Steam Client for Mac Launches, Linux Client On the Way

CyDharttha writes with news that the Mac version of Steam went live today, along with Mac versions of Portal, Team Fortress 2, and many other games. Valve plans to make more games available every Wednesday. Several publications are also reporting that a Linux version of Steam has been confirmed, and is expected within the next few months. Quoting Phoronix: "Found already within the Steam store are Linux-native games like Unreal Tournament 2004, World of Goo, and titles from id Software such as Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Doom 3. Now that the Source Engine is officially supported on Linux, some Source-based games will be coming over too. Will we finally see Unreal Tournament 3 surface on Linux too? Only time will tell, but it is something we speculated back in 2008. Postal III is also being released this year atop the Source Engine and it will be offering up a native client. We have confirmed that Valve's latest and popular titles like Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, and Team Fortress 2 are among the first of the Steam Linux titles, similar to the Mac OS X support. The released Linux client should be available by the end of summer."

Comments

for your convenience, the URL they didn't give you

[FooAtWFU]

the download page.

Re:for your convenience, the URL they didn't give

[joe_bruin]

Even better, free Portal for PC and Mac here: http://store.steampowered.com/freeportal/

Re:I am happy.

[mejogid]

Cedega is a hacked up fork of Wine which is itself an incomplete and buggy implementation of Windows APIs on linux - why would you have similar expectation of Valve's official ports? Running portal on a Mac right now, it's infinitely superior to anything achieved through emulation.

Re:What to do

[Diantre]

Awww come on now. Steam is, IHMO, the only gaming platform that does DRM well. You simply have to register your game to your account and you can play anywhere afterwards (even in offline mode). The only time you have to connect to the internet is when registering your games (that you likely bought over the net anyway). Non-intrusive and practical; I can download my games on as many computers as I want and play them whenever I want.

Painful

[drdaz]

I'd been looking forward to this for a while now. Having installed I find out that Steam doesn't support case-sensitive file systems.

Color me disappointed.

Their 'solution' is here:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8601-RYPX-5789

*Sighs*

Re:Painful

[Blakey Rat]

OS X (which is a certified Unix, for whatever that matters) creates case-insensitive filesystems by default. You have to go out of your way to make a case-sensitive one.

This is because Apple, like all right-thinking people, realizes how stupid and hard-to-use a case-sensitive filesystem is. (Debate below. :)

Re:why buy WoG through Steam, instead of NOT throu

[Tei]

I give you some reasons:
  - You already trust the Steam shop. This is important for people nervaous about his credit card details
  - You have a centralized location to re-download. If you move to another computer (or OS), you just click to download again
  - If you have savegames on your Mac, Netbook, PC, ..these savegames follow you around. You can start playing on the netbook, continue on the Mac and finish on the PC.

Re:What to do

[Amouth]

Steam really has matured to a very nice product.

I personally like using it as i don't have to keep track of all my install CD's .. and i can have them installed on my laptop and desktop.. remove as i need space/

even for the net only and DRM part - Steam has put out notices in the past that in the event that the steam network was to go away they would push an update removing the need to auth on the client so that it wouldn't stop working..

now many people can argue that they say that but woln't do it BUT out of the different publishers and networks Steam seems to be the only one actually doing GOOD work - and i have YET to see them re-nig on something, and there for will give them the benefit of the doubt and my money - until they give me a reason not to.

Re:and my big question is

[ninjacheeseburger]

The answer is yes amazingly. If you own the game you can play it on any platform that supports it.