Valve's Steam & Games Coming To Linux

An anonymous reader writes "Valve's Steam and Source Engine-based games are coming to Linux. Michael from well known site Phoronix.com has been invited to Valve's office and was able to spend a day with the developers and Gabe Newell himself. He is confirming the rumors about Linux ports from Valve, and has been able to play the games and work the developers himself. Attached in the article are pictures from Valve's offices with games running on Linux."

Comments

Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

It only took them forever...wonder what they did about their desire for DRM.

Re:Finally!

[Anrego]

I would assume left it in?

I haven't been following this whole thing, but I assume it's going to be closed source. Much as I'd prefer it open (like everything) and am sure it will be a nightmare to get running (and keep running) in my distro of choice (gentoo) I'm cool with just the functionality for now.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, if you think gentoo is a hard to maintain distro, don't try anything else pls.

Re:Finally!

[DragonTHC]

Right? Why doesn't the most successful online game distribution platform and developer of all time just open source their entire livelihood?

look for the goodies on steam workshop.

Re:Finally!

[noh8rz3]

Troll harder, troll. The only reason why windoze and OSx feel any need for quality is because Linux is pressuring them mon the high end, showing computer users what they should demand in terms of system integrity and quality. Without it,you'd still be using the equivalent of XP.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll harder, troll.

Physician heal thyself.

Re:Finally!

[hairyfeet]

I want to know how they are gonna divide the games, will the Linux guys only be able to buy from a special Linux section? The reason I ask this is the one criticism I have for Steam is on their big sales it is often difficult to see at a glance which games use ONLY Steam DRM, and there are plenty of games on steam that use TAGES, SecuROM, even GFWL ON TOP of Steam. of course since all of these require kernel hooks Linux simply won't allow none of these games will be available.

It will be an interesting experiment to see how the Linux community reacts because no matter how you slice it Steam IS a form of DRM, its just a form of trivial DRM most of us, at least on the Windows side, have no problem with. But with so many in the Linux community being almost religious in their hatred of all things DRM it will be interesting to see if they will allow or tolerate Steam being on Linux.

I'll say congrats to all the Linux users out there but I bet you're gonna be in for some nasty fights with the zealots in the coming months and of course i bet RMS rails against this like its the antichrist. It does bring up an interesting question though: Are you willing to accept the publishers terms in order to gain share? after all linux will never become a mainstream OS if the users can't have the games and programs they want and many of the publishers have made it clear they will NEVER release their stuff under GPL or give up DRM, and considering what happened to Loki they probably have a point. Will Linux users compromise? Or will the side that treats GPL as a religion simply overpower the pragmatists? Time will see but I bet in either case it will bring up some most interesting questions and help determine which direction Linux goes. In either case congrats Linux fans, and don't forget to be ready for the big Steam sales, man you will be able to load up on games during those!

Re:Finally!

[flimflammer]

The reason I ask this is the one criticism I have for Steam is on their big sales it is often difficult to see at a glance which games use ONLY Steam DRM

Huh? It's not, really. In the game details (where the publisher, etc are displayed) for the game and even sometimes in the system requirements, it will say "Uses 3rd Party DRM" and often which form of DRM it is. Games that require you to be online (Ubisoft crap) will have an online disclaimer under the description which states this fact as well.

Some games omit this information but any time I've seen this happen it always seems to have been an oversight rather than having no intention to mention it.

Re:Finally!

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Never tried slackware-current, eh?

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently, if you own game X on Windows you automatically have its Mac OS counterpart show up in your games library when it's available. I would imagine Linux games will be the same.

Re:Finally!

[hairyfeet]

Sorry I didn't make myself clear, I meant on the Steam sales, which will have a big list of games with NO warning EXCEPT if you click on the titles and then scroll down to that point. There is also no checkbox so you can tell friends and family "This user prefers only Steam" and thus will let them know not to buy me Steam+ games. I got burnt by this myself when i bought Bioshock II off one of those big lists without checking and it turned out to be tied to GFWL (A royal PITA) and then got burnt again when my oldest bought me Riddick: Dark Athena (great game BTW, pants wetting on the stealth) and it turned out to have TAGES.

So I'm sorry that I didn't make myself clear but they really do make it more of a PITA than it should be. What should happen is there should be a checkbox in the settings that lets me choose which DRM I approve and disapprove and that list should be sent to those in my friends list so they too know what i want and don't want. Then on the sales Steam could still show me those games, just make them greyed out so that to add them I would have to purposely click through a "yes i know this is on my no no list" because unless it was just some incredible game for a buck frankly I would skip over all those that had more than Steam DRM. This of course is even worse with presents as you don't want to insult the person and make them feel bad by not accepting their gift, especially if its an Xmas or Bday present.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a Canadian distro?

