July 19, 2026
Arch drama goes ARM-ageddon
Building an Arch Linux Aarch64 Port for Holo Core
Valve’s Linux makeover drops, and the comments instantly ask: wait, didn’t this already exist?
TLDR: Collabora and Valve released an early preview of Holo Core, a version of Arch Linux adapted for Steam Frame hardware. But the comments stole the spotlight, with readers questioning why Arch Linux ARM wasn’t mentioned and jokingly asking whether Steam Frame is even a real thing.
Valve partner Collabora just pulled back the curtain on Holo Core, a version of Arch Linux rebuilt for a different kind of chip, meant to help power the Steam Frame. In plain English: they’re trying to make Valve’s favorite Linux base work on new hardware, and they’ve posted preview packages, source code, and a developer container so people can start poking around. The actual engineering story is very serious — thousands of software packages, moving targets, and a lot of build-system headaches — but the comment section immediately did what comment sections do best: skip to the drama.
The biggest raised eyebrow came from users asking the obvious question: how is this different from Arch Linux ARM? One commenter sounded genuinely shocked that the article didn’t mention that existing project at all, turning a technical announcement into a mini "credit where credit’s due" debate. That was the hottest reaction by far: not “wow, amazing,” but “uh, are we pretending prior work doesn’t exist?”
Then came the comedy relief. Another commenter tossed in the beautifully dry, almost existential line: “Steam frame exists, right?” And honestly, that may be the perfect reaction to niche Valve hardware news. So while Collabora is wrestling with a giant software puzzle behind the scenes, the crowd is busy doing what the internet loves most: questioning the backstory, checking the receipts, and wondering whether the gadget at the center of it all is even real enough to argue about.
Key Points
- •Collabora and Valve are developing Holo Core, a pure aarch64 port of Arch Linux for Steam Frame.
- •The project has published preview artifacts including sources, binary packages, and a Docker development container.
- •The current release covers a subset of Arch Linux packages from a specific state repository snapshot, modified as needed for aarch64.
- •The effort focuses on both cross-architecture package building and creation of CI infrastructure for a distribution that lacks its own aarch64 CI pipeline.
- •Major technical challenges include reproducible CI builds, correcting package build order, handling rolling-release dependency changes, and managing SONAME transitions in critical libraries.