For a while now, my colleagues and I over in Techpaladin Software have been working on software support for the Steam Machine, so it’s so awesome to see the product released!
Like everyone else, I was surprised by the pricing… until I went out and looked at what other hardware costs these days. It seems like in the past 6 months, everything with RAM got 50-100% more expensive. It’s kinda nuts. In light of, shall we say, industry trends (ahem), the price seems reasonable to me.
…especially if you see it less as a single-purpose gaming console and more as a desktop computer that offers a 10-foot UI living room gaming experience. Its horsepower is competitive for the price, and it offers the flexibility of a well-integrated desktop PC user experience. But don’t take it from me; ask Linus Sebastian, who’s rapidly becoming one of the biggest KDE boosters on YouTube:
Some choice quotes from the video:
And from the moment I fired it up and said “goodbye Steam Big Picture Mode”, and started using it as a desktop, I went… “This is what I’ve been waiting for the whole time.”
– Linus Sebastian
Plasma’s great.
– Linus Sebastian
“Plasma on retail hardware” has been my long-term goal for KDE since I first got involved a decade ago. This product is another example that not only can it work, but it can be as good or better than competing offerings.
So congratulations to everyone in KDE and outside of it who helped make this a reality! I’m unbelievably happy at how well KDE software is working for this use case these days, and I see even greater things in the future.
Adventures in Linux and KDE 
Congratulations—this is a huge success, and I’m really happy about it. All the KDE developers have done an incredibly great job.
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“Yay another ad for Steam and LTT, I love following news of my favourite FOSS software”
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The price of success is accepting excitement about others outside of the traditional treehouse using your offerings! 🙂 Valve has been absolutely huge for Linux in general and KDE specifically, and LTT’s content represents success breaking out of the niche nerd world and into a more mainstream tech enthusiast/gamer crowd. The fact that KDE’s software is so competitive to this crowd is a massive achievement, IMO!
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Congrats to all involved! Quite unfortunate WRT the RAM situation. A cool side-effect is that others are now making systems with Steam OS and KDE Plasma! 🙂
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“Everything works the way you’d expect, just better” has to be one of the most low-key glowing review statements possible for the kind of work that y’all have done!
Given your direct experience with Discover, hopefully it can also put a bit of a smile on your face to hear recognition that it – when paired with solid backends and repositories – really delivers a nice, clean, professional-feeling software store experience (and that folks who are relatively normal, compared to Linux forum enthusiasts, do actually appreciate everything that Discover abstracts away vs. tools like Synaptic/dnfdragora/YaST/etc.).
Congrats!
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