Re:Finally!

[Bob-taro]

I want to know how they are gonna divide the games, will the Linux guys only be able to buy from a special Linux section? The reason I ask this is the one criticism I have for Steam is on their big sales it is often difficult to see at a glance which games use ONLY Steam DRM, and there are plenty of games on steam that use TAGES, SecuROM, even GFWL ON TOP of Steam. of course since all of these require kernel hooks Linux simply won't allow none of these games will be available.

The steam platform itself and Valve's source engine games will be available on Linux (I assume that means linux native ports), and no source engine games have DRM other than Steam, that I'm aware of. I imagine this will be like their ports for Mac in that only some titles run on mac, and I don't know how mac users can tell which titles they can play other than to read the system requirements. The nice thing is you just buy the game and it knows which version to download AND you then own it on whatever platform you want to use. You can download it onto multiple machines, you just can't be logged into the same steam account on multiple machines at once.

One thing *I'm* curious about - will the Linux games run as well in Linux as Windows on the same hardware? My guess would be no, since they've added a compatibility layer that translates direct3d calls to OpenGL, but I'm curious how close it is. When they ported the Games to Mac I looked for some performance comparisons between the mac and windows versions and couldn't find anything.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry I didn't make myself clear, I meant on the Steam sales, which will have a big list of games with NO warning EXCEPT if you click on the titles and then scroll down to that point. There is also no checkbox so you can tell friends and family "This user prefers only Steam" and thus will let them know not to buy me Steam+ games. I got burnt by this myself when i bought Bioshock II off one of those big lists without checking and it turned out to be tied to GFWL (A royal PITA) and then got burnt again when my oldest bought me Riddick: Dark Athena (great game BTW, pants wetting on the stealth) and it turned out to have TAGES.

Let me get this straight, because steam has a summer sale you lose the ability to research a game?

So I'm sorry that I didn't make myself clear but they really do make it more of a PITA than it should be. What should happen is there should be a checkbox in the settings that lets me choose which DRM I approve and disapprove and that list should be sent to those in my friends list so they too know what i want and don't want. Then on the sales Steam could still show me those games, just make them greyed out so that to add them I would have to purposely click through a "yes i know this is on my no no list" because unless it was just some incredible game for a buck frankly I would skip over all those that had more than Steam DRM. This of course is even worse with presents as you don't want to insult the person and make them feel bad by not accepting their gift, especially if its an Xmas or Bday present.

It is true that most family members are not aware of DRM, but this applies no matter where the game is purchased from.

Re:Finally!

[aztracker1]

Sorry, but as someone who regularly uses Windows, OSX and Linux on the desktop, I have to say it's been very aggravating the past two years especially in desktop Linux... Binary drivers are even more of a pain to get running on a recent distro than in the past both for nVidia, and AMD/ATI.. though the FLOSS drivers have had a lot of progress, none of them (for AMD/ATI or nVidia) are sufficient for gaming. Beyond this, I had issues with Intel graphics around Ubuntu 9.04 (iirc), regression issues in the driver that most laptops used at the time.

The fact is, for those interested in gaming, Windows is the best bet.. on the high end, if you want a unix-like OS, you're better off with OSX. For servers, Linux now rules the roost, so to speak. That doesn't mean that Linux is in any way, shape or form at a usable desktop level. Ubuntu was close in the 8.x releases, but has slid. Mint is about as good as it gets today, imho, but still has a lot of rough edges for a typical user. There's a huge difference in what you/I will put up with from a free OS, and what your typical customer will.

Re:Finally!

[__aaqvdr516]

My thoughts exactly.

Re:Finally!

[neros1x]

You're not kidding. Slackware 9 was my introduction to Linux, and after accidentally deleting my Windows partition, it was all I had. It took 2 weeks just to figure out how to configure my DSL connection. Two of the best weeks I ever had, I might add.

Re:Finally!

[SwedishPenguin]

I didn't see anything about this compatibility layer in the article, but I guess it would be similar to the OSX version, if the OSX version is slower than the windows version on the same hardware then likely it would be on Linux as well. As far as I could tell from the article though, they don't use wine, so if they do use some sort of compatibility layer I would assume (without knowing much about graphics programming) they probably have a wrapper to map direct3d calls to opengl in the source. In that case I would guess that it wouldn't be slower than windows for any reasons related to the game itself at least, but perhaps due to drivers.

