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[jim-jam bongs]

Oh yeah? Well Linux doesn't need your filthy Steam, filled with Windows and Mac logos and not a single picture of Richard Stallman. We've got motherfucking TUX RACER!

Suck it haters.

 

[brain_stew]

For my productivity's sake. It's for the best.

Linux is where I get work done. They've got to be considering the home TV market at some point. They should be working on a TV friendly UI for Steam I feel.

This is the only way Steam will be ported to Linux. As part of a Steam OS that runs on a dedicated Steam box, since you'd want to get rid of the nasty Windows licensing fee for such a device and you'd want to also tailor the OS to it, then you're going to have to go the Linux route. Even then, I doubt this would mean a general Linux release was guaranteed.

That would be really nice. The large icon layout is nice, but it's not ideal.

It really needs to have controller support. It'd make them mode so much more useful for a HTPC box.

 

[Datschge]

I'd rather not pay for quick and dirty emulation (I know, I know) jobs. And if that qualifies as being platform agnostic, many games (and Steam!) already were, since they work in Wine at some capacity. I say that's platform agnosticism as much as running Windows software in virtualized Windows on Linux.

Wine is a re-implementation of the Windows APIs, Wine is not an emulator. When you run an executable compiles for Windows through Wine the system calls get redirected to the natively available API. However when one wants to quickly port a Windows application one can compile them using the Wine libraries so that system and API calls go straight to the native ones without any additional redirection. This is not comparable to emulation or virtualization at all. This is also why you can't use Wine to run Windows application on non-x86/x64 processor architectures.

Also the 3D driver problem under Linux on desktop is more of a chicken/egg issue: overall the feature support is incomplete and unstable, so it doesn't get used, so it doesn't get implemented correctly, repeat.

 

[Sew]

Disappointing. I'm glad a bought a PS3 for Portal 2.

(I guess my multiple Linux boxes will have to stick to serving files, hurr.)

 

[Grayman]

huh, well it would have been nice for more platform support.

The driver situation seemed good to me when I ran these http://unigine.com/download/

 

[pmj]

Wine is a re-implementation of the Windows APIs, Wine is not an emulator.

Didn't I say that I knew? It still feels lazy, and Wine, as impressive as that project is, is still kinda shit. And a lazy, we-don't-really-give-a-shit way to port. I want Linux apps on my Linux, not Windows apps that have gone through the bare minimum of changes and some Wine trickery to run.

I still don't see the huge problems with graphics on Linux either, at least not on the Nvidia side of it. Maybe you could give some specific examples?

 

[jim-jam bongs]

Didn't I say that I knew? It still feels lazy, and Wine, as impressive as that project is, is still kinda shit. And a lazy, we-don't-really-give-a-shit way to port. I want Linux apps on my Linux, not Windows apps that have gone through the bare minimum of changes and some Wine trickery to run.

Meanwhile, back in reality...

Linux is awesome and I use it every day, but that attitude hurts adoption more than it helps. Even Apple have accepted now that people need Windows, at least for the transition, which is why we have Bootcamp and Parallels.

 

[whalenapp81]

Get a Real OS Hippie!!

 

[Datschge]

Didn't I say that I knew? It still feels lazy, and Wine, as impressive as that project is, is still kinda shit. And a lazy, we-don't-really-give-a-shit way to port. I want Linux apps on my Linux, not Windows apps that have gone through the bare minimum of changes and some Wine trickery to run.

I still don't see the huge problems with graphics on Linux either, at least not on the Nvidia side of it. Maybe you could give some specific examples?

Uh, I agree with you that those who use Wine for porting should be considered as the lazy kind of developers. Using cross platform toolkits like Qt would be the sane approach. I think it's quite telling that Wine is being massively used for quickly porting apps to Mac OSX while Linux users/developers are mostly shunning it as far as I can see.

The example project I mentioned above without the name is KDE SC 4.x. If you have it running smoothly I can only congratulate you, if you think it's slow and thus crap you now know the cause of this impression.

 

[JADS]

Get a Real OS Hippie!!

