Valve and Collabora have introduced Holo Core, a custom aarch64 port of Arch Linux designed for the upcoming Steam Frame handheld device, addressing the lack of official aarch64 support in Arch Linux. The team developed a unique "build replay" system to construct a reproducible aarch64 environment, resolving complex dependency chains that arise due to Arch's rolling-release model. While Holo Core is currently a proof-of-concept focused on development needs, it aims to support a full rolling release in the future and is intended to facilitate native aarch64 compatibility for Steam Frame and potentially future SteamOS versions. The collaboration plans to open-source the tooling used, which could assist others in similar projects involving rolling-release distributions or reproducible builds
Valve and Collabora Release Holo Core, a Custom aarch64 Arch Linux Port for Steam Frame
Valve, alongside Collabora, has released Holo Core, a proof-of-concept aarch64 port of Arch Linux designed to power its upcoming Steam Frame handheld. Since Arch Linux lacks official aarch64 support, the team built custom CI tooling that replays the distribution's build history to resolve complex dependency chains and rolling-release hurdles from scratch. This engineering effort enables a native operating system foundation for the Frame's ARM64 silicon while tackling critical challenges like SONAME transitions and source availability decay over time. Collabora has made sources, binary packages, and build containers available for preview, with plans to collaborate on bringing official aarch64 support to upstream Arch Linux.