Re:Finally!

[marcosdumay]

Well, it seems that Steam disagrees.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

This attitude is why Linux will NEVER be accepted as a mainstream desktop OS. Grow the fuck up.

Re:Finally!

[hairyfeet]

Notice I got modded down for daring to ask a question instead of just blindly following groupthink? and I already know that Valve games don't have any other DRM but lets be honest, what makes Steam such a great platform is all the OTHER games you can get besides Valve games. I just looked through my game collection on Steam and other than the HL and Portal games (which is 6 out of over 30) everything I have in Steam is third party and I would assume that many here are the same way.

So I still wonder how many games the linux Steam client will have because if all they end up with is a handful of indies (which frankly you can buy without needing Steam) and Valve it'll be an awfully short list of games compared to what is on Windows. And again if they only have say 15% of what is in the Windows client why wouldn't one just dual boot and only use Windows for gaming? if you are geeky enough to install and maintain Linux then dual boot is nothing to you and as you pointed out if they are using some sort of D3D to OpenGL translation then you will take a speed hit, so what is the value? Will the games have a bigger discount?

In the end I truly do hope it works out, hell I wouldn't even mind Steam becoming the appstore for Linux. I mean imagine if you could buy everything from games to Photoshop, all from one location and they all run on Linux? That would be nice and would certainly make Linux easier to use for the masses. Again my worry is what of all those third party games that don't JUST use Steam? Has anyone done a count? How many of the other major AAA studios use more than Steam DRM?

Re:Finally!

[Cheeseness]

The reason I ask this is the one criticism I have for Steam is on their big sales it is often difficult to see at a glance which games use ONLY Steam DRM, and there are plenty of games on steam that use TAGES, SecuROM, even GFWL ON TOP of Steam.

It'd be nicer to have better indications on Steam itself about DRM status of games (in sales and out of), but there's this community maintained list if that's at all helpful: http://steamdrm.flibitijibibo.com/

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

of course since all of these require kernel hooks Linux simply won't allow none of these games will be available.

LOL. Wine sure can do a lot without these so called "kernel hooks." No, Wine is not perfect, but I use a number of copy protected games in Wine and I don't do it as root. There's no root process or daemon involved with Wine. It's all userspace and it's userspace enough that it ports to other non Linux OSes. What kernel hooks do you think are needed?

Good ol' hairyfeet talking out of his ass again.

Oh and I also have some native Linux games that implement DRM just fine.

Do bring a clue next time you post. Posting AC so that you don't respond, because that will be stupid too. And, I know it eats at you.

--
Keep your 02c. Your millage varies more than the rest of ours... it's probably the way you drive like an ass.

Re:Finally!

[RubberMallet]

Stop using Ubuntu. It's fine as a beginner Linux with training wheels, but do NOT assume that the crap you put up with there is a normal part of Linux. Every single time I use Ubuntu, I shake my head and wonder.. if people think this is the norm for Linux, they are sadly mistaken. I use Linux every single day at the office and at home... and you couldn't pay me to use Ubuntu. Anything is better.. openSUSE, Fedora... well, almost anything.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing *I'm* curious about - will the Linux games run as well in Linux as Windows on the same hardware? My guess would be no, since they've added a compatibility layer that translates direct3d calls to OpenGL, but I'm curious how close it is. When they ported the Games to Mac I looked for some performance comparisons between the mac and windows versions and couldn't find anything.

I would expect the games to run better on linux - except for cases where linux have a worse graphics driver. (Which may very well be quite a few cases.) But linux has a faster file system, better networking - and it uses less memory so more is available for the game.

Also, linux has a working priority system. Don't want a large incoming email (or whatever) to make the game skip? Well, run the game at a higher priority then. And vice versa: if you're waiting for a big download, you may pass some time playing games. Set the DL to higher priority, so it won't be slowed by the game. A download won't need much cpu anyway, but it needs to get the cpu in a timely manner.

And you can do cool stuff like playing the game on one screen, while someone watches a video on the other screen.

Re:Finally!

[Bob-taro]

One thing *I'm* curious about - will the Linux games run as well in Linux as Windows on the same hardware? My guess would be no, since they've added a compatibility layer that translates direct3d calls to OpenGL, but I'm curious how close it is. When they ported the Games to Mac I looked for some performance comparisons between the mac and windows versions and couldn't find anything.

