Valve's PC-for-your-living-room Steam Box may be moving closer to release, as evidenced by the appearance of new software packages on the SteamPowered.com Web server. Ever since the news first broke of Valve's intent to release its own console, the company has clearly stated that the box would run some flavor of Linux; the nature of these new packages strongly points to a Debian-style Linux distro like Ubuntu.
Linux enthusiast site Phoronix is carrying the news of the packages' emergence, noting that the contents of the new hometest repository differ significantly from the previous steam repo. The older public repo merely contains packages to install Steam and its launcher on Debian-based Linux distributions, but the new hometest repo has far richer contents. According to Phoronix, the repo holds "experimental NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers, a Plymouth boot splash screen for Steam, and Valve wallpapers," along with a simple "autoupdate" package to keep the system up to date. It also contains the same Steam Linux binaries already available in the older repo.
Phoronix speculates that the Steam Box, when it eventually appears, will be based on an LTS Ubuntu release, though it's too early to rule out potential plans for a "Steam Linux" distro. It wouldn't take a tremendous amount of work for Valve to repackage Ubuntu in such a way—Linux Mint is already just such a repackaging, relying on Canonical for most of its packages while substituting in several alternatives (and different default GUIs).
Valve's willingness to keep its additions transparent and available also means you might not necessarily need to go buy a Steam Box (whatever form it ends up taking) to get the authentic Steam experience in your living room—as long as Valve continues to keep things open, any Debian-ish Linux box that meets the minimum hardware requirements will do.
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