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Left 4 Dead Demo Includes Linux Steam Client Libraries
SheeEttin writes "If you've been longing to play games from Steam on your Linux machine, you may not have to wait much longer — the Left 4 Dead demo includes some Linux libraries, in particular, one named 'steamclient_linux.so.' While the game's full release does not include these libraries, their apparently accidental inclusion in the demo suggests that Steam games will have native Linux clients in the near future. (A job listing at Valve looking for someone whose responsibilities would include 'Port[ing] Windows-based games to the Linux platform' would seem to support this.) The libraries also include several strings nonessential to a pure server, including references to forgotten passwords. Hopefully, this indicates that at least some Valve-affiliated games will have native Linux clients."
for the Year Of The Linux Desktop.
steamclient_linux.so is used by the dedicated linux servers to connect to steam and check for updates and such, it was probably just included by mistake..
I wonder if this means they will provide OS X support as well?
Just because the Steam client may run native Linux doesn't mean that games will.
I'd be surprised if the first offerings were more than the few games that will run under wine bundled with wine.
And a game running under wine doesn't become a Linux game. Sorry, no.
Just a few more years?
If they're still looking to hire, I doubt this would be anytime soon. It is valve we're talking about here.
Let me know when they publicly announce it.
RtCW: Enemy Territory?
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
It's for running the dedicated servers!
As was mentioned above this was probably just an accidental inclusion from that project.
Considering how long it takes them between releases, we can expect this sometime around 2015.
Postal3 has already been confirmed to have a linux-native client AND postal3 is to use Valves Source engine so since this game is due in 2009 a linux-native source engine/valve must be worked on
maybe this is the 1st signs of it
Some references would be nice.
But if you can have a game DRM system on Linux, can Linux be truly free?
Who still believes any of the stuff they're writing?
Those libraries are used by the Linux SERVER, so they can pull updates over Steam. Yes, Steam in Linux...shocking, ain't it? That says absolutely zip about game capability.
Phoronix sees a handful of .so files and weaves a huge story about any Source games are just around the corner for Linux.
There's absolutely _nothing_ noteworthy about this...
I don't doubt that Valve has investigated the possibility of a native Linux client. However, Phoronix doesn't seem to be looking in the right places. Let's go through what they brought up from the perspective of someone who is familiar with the Source engine:
steamclient_linux.so - this is the ONLY interesting file. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that a majority is stubbed out and this is a remnant of the port of L4D to Steamworks - it uses a more generic library layout to work with any application, not tightly integrated with Source as before. Perhaps the server uses some functions in it to connect to the Steam master servers. That would explain why they only found it to be about half the size of the Windows version.
studiorender_i486.so - Valve calls their 3D model format a "studio model." I'm fairly certain that this file is stubbed out and only the model loader is available - the physics engine needs it to get at mesh data.
vstdlib_i486.so - Valve's standard libraries. Routines and classes used throughout the engine. No surprise, it's been shipping as long as the dedicated server has.
libsteam_api_linux.so - The API into Steam. Again, probably a Steamworks artifact. Again, perhaps part is used by the dedicated server.
engine_i486.so - core engine functionality. Anything that isn't factored out into another library (there are about 45) exists in here. I'm fairly sure that typically, left4dead.exe connects to Steam, then loads this library to make stuff happen. Core client and server code (operation, not logic) is in here.
Unfortunately, I have since removed the demo from my computer (bought the actual game, well worth it) and can't investigate these files any further. I don't think this is 100% indicative of Valve having a Linux client ready, but rather extreme extrapolation on Phoronix's part. I'm completely with them on wanting a client though.
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
Supposedly the numbers are 5:1 Mac:Linux on the desktop platform; you'd think they would be going after that market first.
Please help metamoderate.
