Steam for Linux Beta is now open to the public • Hacker News Board

Re: Steam for Linux Beta is now open to the public

#21

Post by improv32 » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 4:25 AM UTC

thejosh wrote: post #13

aeturnum wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression was that they started the project by porting Left4Dead, but decided to release TF2 (probably because it's F2P and so anyone can test it).

TF2 also has microtransactions so it will also earn them money in the short AND long run as well. Quite a smart business decision and I'm glad they brought TF2 over - I always thought this would be the first game to publicly release.

It was also the first game they brought over for the mac port, though I think that was before the in-game store.

Re: Steam for Linux Beta is now open to the public

#22

Post by emperorcezar » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 4:31 AM UTC

jcastro wrote: post #18

basil wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this quite a bit recently. It's a hack but it's a quick way to get a public-facing issue tracker out there. Are there any better solutions for getting a tracker set up easily where non-contributors can raise bugs and discuss feature requests?

http://launchpad.net has a bug tracker and a blueprints function.

Can only say one thing about Launchpad, "ew". It has a horrible UI.

Re: Steam for Linux Beta is now open to the public

#23

Post by w1ntermute » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 4:43 AM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #19

I'm not 100% sure why they have a "repo" for an "installer". It sort of rather defeats the purpose. If they're going to do that, just put the client in a DEB and put that in the repo. At this point I see no reason in adding the repo to apt. Either way, it'll get sorted, Steam for Linux is already quite great. Still can't get over that TF2 runs better in a window in Linux than I've ever had it run in Windows.

> I'm not 100% sure why they have a "repo" for an "installer". It sort of rather defeats the purpose.

It's because they don't really grasp yet how these things work on Linux. Which is understandable, since they're coming from a Windows world, where package management has to be done manually. So the Steam executable you download is an installer that downloads/installs the Steam package manager, which then downloads/maintains the games.

Ideally, all the Steam Linux games would be maintained in APT repositories and you would update them through APT, but I don't know if that will ever happen. At least this is better than nothing at all.

Re: Steam for Linux Beta is now open to the public

#24

Post by ceronman » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 5:00 AM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #23

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #19

I'm not 100% sure why they have a "repo" for an "installer". It sort of rather defeats the purpose. If they're going to do that, just put the client in a DEB and put that in the repo. At this point I see no reason in adding the repo to apt. Either way, it'll get sorted, Steam for Linux is already quite great. Still can't get over that TF2 runs better in a window in Linux than I've ever had it run in Windows.

> I'm not 100% sure why they have a "repo" for an "installer". It sort of rather defeats the purpose. It's because they don't really grasp yet how these things work on Linux. Which is understandable, since they're coming from a Windows world, where package management has to be done manually. So the Steam executable you download is an installer that downloads/installs the Steam package manager, which then downloads/ma…

That "ideal" solution would only work on deb based distros.

Re: Steam for Linux Beta is now open to the public

#25

Post by w1ntermute » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 5:17 AM UTC

ceronman wrote: post #24

w1ntermute wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not 100% sure why they have a "repo" for an "installer". It sort of rather defeats the purpose. It's because they don't really grasp yet how these things work on Linux. Which is understandable, since they're coming from a Windows world, where package management has to be done manually. So the Steam executable you download is an installer that downloads/installs the Steam package manager, which then downloads/ma…

That "ideal" solution would only work on deb based distros.

Wrong, you could easily create similar repositories for other package management systems.

Re: Steam for Linux Beta is now open to the public

#26

Post by duaneb » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 5:41 AM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #25

ceronman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That "ideal" solution would only work on deb based distros.

Wrong, you could easily create similar repositories for other package management systems.

At some point they need a downloadable installer, if only for e.g. gentoo or slackware.

Re: Steam for Linux Beta is now open to the public

#27

Post by w1ntermute » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 5:45 AM UTC

duaneb wrote: post #26

w1ntermute wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong, you could easily create similar repositories for other package management systems.

At some point they need a downloadable installer, if only for e.g. gentoo or slackware.

Not for Gentoo, which has overlays[0]. Slackware would be the exception, as it has no de facto package management solution.

0: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/overlays/userguide.xml

Re: Steam for Linux Beta is now open to the public

#28

Post by stephen_g » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 5:50 AM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #23

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #19

I'm not 100% sure why they have a "repo" for an "installer". It sort of rather defeats the purpose. If they're going to do that, just put the client in a DEB and put that in the repo. At this point I see no reason in adding the repo to apt. Either way, it'll get sorted, Steam for Linux is already quite great. Still can't get over that TF2 runs better in a window in Linux than I've ever had it run in Windows.

> I'm not 100% sure why they have a "repo" for an "installer". It sort of rather defeats the purpose. It's because they don't really grasp yet how these things work on Linux. Which is understandable, since they're coming from a Windows world, where package management has to be done manually. So the Steam executable you download is an installer that downloads/installs the Steam package manager, which then downloads/ma…

They'd have issues with their DRM doing that.

They should ship the Steam binaries properly through apt and yum repositories, but I doubt that they'll ever ship the games that way.

Re: Steam for Linux Beta is now open to the public

#29

Post by jebblue » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 6:01 AM UTC

clauretano wrote: post #7

csense wrote: post #6

What black magic do they use to make the games run under Linux? Wine? Are all Steam games now compatible with Linux, or only a few titles that the developers are willing to support Linux? Is there a list anywhere?

There's a list, found here: http://store.steampowered.com/search/?os=linux Very few games are compatible, but Team Fortress 2 is one of them.

I'm interested in TF2 and Red Orchestra but look forward to my old favs...HL and HL2! I might even buy a new system so I can play the whole L4D series too!

Re: Steam for Linux Beta is now open to the public

#30

Post by sandGorgon » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 6:09 AM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #19

I'm not 100% sure why they have a "repo" for an "installer". It sort of rather defeats the purpose. If they're going to do that, just put the client in a DEB and put that in the repo. At this point I see no reason in adding the repo to apt. Either way, it'll get sorted, Steam for Linux is already quite great. Still can't get over that TF2 runs better in a window in Linux than I've ever had it run in Windows.

that is because they are keeping themselves open to have a Steam packaging format.

It is something I have always bet that they will eventually do - once they see the number of support questions by people who have some sort of dependency problems (e.g [1], [2] and [3]).

I wonder how long will it take for them to latch on to something like Zeroinstall or nix.

[1] http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/846940247... [2] http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/1/846940247... [3] http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/882965118...