Valve's SteamOS Compositor Has Begun Seeing Some Activity Recently

SteamOS Brewmaster hasn't seen any updates in a while (SteamOS 2.195 came out this summer with minor updates) though recently Valve's SteamOS Compositor GitHub repository did see some activity igniting hopes we could see a new release still this year... Well, it would be really great seeing a release re-based to Debian 10 "Buster" but any activity would be welcome even just pulling in all of their Linux graphics driver infrastructure updates they've funded in recent times.

The SteamOS Compositor activity to their source tree pulled in all of their internal changes that hadn't been part of their public-facing GitHub repository. That pull request was sent in by Collabora's Simon McVittie. These were the first commits to the SteamOS-Compositor GitHub since April 2018.

The changes aren't new themselves as they were pushed out to SteamOS users as Debian packages, but the work now in the source tree includes fixes for login issues, preferring HDMI/DP outputs over other displays, support for screen magnification, cursor handling bits, and other fixes.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, saw initial work on Meson. SteamOS-Compositor is seeing Meson build system work by Pierre-Loup Griffais but that Meson-ization process isn't yet complete. It's good at least seeing new work going into SteamOS-Compositor albeit not too significant.

It would be exciting to see a new SteamOS release re-based to Debian 10 and riding with the latest Linux graphics driver support, sporting their VR HMD handling improvements, and maybe even enabling their Xrdesktop mode that they have/had been funding, among other infrastructure efforts. SteamOS (Linux gaming) is much more capable now than when SteamOS / Steam Machines first made waves, thanks in large part to Steam Play with Proton/DXVK for allowing an increasing number of Windows games to run well under Linux.

What do you hope to see out of SteamOS in the future? Let us know in the forums.