Report: Steam Coming to Linux 'Within Months'

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This is awesome news, though this doesn't mean that every game relased on Steam will support Linux based OS's of course, so i still don't see myself switching away from Windows 7 anytime soon.

If it got to the point where the majorty of games being relased on Steam supported Linux then i'd easily move over to one of the many Linux distros(probably Ubuntu because i'm not very verse in Linux commands). Though Windows is still the dominant platform and is still the most supported when it comes to drivers and what not, so i'd probably still wait for Windows 7 to really age before switching.

 
[citation][nom]amk-aka-phantom[/nom]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 , 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.[/citation]

I'm not a fanboy at all, but your a prick. All of the distros that crabdog mentioned were based on much of the same code and they all seem to have a problem. I simply stated that distros form other families might not share this problem, so trying such distros might alleviate the problem. I then names off some other distros that came to mind.

If providing possible solutions makes me a fanboy in your eyes, then you have a problem. I didn't suggest that crabdog replace his/her Windows installation or some other crap like that, only that his/her experience bad experience with Linux might be limited to the family of distros that he/she has tried.

I didn't spout any crap about an "OS optimized for your hardware" or anything at all. I simply named off a few other distros. In fact, I have never even tried slackware, it's just a distro's name that I happened to remember.

I said that I've tried other distros on my laptop, not that I run them on it normally. I usually use Windows Server 2008r2 x64 on my laptop because it works with Windows programs and it has far greater performance and is far lighter on resources than any other modern Windows OS. It works well on my aging Acer.

EDIT: had coffee and edited out cursing.
 
[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. 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]

use opengl instead of directx


 
[citation][nom]CDdude55[/nom]This is awesome news, though this doesn't mean that every game relased on Steam will support Linux based OS's of course, so i still don't see myself switching away from Windows 7 anytime soon.If it got to the point where the majorty of games being relased on Steam supported Linux then i'd easily move over to one of the many Linux distros(probably Ubuntu because i'm not very verse in Linux commands). Though Windows is still the dominant platform and is still the most supported when it comes to drivers and what not, so i'd probably still wait for Windows 7 to really age before switching.[/citation]

I imagine that most games will be flash-based or similar in the early phases of the project. There will most assuredly be very little in mainstream gaming to choose from, but it does open the door at least.
 
This has to happen so they can release the 'Open Platform' Gabe has been advocating to run on Steam Box. Maybe it isn't JUST a 'Steam Certified Rating' after all...or maybe this is just one component.
 
nebun 04/26/2012 2:34 PM
why would anyone want to game with 2d graphics....when it comes to games linux is no better when compared with mac OS x
Click to expand...
Actually that is not true at all. Apple uses it's own version of a close OpenGL library. They also don't have FreeGlut or even an updated GLUT.

Where as linux (debian/ubuntu) have up-to-date respositories and source code the day that stuff gets released. Apple hasn't updated much of its graphics library in a long while. So you are completely wrong when you say there is no difference. There are a lot of differences between UNIX and LINUX.
 
I acutally LOVE linux, but I love a more standardized version of it (Debian). And since Ubuntu is based off of debian it still means debian is a standard.

The thing I don't like about debian is debian-stable. It's massively outdated and gets a slow update. But what I love baout debian is debian-testing. (before it goes stable). It has up to date support and hundreds of thousands of programmers working on issue x every night. AMD and NVIDIA have drivers (though NVIDIA's install, no average computer user would be able to install since you have to run /etc/init.d/gdm3 stop before you can even run the ./command).

And for multitasking, the Linux kernel blows the NT kernel out of the water. I run my entire business from 1 machine with an FX8150 w/5 virtual servers and only 8GB of ram and I hardly make a dent in the CPU workload.
 
code the games in java, use openGL and get Nvidia and AMD to work harder on their graphics drivers and this could be a no brainer. ( I dont understand why people would not code using the platform independent language (at least now, I know in the past java was not as fast as C++ but hardware power and enhancments to the java language and api/compilers has taken away a good chunk of that advantage.. and graphics dont make games.. mine craft... for example.)
 






alpha has a point, although he/she could have been less rude about it to you. You went off on a ridiculous tangent with no point but to insult alpha just because he/she suggested a possible cause for the problem and a possible solution. alpha didn't praise or mock any of the Linux distributions nor the people who like them, but you did. Also, no, today's hardware is not so powerful that it does not matter what OS or programs you are running. Even on high end machines, having high performance OSs and software show obvious differences. Compare WinZip to WinRAR and the difference is obvious. Comparing even just Windows 7, Vista, XP, and their respective server versions show very obvious differences.

alpha didn't even say that slackware and the others that he/she listed could do anything that Debian and it's derivatives can't, Alpha only said that the distros that alpha listed might not share bugs/incompatibilities with Debian and it's derivatives due to them being from different Linux families and that is absolutely correct. You completely misinterpreted alpha's post and used it just to insult Alpha and others and that is inexcusable.

I can say that although I also have not tried slackware, I have tried Xpud (ran it on my Gateway laptop for a few months while the hard drive was in use by other devices. I ran Xpud off of a CD) and I have also tried Tinycore. I have never seen anything faster than Tinycore and Tinycore has run perfectly on every machine that I've ever tried it on. Of course, they're all Linux and thus are limited in what they can do, but you don't seem to really know much about anything that you are trying to say.

Go ahead and download server 2008r2 from M$'s site (evals are free) and try to tell me with a strait face that it doesn't work far faster than Vista and even faster than 7. Don't just look at it and post that I'm wrong or that alpha is wrong, actually do some benchmarks. Compare gaming FPS results between Vista and 7 and tell me that there is no difference. Tom's did an article on how different OSs effect gaming performance (XP, Vista, and 7 were included) a while back and proved that the OS does make a difference, so it's an uphill battle for you.
 
