More Evidence For Steam Games On Linux

SheeEttin writes "Back in November 2008, Phoronix reported that Linux libraries appeared in the Left 4 Dead demo, and then in March, Valve announced that Steam and the Source engine were coming to Mac OS X. Now, Phoronix reports that launcher scripts included with the (closed beta) Mac version of Steam include explicit support for launching a Linux version."

Comments

Steam on Linux

[L4t3r4lu5]

This is an indication of support for the Steam distribution platform, and some Valve games on Linux. Good luck getting EA to build Linux binaries for their games, because Steam doesn't do that for you.

Good on Valve for going this way, and maybe it's the push big publishers need to start telling devs to create native Linux binaries, but don't think for a moment that that this means all Steam games will run natively on Linux.

Re:Steam on Linux

[sznupi]

OTOH what Steam could provide is keeping known versions of Linux libs (hey, that includes Winelib ;) ), making things much simpler. With the amount of control Valve perhaps has...who knows, perhaps many games ("simpler" ones at the beginning) could be semi-automatically adapted to included version of Wine, too.

Re:Steam on Linux

[T Murphy]

Good luck getting EA to build Linux binaries for their games

No duh. Everyone knows malware won't run on Linux.

Re:Steam on Linux

[Lumpy]

Because the journalists that coined the phrase were too stupid to know what it meant?

This term came from the same bunch of idiots that gave us "blogging" and "blogosphere" "web 2.0" and "podcasting" that we are now forever stuck with because they are trendy and catchy...

Rooting a box means gaining control of the root account. rootkits were typically a kit of tools you used to root a box, to get that root password or escalate your login to root privileges. . What we see as rootkits today are NOT rootkits. They are simply malware that used a bug to get in and run and then they hide themselves. Something that is NOT NEW and has been running around in computing for a very long time.

They're working on it. That's all.

[onion2k]

Someone is obviously working on the idea, which is grand, but that's all we can tell at this point. The number of projects that are started and eventually canned because they're either to hard to finish, too costly, or just too expensive to bother marketing that they won't turn a profit is pretty vast.

The fact code exists does not necessarily mean we'll ever get to play the games.

But let's be optimistic. A native version of Steam would be pretty awesome. Here's hoping whoever is behind the project is successful. :)

Insufficient data for meaningful answer

[Rogerborg]

This could be an ancient script cut-and-pasted to suit. Heck, I've still got a Makefile that has a section for Ultrix but it doesn't mean that it works or that I'm supporting it.

Re:Insufficient data for meaningful answer

[themacks]

the interesting bits from the script:

UNAME=`uname`
if [ "$UNAME" == "Darwin" ]; then
PLATFORM=osx32 # prepend our lib path to LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="${STEAMROOT}"/${PLATFORM}:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
elif [ "$UNAME" == "Linux" ]; then
PLATFORM=linux32
# prepend our lib path to LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="${STEAMROOT}"/${PLATFORM}:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
fi

Valve servers available for Linux for years

[Thunderbird2k]

This is no evidence at all. Valve has released dedicated Linux servers for their games for years including steam. Come on don't take phoroCRAP serious. They make news of nothing.

This could be awesome!

[glenkim]

As an aspiring game developer, I look at Valve's actions with a lot of excitement lately. Steam and Source are coming to Mac for sure now, and so that means Source SDK should be updated to support deployment to Macs. If Linux is included in this package, it only sweetens the deal. For developers just getting started, Source would have a unique advantage over the other engines available currently (e.g. Unreal, Crytek) in that it would allow developers to reach as wide an audience as possible. I really hope this happens.

Re:If it comes

[Dexy]

You mean the shoddy PS3 ports they authorized once, realised how shoddy they were and then never touched again?

Re:DRM

[imakemusic]

Valve: Bringing gaming to Linux. (And I don't care how much you think it can't be tolerated, it's still great and wonderful and I will continue to use it.)