck hardware. “There is no update on the timing for dual boot support—it’s still a priority, but we haven’t gotten around to it yet,” Yang said.
Valve time
This is far from the first time Valve has talked about officially distributing the latest version of SteamOS outside of the Steam Deck. Yang said in 2022 that “not only are we excited to see other manufacturers make their own handheld PC gaming devices, we're also excited to see people make their own SteamOS machines, which could include small PCs that they sit next to their TV.”
Still, Valve’s confirmation of specific work on ROG Ally support is the strongest sign yet that the company is making concrete progress on this effort. Don’t get too excited about an imminent release, however: Yang told The Verge that the team is “steadily making progress,” but that the software is “not ready to run out of the box yet.” The same goes for a generic SteamOS installer that users can download and install on any generic device.
Ayaneo
Meanwhile, hackers and hardware manufacturers are finding their own ways to access SteamOS without the Steam Deck. Ars’ Kevin Purdy went through a cumbersome process with some very non-drop-in ISOs to get SteamOS on his ROG Ally over a year ago . And earlier this year, Ayaneo announced that its Next Lite handheld would use a modified version of the Linux-based Holo ISO to “provide a near-official SteamOS experience” (as the Holo ISO’s creators put it).
We’re still eagerly awaiting the day when that “almost official” SteamOS experience on non-Valve hardware becomes “official,” allowing more hardware makers to drop an expensive Windows license. But given the company’s history of fiddling around with the schedule with “Valve Time,” we realize that day could be a long way off.