I would expect the games to run better on linux - except for cases where linux have a worse graphics driver. (Which may very well be quite a few cases.) But linux has a faster file system, better networking - and it uses less memory so more is available for the game.

Also, linux has a working priority system. Don't want a large incoming email (or whatever) to make the game skip? Well, run the game at a higher priority then. And vice versa: if you're waiting for a big download, you may pass some time playing games. Set the DL to higher priority, so it won't be slowed by the game. A download won't need much cpu anyway, but it needs to get the cpu in a timely manner.

And you can do cool stuff like playing the game on one screen, while someone watches a video on the other screen.

I agree those are all advantages to Linux, but in practice I doubt they will make much difference to average frames per second (that's the performance metric I'm interested in). If you're running a graphics intensive game, the scheduler won't matter, because you probably aren't running much else. The amount of RAM won't matter (as long as you have enough that it isn't swapping to disk, I don't think performance scales much with available memory). The file system won't matter except when loading levels, and networking isn't generally a bottleneck. Faster level loads and better ping are a definite plus, but I suspect the difference is marginal. The main thing in software affecting FPS is the rendering code, and I *suspect* they're using the same direct3d to OpenGL library that they used for their OSX ports

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

I might also add that WINE works on some very old kernels (2.0.36) too. Not only does it do its work without kernel modules but it also does it without any hard dependencies on any of those "zomg rapidly changing kernel" features. So I really would like to know what kernel features hairyfeet thinks are necessary to implement DRM. DRM is around 95% obfuscation. There's no reason why you can't do that in user land where it's safe.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Binary drivers are even more of a pain to get running

If you think they're hard to get running then you're doing it wrong. Just let someone else do it for you since you don't know how. Damn near every distribution that matters has packages already made up for you. Stop fucking around trying to do it yourself and just use the packages (a.k.a. letting someone else do it for you).

Also, if you care about gaming on Linux go Nvidia. ATI doesn't provide a viable gaming solution for Linux (Catalyst has always been garbage). If you go ATI, you don't care about gaming on Linux. Since you don't care about gaming the open source drivers are an excellent fit for you (They work great for anything not gaming at least) and work out of the box.

Re:Finally!

[NotBorg]

How can you say it's "fine as a beginner Linux" then say that it's "crap"? It's fine to give your beginners crap? I'm with you in that Ubuntu is crap* but that only seems like a reason for it not being good for beginners.

* In a lighthearted poking fun kind of way.

Re:Finally!

[PwnzerDragoon]

Saying you would like something to be open source isn't the same as saying it should be. I'd like a million dollars, but I don't expect anyone to give it to me, nor should they have any reason to do so.

Re:Finally!

[PwnzerDragoon]

But with so many in the Linux community being almost religious in their hatred of all things DRM it will be interesting to see if they will allow or tolerate Steam being on Linux.

Allow? Does RMS secretly have an orbital death laser? Is Linus going to nuke Valve if they don't open-source Steam? How would anyone besides Valve have any say in whether Steam will run on Linux?

Re:Finally!

[hairyfeet]

That is actually quite simple friend. You see they have a few kernel devs who are quite militant in their love of GPL, for instance the one often cited I make fun of over religious zealotry when it comes to ABIs who says, and I quote "I hope those that use non FOSS drivers have them broken constantly" and it really only takes one or two of those types working on a key subsystem to really make life a living hell for Valve. i mean Linux already has some pretty severe problems with the graphics subsystem (Mozilla going so far as to disable any GPU based acceleration on Linux) so honestly it really wouldn't take much to throw a serious wrench in the system.

But as i said the year after release should be quite interesting. anyone who has paid attention to the Linux community knows its pretty well split in half, with the Linus pragmatists on one side and the RMS GPL zealots on the other, so it will be interesting to see what will happen. And never underestimate nerd rage, the zealots had such a screaming shitfit over mono most of the distros dropped it and i could see similar outrage causing problems because after all if the distros don't include it and it becomes a royal PITA to install Steam on Linux who will want to use it?

Re:Finally!

[pxc]

Stallman is actually less (ethically) invested in the freedom of works of art than he is about practical software tools. He probably wouldn't like Steam's DRM, but I don't think DRM on games is capable of imposing the same kind of subjugation that he sees done by companies who produce tools which are more strictly necessary to the lives and livelihoods of their customers.

