SteamOS Beta is here for those who dare to try it

Valve has made its upcoming operating system, SteamOS, available to the public with a public beta. The SteamOS will eventually grace future Steam Machines that Valve has announced to be coming out later this year.

If you're already itching to get your hands on the download and getting ready to format that hard drive, just take a breather and read over the official FAQ first. Here you can get all the info you need about what SteamOS actually is, its functionality and what you should be expecting out of it in its current state.

If you feel like you know everything there is to know about SteamOS and you feel comfortable with beta testing it, you can get the appropriate files right here. Then follow these directions:

There are two different install methods for SteamOS. '''WARNING: BOTH METHODS WILL ERASE EVERYTHING ON THE MACHINE'''

The easiest method is an image-based install using CloneZilla. You will need to create a SteamOS System Restore USB stick to perform this install. The image provided here requires at least a 1TB disk.

• Format a 4GB or larger USB stick with the FAT32 filesystem. Use "SYSRESTORE" as the partition name
• Unzip the contents of SteamOSInstaller.zip to this USB stick to create the System Restore USB stick
• Put the System Restore USB stick in your target machine. Boot your machine and tell the BIOS to boot off the stick. (usually something like F8, F11 or F12 will bring up the BIOS boot menu).
• Make sure you select the UEFI entry, it may look something like "UEFI: Patriot Memory PMAP"
• Select "Restore Entire Disk" from the GRUB menu.
• System Restore will proceed automatically. When it is complete it will shutdown and you can reboot into your freshly re-imaged SteamOS

The second method is based on the Debian Installer. It requires multiple configuration steps:

• Unzip the SteamOSInstaller.zip file to a blank, FAT32-formatted USB stick (MBR, not GPT).
• Put the USB stick in your target machine. Boot your machine and tell the BIOS to boot off the stick. (usually something like F8, F11, or F12 will bring up the BIOS boot menu).
• Make sure you select the UEFI entry, it may look something like "UEFI: Patriot Memory PMAP"
• Pick "Automated Install" from the next menu.
• The rest of the installation is unattended and will repartition the drive and install SteamOS.
• After installation is complete, log onto the resulting system (using the Gnome session) with the predefined "steam" account. The password is "steam". Run steam, accept the EULA, and let it bootstrap. Logoff the steam account
• Log on with the "desktop" account. The password is "desktop"
• From a terminal window, run ~/post_logon.sh. This will prompt for a password – enter "desktop". This script will perform the post-install customizations, delete itself, then reboot into the recovery partition capture utility.
• Confirm "y" to continue and the recovery partition will be created. When it is finished, reboot into your freshly installed SteamOS

Remember, SteamOS isn't designed, or at least not right now, to replace your Windows OS, as many games in your Library probably aren't supported with Linux.