libarchive and GnuPG have also been updated in this release

Sep 6, 2016 21:23 GMT  ·  By

Valve has released a new Beta version of the next stable branch of its SteamOS gaming distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux, SteamOS 2.91, which was pushed to the brewmaster_beta channel on August 31, 2016.

The new SteamOS brewmaster update 2.91 is not a major milestone, as it only updates the kernel and firmware packages, namely linux ath10k, linux-latest, firmware-free, and firmware-nonfree to add the ATH10K_FW_FEATURE_IGNORE_OTP_RESULT variable for improving support for the ath10k wireless driver.

What that means exactly is that if you're installing SteamOS on a desktop computer or laptop that sports a wireless adapter from Atheros, there's a better chance for it to be supported, as well as to function within normal parameters. However, this is not a new patch in the Linux kernel, as it exists since May 2015.

"qca6174 otp binary seems to always return an error to the host, even if the calibration succeeded. Add a firmware feature flag to detect if the firmware image which has this problem and workaround the issue in ath10k by ignoring the error code," says Kalle Valo in a detailed report.

SteamOS gets the latest security fixes from Debian Stable

As you might know, SteamOS is currently being synchronized with the Debian Stable repositories, which means that it is getting the latest security fixes as soon as they are released upstream. Among the ones that landed in SteamOS 2.91 Beta, we can mention libarchive, libgcrypt20, as well as GnuPG.

That being said, SteamOS 2.91 Beta is now available for download via our website, and you can test it right away if you feel brave enough to install it on your personal computer. However, we don't recommend installing Beta software on a production machine, so keep an eye on this space for the next stable SteamOS release.