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"SteamOS is our Linux-based operating system. The base system draws from Debian 8, code named Debian Jessie."

Debian Jessie is terribly out of date and hasn't seen regular security updates for five years now, from https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/:

> Debian “jessie” Release Information

> Debian 8.11 was released June 23rd, 2018. Debian 8.0 was initially released on April 26th, 2015. The release included many major changes, described in our press release and the Release Notes.

> Debian 8 has been superseded by Debian 9 (stretch). Regular security support updates have been discontinued as of June 17th, 2018.

edit: it looks like the SteamOS build for custom hardware is no longer available for download, as the download link now leads to a "Download SteamOS: Steam Deck Image" page.

> Debian Jessie is terribly out of date and hasn't seen regular security updates for five years now, from https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/:

Nowadays you get 10 years of support if you make use of the Freexian project.

Even the page you linked mentions that:

> Jessie also had benefited from Long Term Support (LTS) until the end of June 2020.

And then you can use the ELTS support, which goes up until 2025: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Extended

So yes, users should not be running such old releases, but there's still support. And even though Freeexian's support is not officially affiliated with Debian, it's done by Debian Developers.

If you want to run this SteamOS release, you should consider pointing to Freexian's repo for security updates.

I was excited to see this headline, but it's not really true like most people will think.

This is the older (pre-Steam Deck) Linux project that was released years ago, but was (sadly) discontinued. It was Debian-based, while the new SteamOS (SteamOS 3, used on the steam deck) is Arch-based. Last I heard they are planning to expand the offering for SteamOS 3, but it's not ready yet.

I have not personally tried it, but HoloISO claims to bring SteamOS 3 (the current arch-based version) to generic non-Steamdeck hardware.

https://github.com/HoloISO/holoiso

That's a neat project! I'm gonna give that a try.

I'm personally really looking forward to general hardware availability for SteamOS 3. I'd love to have a small but capable machine sitting behind the TV running Linux with Steam

We should really be able to downvote posts
You can flag them, especially if they're misleading like this one is.