Although I'm not a proper Stallmanite, I do see a powerful ethical dimension to the motivations for producing free software (and free culture as related to education). I don't see anything evil in the minimal kind of DRM imposed by Steam, and although I would praise any game company who opened the source code to their engine, or Valve if they opened the source code to the distribution system itself, I don't feel compelled to condemn game companies who don't do so. Those are my two cents, for whatever they're worth, as someone intellectually and ethically committed to the principles of free software.

(I wouldn't call it a religion for me because my views about the importance of share-alike copyright licenses, like the GPL, are grounded in other principles that could yield different prescriptions when applied in novel circumstances. But I do often do things make the choice to use free software out of principle, even where technically superior non-free solutions are available. You decide if my views are radical enough to for me to speak on behalf of the subset of the F/OSS community you'd like to address.)

Re:Finally!

[pxc]

Linux's success in the server arena definitely doesn't mean that the desktop is ‘in any way, shape, or form at a usable level’ — the desktop experience stands on its own.

Re:Finally!

[RubberMallet]

For various definitions of crap :-)

The crap starts to show when you do more than use it as it's given to you.. when you start poking at it... use it as a server OS. Then the gaping holes (aka cracks) start to show.

Fine for beginners because it makes a boatload of assumptions and choices which are fine for someone who doesn't know what they are doing, but... for someone who knows the drill, and wants to actually "use" his or her Linux for real work.. .it starts to fail in rather interesting ways.... from the historically and severely broken OpenOffice.org implementations (the standard line on any OOo help forum has been, for years, "Oh, you're using Ubuntu? Remove Ubuntu's OOo and install the vanilla one because.. Ubuntu broke OOo" Not one.. but for several years running). One example in a very very long list of many...

We used, for a while, an Ubuntu 10.04 LTS for a server implementation... constantly having to reboot to clear up oddities, remote consoles failing in unusual ways and so on... switched over to a SuSE install.. never had to touch it after initial setup... it's still humming along there. Got another one running on Fedora... I don't think it's been touched except to do a kernel update... no one in the office has even thought about it.. it just does its job.

I just get frustrated when I see a comment.. Linux does this or that really badly.. and then you discover that the person's exposure has be a sloppy implementation on Ubuntu... and elsewhere, it's not an issue.

Re:Finally!

[H3g3m0n]

Slackware 7 was my first distro (Well I did have a Red Hat 6.1 a while before but never really used it). I set it up as an internet gateway. It's a great way to learn Linux since it requires you to do much of the setup.
Having said that, I would never recommend it for real world use without proper package management (there are some for Slackware, but there not core components of the system). Trying to keep it maintained is a chore. Gentoo is the same, it has portage for package management but it still tends to break and need manual intervention (this was particularly bad when x86_64 was fairly new) and of course it's a rolling release so you will be running things that are not far off bleeding edge packages fairly often. But this and the face that its a from source distro, makes Gentoo great for development. Arch seemed ok, but you still need to read a news feed to know what manual changes you have to apply when the system updates to a different component.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla going so far as to disable any GPU based acceleration on Linux

Yes, Mozilla did that for some open source drivers that are a part of the kernel. Works just fine (and always has) with Nvidia's blob. Really hairyfeet, STFU you don't know what you are talking about.

1. The acceleration works on the Nvidia blob hated by floss zealots every where.
2. The acceleration does not work on ATI drivers built into the kernel and blessed and loved by the holy hands of floss.

From this you conclude that the kernel developers are intentionally breaking the blob so that Firefox doesn't work right with their own open drivers? How does that even work? JUST STFU. Either you really are that clueless and stupid or you are just a fat troll.

This FUD is old enough that you can discount it as bing not fucking likely. If they were that hell bent on breaking things they would have up and did it by now. How long has it been since the FUD started? I bet it goes back at least a decade by now. Come on dude... just STFU. YOU. ARE. WRONG. AGAIN.

Re:Finally!

[neros1x]

I tell people all the time that if it weren't for my inexperience with Slackware FDisk, I never would have learned Linux. I had no choice, after the fact, and it really does make you dive into man pages. Great if you are the person who enjoys banging their head against wall before solving what should otherwise be a simple problem, but terrible for 99% of the population. Ubuntu is great for most users.

Ever get that Deja Dupe feeling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever get that Deja Dupe feeling?

Re:Ever get that Deja Dupe feeling?

[NardoPolo88]

They must have made a change to the matrix.

