Report: Steam Coming to Linux 'Within Months'

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That means they might have...oh maybe as many games as they have for Mac, all of 19. There has to be developer support, or big deal that you can play source games, or a few indies. A long way to go before linux will be your OS of choice for gaming. I would love to see it, but people spend too much money developing games, to turn around release their source code to the public. Just my humble opinion of course....
 
About damn time we get some good news on this!

If all of my steam games end up being supported eventually on Linux I'll ditch Windows.
Not because it's bad or anything, I mean it's pretty good and industry-standard too.

But looking at where windows is going... (tiles) I think it isn't a bad idea.
 
[citation][nom]papaspud[/nom]I would love to see it, but people spend too much money developing games, to turn around release their source code to the public. Just my humble opinion of course....[/citation]
You know that open source isn't a requirement for Linux support, right?
 
Steam was probably the only thing that kept me tied to Windows back when I used XP. However, I switched to 7 a month or two ago and I think I'll keep it.
 
A while back I would have been excited to learn about this and I guess in a way a little part of me still is. Unfortunately though, over the last month I have tested more than 10 distros including Ubuntu, Mint, Fuduntu, Fedora, Debian etc etc and EVERY single one has had several major issues. Linux today seems to me the same as Windows ME was back in the day - some interesting concepts but poor implementation and more things that are "broken" than there are things that just work. Hardware/driver issues, instability too much difference in the way that different distros/forks work and just a lot of effort to get things set up and working properly. Maybe I've just been unlucky - admittedly Linux works much better on my desktop than on my laptop (Optimus grrr) but nowadays since patched Vista and Windows 7 Microsoft has really got a great OS going. I won't mention the foolishness of Win8 but 7 is just fantastic.
 
[citation][nom]crabdog[/nom]A while back I would have been excited to learn about this and I guess in a way a little part of me still is. Unfortunately though, over the last month I have tested more than 10 distros including Ubuntu, Mint, Fuduntu, Fedora, Debian etc etc and EVERY single one has had several major issues. Linux today seems to me the same as Windows ME was back in the day - some interesting concepts but poor implementation and more things that are "broken" than there are things that just work. Hardware/driver issues, instability too much difference in the way that different distros/forks work and just a lot of effort to get things set up and working properly. Maybe I've just been unlucky - admittedly Linux works much better on my desktop than on my laptop (Optimus grrr) but nowadays since patched Vista and Windows 7 Microsoft has really got a great OS going. I won't mention the foolishness of Win8 but 7 is just fantastic.[/citation]

Well, for the average user, many distros are not easy to use. However, some (especially the desktop Ubuntu distro) are initially set up to 'just go' after installation and anything that is especially technical still isn't usually too easy to do unless you know how to use the cli...and google. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since many users don't need to do anything especially technical.

With that said, once you learn it, you can do some amazing things for absolutely free with linux.
 
this is great direction.. as steam (now can be considered as the authority of gaming) maybe can set the standard for gaming even greater with linux, as it free and opensource. meaning they can shape the linux as whatever they want.. maybe they can form it as new distro,, steam-linux,, that optimizes for gaming needs, think it like console version of pc... no more to buy new os just to get new graphics api (like winxp for dx9, win7 just for dx10/dx11). more games will be developed to this linux platform because of its appeal, if they can implement it right. the prospect is bright.
 
Bringing developers onboard should be no where near as big an issue now as it was several years ago. In fact, with the POSIX underpinnings of Linux, OSX and Android, it is Windows that is the odd man out now. OpenGL, OpenCL, OpenMAX, and a great set of optimizing compilers (GCC). These are the future. Market share is more of a liability than an asset to MS now.. nowhere left to go but down. Also, (potential) developers need to know that just because they port their code to Linux DOES NOT mean that they are obligated to release it to the public! That is not the intent of the GPL! Linux provides a nice reference implementation of an OS that has standardized and well documented APIs, that is all.. and all that matters.

