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."

Comments

Just in time

[kbrasee]

for the Year Of The Linux Desktop.

It is for the server..

[evilNomad]

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..

Re:It is for the server..

[cjfs]

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..

The article quotes a large string of names and says:

These strings plus hundreds of other technically shouldn't be needed if this were simply for Linux server usage -- even though no Linux server binary ships with the Windows game on Steam.

Not sure if that's reasonable grounds for their assumption, but is worth considering.

Re:It is for the server..

[The MAZZTer]

Sound files are needed if your server uses sv_pure, AFAIK. The server needs all the game resources to compare files hashes with the hashes the client sends to be sure they're not replacing files. A common reason to use sv_pure would be to prevent TF2 cheaters from replacing, say, the soft "spy decloak" sound FX with a REALLY LOUD NOISE, which would make it a lot easier to hear any nearby spies.

Re:It is for the server..

[Kent Recal]

The server needs all the game resources to compare files hashes with the hashes the client sends to be sure they're not replacing files.

That's just lazyness. Instead of storing the actual game artwork the server could just store a list of the hashes - and save a couple hundred megabytes (sometimes gigabytes) of diskspace.

Re:It is for the server..

[prockcore]

no, because the hacked client can do the same thing. The server hashes a random part of the file, and then tells the client to hash that same part.

Re:It is for the server..

[tibman]

In the case of steam though, a VAC ban and you lost the game.. forever. The only cases where a person can escape a VAC ban and not lose their account is with internet cafes. But i know some places automatically kick all SteamIDs in the internetcafe band of ids. Voogru made a mod that specifically does this.

Something else Valve does to complicate matters is once your hack is detected.. they don't do anything for days or weeks. They randomly wait and pretend it didn't happen. Then bam, VACbanned. So someone researching vulnerabilities won't know which one was detected, or which game, or when.

Is it worth cheating if you get VAC banned and have to rebuy the game? That arms race sounds very expensive..

How about OS X?

[MobyDisk]

I wonder if this means they will provide OS X support as well?

Re:How about OS X?

[AndGodSed]

Parent being modded funny is probably the funniest response there could be to his question...

Re:How about OS X?

[melstav]

Dude! WTF!

I'm tired of people assuming that, just because something might (sorta) run (maybe) under WINE that that's all that really matters.

The article is about native Linux support. NATIVE.

Native means you don't need WINE and you don't need a VM. It means you slap the disk in, run the installer, and go. No emulation layer, no reverse-engineered Windows APIs.

Relying on Codeweavers is not going to be a good idea for a commercial software house. Relying on Codeweavers is what end-users do while they wait for the software houses to realize that they are ignoring an entire market *AND* invest the resources necessary to service that market.

Hold your horses

[arth1]

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.

Re:Hold your horses

[Zathain Sicarius]

"(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.)"

And so what if the whole movement only starts with some Wine support? For alot of people its a pain to get steam up and running with linux, and so if Wine becomes integrated into Steam, then that will save alot of people headaches. That's far better than just continuing to ban all the people on their forums who cry out for a Linux client.

Re:Hold your horses

[arth1]

The way I see it, if you play an involved game like most Steam games are, you're no longer multitasking. The game, not the OS, is what you interface with. So why would you want to force it to run using something like wine, when it would be less painful to reboot into Windows and run it natively?

wine is useful when you need to run a native Windows program from within the context of Unix. But it will never provide the full Windows environment, and if you're not going to interface with the OS, why bother what the OS is?

I know there may be people out there who don't have any Windows licenses, but I think those are few and far between. Especially those who can also afford games from Valve. I must have half a dozen unused Windows licenses here, because whenever I buy a computer, I get one, no matter whether I then blow the OS away and install Linux.
wine, ndiswrappers and other stuff that tricks Windows programs into running more-or-less as intended is something I see as a last resort, not first.

Re:Hold your horses

[kcbnac]

Because for those of us who've chosen Linux as our 'workstation' OS, having to maintain (albeit minutely) a second OS (install, AV/Firewall as much needed for gaming, hardware drivers, etc) simply for a game or 5, becomes a chore. I usually leave chat or web-browsing windows up on my gaming machine (Still running windows because the hassles are too many) but if it were a one-time setup (not every time a new major patch comes out) I'd switch to Linux on the second machine too.

Why buy a PC when a 'net appliance' will do?

Re:Hold your horses

[SanityInAnarchy]

Because it's actually more painful to run it in Windows, for some of us. Here, let me count the ways:

Linux has pretty good 64-bit support. The last remaining broken piece was browser plugins -- Java has been ported, and Flash will be soon. Windows 64-bit sucks before Vista, and Vista sucks in so many other ways that 64-bit is hardly a concern.

And yes, Valve games can use 64-bit and multicore. And I do have 4 gigs of RAM, which means XP can only see 3.5 gigs.

I also run Linux for everything other than games. That means, not only is there the irritation of having to reboot -- somewhat mitigated, as I can hibernate one and boot another -- but that I have to maintain Windows, which is much more work for me than maintaining Linux -- on top of which, I still have to maintain Linux. (Example: Ever try to hunt down XP drivers for a made-for-Vista laptop?)

Steam also insists that I install/update games via its client. That's great, if I'm running Windows anyway -- and I'm on fiber, so it's fast. But it means I can't download while on Linux. What's more, I can't play a Steam game I've already got while I wait -- as soon as Steam sees me playing a game, it kills all downloads. I suppose it's to keep me from lagging -- thanks, but it reacts the same way if I'm playing a single-player game.

If there was a Linux client, I'd just leave it running and not care.

And then there's the fact that Steam itself is a good deal more than just a game client, now -- assuming they've finally gotten the Friends feature working, it's also an IM client. That would be nice -- a friend IMs me, inviting me to a game, and rather than rebooting, I just click "yes" in that window -- and he can IM me from the game, he doesn't have to alt+tab to some other client to a Pidgin-friendly service.

Now, granted, I could run games under Wine. I do, for some games -- MMOs, I pretty much demand that they run windowed on Linux, because I absolutely do multitask with those. But with Steam, there's a performance hit (all Valve games are DirectX only, now), there's again 32-bit only (no Win64 support in Wine yet), and none of it is supported, meaning if I have any problems, I'm on my own.

Still, it's not as though there would be no benefit. Even if these end up being winelib'd apps, at least they're supported, and it's a step in the right direction -- next up would likely be an OpenGL port. It also means that some of the non-Valve games on Steam which have native Linux clients would also work in Steam.

Re:Hold your horses

[cbrocious]

Wine doesn't support x64 code, so the only benefit you can get is having the full address space enabled (because the kernel can properly map memory).

Re:Hold your horses

[mrchaotica]

Why? Because D3D is better than OpenGL in the majority of ways, enough that targeting the minute market of Linux...

...and Mac OS, and PS3, and Wii...

Re:Hold your horses

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone from the year 2000 called to let you know about this great new technology that was just invented called "BURN-Proof". It means that buffer underruns don't result in unusable discs anymore! WOW!!!

Come one, Phoronix? Seriously?

[Loibisch]

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...

wishful thinking

[niteice]

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.

wine already runs steam + Valve games just fine

[mattbee]

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 :)