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Whilst you're welcome to your own opinions, I personally won't be storing anything of any importance on an SSD until not only are they a viable option cost-wise cf. real disks, but also there's some hope of recovering data off them when they fail. Real disks are well-understood in terms of data-recovery, whereas all SSDs store data in extremely-proprietary ways.

A curious backup strategy indeed. I agree that an SSD is overkill for bulk storage of movies and similar data, but if you tried putting your OS partition on one you'd never go back. A drive crash will never catch you unaware unless you are computer illiterate. I would never trust or even bother with drive recovery, as it should never be necessary if you have any idea what you're doing.

You might be joking, but: there many relatively cheap or free solutions for both near-real-time backup and availability, which allows you to enjoy the speed of an SSD without worry. You could even go for two drives in a RAID 1 config if availability is very important to you. If you have a laptop with no extra internal bays insert a thumb drive and script periodic rsyncs (with --link-dest) of important documents to that. I'm happy with using Crashplan with ample redundancy (including cloud) for all important data, and doing a full dd of my OS drive regularly to save time in case of recovery. dd is a lot faster than re-installs, and since my OS drive is tiny in comparison to my bulk storage drives, space is not an issue.

My SSD with OS partitions on it has 17842 hours of operation on it now, it has perfect health according to SMART data. It will likely last longer than any other component in my main computer. On the other hand my tertiary drive (seagate 1TB) were retired two days ago after 24040 hours total, with a couple of weeks of illness at the end (wohoo, free rare earth magnets). I had plenty of time to synchronise the remaining content onto the secondary in advance, SMART is your friend. If the SSD suddenly dies tomorrow I'll be back in business in an hour after getting a new one from the LCS. The one component I will never forgo when building a box with a GUI is an SSD for the OS partitions.

A neat trick for gaming, btw, is to install your games to a regular HDD, and move the games you're playing at the moment to SSD (mklink or ln -s manually if you want full control). "Swapping in" a new game literally (yes, literally) takes something like three minutes, and a 120GB SSD will then suffice for your OS and a few games at a time. It truly works wonders for performance.

Woa. This post kept building itself up, and to boot it was a reply to AC who will probably never see it. I'll just leave it here :)

Steam has a handful of the old LucasArts games. A quick search popped up an adventure pack: http://store.steampowered.com/sub/2102/

Or even better...

Kerbal Space Program!!

I have Mint/Mate/Linux installed as my third boot option, I'll tinker with Mint a bit then
boot into a Windows OS to play my games.

One good game for me and I could make Linux part of my normal setup and always be available.
I say this in all honesty as Doom brought me to the PC, and away from the AmigA.

http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/

The stuff listed at that link is of no interest to me. Dungeon Defenders ($15.00) is a POS that
comes with the Motorola Xoom (Google Tablet), it might be great for a very young kid but not me.
It's one item all custom ROMs remove with no complaints and the space saved is substantial.

My games are of the Call of Duty genre, right now Battle Field 3 is calling me to play even as I type this.

Directx is what needs to be addressed, I know it's being worked on and I follow it a bit; but belonging
to MS I don't see much hope of a full port.

...and whaddya know, I open Steam juuuuust after the comment to check, and as if to vindicate me I see the GUTS editor and other fun stuff for TL2 were released. (Sorry my comments ended up becoming a whole big TL2 ad, just saying.)

"[...], but until we start seeing mainstream games on Steam being released with Linux binaries, [...]"

Are you kidding? :)
Since Steam went out of beta, all I've been doing is play awesome mainsteam games on GNU/Linux.
Amnesia The Dark Descent, The Journey Down Chapter One, Trine 2, especially that one game is keeping me busy at the moment.

You should really re-check the Steam store Linux selection here.
List keeps growing too, every time I check there are new games being added.

You mean like the one on the first entry here:

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_4_4__12&term=team+fortress+2

?

I sure hope they make this available on Steam or some other PC game portal... TAKE ME MONEYS!!!

