In short, as a normal user, this isn't anything to be keeping an eye on at all.

Unless you want to stream your PC games and media to your TV, and use the Steam controller. It seems like a perfectly legitimate alternative to PS4 or XBox to me. Perhaps in a couple of years we can play Crysis 4 from the couch on a cheap SteamPad through LAN streaming.

The Steam streaming forums have a lot of people loving it, their whole Steam library playable on their TV with the Steam-controller over WiFi.

Except you can do that without SteamOS, thats a separate feature, Steam Big Picture.

Yes, Linux sitting at 1.2% of users on the Steam Hardware Survey isn't looking all that hot. Especially since I'm not seeing numbers on total users polled.

Those are prerelease numbers!

No SteamBox nor lots of AAA games for now. This will change in autumn and I can't be happier to finally, finally say goodbye to proprietary OS. For me they are all obsolete.

They are prerelease numbers. However it is still a chicken and egg thing, but even if steambox numbers look great on roll out they are at an extreme risk of nosediving into oblivion if developers don't back it and provide product.

I run half a dozen machines with Linux currently, however none of them are my game rig. Why? Because there are so few games I like on them that it is just easier to play on my windows box. (Which I need for Adobe products.)

I run on Ubuntu with Wine 1.4 all my windows stuff from Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash to Rage perfectly. Even a backup is as simple as making a copy of the hidden .wine in your home.

But true, I only have Metro Last Light, wich is a great game indeed. Even more fun than Rage. Well apart X-Plane, but that's not a game for me.

I'm confident that SteamBoxes should sell as well as x-box or ps4, if at least a few AAA titles will arrive in autumn.

I've tried running things under Wine in the past, but I always kept running into random edge cases or stuff that was known to simply not work well under it. Plus some of the things I ran under it didn't perform as well as stuff that I ran natively in windows. While I would like to have time to mess around with things I simply don't want the hassle.

A copy of windows is cheap, the cost of puttering around and getting software running reliably in an OS they don't support isn't. I rather spend my time working on projects and expecting my software to work well rather than wondering whether or not I'm possibly about to lose a ton of work due to some random corruption or bug due to an unsupported OS.

I've tried running things under Wine in the past, but I always kept running into random edge cases or stuff that was known to simply not work well under it. Plus some of the things I ran under it didn't perform as well as stuff that I ran natively in windows. While I would like to have time to mess around with things I simply don't want the hassle.

A copy of windows is cheap, the cost of puttering around and getting software running reliably in an OS they don't support isn't. I rather spend my time working on projects and expecting my software to work well rather than wondering whether or not I'm possibly about to lose a ton of work due to some random corruption or bug due to an unsupported OS.

Agreed, Wine is good for running legacy windows applications or games (better than new versions of Windows even) but its not really suitable as a replacement for Windows and probably never will be (Windows is a moving target), if you are migrating and only have a few old applications holding you back Wine is a great solution but for new applications you should pick a OS that is supported by those applications.

A copy of windows is cheap, the cost of puttering around and getting software running reliably in an OS they don't support isn't

I first came to Suse when I lost all data back on Windows 98 and I definitely didn't stick to Linux only because it's free.

I use Photoshop 7 everyday on Wine without one single crash, since about 7 years. (and without reinstallation while changing Windows versions)

I only remember once to use Dreamweaver on Vista, as I needed a font not available on Ubuntu. But I don't use often Dreamweaver nor Flash.

I don't own or want to use a copy of photoshop that is over a decade old. CS6 only has a silver rating on WineHQ, and

What works
Almost every thing (including timeline and animation)

What does not
there is still a problem with the mouse holding, sometimes you can hold the mouse down to draw, other times just can't...

Doesn't sound exactly promising to me. Especially when my copy of windows is working just fine.

Only a handful of their product have a gold or better rating, while many have a garbage rating. If I have to run windows for a handful of the apps in my CC license, then what is the point of trying to use Linux as a main OS (when it offers no real advantages over Windows for me) on a system?

No benefit over custom pc desktop setups, yet, not competing with console setups either. Valve has their game store, yet they want to make this store selling games for a platform nobody has yet. Interesting, who is gonna feed this store? What user is gonna switch from pc to steamos, in case big shot game is not available...

Is Steam OS even competing with desktop or laptop PC's?

My recollection (and it could very well be wrong) was that this was more of console set up - competing with the Playstations and Xbox's more than gaming PC's.

Unless you want to stream your PC games and media to your TV, and use the Steam controller. It seems like a perfectly legitimate alternative to PS4 or XBox to me. Perhaps in a couple of years we can play Crysis 4 from the couch on a cheap SteamPad through LAN streaming.
The Steam streaming forums have a lot of people loving it, their whole Steam library playable on their TV with the Steam-controller over WiFi.

Except you can do that without SteamOS, thats a separate feature, Steam Big Picture.

You're almost right, but you're thinking of Steam In Home Streaming.

There are actually a bunch of separate-but-related technologies with Steam at the moment.

SteamOS: basically Steam on linux packaged up conveniently.
Steam Machines: a bunch of high end HTPCs with Steam branding and SteamOS preloaded.
Steam Big Picture: The large screen UI for Steam.
Steam In Home Streaming: The ability to stream games from your gaming pc to another pc over a lan.

Essentially where I see SteamOS making sense is combined with In Home Streaming.

I have my gaming pc. It's a big powerful desktop with lots of cpu and gpu horsepower. I don't give a rats arse about linux or people adopting it, and the games are on Windows, so it's a Windows machine. (I also work on it, so Linux is out of the question). I'm not interested in splitting my computing budget between that and another machine, so there's no way I'm spending $$$ on a Steam Machine.

But buying something small and cheap like an Intel NUC? Yeah, that I can do, and if I'm trying to keep costs down, then saving a windows licence is a bonus. So now I can play low requirement indie games on my TV. Sweet, but I kinda want to play Arkham Knight on my TV instead of my PC. In Home Streaming to the rescue.

I can now play non-linux AAA games on my TV for significantly less than the cost of an XBone/PS4, and not only that, they will look better (none of this 900p bullshit), and I still have my gaming PC for non-controller based games or when my wife kicks me off the TV
It's win all round.

edit: I have no idea if the market for this is big enough to justify Valves decisions, but it works for me, so I'm glad they did it. Plus, everyone laughed at them when they launched Steam....