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Steam for Linux beta soon, official release likely to be in February 2013

C

crimsonheadGCN

Banned
Michael Larabel

while the #Valve #Steam #Linux beta should be really soon, heard that the proper/official/stable/awesome release may be #February
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https://twitter.com/michaellarabel/status/241612905018171392

There is also a new entry in the Steam registry for the beta:'

AppID 16549
Name Steam Linux Beta
BillingType ProofOfPrepurchaseOnly
CostInCents 0
OnSubscribeRunAppId -1
OnSubscribeRunLaunchOptionIndex -1
RequiredKeyType 4
GameCode
GameCodeDescription SteamLinux
IsSteam3Subscription 1
RequiresShippingAddress
DomesticCostInCents
RequiresCD
IsPreorder
TerritoryCode
Added 2012-09-06 01:15:54
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http://marlamin.com/cdr/view.php?type=sub&id=16549

So invites should be going out rather soon. It'll probably be similar to the initial beta signups for Dota 2, CS: GO, etc where it's a hardware survey plus a set of questions to answer for a chance of the initial beta invite.
 
V

vasametropolis

Member
the news of it coming is fantastic, but I just have a strong feeling third parties (steam partners, as stated by valve) are not going to be convinced.

as awesome as valve games are, they may not be enough. the amount of ubuntu users (while certainly not low at all), is relatively limited compared to other OSs. I can't say I'd blame anyone who doesn't jump in. The best we can do is play as many games on ubuntu as we can to try and get publisher interest.

That and Ubuntu is used a lot by researchers. It's interesting to think how many of the 20 million or so ubuntu users are actually intersted in games on their machine.

Edit: saying there were a relatively small amount of linux users is outrageous. corrected to say ubuntu.
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
vasametropolis said:
the news of it coming is fantastic, but I just have a strong feeling third parties (steam partners, as stated by valve) are not going to be convinced.

as awesome as valve games are, they may not be enough. the amount of linux users (while certainly not low at all), is relatively limited. I can't say I'd blame anyone who doesn't jump in. The best we can do is play as many games on ubuntu as we can to try and get publisher interest.
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It would be absolutely unrealistic and borderline insane to expect that suddenly everyone on the PC market is going to support Linux, but it's not that unlikely to think that starting this thing could lead to a gradual increase of support for the platform.
 
G

golem

Member
They should go ahead and adopt linux to make Steam OS.. then Steam Box can be freed of any Microsoft OS fumbling.
 
V

vasametropolis

Member
I corrected my post to say "ubuntu" specifically everywhere for clarity.

I agree, hoping the Steam library is just magically going to be ported over is lunacy. Some are hoping for this... disappointment lies ahead.

I just hope the ubuntu version runs closer to the windows one. the GUI for Mac is slow quite frequently when closing open windows, etc. Leaves a really bad taste.
 
T

TouchMyBox

Member
It's safe to say that we'll see every modern valve title, the vast majority of indie titles, and a handful of other bigger budget games on the service shortly after the official launch. Past that, I think the best we can hope for is a slow acceleration in linux support.
 
D

DenisQc

Member
seeing that a lot of indie games form several bundles (indieroyale, humble bundle, ...) have a linux version and are available on linux desura, there is a lot of games that will be available at launch

my old computer on linux has desura and lots of games already :)
 
O

Omikaru

Member
vasametropolis said:
I agree, hoping the Steam library is just magically going to be ported over is lunacy. Some are hoping for this... disappointment lies ahead.
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Whilst I agree, I wonder how Valve feels about using WINE for legacy titles that will never, ever, ever get a port.

Like, I have Deus Ex on Steam. It's a Windows game, and it's never going to be on Linux. It's also a must-have for me to ever leave Windows 100%, and it supposedly works really well on WINE. Having that functionality baked into Steam would be a big deal, and wouldn't be any more unsuitable than backwards compatibility on consoles is, in my opinion.

