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Steam for Linux Beta is now open to the public

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

#71

Post by drivebyacct2 »

throwaway64 wrote: post #38
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.

Steam has a package so dependancies can be satisfied easily without resorting to "install xyz beforehand", and it runs an installer into your home folder because the user has to be able to modify the games directory for many, many games on steam, because stuff like configuration, custom maps, custom models etc, is stored alongside everything else. Also steam has diff based patching (which requires accress from whoeve…

>Steam has a package so dependancies can be satisfied easily without resorting to "install xyz beforehand",

This isn't even true. The deb has dependencies just like any other DEB you'd get through apt-get. That's... kinda the point of package management...

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

#72

Post by drivebyacct2 »

throwaway64 wrote: post #55
StavrosK wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm only talking about handling Steam updates, I agree with you on game updates. However, the Steam client can still access the user's home directory and create/access game data there, as all Linux apps do, so the current way of having Steam dump its binaries at the home dir is unclean. Pretty much the only valid point is having to update the whole thing every release, but I've never seen the Steam client download an…

the issue is, if you have a cluster of games/etc managed by steam in your home directory that is already not under the control of package management, what do you gain by splitting out the steam client itself? it is easier from valve's perspective to just allow steam to manage its own updates along with everything else it manages, than to have a rather arbitrary split that gives you no real advantages anyways. Steam h…

> if you have a cluster of games/etc managed by steam in your home directory that is already not under the control of package management, what do you gain by splitting out the steam client itself?

The same thing you gain from every other linux package that has a globally installed application with per-user configuration? which is... every single other application in the entire linux world?

>Steam has always been designed on both osx and windows to be a portable folder that you can move around from system to system and run stuff out of wihout worrying about installers and dependancies.

Huh? Are you familiar with Linux? You can move/copy your home dir, reinstall the package-managed binary and it "just works". That is the best definition of portable, far better than copy-pasting a "Program Files" directory between machines and crossing your fingers. Again, I've yet to hear a technical reason that we can't have /usr/bin/steam and ~/.steam/ like every other Linux application does.

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

#74

Post by Shorel »

4ad wrote: post #59
emperorcezar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Speaking as someone who has to use it everyday, the horrible UI is the least of its problems.

Care to elaborate a bit on that?

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

#75

Post by pbhjpbhj »

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.

So I thought I'd try and see what the score is:

TF2 is 12.0 GB ... damn, that's hefty.

This had better be the richest, smoothest, highest quality game; feature rich and expansive. That is about 11GB bigger than any [single] thing I've ever downloaded before. Estimated download completion time ... Christmas.

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

#76

Post by eikenberry »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #71
throwaway64 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam has a package so dependancies can be satisfied easily without resorting to "install xyz beforehand", and it runs an installer into your home folder because the user has to be able to modify the games directory for many, many games on steam, because stuff like configuration, custom maps, custom models etc, is stored alongside everything else. Also steam has diff based patching (which requires accress from whoeve…

>Steam has a package so dependancies can be satisfied easily without resorting to "install xyz beforehand", This isn't even true. The deb has dependencies just like any other DEB you'd get through apt-get. That's... kinda the point of package management...

No. He means using a deb with a packaging system will install those dependencies automatically. Otherwise it would be the instructions to manually 'install xyz beforehand'.

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

#77

Post by w1ntermute »

duaneb wrote: post #70
w1ntermute wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, the overlay needs to download something as well. So my point remains, I think.

No, it doesn't. I don't think that you understand how an overlay works. You run a command or modify a configuration file to add the overlay. Then you can install any packages in that overlay. Those packages would be the games.

The package manager on Windows (Steam) isn't needed on Linux because there's already a native package manager on the majority of distros. In fact, you can already buy games through the Ubuntu package manager. I believe they're in a separate, "partners" repository. Steam should just be another repository like that.

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