Dupe

[Poeli]

Seriously, one the same day: http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/04/25/1241241/phoronix-confirms-gnulinux-steam-and-source-engine-clients

Re:Dupe

[samkass]

No, that article discussed the port to GNU/Linux. *This* article is about the port to Linux.

Re:Dupe

[Cutriss]

Wow, I guess that Phoronix site really is "well known"!

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly!

GNU/Linux (Linux + GNU development tools and system software) is a development platform powered by Linux OS.
Linux (Linux kernel) is only a operating system and nothing else.

Re:Dupe

[crazyjj]

In the /. editors' defense it was several hours ago and the new boss is that dude from Memento.

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I technically get to advance to "Wolf! Wolf!", or do I need to wait until Phoronix themselves say it again?

Re:Dupe

[ArsonSmith]

init=/bin/valve

Re:Dupe

[damien_kane]

In the /. editors' defense it was several hours ago and the new boss is that dude from Memento.

Should he have remembered this post, then, and not posted the "original" story?

Re:Dupe

[JazzLad]

You realize the movie playing scenes in backwards order was an artistic way to help us experience a little of what it would be like to have no short-term memory, and not that the character actually knew the future only, right?

Re:Dupe

[Pseudonym]

Ah, but nobody on this thread has complained about the lack of HL2:Ep3 yet.

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but most people stopped reading at "Phoronix" (the first word in the title). No wonder it got overlooked.

oooOOOooh

[emudoug42]

Sounds interesting, here's another source, since this is slashdotted: http://www.techspot.com/news/48335-valve-confirms-steam-and-source-engine-for-linux.html

Re:oooOOOooh

[Hatta]

And if that doesn't work here's another source.

Re:oooOOOooh

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch out, posting links to slashdot might cause slashdot to shashdot shashdot.

Or, to make things more clear: /. /.s /.

Re:oooOOOooh

[cyberchondriac]

shashdot? Step away from the beer bottle ..

Re:oooOOOooh

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he meant HashDot #.

Re:oooOOOooh

[b4dc0d3r]

You got your Twitter in my Slashdot!
No, you got your Slashdot in my Twitter!

Re:oooOOOooh

[rtb61]

Let's be honest here. Simple earlier games are going to be ported to Android, sans java layers of course it's Linux and of course being early non-java games why stuff about with java. So now there is going to be a lot of shoe horning, squeezing and 'er' homogenising to get it all to work, that Android market just can't be ignored.

Yay!

[s0nicfreak]

It would be nice to be able to read the link, too bad ads keep getting in my way.

Re:Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF are you talking about? There are no ads on the Internet.

Re:Yay!

[s0nicfreak]

I know it is hard to believe, but some of us actually like supporting things.

It's been a while

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Ah, dupes, I've missed you.

Just wondering from the summary...

[Anonymous Coward]

...how does one "work the developers"?

Re:Just wondering from the summary...

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Never with a dry hand, that's for sure.

talk about a repost slashdot

[meow27]

http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/04/25/1241241/phoronix-confirms-gnulinux-steam-and-source-engine-clients

the above has been posted less than 5 hours ago. at least come up with a new link!

It has come!

[sagematt]

The Year of the Linux (Gaming) Desktop is finally here!

Re:It has come!

[Lunix Nutcase]

Unfortunately, even if every Steam user switched entirely to Linux it would still only have a few percentage points of market share. Linux users waaaay overestimate how much of an impact ths will have. Especially when the Windows version will have 1000+ more games to choose from.

Re:It has come!

[X0563511]

You repeatedly seem to make the mistake of worrying about already-released games. The impact is going to come mainly from new titles. Who gives a shit if they port Missy Janes Magical Mystery Adventure or whatever?

Re:It has come!

[LordOfTheNoobs]

You underestimate the effect that hats will have on the linux economy.

Re:It has come!

[Lunix Nutcase]

No, I don't. Get back to me when EA, Activision, Ubisoft etc. provide any official plans to release their big budget titles on Linux. I won't hold my breath, though. Plus it's funny since all the Valve games being wanked over are all 'already-released games'. Most of them over 4 to 5 years old.

Re:It has come!

[oakgrove]

Unfortunately, even if every Steam user switched entirely to Linux it would still only have a few percentage points of market share. Linux users waaaay overestimate how much of an impact ths will have.

And? Linux can be legally had for free and the source is open to anybody that wants to hack it and rerelease changes. It pretty much exists outside of the scope of marketshare that Windows and OSX (and BeOS and DrDOS) exist in. If those OS's don't sell to more than a certain critical mass of consumers, they fail. Linux could not be used by a single person for years and then somebody could just pick it up and continue. Maybe if you spent less time bashing (your username wtf?) it you would have a more rational sense of perspective about it.

