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Valve hired their first wave of Linux developers, hiring more

phoronix.com

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Re: Valve hired their first wave of Linux developers, hiring more

#51

Post by JDShu »

shinratdr wrote: post #50

So that thing that this very same site has insisted is in full development and is near ready to go... is going through a hiring round for devs to build the thing? Right. I'm so sick of these articles. Ever since the Mac version came out this site and other Linux focused blogs have insisted Steam for Linux is minutes away. Every single time they've been proven wrong or miss their timeframe. It probably is being built,…

Phoronix seems to be playing a kind of Pascal's wager here. There is no way that it can be definitively proven that Steam will never arrive for the Linux desktop, but if it does then they can feel smug satisfaction that they knew all along and nobody believed them.

Re: Valve hired their first wave of Linux developers, hiring more

#52

Post by Kerrick »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #27
twog wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A perfect example are front-end developers. It can be tough for anyone to make a living in that line of work without being able to edit/open photoshop and illustrated without having to configure wine. I truly believe Adobe holding back their products is one of the largest roadblocks linux has to get widespread adoption amongst the design/developer community.

I'd be surprised if Adobe isn't at least looking into this, especially considering their sometimes sour relationship without Apple. A lot of the more "arty" people I know would consider giving them a Windows computer to use as a personal insult and would probably be more open to switching to Linux than Windows. Getting arty people to use desktop Linux could be a huge net positive if they decide to help "pretty" the p…

It's certainly nice when UI/UX people run GNU/Linux distributions. Daniel Foré is in charge of Elementary OS [1]. Because he's a designer, the project already has a proper set of Human Interface Guidelines [2], a set of uniquely designed (and easy to use) core applications [3], and a beautifully coherent look to the entire OS and website.

[1]: http://elementaryos.org/ [2]: http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines [3]: http://elementaryos.org/discover

Re: Valve hired their first wave of Linux developers, hiring more

#53

Post by hammersend »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #21
prezjordan wrote: post #8

Sort of off-topic, is there a reason Steam on windows is so unresponsive? Mac, too, but I think that's because it's a port. It seems to me that Steam is not written in native windows code and that's why it runs so sluggishly. Some say they have no idea what I'm talking about, while others agree. What does HN think?

Steam works beautifully under Wine on my Ubuntu laptop (A Thinkpad T420).

I've never ran Steam under Wine but I have played quite a few games with varying degrees of success. My question is since Steam runs beautifully for you under Wine, does that translate into the games themselves running beautifully as well or is it still hit and miss?

Re: Valve hired their first wave of Linux developers, hiring more

#54

Post by james4k »

hammersend wrote: post #53
mike-cardwell wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam works beautifully under Wine on my Ubuntu laptop (A Thinkpad T420).

I've never ran Steam under Wine but I have played quite a few games with varying degrees of success. My question is since Steam runs beautifully for you under Wine, does that translate into the games themselves running beautifully as well or is it still hit and miss?

Purely depends on the game. A good guess is that as long as the game runs on DirectX 9, it should run reasonably well. That should be most games, except for some of the more recent ones.

Re: Valve hired their first wave of Linux developers, hiring more

#55

Post by forrestthewoods »

barrkel wrote: post #43
forrestthewoods wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam does have a very slow boot time, but the expected behavior is that Steam is always running in the background so I can't imagine it's a priority. I can't fathom a ~3 second wait when installing and launching a game being a real problem. Minor annoyance sure but that's less time than you'll be forced to see stupid splash screens for!

I just quit Steam (so it was fresh in cache, never mind relying on SSD etc.), and started a Steam game. It took 20 seconds before the game launched (not playable, just started). That's massive. Pretty much any of my non-steam games will be launched and playable within 10 seconds. (I also hate unskippable intro videos; I'm fairly sure I've collectively spent much longer searching for ways to delete / skip such videos…

With Steam already running the moment I double-click an installed game from my list it's taking about 2-3 seconds before they pop open full screen. If you're taking 20 seconds then it may or may not be Steam's fault, but it certainly isn't an intrinsic property of the software.