Well, there is a rumor in Twitter about a Steam version in the works...

just for the surreal aspect that mixes magic and technology

Try this: E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy

At least Valve lets you trade their games within Steam. If you can't trade any other games it is the publisher's decision not Valve's

Go read the forums on Steam - linked here for ease: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=742

The original devs are all gone, they're basically adding a few new structures and calling it a new release, it still has some game-breaking bugs that have persisted for 3 or 4 releases now.

I highly recommend Tropico 4 - you end up with more control over individual structures than you did with the Sim City series, but it is equally fun.

Steam even has the Collector's Bundle (Game + Expansion + all the DLCs) on sale for $9.99 through March 15, 2013. http://store.steampowered.com/sub/19282/

Sadly, Tropico 4 has an online-required component - you have to create an account and sign in to launch it each time. About the only issue I have with it, otherwise it is awesome. (I haven't tried it offline, my laptop won't run it well so I play other games when traveling)

Go read the forums on Steam - linked here for ease: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=742

The original devs are all gone, they're basically adding a few new structures and calling it a new release, it still has some game-breaking bugs that have persisted for 3 or 4 releases now.

I highly recommend Tropico 4 - you end up with more control over individual structures than you did with the Sim City series, but it is equally fun.

Steam even has the Collector's Bundle (Game + Expansion + all the DLCs) on sale for $9.99 through March 15, 2013. http://store.steampowered.com/sub/19282/

Sadly, Tropico 4 has an online-required component - you have to create an account and sign in to launch it each time. About the only issue I have with it, otherwise it is awesome. (I haven't tried it offline, my laptop won't run it well so I play other games when traveling)

Not that I disagree with your comment about Mathematica, but I do want to point out that there are institutions for which it makes sense to download R http://www.r-project.org/ for free, even if the machine itself is way more expensive than their combined salaries.

LibreOffice had 16% market share already in 2010 next to MS Office 56% http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey?platform=combined And now from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/08/libreoffice_40_ships/

"LibreOffice 4.0 ships with new features, better looks. Slowly closing the gap with Microsoft Office"

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Not a bad showing for Linux, all things considered. The top variant of Linux is nearly tied with Windows 8.

No one would play a hyper realistic farming game

You have no idea how wrong you are.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/220260/

Many know this site already, but here is a nice overview of the Linux titles: steamlinux.xpaw.ru. Of course there's the Valve's official list too.

This has some English info: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3070577

If you can read German here is a reasonable summary: http://www.gamestar.de/news/branche/3008932/valve.html

That's Australia. We've established in other articles and discussions that the content cartels gouge the piss out of those down under, and it isn't limited to Steam.

That may be so, but he was comparing an Australian store with Steam, so I don't know what your point is.

In the US, prices on Steam are unbeatable. There is nothing quite like getting a classic for $5 that you can't find in stores for less than $19.99 (and that's if you can even find it to begin with).

Really? I've gotten many classics for cheap from eBay. Plus if you really want a classic, you could always pirate it or try other distributors like Good Old Games.

I recently got Borderlands 2 for $29.99 - that is simply not possible right now otherwise.

Right now Amazon has it for $36.99. Steam has it for $59.99. I notice they are selling a "Season Pass" for $29.99, but that's just downloadable (extra) content, for which you'll need to buy the original game first.

Steam is convenient, but mostly they have games at high prices that they get people to buy by putting them on sale. Steam users love their sales.

Use a US billing address credit card. Steam will be cheaper than your local store

That's a TOS violation and might get your account blocked.

You agree that you will not use IP proxying or other methods to disguise the place of your residence, whether to circumvent geographical restrictions on game content, to purchase at pricing not applicable to your geography, or for any other purpose. If you do this, we may terminate your access to your Account.

The Steam logo is a stylized closeup of the linkage on a Steam Locomotive...

