It's exactly what it sounds like, but worse.
When opening Steam Link on a Quest 2 headset, it happily chirps along and connects to the PC without issue, but them instantaneously goes quiet and no audio from the host can be heard. It didn't just not broadcast audio from the host, but it completely nuked Pipewire and eliminated any hopes of playing audio from any output device whatsoever. No solution short of restarting the process/machine fixes it. In desktop GUI sound settings(non-steam), no audio I/O devices show up until restart. In VR settings, (SteamVR home), the spatial menu that lists audio input/output devices shows the default devices that would be in use in desktop mode, and when clicked the dropdown still lists 'vrserver' as an option, but when selected it doesn't do anything. No UI sounds magically start working, game audio doesn't play, no surprise. Clicking out and back to that menu shows default devices as in use again, even though from the host's perspective they don't work. The issue does not exist in other streamers like ALVR, so this is just involving steam link.
I have not verified if this happens to systems running Official SteamOS, Pulseaudio, or tethered HMDs, but I would be interested to know if it happens to those as well. Overall, I surmise this being a niche issue as I've found no other mention of it
Been using Arch Linux for gaming on a tower PC for over a year, and it worked great for most of that, but awhile ago when this started occurring, it was a tremendous letdown as Steam Link is much preferable to ALVR in terms of support for full body tracking. FBT use with Steam Link has the distinct advantage of direct integration that doesn't create 400ms of motion to photon latencies, which is nice for something like XR where comfort is a thing.
But back to the point, Steam Link for VR on Linux didn't work fully for me until late 2025, worked perfectly, had functional display and audio, flawlessly coexisting with full body tracking, and being fast and sharp, then like a month or two later going to nuking the Host PC's entire audio subsystems whenever a headset is connected, which makes lots of sad for the assuredly millions of Linux users out there who enjoy VR with FBT and prefer streaming to device with a 'just works' app.
Anyways thanks for supporting Linux in the first place! Steam Link's come a really long way in the journey to expand VR for the better! 9/10 would use 100% of the time if audio gets fixed.

Extra remarks: Things I like

    
• Loved using this in flat screen with iPhones/iPads as controllers, the gyro input was hard to figure out but eventually worked great
      
• Can't wait for the Steam Frame! Hope the dongle fixes everything streaming-related
      
• When it works, it works great! Link is really optimized and vertically-integrated, allowing for lower latencies and for VR specifically, not needing to use OSC for tracking, making it way more accurate and way less drifty

Extra remarks: Other small Issues

    
• In SteamVR spatial menu, clicking 'desktop' shows the desktop but only for the first time clicked in the session, leaving then trying to reopen will just leave blank space where the screen should be, DE: Cinnamon 6.6.7 (X11)
      
• Sometimes at random the spatial menu will go from the old steam interface to a new sort-of 'pacified' interface that only allows games to be launched and does not have a way to access the storefront nor mess with launch options, compatibility settings, or whatever else needs tinkered with and it requires using the desktop to actually access any of that. Oh yeah, and the pacified interface has zero option to access desktop in-headset
      
• Pretty much it, nothing else really to add!