SteamOS 2.148 stable update is now available for download

Jan 23, 2018 17:00 GMT  ·  By

Valve released today a new stable update of its Debian-based SteamOS gaming operating system that brings a new kernel version, new Nvidia and AMD drivers, and lots of up-to-date components.

SteamOS 2.148 is now the newest stable release of the Linux-based operating system that ships pre-installed on Steam Machines. While it remains based on the Debian GNU/Linux 8 "Jessie" operating system series, SteamOS 2.148 is powered by the latest Linux 4.14.13 kernel, which includes patches for Spectre and Meltdown flaws.

Additionally, SteamOS 2.148 includes new Nvidia, AMD, and Intel graphics drivers. It uses the Nvidia 387.22 proprietary graphics driver for Nvidia GPUs, as well as the open-source Mesa 17.2.4 graphics stack for AMD Radeon and Intel GPUs. Other than that, the update comes with better upgrade support.

"This is a big SteamOS update. This includes a new 4.14 Linux kernel, NVidia 387.22 graphics driver, and Mesa 17.2.4 for AMD and Intel," says John Vert, Engineer at Valve, in the release announcement. "This is the same content that was released to beta last week with the addition of some small packaging fixes to address upgrade scenarios and debian installer issues."

GLVND support and support for new graphics drivers

As we reported during the beta phase, the SteamOS 2.148 update includes updated components to add support for new graphics drivers via the libglvnd, libdrm and glx-alternatives libraries, support for the new GL Vendor Neutral Dispatch (GLVND) on the X.Org Server display server, and support for new Mesa 3D Graphics Library with LLVM 5.0.

The Broadcom wireless drivers were made compatible with the Linux 4.14 kernel series, and the LightDM login manager was updated to be able to process /etc/environment when auto-logging is enabled by default. Updates were also released for Samba, jQuery, and numerous other components. You can download SteamOS 2.148 right now through our website.