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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

#201

Post by stephen_g »

kmm wrote: post #70
abrahamsen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the only reason: http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Linux-users-contribute-twice... Linux users seem (or seemed in 2010) to have money to burn on games (and charity).

I notice this too every time with the Humble Bundle. I mean, go to humblebundle.com right now and Linux wins again. Can anyone explain this?

I think it's likely that Linux users are more likely to respect product licensing. There is this general stigma that Linux users are cheap, but in reality I think cheapskates would just download a cracked version Windows.

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

#202

Post by avstraliitski »

Steam is notable to me as a rare DRM environment that gives something back. After witnessing numerous failed single-platform DRM schemes, and even working in the area for video on mobile, I bought a Mac last year, installed Steam, and was really amazed to have instant access to the portion of my existing games catalog that runs on OSX. Win. You can even back up save games to the cloud, which is useful when you are an occasional gamer like I suspect many of us are or are becoming.

What Steam doesn't do right: gifting (lots of people just never get them, in my experience), support for people in non-western places (I am in China and bought a game for which single player does not exist and ZERO playable servers exist (ping 250, anyone?); I asked to change it for another and received no response, not even an acknowledgement).

Despite the above issues they do remove barriers to product discovery, payment, update, and mobility (including across platforms). Adding Linux to their portfolio is a great way to leverage this strength to the benefit of both Steam and Linux.

It's about time. Go Valve!

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

#203

Post by martindale »

If I could get a dependable distro-managed version of Steam on Ubuntu, I would _certainly_ buy and play more games. I've stopped playing games (mostly) because I've switched to Linux as my primary desktop, and what I play is limited to my time (in general, and to fiddle with things to get them _working_ on Linux, e.g., EVE Online in Wine).

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

#204

Post by 10098 »

seclorum wrote: post #17

I really wish Valve would get behind the Open Pandora gaming console: http://openpandora.org/ Its a fantastic machine, with a great community, and an awesome technology for single-file game distribution, or PND-files (Pandora .pnd files are self-contained applications), along with a fantastic repository already in place: http://repo.openpandora.org/ With Valve behind them, the OpenPandora guys could really do somethi…

I actually really like how it looks.

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

#205

Post by ekianjo »

danssig wrote: post #158
b0rsuk wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm sorry but this post strikes me as fantasy. Your social circle must be vastly different from mine. No, you are not sorry. It's one of those phrases that, like "good game" has evolved to function as an insult. It's a flammable material warning sign. >What news is this? Photoshop is still on a complete other plane of existence and that gap gets further every year, not closer. The first 90% of GIMP has been ported t…

>No, you are not sorry. Actually I meant "I'm sorry" to the forum since the sentence was a bit direct. >The first 90% of GIMP has been ported to GEGL, the new core. Well, that's interesting. They continue to chase and that's good but Photoshop isn't staying still. By the time they get moved over to GEGL Photoshop will probably be on CS6 which is a whole new, improved interface. Adobe already has deblurring working in…

> They continue to chase and that's good but Photoshop isn't staying still. By the time they get moved over to GEGL Photoshop will probably be on CS6 which is a whole new, improved interface.

So what? GIMP is still an extremely powerful tool. I used to be a Photoshop proponent but once you realize how GIMP can easily be extended and tweaked it's a fantastic program. Its interface is not that horrible, by the way. First, it's better to use keyboard shortcuts for several tools, and second it's not because it's different from Photoshop it's necessarily bad. You need to work in a different way using GIMP, but you can get results just as good.

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

#206

Post by b0rsuk »

xsmasher wrote: post #130
b0rsuk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 predict a surge in Linux popularity once Steam is ported, bypassing OSX. Why bypassing OSX? And why would linux support cause a flood of Linux games when it hasn't worked for OSX?

My simpleton argument:

  1. Linux users are much nerdier.
  2. Nerds play more video games.
Some more speculations:

* Windows appeals to people who want to be in majority. This makes them feel comfortable. Of course, it has a stronghold in business world too.

* Mac devices are seen as status symbol. It's elegant, 'just works', 'stylish' 'gorgeous'. And they don't use it /despite/ highish cost - they use it in part /because/ it's expensive. You don't actually need to do anything with it, it's enough others see you have it.

* Linux appeals to people who like to brag how much they can do. Tweakers, tinkerers.

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

#207

Post by antihero »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #153
antihero wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why Steam couldn't be distributed as a .deb package (and put in the repos), much as is existing proprietary software. I mean it probably isn't going to happen for the games, but Steam is pretty decent at managing them anyway.

I'd actually rather keep apt-get out of my games installation process. Obviously it would make sense for steam to call apt-get etc to install core libraries required etc. I'd rather not have some sort of dependency jungle whereby I have my system dependencies overwritten by some steam specific version. The reason apt-get scares me for games is that it can sometimes get very carried away and start doing things like in…

Aye, and I wouldn't expect games companies to have the first clue about decent linux packaging. I say keep the games installed in Steam, but Steam installed with the package manager.

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

#208

Post by mdonahoe »

Splines wrote: post #127
patricklynch wrote: post #121

That would be cool. Video games are the only reason I even have a Windows partition.

Makes me wonder if this is too little, too late. Anyone who is an avid steam user already has a Windows partition for their games, and probably has a large library of games that will not work in Linux. It's great that Valve games will work on Linux, and it'll likely unify the Linux gaming experience, but Windows is the #1 OS for PC gaming and that isn't going to change anytime soon. Heck, look at OS X. They've been a…

I can spend the $200 I would have spend on a Windows license to buy more steam games instead.

A decent gaming desktop that runs OSX is too expensive.

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

#209

Post by sandGorgon »

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…

its not about irrelevant, its about changing mindsets and acceptance. If Steam can work out of statically compiled binaries, why not use it throughout ? (that's not a question, but a thought) Multimonitor support is VERY,VERY important for a gaming application. So is HDMI. Some games autoscale when they detect a HDMI connection - will you particular distro be able to do that ? If not, then I will switch to a distro that will.

The point is that there is nothing implicitly wrong with Linux as a technology - there is something lacking in individual distros who seem more fixated on IM frameworks than networking/sound/audio/peripherals. For Steam, these are paramount - and this will influence distros.

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

#210

Post by danssig »

jebblue wrote: post #170
danssig wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm still hoping some day someone will make a Linux Distro that uses OpenLDAP for configuration as much as possible instead of flat files scattered all over the system, all with different syntax.

LDAP is a PITA. Flat files usually have three things to remember: # is a comment key value That's the format of most config files I see.

Over the last few weeks I've been setting up a personal linux server. Every single process I add has a different configuration. Systems like Postfix have nice things like "this combination of variable settings produces this behavior, but if you change one yes to a no you get something totally different".
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