s promised, Valve has made its SteamOS freely available for download. The Debian Linux-based OS weighs in at 960MB, and will be used to power the company’s Steam Machines game platform. It is now available to all as a free stand-alone OS for living room machines.

SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with the ultimate gaming experience built for the big screen. It is designed for streaming Window-based Steam games directly to secondary computers, and thus bring Linux to the living room. With the release, both Valve and Nvidia engineers are bound and determined to have a vast majority of Steam games running smoothly on SteamOS.

According to Valve, the system is a fork of Debian Linux/GNU, with the first version based on Debian stable 7.1 distribution. The hardware requirements for SteamOS 1.0 include an AMD or Intel 64-bit processor, a 500 GB or larger disk space, 4GB RAM, a USB port for installation, Nvidia graphics and UEFI boot support.

The OS ports PC games to the TV and runs Steam and Steam titles. It also includes a desktop mode that supports regular Linux applications. In-home Streaming, Music, TV, Movies, Family Sharing and Family Options are some of the new Steam features in this release that are focused on the living room.

Like Windows and most versions of Linux, SteamOS automatically updates itself from the latest repositories. Presently, it only works with Nvidia graphics cards, but the OS runs with both AMD and Intel processors. Valve noted that AMD and Intel graphics support are still a work in progress. The company has also cautioned that the installation will format everything on your computer.

Several reports indicate that there are currently multiple issues regarding SteamOS download. So, Valve has advised that for now only the most eager and dedicated users should download it. The rest are better left waiting till 2014 to take a ride of the more finished version.

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