Re:It has come!

[Anonymous Coward]

Baby steps. This is just the beginning. Indy devels are all over Steam. How much extra work to make their Steam Mac ports work under Linux?
As much as I love the new direction Windows has been going in(excluding Metro), Opensource is the future. RedHat business model for everyone!

Re:It has come!

[Anonymous Coward]

All of which are still incredibly popular.

There's cynical, and then there's just stupid.

This *is* big news because of the old games, and because it kicks the door open to a huge number of new games. Steam is an enormous force in the games world... however you want to cut it.

I think this is less to do with Linux being a big market , and more to do with expanding Steam in a way that EA won't with Origin and keep Steam's many fairly vociferous and loyal support.

Whatever... I'm not complaining... nor am I underestimating the impact this will have.

Re:It has come!

[LWATCDR]

So one has too wonder. Will Valve come out with a console/set top box?
That may seem crazy talk but why not. A simple Linux based box that hooks up to steam for games could be a real hit with people.

Re:It has come!

[robmv]

They are afraid of MS Store, locked on ARM devices and very probable to be forced later on x86 on another future Windows releases. And what if Apple make that move in the future with OS X, lock it to only use the App store. We don't know if that will happen, but it it happens Valve is dead in the water, at least Steam. This is a planed movement to use the current power they have with hardcore gamers and see if they can move them to Linux if things become bad for Valve in the future

Re:It has come!

[oakgrove]

You have NO clue how small you are, but when we meet I promise to help you see it. You have my word on it!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...when can I buy your DVD?

Re:It has come!

[Anonymous Coward]

Valve did say they're going to lobby other companies.
Plus, this also means the new CS and DOTA2. So old games + new games.
And also 4 to 5 years old? When the fuck do you live?

Re:It has come!

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam - 40 million accounts, with 4 million active at any one time.
Xbox live - 30 million accounts, with 3 million active at any one time.

You're right, steam doesn't matter.

Re:It has come!

[hairyfeet]

That is not gonna be the problem friend, the problem is there are a TON of AAA titles that use Steam PLUS some other DRM, and of course while the other will work just fine on Windows because Linux has a kernel that changes too often and doesn't allow kernel level DRM they simply won't work on Linux now or ever. So far I've seen SecurROM, TAGES, Starforce, and GFWL all used on Steam games.

You see THIS is where your line of thinking breaks down. on the one hand you're thinking that just because Valve does something magically all these other publishers are gonna give up what has worked just fine for them, hire Linux devs (not cheap) and completely port their games to this new system while at the SAME time giving up their DRM which again has worked just fine for them in the past. And you also assume that Linux users won't care while at the same time thinking this will bring mainstream (aka those that currently use Windows or OSX) users into the Linux fold. Well those that care about the four freedoms won't care, but then again I doubt they'll accept Steam DRM but mainstream users? they very much WILL care when they find out they have access to less than say 30% of the Steam catalog while the Windows users have 100%. Your little "Missy Janes Magical Mystery Adventure" is actually something that will be trivially ported. those games like the Bioshock series, F.E.A.R series, Riddick series, and dozens of others that use Steam + DRM? Not so much and while folks wouldn't give a shit about some indie game for the most part they WILL care if they can't play the latest AAA title.

While I truly hope you are correct I just can't see game publishers and developers in a dead economy wasting the not inconsiderable cost of porting and removing their DRM for such a small percentage. if you can get every Linux user, or even the majority? Maybe. But of course there are many in the camp that won't give up the four freedoms for anything, much less the chance to pay for a game, so this is doubtful. In reality I bet other than Valve and indie games you won't see very much in the Steam Linux catalog and if that's the case it really isn't gonna make much of a difference. After all really how hard is it just to dual boot into Windows if you want to play a game and use Linux for everything else?

Re:It has come!

[X0563511]

You know, if there becomes a demand for it, someone will start selling linux-compatible DRM (and then we are all fucked).

Re:It has come!

[hairyfeet]

This brings up an interesting question though: Is it even possible to create Linux compatible DRM? The only way I could see it working would be if one forked the kernel and then created one with their own proprietary hooks but even that would be iffy since with GPL V2 you have to share your changes with those that receive the binary.

