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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

#191

Post by jiggy2011 »

vibrunazo wrote: post #190
jiggy2011 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but at the point what you've just built is basically a console. In fact you may as well plug it into your HD TV too and you now have your "TV tablet" that you leave next to your TV (in the same way that you have a dedicated HTPC instead of plugging your laptop in every time). Then somebody else comes along and says "hey all of these people are buying tablets just to plug into their TV, I wonder if they would bu…

I agree the evolution of mobile will be basically a console. In fact, I said in my original post that the next popular consoles will run iOS/Android. And these tablets without the screen already exist. They're called Google TV and Apple TV (tho Apple TV would still need app store). Put more power, a controller, a game friendly UI and you got a real console competitor. Expect that to happen, at most by 2013. Mobile do…

If you are talking about something that is basically a set top box like apple/google TV then I'm not sure it fits the definition of "mobile" just because it runs android/iOS.

It is possible that Apple/Google could try to muscle in on gaming. I could imagine this to a certain extent with Apple but with Google it would seem to a huge swing from their core competencies and I think they are spread thinly enough as it is. It would be more realistic for Sony to announce that the PS4 would be an android device with a Sony UI and games running on top (probably + a load of proprietary APIs so you couldn't just install your games on a competitors device).

Another advantage that console games have is that they have to go through a brutal QA/Acceptance cycle before they are allowed to be released for the console. If you dig through play store game reviews you will see huge numbers of 1 star reviews because people found the games to be buggy.

In terms of having something that can transfer your apps/games/settings, Steam pretty much already does this (although in terms of instant you are throttled by bandwidth on that one). I'm sure the next gen consoles will have this functionality too and most purchases of games will be made online.

There is a case to be made for gaming when out and about but this is quite a different experience to actually sitting down for games therefor the games are likely to be different and have different input methods etc. When you are out and about there is fair chance that you are either: driving, working or doing some other activity. If you wanted to play games you would stay at home, the times when mobile games are useful is for killing short waiting times or for the occasional flight/train ride. So what you want in that case is short fun games like angry birds rather than AAA epics. This suggest there will be 2 markets for mobile and non-mobile games, in the same way that the gameboy was popular at the same time that the SNES etc were, it does not suggest one will kill the other.

Also when you have a system and games designed to run off mains power and without the same constraints for weight etc you can have much more beefy hardware and create a different level of experience. As it is my android phone burns battery running even relatively simple games.

I imagine the Steam for Linux is part of a bigger play, either trying to get in on Android or a precursor to launching their own hardware. Either that or they just want to show MS that they have other options.

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

#192

Post by gillianseed »

danssig wrote: post #98
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'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 p…

I agree with you somewhat. I'm a fulltime Linux user and also working as a programmer, for me Linux is the perfect system as it gives me full control and is, IMO, superior to Windows as a developing platform which is what I mainly use it for, although I also dabble alot with graphics in various forms using Blender,Gimp,Inkscape and Mypaint. Anyway, for me Linux just fits like a glove, I have total control when configuring which means it ends up tailor-made for my needs which in turn leads to increased productivity (like when I discovered tiling window managers and automatically setting up my workspaces for different types of activity).

However, the vast amount of computer users out there doesn't need any of this, they use their computers as mere consumers and the OS is just something from which they launch their favourite applications and perhaps use to organise their personal files in folders. That said I don't think they particularly like Windows (nor dislike), it's just there and for the great majority there's really no reason to go through the hardship of learning a new OS environment and for most likely also new software. One could argue price but I reckon most think of Windows as something which comes for free with their computer purchase, or if not it actually comes for free when they pirate it just like they do with Photoshop (which seems to be installed in just about every windows machine I've ever come across).

So no, I don't think Steam will cause a massive user influx, I do however think that it lower the barrier of entry for those who ARE considering a move to Linux (relatively few as they may be), and that's a good thing.

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

#193

Post by gillianseed »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #183
SquareWheel wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than anything else, I'd just say that doing any task in Linux is a battle. Once you understand the system and configure things to your liking it is a dream, but as a new user you'll be spending hours in config files and searching Google, and users don't want that. This is Hacker News. Most of us know our way around a terminal. But real users don't, any real users drive the market.

This is partly because the most popular distro (ubuntu) has some pretty stupid defaults. For example: Default install will not give you flash support or support for codecs like WMV. Default fonts are enormous If you have an Nvidia/ATI graphics card you will not get a proper driver unless you know how to specifically install it.

Well, shipping codecs means they have to pay royalties, os'es like Windows and OSX bake that cost into their asking price, Ubuntu is free. Also the codes are likely only an apt-get away.

Don't know about the fonts as I don't run Ubuntu.

As for NVidia/ATI drivers, back when I was on Windows (many years ago) you pretty much had to install the drivers directly from the vendors in order to get decent performance as the ones shipped were awful and generally old, is that no the case anymore? Still, getting these driver are also just one apt-get away unless I'm mistaken?

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

#194

Post by Tsagadai »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #120
danssig wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Currently, games are /the only/ thing holding me and a few people I know back from Linux as our only desktop os. At work, we're at ~90% Linux usage for desktops and >99% for servers.

Games is pretty much it for me too. I run Linux at home in a VM (because I'm more comfortable in Linux now than Windows) on Windows so I can get native performance in games. Steam for Linux is definitely a good thing.

