To quickly explain, both Chrome and Chrome OS offer multiple update “channels,” which allow you to make the tradeoff of less stability for faster access to new features. Update to Developer channelįor the time being, the Steam Alpha is only available through the “Dev” channel of Chrome OS. Backing up your most important files - either to another device or to Google Drive - is also just good practice, in general. Speaking from experience, some of the settings you’ll need to change could potentially cause your Chromebook to be unusable, requiring a full reset. Article taken from very first thing you should do before getting started with Steam on Chrome OS is back up your Chromebook’s files.

You can see the list of issues, some tested games and instructions on their 'Steam on Chrome OS Alpha' website. There's a number of issues to begin with like anti-cheat not working with Proton games (even those with it turned on for Linux), Windows games using DirectX 12 don't start and more. Starting with Chrome OS version 14583.0.0 which is in the 'Dev' channel, here's what Chromebooks are currently supported for it (as long as they don't have an i3 CPU or less than 8GB RAM): Although, you do need to enable Steam Play manually (same as on a normal Linux desktop). Chrome OS is powered by Linux, and the Steam client on Chrome OS is the Linux version inside their special container - it works for both native Linux games and Windows games run with Steam Play Proton. Not only will this help those using Chromebooks do some gaming but Linux gaming as a whole too. Now though it's here at an 'alpha-quality' level, meaning prepare for bugs and other weirdness.

For real this time, they've actually released it, unlike when they claimed it was released during their recent developer event.

Steam chrome os