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Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

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Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#91

Post by idleloops »

soc88 wrote: post #59
idleloops wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As well as: * Poor web browser (not an issue now) * Poor flash support (better than it has been) * No Microsoft Office (partially surmountable) * Video and sound configuration issues (sound is still hit and miss for me) * Inconsistent desktop UIs and administration tools * Lack of simple point and click system control panel And that you couldn't easily find consumer hardware pre-installed with a Linux desktop (which…

About which year are you speaking exactly? 2005?

* Inconsistent desktop UIs and administration tools

This one is just the nature of the beast of having disparate distributions.

But the others hold true. There is progress don't get me wrong, but these are issues none the less.

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#92

Post by [deleted] »

qxcv wrote: post #11

Looks like this is going to be reality, Phoronix just published the promised article[0] which basically claims that Valve have ported L4D/Source over to Linux already! Exciting news indeed, AAA-titles for Linux could turn the desktop OS market upside down. [0]: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve...

[deleted]

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#93

Post by libraryatnight »

danssig wrote: post #33
qxcv wrote: post #11

Looks like this is going to be reality, Phoronix just published the promised article[0] which basically claims that Valve have ported L4D/Source over to Linux already! Exciting news indeed, AAA-titles for Linux could turn the desktop OS market upside down. [0]: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve...

That is interesting news, but turn the OS market upside down? You can't be serious.

Games are what keep me from using Linux exclusively, I can't be the only one. It would probably make a huge difference.

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#94

Post by danssig »

sandGorgon wrote: post #48
danssig wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting news, but turn the OS market upside down? You can't be serious.

yes it will - Steam is a juggernaut which will trigger purchase/usage decisions. Creators of libraries and frameworks will have to comply with the standards that Valve will come up with (and come up they will). For example what audio framework will your distro use - Jack? OSS? Pulseaudio? They will have to use what Valve wants you to use, if you want to play their games. Multimonitor support ? HDMI? use the toolkits…

What you're talking about is the Linux desktop world and you could be right about that; maybe it will finally become more standardized but I don't see mainstream desktop markets really noticing. Linux desktop is, what, maybe 1.5% or so? This won't be the magic ingredient that suddenly makes them take over the desktop.

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#95

Post by jamesgeck0 »

lgeek wrote: post #86
sandGorgon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes it will - Steam is a juggernaut which will trigger purchase/usage decisions. Creators of libraries and frameworks will have to comply with the standards that Valve will come up with (and come up they will). For example what audio framework will your distro use - Jack? OSS? Pulseaudio? They will have to use what Valve wants you to use, if you want to play their games. Multimonitor support ? HDMI? use the toolkits…

Audio: ALSA would cover basically all distributions. Pulseaudio is used or available for all recent releases. Plus, OSS, ALSA and Pulseaudio aren't exclusive. You can have all of them available at the same time. Multimonitor support and HDMI have absolutely nothing to have with applications. Packing format (for Steam) is irrelevant when you're just distributing statically compiled binaries. And the games themselves w…

Doesn't ALSA have some pretty big limitations?

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#96

Post by mattbriggs »

b0rsuk wrote: post #47
danssig wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting news, but turn the OS market upside down? You can't be serious.

"I would use Linux only, but I like game X and Y." is incredibly common attitude among people who use dual boot. I'm not making this up, the phrase pops up very often on various forums, especially in context of linux ports for newly announced games. You don't see many complaints about GIMP being inadequate (and with the recent news that will be the end of GIMP complaints), or OpenOffice/LibreOffice incompatibility. Y…

I hate both the gimp and libre office, and would gladly pay for alternatives available on other platforms if I didn't have to use them, even though both are free.

At least with the majority of what I use, Linux software in a general way is still pretty far off from the competition.

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#97

Post by hcho »

w0utert wrote: post #74
bad_user wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it has the potential. It always had. Android already turned the mobile market upside-down. The advantage of Linux is that you can take the pieces that suit your needs, replace the others with your own modules and presto, you've got an OS. Then you can build the hardware for it and bam, you've got a killer machine meant for consumers. Android may be a bad example here, but think of Tivo. Think about it, sudden…

> I think it has the potential. It always had. Android already turned the mobile market upside-down. In what way did Android 'turn the mobile market upside-down'? The mobile market turned itself upside-down, and Android was just one of the players, along with (in historical order) Symbian, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, iOS, and as one of the last to arrive on the scene, Android. Not to start a mobile OS flamewar or any…

I can walk into a phone shop and buy a contract-free, sim-free smartphone for £50. Sure, it's low end but it is a smartphone. It looks pretty upside-down to me.