He is talking about steam. not only are you forced to run it always in the background when you play the games.
it will call home every time you start a game to see if it's legit even if it's for lan or single player(yes i know one can get around it but do it too often and it will complain). It will prevent you from even running a game that is not up to date even in single player mode or lan, which is a pain in the rear because on some games the newest patch is not always the best. The ability to arbitrarily and without notice change requirements of the game like forcing people to up date their os's to play games that without steam would of played just fine.
the subversion of your fair use rights of being able to take the games you buy to a buy sell or trade store when your throughly sick of it to get some money back on your investment, on top of that boxed games that require steam can't be sold by ebay or any buy sell or trade stores because valve has publicly announced they won't accept those sales as valid even if the buyer proves he has the legit cd and proof of purchase. the fact that it removes from your control the physical medium of the game, some of us have isp's that don't like it when you download multiple gigs of data just because one little file in the steam cache(which you are not allowed to open btw) gets courpt.
to put it bluntly at the cost of my karma, if a game is on steam it's not worth playing. i DO NOT support companies that treat people like this. though on a side note i would find it funny if they ported steam to linux, it would be the first official spyware program for the os.
There is no platform for distributing comercial games available for Linux so far. If Valve did port Steam and all games using the Source Engine to Linux, they'd have some kind of Linux-Game monopoly. They could even do some contracts with major Distributors to include the Steam client in the repositories. So nearly everyone willing to buy a linux game will go to steam an buy it there easily - other companies already porting games to Linux could sell them using steam. And with the increasing popularity of Linux, this would be the right time for Valve to jump at the raising train
even if they are planning to port valve games, there will be a sooner good side effect from this: it will be nice to be able to install the linux versions of introversion games. currently, if you are running steam in WINE, you can only install the windows versions of those games, even though linux versions are available as a separate install.
Supposedly the numbers are 5:1 Mac:Linux on the desktop platform; you'd think they would be going after that market first.
There is a problem with that theory. Most Mac users use a mac for ease of use, not stability and ability to do whatever you want with full operability. There are far more gamers running linux than MacOSX.
That says nothing about the ratio of people running macs and wanting to play source games over the amount of people running linux and wanting to do the same thing.
VALVe has tons of data about that.
Well, I'd say the 295 people using 8 core machines are probably mostly Mac Pro users booting into Windows to play games. As one of those 295 people (0.2% of survey respondents) I can say we do want a Steam client for OS X.
The only way to play the demo is, and IANAL, kind of illegal now. The demo for L4D was removed from Steam the day the full game launched. If you google it, many people missed out on the demo and now have to buy the full game if they want to try it. The illegal part is, while the game is no longer listed in Steam, you still have the game installed. If you run the exe, you can play the single player demo only. I say kinda illegal cause if Valve doesn't want you playing the game on Steam, I doubt they want you playing the single player either and will probably update Steam to remove it (it was removed cause the demo is rather open ended and could easily have new maps made for it, detracting from sales of the full version. You could still technically do this for the single player too). So the linux guys are in the same boat as a lot of us wanting to test the game before buying it (assuming they even support Linux in the full version).
Aw Frell this
Linux and Mac OSes are all based off of the Unix kernel arn't they? I'm sure it wouldn't take too much to work on an OS X version too if this Linux version actually exists.
i.e. Half-Life 2, Team Fortress, Portal, right here on my Ubuntu laptop. There *is* a native version of Steam for Linux, albeit one without much of a front-end, just for running dedicated servers. So I suspect this is a non-story. Valve would be insane to worry about porting their games to Linux (at least) before they ported to the Mac, so I really think it's unlikely they're considering it. There's no common programming framework between Steam games, other than the copy protection & integration, so every game would be a separate porting job - not going to happen!
However if they could wrap up Steam, wine, Ubuntu together into a neat physical package, they could be in an interesting position to flog PC-based games consoles with a library of download titles, and *that* is the only reason they might be interested in supporting their own games on Linux. With Popcap and other cheap smaller titles making up the majority of their catalogue (even if those are not the most popular overall) and some hardware partner on board, they might have a shot if they could price a console at the low end of things.
Still- while they have an interest in keeping titles out for the XBox 360, taking on a huge platform project to compete with Microsoft would take balls of steel and plenty of money.
No, this is all crap, undoubtedly. But nice to speculate occasionally :)
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
steamclient_linux.so is probably a gzipped jpeg of Bill Gates with a few bits of header pasted on to make it look exciting for the Linux folks.
I didn't say anything about Mac people wanting a steam client being nonexistent. I simply said that if the amount of people willing to play on macs
At any rate, I shot an email to a dev and am awaiting his response.
I have an Intel Skulltrail rig, have 8 cores, and have never put OSX anywhere near it.
