# Steam SteamOS 3.9.0 Preview

- Product: Steam (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/steam)
- Vendor: Valve
- Date: 2026-08-29
- Original notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675200/view/689767056035283412
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/steam/releases/2026-08-29-steamos-3.9.0-preview
- Labels: Platforms: Desktop

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

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- **changed** — Updated Arch Linux base
- **changed** — Updated Desktop Mode from Plasma 6.4.3 to Plasma 6.7.3
- **changed** — Updated bootloader to improve compatibility with certain motherboards
- **changed** — Switched WiFi backend to wpa_supplicant by default for new installations to improve compatibility with various WiFi networks
- **added** — Enhanced wpa_supplicant to support fast WiFi reconnect on resume from sleep
- **changed** — Linux kernel rebased on Linux 7.2
- **added** — Added preliminary support for hibernation
- **changed** — Enhanced Linux kernel hibernation support to enable interrupting hibernate requests and fixed various driver issues
- **changed** — Desktop Mode lockscreen is no longer prevented from being explicitly enabled in settings
- **changed** — Various scripts and packages renamed from steamos- to holo- with aliases to the former names
- **changed** — Improved support for running SteamOS as a VM guest with accelerated graphics

Note: This update is for the Steam Deck Preview channel, and includes new features that are still being tested. You can opt into this in Settings > System > System Update Channel.

**Note on Preview Releases**

This is an early Preview build of SteamOS 3.9, and may contain unexpected bugs or stability issues.  If you encounter problems, please consider filing a bug on the [SteamOS issue tracker](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues).

The following notes are an overview, and may not include all changes since the previous SteamOS 3.8 Stable Release.

**General**

- Updated Arch Linux base

- Updated Desktop Mode from Plasma 6.4.3 to Plasma 6.7.3

- For more information, see
[https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.7.0/](https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.7.0/)
[https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.6.0/](https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.6.0/)
[https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.5.0/](https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.5.0/)

**Misc**

- Updated the bootloader to improve compatibility with certain motherboards

- The Desktop Mode lockscreen is no longer prevented from being explicitly enabled in settings (but remains off by default)

**Developer**

- Switched WiFi backend to wpa_supplicant by default for new installations, improving compatibility with various WiFi networks

- Enhanced wpa_supplicant to support fast WiFi reconnect on resume from sleep, previously only available in the iwd backend

- Known issue: Existing installations will continue to use iwd unless manually enabled in Developer Settings

- Linux kernel rebased on Linux 7.2

- Added preliminary support for hibernation, not yet exposed in Game Mode UI

- Enhanced Linux kernel hibernation support to enable interrupting hibernate requests and fixed various driver issues

- Various scripts and packages have been renamed from `steamos-` to `holo-`, with aliases to the former names where appropriate

- Improved support for running SteamOS as a VM guest with accelerated graphics (virtio-gpu, venus)