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#98

Post by danssig »

b0rsuk wrote: post #47
danssig wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting news, but turn the OS market upside down? You can't be serious.

"I would use Linux only, but I like game X and Y." is incredibly common attitude among people who use dual boot. I'm not making this up, the phrase pops up very often on various forums, especially in context of linux ports for newly announced games. You don't see many complaints about GIMP being inadequate (and with the recent news that will be the end of GIMP complaints), or OpenOffice/LibreOffice incompatibility. Y…

I'm sorry but this post strikes me as fantasy. Your social circle must be vastly different from mine.

>and with the recent news that will be the end of GIMP complaints

What news is this? Photoshop is still on a complete other plane of existence and that gap gets further every year, not closer. If you're playing with cat pictures then GIMP is probably ok, but if you're a professional who's livelihood depends on your photo editing software GIMP just doesn't cut it.

>or OpenOffice/LibreOffice incompatibility

Yep, your circle has nothing in common with mine. I haven't talked to anyone in years who took Open/Libre Office seriously.

>Gaming is really the last bastion of Windows.

Haha, no. Not at all. I think you're confused about where people actually stand. All windows users are not sitting in their desks in distress dreaming of the day that they can finally drop windows and switch to Linux. Many of them like it. Linux having clunky but functional copies of everything Windows has doesn't mean everyone is going to switch. It just means the small percentage of people who do want to switch are finally to the point where Mac OSX was years ago.

>I predict a surge in Linux popularity once Steam is ported, bypassing OSX.

Haha! Steam is going to do this? You know Steam is already on OSX right? Why would Linux finally having a capability that everyone else has had for years cause Linux to surpass Mac OSX?

I'm the only person I talk to on a regular basis who has linux at all and I would never consider using it as a primary desktop. I switched to Mac so I could get all the command line goodness, first/second class citizen status for the development tools I want to use and ease of administration. Linux is the most powerful of the main three OSes but it also requires the most administration if you're doing much with it.

And finally, you're making a bizarre assumption that all that's holding back "the year of the Linux desktop" is games. Do you actually know why Mac OSX finally started gaining market share? It was because Mac is the only place you can develop apps for the App store. What do I have to have linux for? Nothing.

>Really, there are many people who want to use Linux but hold out because of games.

Yes. Many as in hundreds, maybe thousands...

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#99

Post by vibrunazo »

I would be really excited by this news 3 our so years ago.

But it's to late now. Valve missed their chance. Gaming is moving away from desktop. In fact, while gaming is increasing extremely fast overall, desktop is actually setting decrease on revenue. It's the worst time to invest in it.

It won't help valve, and it won't help us Linux gamers. Game studios won't suddenly go back to support dying desktop only because steam now has a Linux client. So the store will be empty.

This is also a move aiming towards the new steam box. But that's also a bad move. Console is the second worse gaming platform now, after desktop. It's days are also numbered. While I love Valve, gaming and Linux. These won't work well together anytime soon.

The good news for us Linux gamers is that browser and mobile are on an absurd.fast rise. While we still don't see many AAA titles on the browser, that's much closer to reality than AAA titles on steam for Linux. At the end of the day, w don't need steam for Linux. Gaming in general is moving in our direction. The quality of games in our browser and our phones (the future consoles) are close to make desktop irrelevant.

edit: here's some stats that both console and PC game markets are decreasing. From EA's sec filing:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/712515/00011931251118...

I didn't really thought of putting it because I thought this was ubiquitous knowledge everyone would agree with. But maybe that's just because I'm in the industry and always looking for market numbers every month.

The industry is moving away from these formats and moving towards mobile. The remaining anecdotes are just a consequence of old incumbents having a hard time adapting. The next dominant gaming consoles will be running Android and iOS. Simply because of the huge size of the app stores and user base.

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#100

Post by jamesgeck0 »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #54
exDM69 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OSS is dead for five years or more. OSS on Linux may be dead but OSS is still the API on other free unixes like *BSD's and the API has been developed forwards. > If you have a SDL+ALSA game you will see exactly zero problems and that's what everybody does. With SDL, you're stuck with the lowest common denominator of all audio API's. I've had more than my share of problems when doing audio with SDL. If you want 3d a…

If I'm offered a proprietary technology and an open one, I'll pick the latter 1000 times of 1000. You'll find no sympathy for D3D in me. It's a 3D technology second, a monopoly tool first (as almost everything MS ever did).

Ok, that's your choice. But that's not very useful for game developers. The open technology stays inferior to the closed one, and the closed technology stays extremely popular because it's easier to work with.
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