Valve pushed SteamOS 3.9 to the stable channel this week, making changes accumulated during the testing phase available to all users. The first stable release in the 3.9 series is 3.9.5, which replaces SteamOS 3.8 and expands hardware and game compatibility support for various devices.
SteamOS 3.9.5 adopts an updated Arch Linux base, with the kernel upgraded to Linux 7.2 and the desktop environment updated from KDE Plasma 6.4.3 to 6.7.3. The default Wi-Fi backend has been switched to wpa_supplicant to improve network compatibility and reconnection performance after sleep; adjustments have also been made to the bootloader and virtual machine support using virtio-gpu and Venus accelerated graphics.
In terms of hardware compatibility, Legion Go 2 adds initial brightness control and fixes crashes when launching Forza Horizon 6. The Intel Panther Lake platform includes compatibility fixes for Elden Ring and Dark Souls III. The update also resolves suspend and resume issues on devices with AMD RDNA 1 and RDNA 2 discrete GPUs, as well as excessive fan speeds after waking on some ASUS devices.
Steam Machine and Steam Frame received fixes for wireless adapters and VR frame rate limits, along with adjustments to Steam Remote Play when starting without an external monitor. Initial suspend support has been added to the kernel, though this feature is not yet enabled in Game Mode; Steam Deck continues to have suspend disabled due to unresolved driver issues.
Previously in the 3.9.5 beta, optimizations for Steam Deck idle power consumption, security and stability updates, and the restoration of Android Binder IPC support were included. Now available to all users via the stable channel.