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Valve joins the Linux Foundation

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Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#261

Post by jebblue »

stinkytaco wrote: post #103
Mikeb85 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gaming doesn't work on OS X because it has too small a user base, but Linux's user base is much smaller. There's an estimated 20 million Ubuntu users worldwide, probably another 10 million or so of other Linux distros. Not to mention, Linux (and thus Steam OS) is easily installed. Adoption isn't a problem. Gaming on OSX doesn't work as well as on a PC because you can't put OSX on custom hardware. > As an aside, Lin…

I'm curious what the user base of gaming focused users in for linux world wide. Linux tends to attract developers rather than users who spend a great deal of money on their gaming hobby. Perhaps I am wrong. Don't get me wrong, I'd love this to work, but it seems like a bit of a stretch to say it will work better than a platform that is already successful at getting people to spend money on games (see Mac App Store, i…

>> Linux tends to attract developers rather than users who spend a great deal of money on their gaming hobby.

Gamers want fun. Gamers don't really care what's underneath. There was a time, back before the illegal deals of Gates when any gamer you talked to would literally laugh out loud at you at the thought of paying serious money for any game not on DOS - meaning Windows.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#262

Post by jebblue »

gareim wrote: post #123
Mikeb85 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious what the user base of gaming focused users in for linux world wide. Linux tends to attract developers rather than users who spend a great deal of money on their gaming hobby. Perhaps I am wrong. I'd wager a good portion of Linux devs are gamers, and likely just dual-boot, have a console, an iPad, etc... Seeing as how the barrier to using Linux is lower than either Windows or OSX, it doesn't really matte…

Barrier to using Linux is not lower than Windows. Windows comes installed on almost every PC sold. Linux does not. Therefore more work is required to use Linux. I love Linux, but "if a program works on every single other distro.." is disingenuous. I have not once had 100% success with Linux on initial install. There has always been something that needed to be tweaked (usually sound or graphics). No, Windows isn't 100…

>> Therefore more work is required to use Linux.

Not according to most Windows 8 users, check YouTube.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#263

Post by jebblue »

aclevernickname wrote: post #199
gareim wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barrier to using Linux is not lower than Windows. Windows comes installed on almost every PC sold. Linux does not. Therefore more work is required to use Linux. I love Linux, but "if a program works on every single other distro.." is disingenuous. I have not once had 100% success with Linux on initial install. There has always been something that needed to be tweaked (usually sound or graphics). No, Windows isn't 100…

My laptop came with linux preinstalled. Same with my netbook. Neither required much work to use linux. A standard Kubuntu (or Chakra) install on any Intel/AMD PC made before June will likely work without hiccups or missing hardware. Most distributions include an app to specifically detect/install proprietary drivers (Ubuntu uses Jockey). A browsing of Phoronix.com will provide you with benchmarks showing the NVIDIA/A…

Ubuntu Linux came on my last PC, my wife's current laptop, and will probably come on my next PC if PC makers get their heads out of ... the sand.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#264

Post by ekianjo »

shinratdr wrote: post #256
ekianjo wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it seems that some indie developers are already supporting Linux more often than OSX. I have seen on Steam several titles where the title was multi-platform, but multi as in Windows/Linux, not Windows/Mac/Linux. Interesting trend. I would be very interested to hear about sales numbers on Steam Linux from developers or publishers, and see if the time they spend converting their game is worth it as this stage,…

Flipping through the Linux games section on Steam (which is 11 pages comprising 256 titles) I see exactly nine titles that support Linux but don't support OS X. Subtracting those nine from the total Linux games leaves 247 titles. Subtract those from the Mac game total of 601 titles, and you're left with 354 titles that appear on OS X but not on Linux. That arguably constitutes a trend. Not only that, but looking at t…

Ok, fair observation. I admit I did not look further into these games past the fact that the Mac icon was missing on Steam.

Comparing the number of games available on Mac vs the ones available on Linux on Steam is not really comparing apples to apples, since Steam Linux just launched less than a year ago, and the pace of releases has been steadily increasing since then.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#265

Post by jebblue »

daddykotex wrote: post #4
FridayWithJohn wrote: post #2

The one thing that has forced me keep Windows on my PC is the fact that most games require it. Hearing that such a large player in the gaming industry wants to move to Linux is really fantastic news.

I stopped playing games when I started using Linux. I've been part of the Steam Beta on Linux and things are going really fast. This is great news.

Actually I discovered great Indie games like Urban Terror and Minecraft among many others.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#266

Post by jebblue »

sliverstorm wrote: post #150
kayoone wrote: post #7

While this is great, its a bit sad that Valve is mostly doing all of this now, because they fear losing their dominance on windows to the native Store in Win 8.x In the end its a win-win for everyone if it works out, just their motives are questionable.

Well, their motives aren't sinister , which is all you can really want or hope for. In a capitalistic market, vanishingly few players will switch to Linux out of altruism. Which is perfectly fine, in my opinion. Everything is more predictable when each player acts in their own best interests. Then it's just a matter of understanding their incentives.

>> Well, their motives aren't sinister, which is all you can really want or hope for. In a capitalistic market, vanishingly few players will switch to Linux out of altruism.

There was a time when no one thought gamers would switch from DOS to Windows.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#267

Post by stormbrew »

unsignedint wrote: post #218
zurn wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to dig up pre-ELF binaries for NetHack and XPilot and we can have a backwards compatiblity race, on latest versions of Ubuntu and Windows. Linux has a better chance now that Windows has dropped 16-bit support :)

Even Windows binaries WINE on 64-bit runs 16, 32, and 64-bit applications! :-)

Kind of. Turning on 64bit by default has resulted in a lot of problems for me, though. It doesn't do the search paths right, I often have 32bit things failing because they stumble on a 64bit dll while linking (or vice-versa).

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#268

Post by jebblue »

skriticos2 wrote: post #75
Trufa wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, it's seriously lacking a competitor in that sense. I would say that GIMP is in top 5 of worst software ever made, what made me think of that is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_considered_the_wo... I quote: Paradoxically, a piece of music needs to have been noticeable, popular or memorable to be deemed the "worst ever." A piece that was unpopular and quickly forgotten is unlikely to top all-ti…

I would hardly call it worst. It does not have the most intuitive UX, but once you get used to it it's quite nice and gets the job done. And it's open source (royalty free). I like it. I'd call it PS-incompatible. Would be nice to see a study on two control groups who each either start learning PS or GIMP for a few weeks and see how they get common tasks accomplished and how they feel about their control group softwa…

>> I'm a developer but I've dabbled in graphics since the 70's with charcoal and paper then computers starting in the 80s'. My younger brother is more talented than me but it's relaxing sometimes. GIMP's UI never has made me feel comfortable but the application is immensely powerful.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#270

Post by jebblue »

jethro_tell wrote: post #164
shawabawa3 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

photoshop is slow enough natively. Running in a VM might be good enough if you use it occasionally, but for people who use it daily I doubt it.

And why would you go that far out of your way if PS it's your primary tool? What would you gain by having a Linux box around your Photoshop install? Once you strip away specialized tool suits and programs that actually sit on top of the OS, most users just need sound, mouse, keyboard, and monitor support so they can run chrome or firefox. Most OSs handle this just fine, so the real deciding factor in your OS should b…

Adobe is backwards and kludgy and needs to get with the future, get with Linux, get with the program.
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