About a month ago I had talked about a portable Linux distro that gives a SteamOS 3-like experience: winesapOS. Well, as is the traditional case with open-source forks in the Linux landscape of things, we’ve got another one: HoloISO. I’d still recommend the former over the latter, as winesapOS can be used on any device without installing, and comes with a bunch of extra gaming-related packages, but if you’re looking for something a little more minimal, you might want to give HoloISO a try.

Per the GitHub’s README, the project “attempts to bring Steam Deck’s Holo OS into a generic, installable format!” The first beta went out a little less than 24 hours ago (you can also build the ISO from source). Simply download the ISO, flash the image to a USB stick, boot to said device on your computer, connect to the Internet with iwctl if you’re using Wi-Fi, run holoinstall, select the partition/disk to install to, and let the installation do its’ thing. Keep in mind your device needs to be using an AMD GPU, with UEFI enabled and secure boot disabled. The flash drive needs to be at least 4 GB.

I tried to install it on my GPD Win 3, but you know all things Intel; the installation went through but for the life of me I couldn’t get the display to work in landscape mode. Might be worth a shot though if you have a Aya Neo or Onexplayer that has an AMD APU.

Cover image credit: HoloISO GitHub