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

#195

Post by tsotha »

onli wrote: post #34
danssig wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why not? Missing games are the last and only "serious" issue of Linux. Well, maybe apart from Adobes product. But that's quite seriuos: Not being able to play normal and modern games is why I have Windows installed, and it's why i couldn't convince my nonexisting kids to use linux solely. More Games means more user means more games (means better gpu-driver). It's a really old theory, and i think it's one that is soun…

This still isn't going to mean many more games for Linux. Presumably Valve will port the Source engine games, but that's just a tiny percentage of what they sell on Steam. The vast majority of the titles are third party, and even though Steam will give them a Linux distribution channel, it doesn't do much to convince them to create Linux games.

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

#196

Post by frio »

StavrosK wrote: post #159
jiggy2011 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't necessarily mean to suggest that it would necessarily be available directly from official repos (although perhaps it could be, being able to easily install steam would be a good selling point of a distro that was not intended to be 100% free software). I wonder how ubuntu would feel as this could be competition for their own app store. What I meant was will this be targeting the traditional distributions (Fe…

As I see it, it will be an app (if it ever happens, I'm not sure how much I can trust these "omg Steam is coming to Linux!" posts any more) that you can just install, exactly like Dropbox or Spotify. It will then download your games whenever you tell it to and you can play them, just like Steam on any other plaform. Of course, which games those are will depend on availability of each individual game.

I'd actually really like it if it was a repo. Add "http://steampowered.com/fedora/username/securitytoken or /debian/ (etc.) to your list of repos, then apt-get install steam. The username/security token stuff is provided so that you get a dynamically generated repo, which includes access to the games you've bought. You could then install games via apt/yum (and I'm going to go ahead and assume they're all statically linked and include all needed binaries, because traditionally, closed-source games on Linux have forced users into dependency hell).

Steam then becomes a marketplace and apt/yum frontend :).

(Of course, I doubt very much that this is realistic; it'd just be awesome)

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

#197

Post by jiggy2011 »

frio wrote: post #196
StavrosK wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I see it, it will be an app (if it ever happens, I'm not sure how much I can trust these "omg Steam is coming to Linux!" posts any more) that you can just install, exactly like Dropbox or Spotify. It will then download your games whenever you tell it to and you can play them, just like Steam on any other plaform. Of course, which games those are will depend on availability of each individual game.

I'd actually really like it if it was a repo. Add " http://steampowered.com/fedora/username/securitytoken or /debian/ (etc.) to your list of repos, then apt-get install steam. The username/security token stuff is provided so that you get a dynamically generated repo, which includes access to the games you've bought. You could then install games via apt/yum (and I'm going to go ahead and assume they're all statically…

That would be quite cool , even if not I hope they provide a command line tool.

The steam GUI always feels sluggish to me.

'steam offers -genre=fps -orderby=price'

'steam buy halflife3 -cc=saved'

'steam install -all'

'steam showfriends -online'

'steam playwith myfriend'

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

#198

Post by binarycrusader »

dfox wrote: post #174
binarycrusader wrote: post #165

Maybe this will finally motivate one of the distributions to start providing things like stable ABIs like Windows developers have had for years.

Actually, most of this "Linux does not have stable ABI" was maybe true 10 years ago. In general you are going to have mostly same compatibility problems as on Windows with mostly same solution for proprietary software: package known versions of your dependencies together with your application. When done in this way, distributing of binary-only software for Linux is often even easier than on windows, because you don't…

Sorry, but that's simply not true. I used to maintain the Linux port of adventure game studio (among other projects). Even when I statically linked all dependencies it often wouldn't run on one of the Linux distributions because of changes in glibc or how x libraries had been compiled on that platform.

Ask Ryan C. Gordon (icculus) what he thinks of those supposedly stable ABIs. Ask nVidia and AMD users about how thrilled they are to have to get new drivers every time the Xorg ABI changes.

I've been developing on Unix and Linux platforms for almost fifteen years now. Linux distributions (and the kernel) still don't have stable interfaces. The kind that lets users run games and applications made 10 years ago on other platforms while Linux distros some times can't use binaries from just a few years ago.

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

#199

Post by chrismsnz »

firemanx wrote: post #134
hedgehog wrote: post #114

It will be interesting to see what this does to the state of GL support, Wayland, scheduler, etc. Steam telemetry will give Valve a lot of data about how different hardware/software/driver configurations are working but on Linux they'll be able to actually push patches to distros if need be. I would love to see Valve profile Source on Linux and start shaving sources of latency and jitter, it could eventually be bette…

Hopefully this pushes them to support more variety in the underlying operating system as well. I still can't get Steam to run on my Mac because I made the apparently rare decision to format my machine as case sensitive filesystem.

It's not just Steam, I had a CS filesystem and could not install Starcraft 2 either.

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

#200

Post by bdonlan »

LeafStorm wrote: post #155
jiggy2011 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's rather shortsighted. After all, you being able to "just apt-get" depends on a large number of people sacrificing a lot of time. Of course it does, I do not deny this. My point is that I don't think in terms of "Great, now there is X for Linux this will cause 1000 people to switch over" I only really care if it helps me in someway. Of course I understand that there are network effects at work. Obviously not goi…

>> Obviously not going to happen. > Why not? This is obviously going to incur some significant cost to Valve, I doubt they would do it just so they can run a store with a handful of $5 indie games or free games. No, they will definitely have AAA games. (Or at least AA games...not sure how many A's Left 4 Dead rates.) The thing that's obviously not going to happen is sudo apt-get install steam -- at least, not from th…

> The thing that's obviously not going to happen is sudo apt-get install steam -- at least, not from the official repositories.

This is completely possible. You can write a stub package that just automates the process of downloading and installing steam, and put it into debian's non-free repository. Flash player was installed this way for years.

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