Arch Linux ❤️ Valve: The Most Impactful Collab of 2024 for Linux Gamers!

Valve is a popular name in the video game industry mainly due to their offerings like the Steam store, the Steam Deck, and the Proton compatibility layer, all of which that make Gaming on Linux a breeze.

They have been a major driving force in making gaming a fun experience on the various Linux distributions, mostly thanks to their work on Steam OS, which is based on Arch Linux since the 3.0 release. (the webpage has not been updated)

Needless to say, they don't seem to be stopping anytime soon, as leaks suggest that they are working on bringing support for Arm-based devices to the Steam platform.

And, now, a recent announcement sees them going arms (no pun intended) open towards Arch Linux, extending well-deserved support in some key areas of distribution development 🥳

What's Happening: Valve has entered into a collaboration with Arch Linux to provide them support with two important projects: a build service infrastructure, and a secure signing enclave. The work will be done on a freelance basis, with the details surrounding the finances not being public.

However, I believe we can expect even tighter collaboration between Valve and Arch Linux developers going forward due to this arrangement.

Commenting on this exciting news, Project Leader at Arch Linux, Levente Polyak, added that:

This opportunity allows us to address some of the biggest outstanding challenges we have been facing for a while.

The collaboration will speed-up the progress that would otherwise take much longer for us to achieve, and will ultimately unblock us from finally pursuing some of our planned endeavors.

Polyak also shared that these projects will follow the usual development and collaborative workflows that Arch Linux has in place, with RFCs being created for major changes.

Moreover, activities like discussions, issue tracking, milestones, etc. will be handled on their GitLab instance.

What to Expect: On the end-user side, I would say more efficient delivery of Arch Linux upgrades. However, on the developer side of things, the build service infrastructure will ensure that they can easily maintain and automate a reliable network of packages for use in Arch Linux, resulting in fewer developmental overheads for them.

On the other hand, the secure signing enclave would ensure that the security of the software distributed to users is accounted for with the implementation of private keys to digitally sign packages for verifying authenticity. This ensures that the packages haven't been tampered with during transmission and storage.

Finally, it is great to see that Arch Linux maintainers will be getting the necessary support for carrying out such major tasks. We already know that many open-source maintainers go unpaid for their hard work, leading to maintainer burnout, feelings of disappointment, and whatnot.

Let's see what the future holds for this collaboration, as Valve does rely on Arch Linux quite a bit for powering their operating system.

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