Taken from the official Steam license. http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/?l=english You may not sell or charge others for the right to use your Account, or otherwise transfer your Account, nor may you sell, charge others for the right to use, or transfer any Subscriptions other than if and as expressly permitted by this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use). 2. LICENSES A. License Terms. Steam and your Subscription(s) require the automatic download and installation of Software onto your computer. Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a limited, terminable, non-exclusive license and right to use the Software for your personal use in accordance with this Agreement, including the Subscription Terms. The Software is licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Software. To make use of the Software, you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet.

hah, just a glance at steam stats says otherwise: http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

The problem with Steam is that Valve have not integrated it into the existing Linux software repositories.

Valve actually created their own repo, but it probably doesn't have all the dependencies.

http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/

I don't know about on Linux, but Team Fortress 2 Beta (appid 520) on Steam for Windows/OSX is not Team Fortress 2 (appid 440)... it's a branch that Valve occasionally uses to test new game features.

Clearly tuxracer is all the thrill he can handle.

I'm a Mac user stuck with the little puzzle thing where you slide the tiles. I would love to have access to the gaming awesomeness that is Tux Racer.

Seriously? Try again.

Here's a direct link to the install package: http://media.steampowered.com/client/installer/steam.deb

Well, Cubemen is a very nice tower defense game and should be fun for kids.

There is also a Linux version of Team Fortress 2, which you might be interested about.

Well, Cubemen is a very nice tower defense game and should be fun for kids.

There is also a Linux version of Team Fortress 2, which you might be interested about.

Also, GNU/Linux? What the hell, are we back to 1995?

Fortunately, no. http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/

steam for games

Steam for Linux Beta Now Available to All

Open Office as a good-enough-replacement for MS office

OpenOffice is as good as dead. Use LibreOffice

it will need lightroom 4 working

I can't commetn here, but outlook not so good


M.

Most of the time, Steam downtime is announced in advance (for known downtimes) or confirmed that there's a problem on the Steam Downtime Announcements thread on the Steam forums.

However, it's not always done, particularly on weekends or holidays.

It clearly wasn't global, if you check their stats page you can see the numbers takes a dip, but doesn't go to zero (which is what happens during global outages). Looks like ~1.4 million people were affected, which is significant but nowhere near worldwide. The news story is making a mountain out of almost nothing (sounds like the submitter has a major anti-Steam axe to grind). I, for one, had zero problem playing games even though Steam started with "no connection" this morning.

Don't most Windows computers (and I'd imagine all mainstream) support 64-bit now?

Most processors do but typically XP is 32-bit. Given it has a huge market share for such an old OS, one might guess say 30% of machines. According to Steam survey Windows 7 (32-bit) 14%, XP (32-bit) 10%, and that's gamers.

I'm quite a long time user of Steam on Windows. There are a few games I've had difficulty with (less than 2-3% I'd guess). Most of those, one of the troubleshooting tips was to delete ClientRegistry.blob manually (never fixed anything for me). This Steam support page tells you how to do it on Windows and Mac, saying that it may resolve certain Steam issues.

It's one of the things I quite like about steam - it doesn't worry too much about you fucking it up, because it just checks and reloads what it needs. Also, copying game directories from one computer to another works, different user or not; no need to download that 30gb game again.

There are a lot of really successful offerings like LittleBigPlanet, Trine, Braid, Limbo, Deadlight and many more puzzle platformers all available on major platforms.

There are new titles being added on Steam all the time
http://store.steampowered.com/search/?show_all=1#term=platformers

"That statement isn't true at all. "

Steam hardware survey (which is statistically valid).

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Gamers by a significant margin (20%) prefer nvidia over ATI/AMD.

Very true. http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

From the linked page, logged in users peak at ~5-6 million per day, while the most played games lists seems to indicate that the concurrent actually playing users probably peaks at around 1 million

And if we're reading this right, the Steambox is basically a Linux-based computer with connectivity for your TV.