Here is something for Steve Balmer to think about.. INFRASTRUCTURE! INFRASTRUCTURE! INFRASTRUCTURE!
 
[citation][nom]crabdog[/nom]A while back I would have been excited to learn about this and I guess in a way a little part of me still is. Unfortunately though, over the last month I have tested more than 10 distros including Ubuntu, Mint, Fuduntu, Fedora, Debian etc etc and EVERY single one has had several major issues. Linux today seems to me the same as Windows ME was back in the day - some interesting concepts but poor implementation and more things that are "broken" than there are things that just work. Hardware/driver issues, instability too much difference in the way that different distros/forks work and just a lot of effort to get things set up and working properly. Maybe I've just been unlucky - admittedly Linux works much better on my desktop than on my laptop (Optimus grrr) but nowadays since patched Vista and Windows 7 Microsoft has really got a great OS going. I won't mention the foolishness of Win8 but 7 is just fantastic.[/citation]

All of the distros that you listed are based of of each other (except Debian, of which all of the others in your list are based partially or wholly on), so if one of them had a problem, well, it's not really surprising that the others had a problem. Try using Linux distros that aren't built on Debian. My laptop has no problem with any distro that I've tried (which is quite a lot), but it doesn't have Optimus to deal with.

Try Xpud, Tinycore, Slackware, or a few others and see if you get different results.
 
This is BS. Though it's cool we can have Steam on Linux, here's the problem:

[citation][nom]papaspud[/nom]That means they might have...oh maybe as many games as they have for Mac, all of 19. There has to be developer support, or big deal that you can play source games, or a few indies. A long way to go before linux will be your OS of choice for gaming. [/citation]

Linux users are mostly cheapskates who don't want to pay for their software or people who don't care about gaming. Developers will not find enough demand there and hence won't bother. You have any idea how much work it is to port a game from Xbox/Windows (ports there are very easy) DirectX-based platform to Linux OpenGL-based one? No one will bother.

Though, I kind of imagine... if all the games would be free... apt-get install crysis* masseffect*... 😀 Of course, that will never happen, but would be fun as hell as compared to Steam/Origin/whatever. I'm so used to instantly pulling the small tools like tcpdump/ethtool/traceroute/htop/etc. from the repositories when they're not installed; it'd be awesome if we could do that with games once we feel like we need a certain game :)

That said, driver support for Linux will also need to improve greatly. Half-assed video drivers won't do. Turbo Boost support lack will NOT do. No support for hardware acceleration in AMD APUs will NOT do (total shame, though might have been finally fixed by now). So far, I don't think Steam will make a sufficient impact.
 
[citation][nom]alphaalphaalpha[/nom]All of the distros that you listed are based of of each other (except Debian, of which all of the others in your list are based partially or wholly on), so if one of them had a problem, well, it's not really surprising that the others had a problem. Try using Linux distros that aren't built on Debian. My laptop has no problem with any distro that I've tried (which is quite a lot), but it doesn't have Optimus to deal with.Try Xpud, Tinycore, Slackware, or a few others and see if you get different results.[/citation]

Oh yeah, more usual Linux fanboy crap - "try another distro". If that doesn't work, you're doing it wrong, blah blah blah. Your Slackware is downright repulsive for a Windows user, not everyone likes derping around with a terminal and building a system from scratch. Debian, Ubuntu and Mint are by far the most sane Linux distros at the moment and going further is just a waste of time. There's nothing that Slackware (or other stuff you named, haven't even heard) can do that Ubuntu can't. There's little to zero advantage to an "OS optimized for your hardware", today's hardware is powerful enough to make the difference negligible. I don't care if your Slackware boots a bit faster, Ubuntu GUI is pretty (was pretty, at least, before Unity appeared) and everything is included.

No, Debian is the standard and Ubuntu is its harbinger. Everything else can do a barrel roll, nobody will miss it.
 
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