Valve Enables CD Drive Support in Steam Frame Kernel After a Single Request

Valve has switched on optical drive support in the Steam Frame's Linux kernel, a day after one owner asked for it on the Steam Community forums. On October 18, user Aiodensghost posted that the Frame couldn't power their detachable disc drive and lacked the drivers to read a disc, which killed their plans to watch movies on the road and install the 2006 racing game Need for Speed Carbon from its disc. Valve developer Gabe Rowe replied on October 19 that the team would look into it, and apparently minutes later, a commit landed in a public mirror of the Frame's kernel sources. It adds CD drive support "for parity with steamdeck/machine."

Rowe enabled three existing options as loadable modules in the Frame's ARM64 kernel config: the generic CD-ROM layer, the SCSI CD-ROM driver that USB optical drives use, and generic SCSI device access. These drivers have been in Linux for decades, so nothing new had to be written. However, a commit isn't an update on your headset. The Frame runs on Valve's own downstream SteamOS kernel builds, and Valve hasn't said when this will reach owners. Power is still a problem too, since the 60 W USB-C hub the poster tried wasn't enough. The Frame is mainly built for streaming from a PC, but it can also play games standalone, so a directly connected drive makes the most sense there. Owners who paid $1,059 or more and want this today would likely have to build a custom kernel from the commit themselves.