14 DAY TRIAL // Valve has just pushed a new Beta build of its awesome SteamOS gaming distribution of GNU/Linux based on Debian to the brewmaster_beta channel for public testing.
Highlights of the SteamOS 2.64 Beta release include an updated Nvidia video driver, which is now at version 355.00.28, the same one that Nvidia released for Linux on February 23, 2016, implementing support for the new Vulkan 3D API.
Additionally, the BlueZ Bluetooth packages have been updated to improve support for the Sony DualShock 3 PlayStation controllers, and the Linux kernel has received support for a third-party PowerA XboxOne Mini wired controller.
Valve has also merged the upstream Alienware-WMI changes with SteamOS' kernel to bring support for new hardware, as well as various other features required for the operating system to work with Alienware machines.
As usual, a bunch of security fixes have been added to the new SteamOS Beta build, among which we can mention new versions of the libssh, libssh2, cpio, and efivar, which has been imported from the Debian Sid repositories to fix a boot issue users reported with some NVMe devices.
SteamOS 2.64 Beta is now available for download from our website or from Valve, as installable-only ISO images for 64-bit machines. More details can be found in the official release notes published by Valve on Steam Universe.
Early adopters should know that Valve also released a new Steam Beta Client on February 24, which updated the ALSA libraries to fix various issues with newer GNU/Linux distributions, as well as the usual Steam Controller improvements.