Collabora has unveiled a preview of Holo Core, an AArch64 port of Arch Linux for Valve’s Steam Frame, giving developers early access while preparing the work for upstream contribution to Arch Linux.
Collabora has announced a preview of Holo Core, an AArch64 (ARM64) port of Arch Linux for Valve’s Steam Frame, marking a significant step towards expanding open-source support for ARM-based gaming hardware. The preview includes prepared binaries, source code and development containers, allowing developers and the wider community to experiment with Arch Linux on AArch64.
The effort is notable because Arch Linux does not officially support the AArch64 architecture. Valve’s SteamOS is based on a snapshot of Arch Linux with additional Valve patches, making the ARM port considerably more involved than a straightforward rebuild.
For now, Collabora is focusing on delivering the packages needed for Steam Frame development and image creation rather than recreating the entire Arch Linux repository. Even this reduced scope encompasses several thousand packages once runtime and build dependencies are included.
Explaining the project’s current stage, Collabora said: “At this stage, we have not rebuilt the entire world (all the packages available in the Arch Linux repositories). Our initial goal is to provide the set of packages required for development and image creation for the Steam Frame. Even when limiting ourselves to this subset of Arch Linux packages, including these packages along with their runtime and build dependencies still results in several thousand packages.
The idea behind this port is much more complex than simply recompiling and installing selected packages for the aarch64 architecture. We are trying to solve two main problems:”
Looking ahead, Collabora plans to open the project further and contribute the work upstream to Arch Linux, benefiting the broader open-source community. The announcement also follows recent SteamVR UI updates, signalling continued progress towards Valve’s Steam Frame ecosystem.
