[HN Gopher] ChimeraOS: Instantly turn any PC into a gaming console
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ChimeraOS: Instantly turn any PC into a gaming console
Author : kosasbest
Score : 92 points
Date : 2023-08-08 17:49 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (chimeraos.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (chimeraos.org)
| vladxyz wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Thanks. I was wondering what it was based on and couldn't tell
| based on the website.
| rouxz wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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...
| [deleted]
| asynchronous wrote:
| 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.
| bnchrch wrote:
| 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.
| crickey wrote:
| Why people who are into retrogames dont need to be advertised
| to
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Its not about the games. Its about how much effort it takes
| to play the games using ChimeraOS. Kinda nice to have an idea
| what you are in for before you spend some time installing and
| testing a new OS build.
| blkhp19 wrote:
| 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.
| daveidol wrote:
| No screenshots?
| james2doyle wrote:
| Seems like it is just a build of SteamOS? There is a youtube
| linker from their Twitter
| (https://twitter.com/ChimeraOS_Linux):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awAFyXYh22M
|
| Edit: Found this post on their Twitter:
| https://twitter.com/ChimeraOS_Linux/status/15144199120805969...
| rvnx wrote:
| Add a Parsec server by default and it'll be perfect so it can be
| deployed to Google Cloud or other servers :D
| all2 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| pvorb wrote:
| 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
| weare138 wrote:
| 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.
| jcastro wrote:
| ChimeraOS carried nvidia drivers for years. The issue is that
| Valve's Gamescope, which is now a requirement for Steam
| doesn't run well on the nvidia drivers, and old big picture
| mode got retired.
| ZekeSulastin wrote:
| You're not going to want to do much gaming with the nouveau
| driver vs the proprietary driver, and nouveau's support for
| newer nvidia GPUs is limited.
| pxc wrote:
| This is changing! NVIDIA has started modifying their driver
| architecture to support open-sourcing their drivers, much
| like AMD did years ago. As part of this process, they've
| released updates firmwares for newer cards which support
| re-clocking, which could finally allow Nouveau to run newer
| NVIDIA GPUs at full speed.
|
| For AMD, lots of people game on the community open-source
| drivers in Mesa. Presumably the same could be true for
| NVIDIA in the future.
|
| See: https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-Turing-
| Firmware-2023
| weare138 wrote:
| It's definitely not up for AAA gaming but it's not horrible
| either. But why restrict Nvidia cards altogether when
| nouveau already supported by the kernel? Obviously it would
| be a stop-gap solution until proper support for the
| proprietary drivers is integrated but people like me can't
| run Chimera right now. I wouldn't mind trying it but I
| can't.
| Apofis wrote:
| I think GeForce NOW is better equipped to make that statement.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| i feel like this is very intentionally buried
| veave wrote:
| 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")
| marcod wrote:
| Actually, we have very relevant data in
| https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
|
| > PC VIDEO CARD USAGE BY MFG during FEBRUARY 2022 - JULY 2023
|
| > 15.93% AMD
|
| > 74.69% Nvidia
| veave wrote:
| And that's only for people who run Steam, who are likely to
| have high-end cards. This is, it does not include PCs for
| office workloads or most laptops. Intel is at 9% right now
| in that Steam survey so the real number is much, much
| higher than AMD (and perhaps nvidia too). This makes AMD
| the third one in user share.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| 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.
| goober24 wrote:
| More like, "Is Not Supported" OS
| [deleted]
| rangledangle wrote:
| I just have my PC in my living room boot Straight to Steam Big
| Picture Mode. It's great.
| Pxtl wrote:
| On windows or what?
| addandsubtract wrote:
| Can anyone recommend a good budget mini PC (on par with maybe the
| Steam Deck) for some casual gaming?
| bovem wrote:
| 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?
| DoombaBot wrote:
| 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.
| bovem wrote:
| Thanks, that makes sense. Intel is also getting out of NUC
| market. But there are still lots of NUCs out there that could
| be used as a light gaming server.
| pkulak wrote:
| It probably uses SteamOS, which has no need to include Intel
| drivers, and probably absolutely no desire to include
| proprietary Nvidia binary blobs.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Intel's dGPUs have a ~0% market share, Nvidia's driver
| situation is a shitshow.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Intel GPUs dominate the market by far. Every Intel CPU since
| 2010 has a GPU, with only very specific exceptions.
| [deleted]
| de6u99er wrote:
| 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.
| RussianCow wrote:
| The Intel GPU drivers have been open source for years.
| suprjami wrote:
| I've been running ChimeraOS on a NUC and it works fine
| anaisbetts wrote:
| 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)
| gkhartman wrote:
| I would have thought that installation of Nvidia driver
| packages for Arch would do the trick. I'll admit that I'm
| unfamiliar with the interaction between GPU drivers and
| Wayland, so I'm guessing it would just result in an unstable
| combination?
| causi wrote:
| 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.
| suprjami wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| What's different about it versus ordinary Steam Big Picture?
| print_goto_ten wrote:
| "Any PC" without Nvidia GPUS that is.
| joshstrange wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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
| nomel wrote:
| > 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.
| vlark wrote:
| "Instantly turn our developers' PCs into gaming consoles" is more
| like it.
|
| Cool logo, though.
| pull_my_finger wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Ugh. I really tried to like Lakka but it was such a mess.
| I'll never install a non-raspbian OS on a rasppi again.
|
| I like the naked Retroarch UI so much better than emulation
| station so I thought that part was much better than retropie,
| but the amount of fiddling I had to do with the OS on a
| system that really didn't want me to do that ruined it for
| me.
| gochi wrote:
| Yet more evidence that XMB is the greatest console UI ever
| created, and I'm glad more projects are using it in some way.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2023-08-08 23:00 UTC)