ChimeraOS: Instantly turn any PC into a gaming console

[joshstrange]

This project would benefit greatly from some screenshots or videos on any of the pages linked in the header. Also maybe it makes more sense on mobile but the hardware screen is painful to read on desktop.

It's not at all clear to me what this brings to the table over the default Steam Deck software (I know that's only 1 of many devices it supports). I'm pretty freaking happy with the default OS plus EmuDeck on my Steam Deck. I know there are launchers for Epic/Blizzard/GoG which I'll probably setup eventually but so far I haven't needed or cared about anything from those sources.

I assume this is really for Steam Deck clones or desktop computers.

Here is a video of the UI I found (not endorsing anything, just the first video I found that showed the UI): https://youtu.be/E2NIGPpz_vY?t=19 - It looks very similar to the Steam Deck UI which I find very nice to use.

[Zambyte]

> It looks very similar to the Steam Deck UI

It is the Steam Deck UI. See the repo description on: https://github.com/ChimeraOS/chimeraos

[thiht]

> This project would benefit greatly from some screenshots

I can’t think of any project that wouldn’t benefit from screenshots.

I keep seeing project that seem really cool, but their creators do their absolute best to NOT show what it looks like, or what it does. This is a mystery to me.

[nomel]

> over the default Steam Deck software

Alternatively, I would claim auto login/boot to Steam's Big Screen is an alternative, with much better hardware support.

[pvorb]

This statement

> Instantly turn any PC into a gaming console

doesn’t quite fit the limitations stated on the download page

> * AMD Radeon RX 400 series or newer GPU required > * Nvidia and Intel GPUs are not supported > * hybrid graphics are not supported > * virtual machines are not supported

[Modified3019]

I imagine that not supported doesn’t mean “won’t work”, but rather means “we won’t burn time helping you if it doesn’t work”.

Which is reasonable tbh, nvidia and it’s drivers are such a big stupid pain.

[weare138]

Seems odd too. I'm not sure why it wouldn't support Nvidia cards. The open-source Nouveau drivers for Nvidia cards has been in the mainline kernel for years now. Most Nvidia cards just work out of the box now in Linux.

[sitzkrieg]

i feel like this is very intentionally buried

[Apofis]

I think GeForce NOW is better equipped to make that statement.

[yakk0]

Tying into game streaming services would be nice. A low end PC can run Geforce Now or Gamepass more easily than some of these games.

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

What about computer with AMD processor and Nvidia card installed? Can it just ignore the Nvidia card?

[veave]

Funny because AMD probably has the lowest share of the three if we include all PCs including office ones (and we should since the website says "any PC")

[all2]

This is one of those cases where the website would benefit from a video or screenshots above the fold. I want to know what it looks like, how the UI flows from thing to thing, etc.

[sammorrowdrums]

ChimeraOS was previously called GamerOS and when SteamOS stagnated it was basically an attempt at a new Linux big picture SteamOS with evergreen distro but with versioned upgrades (it was SteamOS but better at the time). It also uses Arch kernel but with a sort of immutable update approach that I’m certain was the inspiration for the current SteamOS.

Very cool project, could do with screenshots and things, and the rename made it more cryptic but it is genuinely excellent and earlier in the project it was a clear lifeline for abandoned (by valve not releasing new versions) SteamOS devices.

[bnchrch]

One of the better examples of the extremely talented developer who does not understand customers/new users.

Show us a screenshot or a video before putting an install button in front of us.

[blkhp19]

Was about to leave a comment saying the exact same thing. I don't understand how someone makes it this far in a project, and just completely drops the ball when showing the work off to the world. You don't even need to naturally be good at marketing - just literally copy what any somewhat-known brand / project does.

[crickey]

Why people who are into retrogames dont need to be advertised to

[vladxyz]

Previously known as GamerOS, it's basically arch-based clone of SteamOS 2, which came around between Steam Machines becoming irrelevant, and the Steam Deck showing up.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=WkIGUuVLrn8

[jccalhoun]

Thanks. I was wondering what it was based on and couldn't tell based on the website.

[tekeous]

> arch-based clone of SteamOS 2

So SteamOS 3?

[goldtownjac]

I've been running Chimera for a few months now on a all-AMD PC hooked up to my living room TV, and I've been pleased. I had previously set up Windows to launch big picture mode on startup but there was always a delay where I would see the Windows desktop which shattered the whole illusion. Plus, Windows.

Chimera really boots directly into big picture and has worked flawlessly for the use case of playing Steam games. Beyond that, it falls a little flat. I thought that gamepad input for mouse control would be supported in desktop mode but as far as I can tell it's not, at least not out of the box.