Re: Valve hired their first wave of Linux developers, hiring more

#56

Post by carpo »

gillianseed wrote: post #44
dman wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what XSI has to say about Linux - "Softimage 2013 is also capable of running on other configurations, such as boutique distributions of Linux. However, enumerating systems that are not tested and cannot be supported or that fall below the requirements for a productive user experience is beyond the scope of the online certification charts.". Lightwave isnt available for Linux either.

Ah, I was under the impression that Lightwave 10 was released for Linux last summer, granted it's not really on my radar. Looking at their site now showcasing version 11 there's no mention of Linux so it seems you are right. Still, Wine's AppDB page for Lightwave mentions a Linux native Lightwave 10 CORE under development.

Yeah, the latest Lightwave runs on Linux. I installed one of the Beta's a few months ago and it ran OK, though it didn't include everything the windows version had. I still use Lightwave via Virtual Box.

Re: Valve hired their first wave of Linux developers, hiring more

#57

Post by loboman »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #25

This will be welcome by me, steam on Linux that is. I've bought a number of games from steam when they have been on sale, games that have a Linux port available. Of course I am unable to run them without buying the Linux copy separately at present but once this is implemented I will already be able to play a fair cross-section of my games on Windows and Linux. Of course this could be a net negative for my productivit…

For some games, you can just run Steam in Wine, and the game in Wine, and everything runs out of the box. Check the Wine documentation for each game before buying to ensure it works.

Re: Valve hired their first wave of Linux developers, hiring more

#58

Post by mackal »

icebraining wrote: post #46
jiggy2011 wrote: post #25

This will be welcome by me, steam on Linux that is. I've bought a number of games from steam when they have been on sale, games that have a Linux port available. Of course I am unable to run them without buying the Linux copy separately at present but once this is implemented I will already be able to play a fair cross-section of my games on Windows and Linux. Of course this could be a net negative for my productivit…

Linux developers doesn't necessarily imply there'll be Steam for Linux Desktop™. It may be that Valve is looking to finally build their Steam Console and base it on Linux.

No, I this is Steam for Linux. The Steam Console was just a rumor, and that's all.

I've had an employee (friend) verify these facts to me.

Re: Valve hired their first wave of Linux developers, hiring more

#59

Post by AJ007 »

icebraining wrote: post #46
jiggy2011 wrote: post #25

This will be welcome by me, steam on Linux that is. I've bought a number of games from steam when they have been on sale, games that have a Linux port available. Of course I am unable to run them without buying the Linux copy separately at present but once this is implemented I will already be able to play a fair cross-section of my games on Windows and Linux. Of course this could be a net negative for my productivit…

Linux developers doesn't necessarily imply there'll be Steam for Linux Desktop™. It may be that Valve is looking to finally build their Steam Console and base it on Linux.

I'm going to take a guess that Valve is hedging their bets on a Windows 8 flop. I think it is very possible that Linux and OS X will become the two dominant desktop platforms over the next 5 years.

Valve can not really enter the mobile marketplace in a meaningful way. Both Microsoft and Apple will likely try to put the squeeze on Valve with their own respective OS marketplaces. (I think neither will successfully be able reproduce Steam's high quality user experience and extras.)

Re: Valve hired their first wave of Linux developers, hiring more

#60

Post by nitrogen »

s_kilk wrote: post #45
sliverstorm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

actually I'm not sure what's considered the direct commercial competitor here for post-processing audio. Audio is an interesting market. Sound Forge comes to mind, but based on the time I've spent in studios, I'm going to speculate that professional audio is either done with hardware, or really old software. The particular example I'm thinking of was a MacOS9 computer (in 2009 or so). The tech told me two things kept…

Most commercial studios would be running either Pro Tools, Cubase/Nuendo or Logic. There is nothing in the open-source world that comes even remotely close to rivaling any of these packages at the moment.

Ardour is probably the most similar Open Source project.
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