How many desktop monitors are out there with HDMI input these days? And do you really think they're going to invent a new connector when there's already a huge number of game controllers that connect with USB? What's to stop you from plugging your mouse/keyboard into it, and plugging it into a desktop monitor? A majority of games being made for PC these days already have native support for game controllers or a more traditional pc/mouse interface, and it's unlikely that's going to stop any time soon. XBox is using USB for the controllers, and the Nintendo Wii has USB ports that let you plug in a keyboard for use in the browser and configuration screens, after all...

If Valve is halfway smart about it, they'll continue giving you a choice between the traditional and the "big picture" interfaces, and have a way to escape out to a normal desktop on the device as well, or at least integrate apps in. They're already selling non-game software on Steam, and it's really a short trip for them to start offering stuff like LibreOffice and Firefox there, too.

"I'm seeing it being 800+ tbh if they want to make sure their games run at higher frames and in better quality than consoles."

Valve Steam Survey

Most common GPU: Intel HD 3000.
Most common CPU: dual core @ ~2.5ghz

Thats a survey of gamers. The market is quite different than it once was, when only enthusiasts played games.

You can build a better box for sub-$400 easily. The AMD A8-3850 is currently $90 retail, quad core @ 2.9ghz and has a significantly better GPU than the Intel HD 3000 (and even the XBOX 360's GPU since that is about equal to the HD 3000), and thats without any volume discount.

This sort of commodity use is exactly what the APU's were designed for.

My only grip about many games, legit or pirated, is that stupid stupid stupid MOFO dickfucks, who still think people run on 1024x768 or 1280x1024 screens, but are TOO dumb, or TOO POOR, to even know that every one has a 16:9 tv , at 1366x768 or 1920x.

While not representative of the gaming community as a whole, the Steam hardware survey has some interesting figures. Note the fragmentation.

Hey Game coders, how about you just use the same res as what the desktop has. Get a clue bozos.

That's a great suggestion, as long as everyone has enough horsepower. Desktop and 3d application requirements performance vary considerably and this may be why developers are conservative.

You dont have to test for all 1 million resolution combinations, just 4:3 and 16:9 and 2:1 and smart auto adjusting for everything else.

If you look at the Steam hardware survey you'll notice the variety of resolutions that're encountered out in the wild. If things are designed properly display elements should scale, however, budgets aren't infinite nor are timelines. In many instances display devices are queried for supported display modes, it's not a list hard coded by the developer.

Doom3 may have these things, but they don't make it any more scary. It's still bland, boring, and unimaginative. The discussion was about "terrifying," which it isn't, not "is it a FPS" or "does it have certain gameplay elements".

There are better FPS's. There are better Horror FPS's. Some of these are even actually scary. For instance, Amnesia. Doom 3 is just bad.

That said, the Doom3 engine may not be bad, and hey, it's GPL'd now, so you can even go fix it if it is. This is entirely orthogonal to Doom3 the game. But now you have a (probably good, mature, stable) 3D engine that can output to the Oculus Rift, and it's Free(tm).

If true Intel will virtually disappear on the gamer platform. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/processormfg/

Not sure if that was a joke or not, but Steam on Linux's beta already has 27 games, TF2 being one of them. Full list: http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_4_4__12&term=linux#os=linux&advanced=0&sort_order=ASC&page=1

Reddit Users Bypass Steam Linux Beta Invitations

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/11/reddit-users-bypass-valve-linux-beta-invitations

"OMG! Ubuntu! learned from a reader that Reddit users on /r/linux_gaming[1] have already figured out a way to bypass Valveâ(TM)s Beta Invitation â" which allow users to start exploring Steam on Linux much earlier than the folks at Valve had likely planned for.

In order to enjoy the Valve on Linux Beta early users have been using the following stepsâ¦

From Terminal:

        wget http://media.steampowered.com/client/installer/steam.deb
        sudo dpkg -i steam.deb && sudo apt-get install -f

Then From Unity Dash:

        Launch Steam App
        Login to Steam
        You will get a message saying you arenâ(TM)t in Beta.
        Close this.