There is a nifty phone client you can use to download games from the Epic Store, retro games, etc. to be added to the non-Steam games section in BPM, but I wish you could do it from the desktop. A more or less fully-featured, gamepad-controlled OS would be the holy grail.

[pull_my_finger]

A similar project is Ludo [1] which is part of the libretro family. More for emulation but really a clean UI (it actually has screenshots)

[1]: https://ludo.libretro.com/#about

[ajot]

Oh, I installed Ludo (the program, not the LibreELEC based LudoOS) on my Debian laptop a couple days ago. I don't have the time, knowledge or patience to fiddle and try to optimize Retroarch. For Android, I use Lemuroid, which has a similar premise of simplicity.

Back on topic, there's also Lakka as a LibreELEC with full Retroarch. I think there are other similar projects around, like EmulationStation.

[gochi]

Yet more evidence that XMB is the greatest console UI ever created, and I'm glad more projects are using it in some way.

[bovem]

Seems like a good project but this is a deal breaker for me

> Nvidia and Intel GPUs are not supported

Any specific reason why that is? Or if it’s in roadmap?

[anaisbetts]

It is a copy of SteamOS which uses its own Wayland compositor (Gamescope) that is not compatible with anything other than AMD (since it was originally intended to only be used with Steam Deck, there was no reason to make it work anywhere else)

[Nullabillity]

Intel's dGPUs have a ~0% market share, Nvidia's driver situation is a shitshow.

[causi]

Title should be changed to "Instantly Turn 12% of PCs into a gaming console" because that's what fraction of the GPU market AMD has.

[pkulak]

It probably uses SteamOS, which has no need to include Intel drivers, and probably absolutely no desire to include proprietary Nvidia binary blobs.

[DoombaBot]

Probably supports just AMD because the focus of this is for mini pcs from companies like Beelink etc that use either mobile AMD cards or on board graphics from an AMD chip. Mini pcs are currently dominated by AMD hardware.

[suprjami]

I've been running ChimeraOS on a NUC and it works fine

[de6u99er]

I guess it has to do with their lack of open source drivers, and I bet you can install NVidia or Intel drivers by yourself.

[asynchronous]

To save some investigation, this project might once have been better than the SteamOS natively, but as of now it is no longer the case. It doesn’t do anything particularly well and has a nightmare of a time with Bluetooth support.

[vlark]

"Instantly turn our developers' PCs into gaming consoles" is more like it.

Cool logo, though.

[RunningDroid]

The name conflicts with https://chimera-linux.org/

[goober24]

More like, "Is Not Supported" OS

[suprjami]

I've run ChimeraOS for a while now. It's such an impressive experience. You really just install it and it works.

I'm using a NUC8 and PS4 controller. The amount of effort Valve have put into the Steam Deck really shows, I guess game developers are encouraged to make the Deck compatibility good, and ChimeraOS takes advantage of that.

[als0]

What’s different about it versus ordinary Steam Big Picture?

[rouxz]

Cool, the biggest issue for me when I was trying to do the same thing (turn my beefy PC to a "gaming console") was the ability to turn it on with gamepad. I've spent a lot of time researching it and have not found a reliable solution.

[GlumWoodpecker]

As a workaround, with a USB remote controller[0] you can put a PC to sleep and wake it up by pressing the power button. That's what I did with my setup of a mac for game streaming[1]. In my experience, the sleep/wake functionality works on Windows and Linux as well, so it should work on this.

[0]: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005766837072.html

[1]: https://datalars.com/2023/07/29/using-a-mac-mini-as-a-bedroo...

[rangledangle]

I just have my PC in my living room boot Straight to Steam Big Picture Mode. It's great.

[Pxtl]

On windows or what?

[jerojero]

Although Valve promised to release the steamOS image publicly they still haven't done so officially.

I believe companies like Asus or Lenovo would greatly benefit from putting steamOS on their consoles instead of spending their own developer resources in trying to make windows work. It just doesn't.

I have an Aya neo 2, I put chimeraOS on it and although there's a couple details missing, it generally works very well, it makes the thing usable as opposed to having windows on it.

[rvnx]

Add a Parsec server by default and it'll be perfect so it can be deployed to Google Cloud or other servers :D

[iFire]

MIT License:

https://github.com/ChimeraOS/chimeraos/blob/master/LICENSE

[somecommit]

For the old folks like me that started on linux installing Mandravia CDROMs from magazines back in 2000, this looks retrospectively so odd, unreal and fantastic