Valve's SteamOS beta just got a lot more powerful and useful, thanks to a significant beta update that brought support for somewhat necessary features.

When Valve released SteamOS beta in December, it warned that only experienced Linux users should try it. The company certainly wasn't kidding. The original beta launched without support for Nvidia graphics cards, dual-booting and partitioning features and it required a PC with UEFI. There was no support for BIOS.

Valve has issued updates over the last two months though, including support for Intel, AMD and Nvidia graphics. And now, with Valve's latest update, SteamOS has three more desired features: support for BIOS-based PCs, dual-booting, and custom partitioning.

The new update, developed by Valve from community sourced feedback, also includes support for recovery and DVD install. All of these features help make the SteamOS beta a little more practical for non-Linux experts, though it still has a long way to go before it's available to just anybody.

READ: Valve's SteamOS download to arrive on 13 December

If you're like most people who just want to avoid SteamOS altogether until it's out of beta and complete, you might only have to wait a few months or so. After all, some PC companies have already announced plans to release Steam Machines with SteamOS in 2014.