1) It is pretty hard to run Linux in any meaningful fashion without binary (non-GPL) loadable kernel modules. I, for one, have zero interest in running a Linux box with KERNEL-LEVEL MODULES from ATI/NVidia, Valve, third-party publishing houses, and whatever devils end up providing DRM. I mean, really... if the choice is between running Windows or granting EA unrestricted KERNEL-LEVEL access to my machines, I choose Windows every day and twice on Sunday.

2) Linux UIs have gotten worse over the last couple of years, and I don't see the situation improving anytime soon. Ubuntu's management, in particular, has come down with an awful case of the same sickness that the Firefox team has. They are making changes that nobody wants and doing so in a fashion that leaves little recourse for operating in the way that users have become accustomed to. This is akin to pissing in the faces of your existing customers, and I'm absolutely livid. Unity on Ubuntu doesn't even allow you to customize the task-bar - you're stuck with icons for tweeter and such. No thanks.

3) MS has been selling 3-packs of their last few OSs for ~$80 USD. Even if your time is worth very little, it's almost ALWAYS cheaper to buy MS than try to tweak a Linux distro. For every Linux user, there is going to be at least one (generally solvable, but annoying) issue that has to be researched and tweaked. Unless you're installing on MANY machines or getting paid for your time, it's pretty hard to argue that Linux is the better economic choice.
 
[citation][nom]Though, I kind of imagine... if all the games would be free... apt-get install crysis* masseffect*... Of course[/citation]

Oh, perhaps in 15-20 years judging by what's available today for Linux desktop users. That's where the slap on the back model of game development gets you. The profit motive model is always going to be the winner but, unfortunately, many Linux desktop users are anti-capitalist know-nothings. Not all. I'm not. But many are.
 
[citation][nom]nebun[/nom]gaming on WINDOWS is still king if you ask me[/citation]
No one asked you.
Games should be platform agnostic. OpenGL can do that DirectX can't.
 
I bet Steam has no clue what this means for their company. This gives them serious cred with the community. It also increases their influences in the developer circle. Smart move as Linux is just about the most installed OS in the World when you count smart phones, appliances, game consoles, etc.

@Ojas' you are likely on the mark about the Steam Consule being Linux based. Linux based OS' are dominating the market from MeeGO, Android, Playstation, Routers, servers, etc makes this obvious. What would seem strange is that if they do intro a consule it seams strange to allow Linux Desktop to compete.
 
[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. 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]
Since when one is required to release the source code of a program for it to work on linux? The are quite a few closed source software for linux.
 
While I love the idea of Steam on Linux, I will still be using Windows 7 as my main gaming platform. I will definitely try this out though on my Ubuntu based laptop when this comes out.
 
[citation][nom]willard[/nom]You know that open source isn't a requirement for Linux support, right?[/citation]

You know you need the source code to compile for something other than Windows, right?
 
[citation][nom]joytech22[/nom]looking at where windows is going... (tiles) I think it isn't a bad idea.[/citation]

agreed, unless windows 9 fixes it or windows 8 gives up on metro, then I don't think I will be upgrading my OS.

but this is a good move. even if the game selection is small it's still a move that can help open up other OS support by game devs. to me this is really more of a message to games devs saying "we're good to go with linux!"
 
[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]
Actually, Fedora is based on Red Hat, and is not at all related to Debian. Another one I'd suggest is openSUSE – it is very good in my opinion (and also completely unrelated to both Debian and Fedora/RH).

[citation][nom]Achoo22[/nom]1) It is pretty hard to run Linux in any meaningful fashion without binary (non-GPL) loadable kernel modules. I, for one, have zero interest in running a Linux box with KERNEL-LEVEL MODULES from ATI/NVidia, Valve, third-party publishing houses, and whatever devils end up providing DRM. I mean, really... if the choice is between running Windows or granting EA unrestricted KERNEL-LEVEL access to my machines, I choose Windows every day and twice on Sunday.2) Linux UIs have gotten worse over the last couple of years, and I don't see the situation improving anytime soon. Ubuntu's management, in particular, has come down with an awful case of the same sickness that the Firefox team has. They are making changes that nobody wants and doing so in a fashion that leaves little recourse for operating in the way that users have become accustomed to. This is akin to pissing in the faces of your existing customers, and I'm absolutely livid. Unity on Ubuntu doesn't even allow you to customize the task-bar - you're stuck with icons for tweeter and such. No thanks[/citation]
1. There is no reason that you would be running anything from Valve or any other publisher at a kernel level (so it would only be graphics drivers). If it was going to happen in Linux, it would be happening in Windows as well most likely – in which case there is nothing to choose between. And your Windows graphics drivers are running at a kernel level too, so no difference there.

2. So don't use Unity or GNOME??? KDE hasn't changed much at all with regards to the interface in the last few years, since V4.0. You can use any interface you like, including GNOME 2. Ubuntu isn't the only one around, just remember – nor are they significantly better than any of the other user-friendly distros either as the differences are almost all either historic or non-existent.
 
[citation][nom]jkflipflop98[/nom]You know you need the source code to compile for something other than Windows, right?[/citation]
And you know that the publisher is the one doing the recompile, right?
 
I wonder which games will be ported (retroactively) as a result of Steam officially coming to Linux. I know we can count on many indie games coming through, but I wonder if this will apply for AAA titles, as well, especially Valve's own.
 
I hope this also means there is no weird deal going on with Apple.

Steam on Linux could wreak havok on my productivity 🙂

Coming back to earth though, I am still waiting for the UT3 port to Linux, which was also reported to be "just a few months" in the future when the game came out.
 
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