GNU/Hurd dawg, its the only true OS

 

[Dead Man Typing]

"So that's when folks can really start to see the advent of simultaneous releases on new Mac releases really start to kick in, now that the foundation has been laid this year if you will. You'll see some new releases coming in 2011 - including our own one, Portal 2."

Only one game from Valve on Steam in 2011? Oh well, no Half Life 2: Episode 3 until at least 2012.

 

[Drkirby]

Oh yeah? Well Linux doesn't need your filthy Steam, filled with Windows and Mac logos and not a single picture of Richard Stallman. We've got motherfucking TUX RACER!

Suck it haters.

There is a Windows and Mac version of that though. For the past decade.

 

[jim-jam bongs]

There is a Windows and Mac version of that though. For the past decade.

Well yeah, but it's still my go-to joke for every "games on Linux" conversation.

 

[jvm]

I hope all the cheerleaders from this thread are reading. Seriously. You should know better than to trust Phoronix. They've been pushing the "Steam on Linux" for ages.

I'm a big GNU/Linux fan. I've been running it for over a decade, maybe 12 years now. But for crying out loud, be realistic.

 

[M3d10n]

AFAIK the Linux platform isn't too friendly to binary-only applications. If left unmaintained by the developer for too long it might get broken as the OS gets updated over time. And most publishers aren't fond of distributing their games with source.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

Only one game from Valve on Steam in 2011? Oh well, no Half Life 2: Episode 3 until at least 2012.

They've basically been releasing one title a year since 2006:

2006 - Half-Life 2: Episode 1
2007 - The Orange Box
2008 - Left4Dead
2009 - Left4Dead 2
2010 - Alien Swarm
2011 - Portal 2, (?)

Maybe there will be more, but they are not ready to talk about it. After Portal 2 delay and OSX version of Steam missed it's first release date, Valve seemed to have decided that it would be best to hold off saying anything until they were sure. Could explain why Alien Swarm was revealed and released within a short time period.

 

[jim-jam bongs]

AFAIK the Linux platform isn't too friendly to binary-only applications. If left unmaintained by the developer for too long it might get broken as the OS gets updated over time. And most publishers aren't fond of distributing their games with source.

You can just use static linking, and there's nothing in the GPL which excludes the distribution of closed-source software within Linux.

 

[hikarutilmitt]

It would be a compatibility nightmare, Mac OSX makes more sense due to the fewer possible configurations.

Compatibility with any "major" distro like Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva, etc would be simple enough on the software side. Anything else would be a similar hardware requirement just as with Windows or OSX. I don't see any reason Valve would have to compromise with the Linux users, anyway, for installing "closed" video drivers like nVidia and ATi have.

The way I see it, they don't support certain specific configurations of Windows or OSX anyway, so not officially supporting any lesser-used distros that have off-the-wall setups wouldn't be an issue. Anyone using one of those other distros should and would be able to make it work anyway.

 

[itxaka]

ugh Valve, I though you were cool...

It's a shame but well, wacha gonna do?

 

[Blizzard]

You can just use static linking, and there's nothing in the GPL which excludes the distribution of closed-source software within Linux.

Dynamic linking with LGPL libraries means you don't have to release your source code, but static linking means you typically do. Linking with any GPL library in most any form also means you do as far as I know.

But distributing closed-source software in Linux shouldn't have problems as long as the compilers, libraries, and runtimes do not have licensing issues. (I'm not sure on the status of the C/C++ runtime libraries with normal gcc in Linux)

 

[Vagabundo]

Damnit. Damnit all to helll...

 

[onken]

It's easy enough for linux users to just install OSX now, and while it's not open source, it is unix based and pretty damn comfortable for most linux users.

Yeah that's right, just install another operating system that is terrible for game support instead, genius :lol

 

[DrXym]

It would be a compatibility nightmare, Mac OSX makes more sense due to the fewer possible configurations.

Valve should just ensure Steam and a handful of "flagship" games run under emulation - either Wine or a commercial Wine. They could even turn over compatibility testing to that company. That would take care of Linux.