If you are on amd64 architecture then you will also need to run âoesudo apt-get install libjpeg-turbo8:i386 libcurl3gnutls:i386 libogg0:i386 libpixman-1-0:i386 libsdl1.2debian:i386 libtheora0:i386 libvorbis0a:i386 libvorbisenc2:i386 libvorbisfile3:i386 libasound2:i386 libc6:i386 libgcc1:i386 libstdc++6:i386 libx11-6:i386 libxau6:i386 libxcb1:i386 libxdmcp6:i386â from terminal without the quotations.

Finally from terminal run âoesteam steam://open/gamesâ without the quotations and you will experience Steam on Linux providing you have all the package dependencies and follow the above steps.

More information on this bypass can be found on /r/linux_gaming[2] subreddit and readers are reminded that although this is not a hack but just a loophole that requires not modification that it could in some manner still violate the Valve Terms of Service so we suggest caution.

Some video of Big Picture and Steam on Ubuntu 12.10 is available here[3] and video of Team Fortress 2 on Ubuntu is here[4]."

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/12qs6z/steam_for_linux_its_here_deb_in_the_link/
[2] http://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/12qs6z/steam_for_linux_its_here_deb_in_the_link/
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEkgSd7KHkc
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS1FK8rHlZA

http://securityflakes.livelyblog.com/

So for what platform should a company develop video games if the games are in a genre that doesn't work well with a flat sheet of glass as the only input device

The touchpad isn't the only input device for the WiiU... it's just the only one that comes with it. Incidentally, the WiiU's tablet controller also has an analog stick on it, it's just a pain to hold to use it. The WiiU also supports the WiiU Pro Controller (the one that looks like an Xbox 360 controller) and and Wii-compatible controller including the Wiimote and its addons.

So for what platform should a company develop video games if... the company isn't big enough to attract the attention of Nintendo? (Before you say 2D Boy, Nintendo has since reworded its developer qualifications to rule out 2D Boy's loophole of using a coffee shop as its "secure office.")

Yes, that's a legit problem here. I could answer that with "the Xbox 360" but their Indie games aren't that well promoted, plus they require that you use XNA and C#.

The best platform for Indie games at the current point is still PC to a greater extent, and to a lesser extent, Steam specifically.

On the other hand, Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel has the Virtual Console categories with officially emulated games dating back to the fourth quarter of 1985 when the NES was released.

That's pretty amazing, especially if you aren't aware of emulation. Now, if you include emulators which run on the PC (there are titles that come bundled with dosbox so it's point and click, ready to go, available on Steam or GOG.com like Space Quest) you have pretty much all of the systems covered since gaming began. Use a USB controller adapter to enhance the experience with your actual contollers. Bummer you have to rebuy your titles, it would be very cool if you could easily uniquely identify cartridges and unlock what you've already purchased.

A 20-year library would include DOS games and Windows 3.1 games, and 64-bit Windows can't run those without an emulator.

Neither can Nintendo, without an emulator.

Nvidia's announcement also indicated the Steam beta for Linux should be out today

I think Valve's announcement kinda indicated that too.

The PC community needs a killer app-- something that needs the brawn of a full scale CPU and graphics card, yet is so sensitive to latency that the thin client server model can't work. I Know! Gaming! Zynga should talk to Crytek about making a killer farming game

And these 306 games on Steam.

Did the Steambox already come out in select markets? If not, where should one buy a ready-to-use gaming PC that doesn't look and sound (fan noise) out of place next to a 32" or larger living-room monitor?

No, they created a TV Mode [called Big Picture]

The page you linked links to a setup page, which states: "Step 1: Carry your PC or Mac to your HDTV." I don't think a lot of people are going to want to carry the family PC back and forth. So let me rephrase my second question in light of this: if someone is buying a new Windows PC to use with Steam Big Picture, what models do you recommend that have "low-noise, small size, good USB connectivity, on-board WiFi, and a decent case design" and the 512 MB DirectX 10 graphics card that Big Picture recommends?