71–80 of 125 posts
Its too bad they don't package for debian sid/unstable.
ubuntu is trying to not be 'just another linux'. sadly they are using a lot of lock-in tactics similar to Sony since the 80's or apple more recently. that said, they are the distro with the best live-usb installer by far.
I think most people are excited about Steam on Linux because of gaming, but I've actually been excited because of better driver support. If this makes Nvidia put more effort into their Linux drivers and tools, it will make life a lot better for CUDA programming too. (I haven't tried OpenCL or AMD GPGPU stuff yet.)
What I mean is you usually don't want to do this on your laptop. First, a high end laptop like a macbook can hold up for 4 years while GPUs need to be replaced regularly in order to develop for the latest newest capabilities. At some point you will also want to try Intel MIC, AMD cards and so on. Secondly, it's just much nicer if the system you're working on doesn't get hot.
Note: If it's for graphical tools with user frontend I can understand if you don't want to do this. Even then it could be interesting to have offsite computing capabilities baked in however, since this is also preferred in many graphics/video designer houses.
I think most people are excited about Steam on Linux because of gaming, but I've actually been excited because of better driver support. If this makes Nvidia put more effort into their Linux drivers and tools, it will make life a lot better for CUDA programming too. (I haven't tried OpenCL or AMD GPGPU stuff yet.)
> it will make life a lot better for CUDA programming too Well having done quite a bit of CUDA programming under Windows and Linux, i'm interested in knowing what you find lacking on Linux ? Performance wise i can report CUDA is just as fast on Linux as it is on windows. Regarding tool support, i actually prefer to work under Linux, not because tools are better per se, but because your usual Unix tool chain does wond…
There are also some odd issues with the tools. Did you know that CUDA-GDB will give an internal driver error if it can't write to /tmp? No description of what's wrong, just "internal driver error". That one took a while to figure out (and I wasn't the one who figured it out in the end).
I've never really programmed under Windows, so I don't know about the tool support, but I'm very happy with Linux development tools. I have actually used the Nvidia profiler under Linux, but I haven't figured out how to make it give me useful information.
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There are already packages for Arch, and as per the new licensing terms for the client there's no reason it can't or won't be packaged for other distros. AMD also improved their drivers with Valve. Not sure where the hate is coming from. Fedora, OpenSUSE, Gentoo, Arch: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_under_Linux#N...
Steam runs great on Arch. Unfortunately TF2 does not, at least for me. Freezes my entire system while loading any map, to the point I have to ssh in and kill "hl2". I'd report it, but I'm not certain I should due to Arch being an unsupported platform.
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I wonder how representative my rather underwhelming experience with graphics drivers in Linux is. The last time I was able to use ATI/AMD's proprietary driver without any problems was strangely enough with an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro in an old version of SuSE Linux. Since then AMD's proprietary driver has caused me semi-regular GPU lockups on R520 (X1650), Evergreen (HD 5670) and Southern Islands (HD 7770) series cards. N…
Good god when was the last time you tried this and had to write an X.org conf file? I have to write one when I switch from novareau to nvidia-proprietary but it's for a very specific reason - my monitor outputs invalid EDID information. Otherwise, you should never have to write a config file in almost all cases.
It was early last year. The GT 240 is a really finicky card in Linux, apparently.
>I have to write one when I switch from novareau to nvidia-proprietary but it's for a very specific reason - my monitor outputs invalid EDID information. Otherwise, you should never have to write a config file in almost all cases.
I can't remember the exact options I had to put in xorg.conf for the GT 240 but them being there did matter.
I confronted a similar problem with EDID setting up an extra 1366x768 monitor connected to a legacy Radeon 9200 PC at work. This resolution is always a pain (since the value of 1366 is not divisible 8 and hence can't be specified in the EDID block), but it much more so when you have a legacy graphics card.
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Good god when was the last time you tried this and had to write an X.org conf file? I have to write one when I switch from novareau to nvidia-proprietary but it's for a very specific reason - my monitor outputs invalid EDID information. Otherwise, you should never have to write a config file in almost all cases.
> Good god when was the last time you tried this and had to write an X.org conf file? It was early last year. The GT 240 is a really finicky card in Linux, apparently. >I have to write one when I switch from novareau to nvidia-proprietary but it's for a very specific reason - my monitor outputs invalid EDID information. Otherwise, you should never have to write a config file in almost all cases. I can't remember the…
Weird, Novareau played fine with my GT 240 in my old desktop, but I was using it with 12.10 and novareau has come a long way recently. And installing the prop driver took nothing more than installing it (and maybe running nvidia-xconfig and letting it ensure 'nvidia' is loaded instead of 'novareau'.
Legacy monitors can be weird. I had someone in Ubuntu IRC with some very ancient super high res 13" monitor. I don't think we ever got them helped out.
I wasn't able to download it. Clicking the link on this page took me to the Software Centre saying "Not Found - There isn’t a software package called “steam” in your current software sources.". So I go to the main landing page of the Software Centre and find a link to Steam there. There is a banner saying "Free" with a button "Buy" next to it. I click it and it asks me to log into to some sort of payment service... I…
Steam is also throwing a sale for the release of Steam for Linux: http://store.steampowered.com/sale/linux_release/ ; ends February 21st, 18:00 GMT. Highly acclaimed "Team Fortress 2" is free to play: http://store.steampowered.com/app/440
While you are at it, go grab FTL (Faster Than Light)! Its reduced by 50% and quite frankly a fantastic space roguelike! And Trine 2 is good fun and absolutely beautiful! (Not associated with either, I just like them...)
What I find particularly interesting about this is the time-limited item giveaway. Valve did something very similar when they released the OS X version of TF2, where anyone who logged in on a Mac received a free cosmetic "earbuds" item. The promo triggered a mad scramble of players to find a Mac to play on, and when it ended, the buds acquired a huge scarcity value -- they currently trade at the equivalent of about US$30 a pair, even though they have no effect on gameplay.
I don't think the penguin will end up valued as highly, but what it will cause is a sudden influx of relatively non-technical gamers trying out Ubuntu for the first time. Should be interesting to see what pain points and rough edges they expose. There are already tech support threads popping up in the Steam forums, e.g. [2]
[1] http://www.teamfortress.com/linux/
[2] http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30729...
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While you are at it, go grab FTL (Faster Than Light)! Its reduced by 50% and quite frankly a fantastic space roguelike! And Trine 2 is good fun and absolutely beautiful! (Not associated with either, I just like them...)
You're right! I would add Bastion (currently $3.49) to the list as well.