HoloISO

SteamOS 3 (Holo) archiso configuration.

Yes, Gabe. SteamOS functions well on a toaster.

This project attempts to bring the Steam Deck's Holo OS into a generic, installable format, and provide a close-to-official SteamOS experience.

Common Questions

• Is this official?

No, but it may as well be 99% of the way there. The code, and packages are straight from Valve with zero possible edits, and the ISO is being built on the official Steam Deck recovery image, running inside a QEMU instance.

• The ISO didn't boot for me, any solution?

Currently, ISO only boots if flashed using BalenaEtcher, RosaImageWriter, Fedora Media Writer, DD with 4MB block size, or Rufus with DD mode.

Working stuff:

• Bootup
• SteamOS OOBE (Steam Deck UI First Boot Experience)
• Deck UI (separate session)
• Deck UI (-gamepadui)
• TDP/FPS limiting
• Global FSR
• Shader Pre-Caching
• Switch to Desktop from plasma/to plasma without user interference.
• Valve's exclusive Vapor appearance for KDE Plasma
• Steam Deck pacman mirrors
• Cool-looking neofetch?

Known issues:

• NVIDIA GPUs are stuck on black screen or Triggering uevents.

Solution: Boot with nomodeset=1 and install proprietary drivers. Keep in mind, that Steam Deck session won't work for now, delete /etc/sddm.conf.d/autologin.conf to avoid booting into black screen with infinite crash.

• Intel GPUs/iGPUs require a Gamescope and MESA downgrade in order to boot into Steam Deck session.

Refer to this gist for further guidance.

Installation process:

Prerequistes:

• 4GB flash drive
• AMD GPU with Vulkan and VDPAU support
• UEFI-enabled device
• Disabled secure boot

Installation types:

• barebones

Barebones OS-only installation, resembles vanilla Arch Linux installation. - gameonly Steam Deck UI only (AMD GPU only; no desktop), as said, this doesn't ship any DE, and only has Steam Deck UI installed. This part is currently under a renovation.

• deckperience

Full SteamOS 3 experience, Includes proper session switching, KDE Plasma and media apps, Chromium preinstalled.

Installation:

• Flash the ISO from releases using BalenaEtcher, Rufus with DD mode, or by typing sudo dd if=SteamOS.iso of=/dev/sd(your flash drive) bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync
• Boot into ISO
• Run holoinstall
• Enter drive node, starting from, for example, sda or nvme0n1 when asked
• Take your favourite hot beverage, and wait till it installs :)

Upon booting, you'll be greeted with Steam Deck's OOBE screen, from where you'll connect to your network, and login to your Steam account, from there, you can exit to KDE Plasma seamlessly by choosing Switch to desktop in the power menu, like so.

Screenshots:

Notes:

This configuration includes Valve's pacman.conf repositories, holoinstall script and holoinstall post-installation binaries.

This configuration builds a releng-based ISO, which is the default Arch Linux redistribution flavor.

Building the ISO:

Trigger the build by executing:

git clone https://github.com/bhaiest/holoiso/
sudo mkarchiso -v holoiso

Once it ends, your ISO will be available in the out folder.