It's been a while so i suppose the distro's are more refined.
It's funny Steam OS was availabe to download day 1 in 2015. On the download page it encouraged one to build your own PC. Flying in the face of their partner's building pc's.
Also Valve undercut the partners again with the Steam Link. You really don't need to buy a pc just hook this box up and use your exsisting pc on any tv/monitor you want. LOL!!!
What a mess!!!
I tried it maybe not as soon as it came out, but before 2.0 was out, which didn't take long compared to the wait for 3. SO2, which the one the steam machines released with at the alleged launch. SO2 was rough and badly limited, but the basic concept worked. You could load it up on a pc and toss the keyboard and it really did feel like you were kind of making it into a console. It was all little things, but the overall console-izing effect was there.
The launch I don't see as a failure looking back. I don't consider that a normal launch as I think of it. It was almost a scam and misleading. They had been working on steam universe features and decided to throw it all in a box and see what happened? Or even better... *not* throwing it in a box and seeing what happens. Not that anyone really got ripped off. The alienware alpha and the zotac ones were available with windows. And if you bought the steam machine version, you can't feel burned by a bad os when you can just replace it. This is a whole nother topic though. I could go on too long about my little conspiracy theory.