A decent try, but Mactards don't have a monopoly on 8 cores either, though no doubt Stevie Jobber has tried to convince you that the only 8 core desktops in the world are Macs.
Well AFAIK there is no itunes, safari, etc for linux so its obviously not that easy.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
libsteam_api_linux.so
libsteamvalidateuseridtickets_i486.so
libtier0_s_linux.so
I noticed this within the first hour after the demo came out while adjusting the configuration files.
However, I was more surprised with the file:
C:\Program files\Steam\SteamApps\Common\left 4 dead demo\left4dead\cfg\splitscreen_on.cfg:
I thought "WTF!? Splitscreen on the PC???". Doesn't do much, since it's disabled, but it's worth pointing out.
They probably just don't care about the small minority of Linux users. Why would they use their time and money to please a tiny bit of the market share when they could focus on their windows port. There is alot more of an incentive to work there. Besides, you're working backwards if you go from Mac OS back down to unix. They would probably start with unix and make a base that works, then polish things per distrobution.
This isn't too surprising, it's been known since the demo and already there are people who have written up tutorials on how to get it running. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=745113
It was available in the beta or demo but was disabled in a patch. They said they would add an option to enable it again in the future (probably through the console) but won't support it on PC. They mainly added it for the Xbox version.
Mada mada dane.
Notice the word "most"? The low number should tell you that they are pretty uncommon, and my point was that Apple makes one of the more common, somewhat accessible 8 core systems, not that they were the only ones out there. Regardless, it was a joke, hence the citing of the .2% of users that have this setup.
More or less you're right but: Mac OS X is based off the XNU kernel which is an actual unix kernel which inherits code from BSD, and might even contain some code from the original distrubtion of unix from At&t. Apple claims their operating system is "genuine unix", and it probably fullfils some set of certification requirements (Almost definitaly POSIX), at the same time, however, Apple built alot of extensions on top of thier base system, including their own graphics server (although they also support X11 apps), that would be absent in any other unix. Linux is a kernel, originally intended as a minix replacement, which eventually grew into a unix clone, the GNU project had set out to clone unix from day one. Linux inherits NO code from the original At&t unix operating system, and very little, if any code from BSD pre-dating the 3 *bsd projects. Linux is not quite posix compliant, and probably never will be. On the other hand, Linux sort of "feels" like unix in a way Mac OS X doesn't, from a users perspective (well, from my perspective, anyway).
steamclient_linux.so is a file included with the Linux Steam client, the one that only offers and downloads the dedicated server files. It's accidently inclusion, but it doesn't mean anything.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Doesn't Unreal Tournament 2004 have a native Linux version? Don't know if its available on Steam though.
99% of the macs out there aren't capable of running any source games. All inexpensive Macs have shitty integrated graphics.
I dispute your "Linux is a close third to Mac OS X" with a single URL:
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/10/01/mac-market-share-hits-record/
Linux hasn't even hit 1%. Mac OS X is over 8%.
Now explain why Valve would rather port their client software to a platform with an eighth of the market share of Mac OS X.
Phoronix is a funny site. Though they do a good job of collecting a lot of news on a handful of topics which most other sites don't address too well, their own journalism is pretty comical- headlines along the lines of
The best of course are their reviews, which consist of 20 pages each with one bar graph (and no commentary) comparing results which are usually within a couple of percent of each other (this manufacturer shipped us two practically identical cards! let's do a comparison between the two! with benchmarks from each version of ubuntu released since 2005!) and then a conclusion page which says something entirely unsupported by the data.
Ok, so I may have exaggerated a bit.
How is this going to handle SecuROM?
...that they started from a similar train of thought but branched off in two very different directions, making them into distant cousins, more or less?
Thanks for clearing up on that, you lost me in some of it but I think I got the point. I'm but a young new slashdotter so I'm not quite up on all my history.
So MacOS's support of X11 (which is the gui-backbone of most Linux distros if I'm not mistaken) would be that door that would allow a Linux application to be easily ported to OS X and such?
I'm looking over both the site and thru actual Steam - all demo links go to "BUY ME NOW!" with no link to a demo download.
I think this is a dick move and is ultimately going to lead to more people pirating the game - if they can't get a demo to try out and don't want to pay for a game that may potentially suck, guess what the next viable alternative is? Hi, Pirate Bay.
