[Sangman]

I agree with Kathy actually, while SteamOS does have a purpose I'm sure, I don't see much sense in using it as your "main" desktop OS. Explanation was already given:

Quote

it is designed for the sole purpose of video gaming.

Dunno about you but I do more stuff on my desktop than just gaming (and I'm not a big Linux fan anyway )

[neoacix]

Because SteamOS is based on Debian and a such opensource, you can modify it like you want.
You can add repositories to the package manager apt and download all the software you need for desktop computing.
If your good in Linux, you could even change the whole Desktop-UI (eg KDE rather the Gnome).

Otherwise you can just take a distro of your choice and install the Steam client for Linux.

So... I think the big advantage of SteamOS is, that the hardware and software companies now have one big reason more to develop things for Linux and that's a big plus in my opinion.
A lot of things that will be developed for SteamOS will spread out in the other distros, as kernel drivers, bugfixes and software updates.
And there will be a lot more software for Linux in general.

And the main reason why this are good news are:

* more plattform independend software in general
* less focus on hostile things like DirectX and Windows-Store...
* more freedom in software general

Actually the only reason why I still use Windows 7 is the software and some hardware support, which is currently not available on Linux and I hope SteamOS will take a huge part to change this.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Linux fanboy (I would prefer Haiku as my favorite OS, but it's not finished yet) and there are a lot of things Windows does better then Linux atm.
But in general, in Linux I could decide how my PC should look and work like and if I want, I can change almost anything.
With windows, I can't.

So I think SteamOS is a good thing, even If I would propably never use it.