Valve reveals its own Linux distro called SteamOS

Valve announced it will soon publish SteamOS, a new Linux distribution specifically designed for "living room gaming". The game publisher says this operating system turns your PC into a Steambox and hopes system integrators will pick it up to accelerate the move of the hardware industry to the living room.

SteamOS will be available free of charge, it's based on a stripped version of Debian and comes with built-in support for proprietary multimedia codecs, graphics card drivers, audio drivers, drivers for popular gaming peripherals, etc.

One of the interesting aspects of SteamOS is that it's not limited to Linux gaming, Valve touts you'll be able to play all your Windows and Mac games as well by streaming those games over your home network straight to your TV. Valve also added that we'll see AAA title games for SteamOS next year (perhaps the long-awaited Half Life 3?).

There's no word about the launch date of SteamOS though, nor did the company reveal details about the anticipated Steambox systems.