WinesapOS – the brilliant Arch-based gaming distro created by Luke Short – has evolved from 3.2.0 alpha to beta. Noteworthy updates in this release include:

  • support for VMware Fusion/Workstation
  • bauh replaces Pamac – this is evidently more stable
  • now built against “the latest Arch Linux” rather than targeting the outdated SteamOS 3’s packages – provides a more stable graphics library
  • progress bar is now shown on initial setup rather than using terminal
  • minimum requirements to run the distro have been lowered – you can run it on a single CPU core and 2 GB RAM!

Bear in mind there are a couple of known issues:

  • Steam Deck client shows corrupt graphics – use “Steam Desktop” instead
  • Steam Deck client can’t login – check the guide on PS4Linux for troubleshooting tips

This release hasn’t incorporated audio support for the Deck. However, provided everything goes according to plan, the patch for it should be merged into kernel 6.1.

See the patch notes on GitHub.