I think 2026 will be an interesting year in the Linux world. Valve will start selling the Steam Machine and the Steam Frame, two very interesting devices aimed squarely at the gaming world. The Frame will be a virtual reality headset that will allow you to play VR games or display a huge screen in front of you. Its architecture will be ARM, and for that reason, I thought it would be a good idea to start this article talking about them, even though the main focus of the content is an ARM snap of the steam client.
Valve offers an official client for Linux, but not entirely. For example, Ubuntu uses Valve's version, but Canonical maintains the package in its official repositories. Furthermore, there are unofficial packages available on Flathub and Snapcraft, and the official client is already available in Canonical's store. ARM version from Steam. Does this make sense if almost all Steam games are for x86_64?
Steam's ARM snap uses FEX
Steam's ARM snap includes the FEX emulatorA program that allows you to run x86 applications on ARM64 devices. It's the same emulator that Steam Frame will rely on. Currently, the snap is in the testing phase and can be installed by running the command sudo snap install steam –candidate on a device with ARM architecture.
Regarding performance, a Canonical developer tested the snap on a system with NVIDIA DGX Spark and achieved over 200fps in Cyberpunk 2077, but with DLSS enabled and using Proton. Based on their comments, we understand that performance won't be an issue, provided the hardware is capable. However, most ARM systems are somewhat less powerful.
This move can't be a coincidence. It seems Canonical wanted to make its move at the right moment, at the beginning of 2026, a year that could change the gaming landscape.