I don't know why it went anonymously. I'm logged in, after all, and don't recall hitting the "Post anonymously" checkbox.
Yo momma so fat, her car takes up both sides of the road.
Postal 3, on Source Engine, announced for Linux, Mac and Windows.
"really huge numbers of low priced FOSS based computers"
Sadly, most Asus EEE in Scandinavia have been sold with XP. 4 to 1 or so.
Not that they would run Steam on those machines, however.
All of this is of course pointless without better ATI drivers for linux
And why all this storm in a teacup about ANYTHING involving linux and windows games? Its almost like we're admitting that our achilles heel is... shhhhhh... we can't mention it or else we won't get the masses of , er, 'sheeple' to try, er, 'wubi' or Fedora10 live (complete with mp3 playback... wait a sec...) ... aar eff it, I'll just go back to struggling with getting flicker free video with compiz on + ATI 48xx series cards. Oh wait. I can't. OH I know, I'll just write my own patch. Oh hang on....
Now I understand why the guy who writes the Linux Hater's Blog packed it in.
disclaimer: I run a Fedora server, a dual boot desktop, and a laptop that Intrepid borked and I can't be bothered to fix. Partly due to above sentiments....
The PS3 runs Linux. Perhaps it was related to that.
I hope Valve ports their games to Linux. I think it's completely lame that they don't creating dedicated servers for Linux and then expect people to run servers for their games but won't allow those same people to play the game on their OS of choice.
If a gamer with plenty of time in his hands (think teenager and/or young adult) is a bit techy-hungry or just techy-curious, that person will download and try to install a Linux distribution.
If on his freshly installed free OS he can *very easily* install Steam and start playing any of the Steam game in no time with proper voice support and Steam-community support, that guy will think: "Hey, this is cool!". Nothing else is cooler on Linux for someone that age. The stability, the OS performance, the virus-free hassle, the constant kernel optimisation etc, is just an added bonus but nothing as cool as going online and play Left 4 Dead (or any other Source-based game) on your freshly-installed totally-free new Linux OS. It is then, and only then that the desktop market will start to really change.
Dual-boot is a pain in the neck. Virtualisation isn't strong enough to run a AAA game within Linux at decent FPS and Wine is only a temporary solution (sometimes working very well, sometimes not so much).
If Valve is thinking about bringing a native Linux version of their gaming platform, they're simply investing on making sure they can still sell their games no matter what tomorrow's OS platform will be. Funnily enough, I believe that if they release a native Linux port of their gaming platform, they will incidentally be a key factor in bringing more people to Linux, by thousands if not millions.
Valve would be insane to worry about porting their games to Linux (at least) before they ported to the Mac, so I really think it's unlikely they're considering it.
This comment completely omits the simple fact that both Linux *and* Mac OS X (being a BSD derivative through its NextStep ancestry) are Posix-compliant.
Both use OpenGL as their main way to access 3D acceleration (Apple has droped QuickDraw3D or whatever was its name). Both use OpenAL to provide accelerated positional audio *as does Vista, too* (accelerated positional audio isn't available in DirectSound anymore - that means that moden Vista games are already OpenAL based).
There's no common programming framework between Steam games, other than the copy protection & integration, so every game would be a separate porting job - not going to happen!
But, on the other hand, Linux and Mac OS X provide similar frameworks. (The only difference is that Linux main 2D windowing system is X11, whereas Mac OS X use its Quartz-thingy with X11 being an option - but this is hardly any relevant to games which are mostly 3D and Non-windowed).
What I mean is that porting a game from Windows to Linux or to Mac OS X (or to some *BSD or even another random *nix) is essentially the same job :
- port it to a posix platform
- port the graphics engine from D3D to OpenGL.
Porting a game to Linux isn't diverting resources from a Mac OS X port. It's doing exactly the same work that would be required for a Mac OS X port too.
The only subtle difference is that several game already have linux executables with some partial functionality (for dedicated servers). So a fully functionnal linux executable is a slightly lower hanging fruit, with the added benefit is that all the work done is re-usable for a Mac port.
In fact to some extent this even makes the games more easily ported to PS3, Wii, and lots of other machine (XBox use Direct3D, everything else provide some form of OpenGL).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]