I think there is a limit to what Valve does to make games compatible -- for example, I don't want them baking in their own Joy2Key kinda thing for games that don't support controllers -- but I think if they can get the games to run in Linux using something like WINE, and the developer/publisher has no intention of porting, then it would go a long way to bringing the community over.

Of course, I don't expect any of this in the beta, but it'd be nice to know what Valve's plans for Linux are, beyond expecting developers to just port their games to Linux, and for users to move over just because it's not Windows.
 
Z

zephervack

Member
Omikaru said:
Whilst I agree, I wonder how Valve feels about using WINE for legacy titles that will never, ever, ever get a port.

Like, I have Deus Ex on Steam. It's a Windows game, and it's never going to be on Linux. It's also a must-have for me to ever leave Windows 100%, and it supposedly works really well on WINE. Having that functionality baked into Steam would be a big deal, and wouldn't be any more unsuitable than backwards compatibility on consoles is, in my opinion.

I think there is a limit to what Valve does to make games compatible -- for example, I don't want them baking in their own Joy2Key kinda thing for games that don't support controllers -- but I think if they can get the games to run in Linux using something like WINE, and the developer/publisher has no intention of porting, then it would go a long way to bringing the community over.

Of course, I don't expect any of this in the beta, but it'd be nice to know what Valve's plans for Linux are, beyond expecting developers to just port their games to Linux, and for users to move over just because it's not Windows.
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As farfetched as this sounds, I can totally see it after seeing some GOG titles using DOSbox.

Is Wine open source too?
 
T

TouchMyBox

Member
Omikaru said:
Whilst I agree, I wonder how Valve feels about using WINE for legacy titles that will never, ever, ever get a port.

Like, I have Deus Ex on Steam. It's a Windows game, and it's never going to be on Linux. It's also a must-have for me to ever leave Windows 100%, and it supposedly works really well on WINE. Having that functionality baked into Steam would be a big deal, and wouldn't be any more unsuitable than backwards compatibility on consoles is, in my opinion.

I think there is a limit to what Valve does to make games compatible -- for example, I don't want them baking in their own Joy2Key kinda thing for games that don't support controllers -- but I think if they can get the games to run in Linux using something like WINE, and the developer/publisher has no intention of porting, then it would go a long way to bringing the community over.

Of course, I don't expect any of this in the beta, but it'd be nice to know what Valve's plans for Linux are, beyond expecting developers to just port their games to Linux, and for users to move over just because it's not Windows.
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There are a few games on Steam for mac which use transgaming's cider wrapper, which is WINE-based.

That said, just straight up running steam under WINE right now and using it to play graphically simpler games is mostly a pretty good experience. Even stuff like Dota 2 runs almost flawlessly with WINE 1.5.11, just at about half the framerate which is attainable in windows.
 
O

Omikaru

Member
TouchMyBox said:
There are a few games on Steam for mac which use transgaming's cider wrapper, which is WINE-based.

That said, just straight up running steam under WINE right now and using it to play graphically simpler games is mostly a pretty good experience. Even stuff like Dota 2 runs almost flawlessly with WINE 1.5.11, just at about half the framerate which is attainable in windows.
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It's fine for now, but it won't be when we get the native Steam client. I'd rather not have to quit one and open up another running in WINE just to play some legacy games. It doesn't have the quality of service that you'd expect from something like Steam (instead it feels kind of like a ramshackle experience that only works with effort), which is why I'd prefer it if the native app could launch games running in WINE wrappers, or whatever.

I understand all of this isn't a magic wand fix, but I seriously think Valve need to consider this in the mid-long term if they're as worried about the future of Windows as they say they are, because if they expect people to move over to Linux then these are the things they need to be doing.

As for the Mac games, isn't that down to the developer to do? I'd actually like to see an implementation in the client that does this for compatible games (mostly games for Windows XP and older at first, and go from there), because I don't expect many publishers will bother doing the work themselves.
 
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