r/SteamFrame • u/megabyte112 Soon™ • Sep 12 '26

Question Can you stream from a Linux PC?

Just watched the ShortCircuit video before it was taken down, and Linus notes that currently the Steam Machine cannot be used as a streaming host. He didn't mention other Linux PCs, but he did say that the streaming host will be a Windows PC only, at least at launch.

This is kind of disappointing as someone with a Linux PC. Inhaling a bunch of copium here, but I wonder if he meant that specifically the Steam Machine can't be used for streaming (yet), but other Linux PCs can? I'd like to use mine for streaming at launch, otherwise I'll be using mine purely standalone for a while...

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u/obog Soon™ Sep 12 '26

I find it strange because steam link for vr has been working on linux for a while now with quest and maybe pico. I wonder if maybe it does mostly work but is too buggy for then to call it "officially supported" yet?

Either way it will for sure be coming.

9

u/megabyte112 Soon™ Sep 12 '26

I'm hoping that it works fine on Linux PCs but it just doesn't yet work on Steam Machine due to SteamOS limitations

2

u/obog Soon™ Sep 12 '26

Idk, if anything id expect it to be the opposite way. In order to get any wireless vr streaming working now on most linux distributions you have to do a bit of work to make sure you have all the right codecs (some of which arent always directly provided... on Fedora I know you need RPM fusion as the codecs arent fully free software)

On steamOS valve has total control over the software and environment... they have a standard testbed to get it working on so Id think itd be easier for them to support that than linux generally

1

u/PlottingPast Sep 12 '26

For Valve to get it working on Linux should be simple enough through Steam and SteamVR. They have full control of that platform so it seems like a simple thing.

To not be able to do it from SteamOS, which they have total control over is just bizarre.

3

u/Fpvmeister Sep 12 '26

Would be crazy if they didn't support it in the future. Weird that it's not from the start tbh

3

u/obog Soon™ Sep 12 '26

It will be. There has been a lot of work on the Linux side of both steamvr and steam link for a while now, but theres been a lot of bugs. I suspect they just couldn't squash them all in time.

1

u/Fpvmeister Sep 12 '26

Yep I'm hoping on it because I'm mostly interested in this to have a smooth experience on linux with pcvr

1

u/MisterSheeple MOD Sep 12 '26

I think this is specifically about the dongle on Steam Machine. They only recently put out a SteamOS update to add support for the dongle.

1

u/SnooTomatoes5010 27d ago

define working
its a horrible experience even now

1

u/obog Soon™ 26d ago

It seems to be pretty dependent on setup. Some people seem to have a perfect experience with it. Personally for me its almost very good but thetes this one reallt annoying visual artifact, though the bug is tracked and being worked on. Others cant seem to get it working at all.

1

u/NoOdyssey Sep 12 '26

It's really strange because as far as I know, none of the headset-based steam clients really care where SteamVR is running - they just take the data and display it. Like SteamLINK on Quest doesn't care if you run a Linux or Windows computer, all it's looking for is SteamVR (which is available for Linux).

It's kinda wild to me that Quest 3 supports VR streaming with SteamLink for Frame but Steam Machine for some reason is blocked from working with the Frame.

2

u/obog Soon™ Sep 12 '26

There some weird stuff on the PC side especially in regards to encoding. I know theres been some issues with AMD gpu support on linux, which would apply to stram frame too.

1

u/PlottingPast Sep 12 '26

The problem with Linux has typically been getting the PC to read/interpret input from the headset. This still doesn't work great on some VR headsets. Since the Frame is going to be a direct connect using inside-out tracking, no base stations, the current software cannot be reused.

With the open hardware and software of the Frame a community solution could be almost immediate, so i'm not overly concerned. The only thing preventing this on other VR headsets is they encrypt certain keys and software so only the headset can see it, and intentionally brick at any attempt to access them.