Valve's own guide says Steam Frame adapter streaming is Windows only for now
Valve's Steam Frame support guide says that "Full support for SteamVR and Steam Frame streaming via the wireless adapter are currently available on Windows only". It also says that "SteamVR on Steam Machine and desktop Linux isn't fully supported at this time", which places anyone who bought a Steam Machine to stream VR to a Frame outside what Valve currently supports.
Steam Machine seen from the side, with the two USB ports, the card slot and the power button set into the strip along its base. Image: Valve
The guide carries no publication or revision date, so there is no way to say when Valve wrote any of it. The wording above was read at 14:42 UTC on October 1.
What Valve says a Linux PC needs
The guide gives two hard requirements for the dongle: "Once Steam Frame ships, if you're using the wireless dongle with a Linux PC, you'll also need SteamOS 3.9+, or Linux kernel 7.2+."
SteamOS 3.9 is not finished. Valve's newest release in that line is SteamOS 3.9.2 Beta, published on September 25, and its own notes say it is for the SteamOS Beta and Preview channels and that it covers everything changed since "the current stable SteamOS 3.8 release". Meeting Valve's stated requirement on a Steam Machine therefore means opting into a beta channel, or running a kernel most distributions have not shipped yet.
For testing from a Steam Machine in its current state, Valve recommends "using Steam in Desktop Mode, opting into the SteamVR Beta, and launching SteamVR manually before starting a VR game". That manual launch has already been confirmed as necessary on Linux in a reply on Valve's own tracker.
The reports line up with the requirements
An information request titled "Steam Frame Linux support" was opened on Valve's SteamVR-for-Linux tracker on September 15. It had 24 comments from 15 accounts when it was read at 14:41 UTC on October 1, and what owners describe maps onto the guide almost point for point.
One owner on October 1 could not get the dongle to connect to the headset at all under Linux Mint and put that down to a 7.0 kernel; on a 7.2.6 kernel the same person reports the adapter connecting. Another, on September 30, described Half-Life: Alyx locking up with a SteamVR runtime failure and a timeout waiting for Mongoose unless SteamVR was entered first, and wrote that it "still feels like a workaround" for what is effectively a launch title. Two owners running CachyOS report PC VR working over the adapter, one of them saying it was recognised out of the box with no manual driver install, once a firewall rule that had been blocking the headset was out of the way.
What this means if you own a Steam Machine
Valve has pitched its console and its headset as a pair, and in September the company confirmed Steam Machine could not yet stream VR games to a Steam Frame. The support guide now puts the same limitation in Valve's own support material rather than in a tracker reply, and extends it to desktop Linux and to the wireless adapter itself.
Valve does say the position is temporary: "We'll be working on expanded support following the launch of the Steam Frame." That sentence comes with no date, no release number and no list of what expanded support will cover. Until it arrives, the configuration Valve describes as fully supported for adapter streaming is a Windows PC.