Personally I just don't see how it would be possible to create Linux DRM without getting bit in the ass by the GPL. I'm sure there are many companies that would LIKE a DRMed Linux, but so far the only way found to do so is to use hardware locks like key signing and eFuses, but it does bring up a really good question...if the ONLY way for Linux to finally become an OS for the masses would be to add DRM, could it be done? Would the community allow it, or would they sabotage it at every turn even if it meant never getting above a couple of percent?

Frankly this is why I find the Linux Steam client most interesting, because as we all know there is a VERY vocal section of the community that believes the four freedoms should be held above all, lets call them the RMSers, and then you have a section that thinks as long as you are free not to take it if you wish then its all okay, call them the Linusites. So I think it will be interesting to see which side gains the upper hand over this in the next year or two because I'm sure it will be quite a battle. Personally I'm pulling for the Linusites as I believe true freedom is the freedom to choose what is best for YOU, not to have some group decide what is best for all, which seems to be the position of the RMSers.

Re:It has come!

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy. Create a free software DRM module that interacts with the closed-source DRM implementation. That's how nvidia's driver works.

Re:It has come!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, even if every Steam user switched entirely to Linux it would still only have a few percentage points of market share. Linux users waaaay overestimate how much of an impact ths will have. Especially when the Windows version will have 1000+ more games to choose from.

The Humble Indie Bundle has demonstrated that the Linux gamer demographic is about the same size as the Mac demographic, but they're willing to pay 50% more.

Re:It has come!

[bloodhawk]

Lobbying will do little to nothing unless valve can show a business case that involves a decent profit vs the risk/investment for other companies to develop and release for linux. It simply is not enough to say pretty please.

Re:It has come!

[tibman]

I don't think it's that simple. I've convinced myself that they are rolling a distro of sorts (or at least a set of libs) to be a "console". This would let game developers big and small make games for the steam console without having to pay dev fees or jump through hoops. Any hardware manufacturer that can produce a device (really just a computer in a small form-factor) that meets the target apis will be qualified as a "Steam Console".

All the normal consoles are incompatible with each other and PCs in general. This would certainly change things.

Re:It has come!

[Anonymous Coward]

meh, who needs them. we already have Desura.
http://www.desura.com/

Re:It has come!

[ckaminski]

I think this has more to do with Steam/Valve's plan to get into set-top boxes. They make more money per seat if they ship their titles on Windows-less boxes.

Strategically, this makes sense. A little late for me - I went the OSX route.

Re:It has come!

[jseale]

The Year of the Linux (Gaming) Desktop is finally here!

I'm sure that what we're looking at here are the innards of what's going into the purported 'Steambox' mentioned a few months ago. I mean, wouldn't you expect something like that to run off a Linux kernel, and maybe have a Linux-based programming architecture like the original PlayStation and XBox systems did? Not so sure about this stuff showing up in a Linux desktop distro anytime soon though.

Re:It has come!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ding! Ding! Ding!
We have a winner.

DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Will they be including some DRM with it as well?

Re:DRM

[HeckRuler]

Uh, yeah, that's known as "Steam".

Re:DRM

[tepples]

But will games have only the Steam DRM, or will they have both Steam DRM and third-party DRM like a lot of games have?

I don't care

[Sav1or]

I don't care if it's open source or not, just as long as i can play my beloved counter strike at a decent fps and not have to switch back to windows. Anyone who says different can just suck on it

Re:I don't care

[Anrego]

Yup.

I would love everything to be open, but I'm realistic... and given a choice between nothing and something between nothing and what I want.. I'll go for the latter.

I'm sure there'll be a church of RMS guy telling us we are enabling evil by settling with the devil or some over-dramatic thing like that.. but that stuff is just background noise now...

Re:I don't care

[marcosdumay]

I do care about most of the software I use being open source. But I don't care about games being open source either.

If they just keep their DRM under control, I'm cool with that. Too bad DRM's tendency isn't to stay under control. I'll wait and see.

Re:I don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Heretic!

work the developers himself..?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and has been able to play the games and work the developers himself.

How do they operate? Do they come with a manual?

Re:work the developers himself..?

[camperdave]

It's very much like this but with computers.

Re:work the developers himself..?

[nschubach]

... but with computers.

You should patent that.

Re:Lol dupes

[X0563511]

Stay classy, samzenpus.

Isn't it sad when the editors obviously don't even read their own site?

I think this is great!

[octaene]

I already play Valve games on my Linux computer using PlayOnLinux (http://www.playonlinux.com/). That's been very stable for me, but I'm hoping that a native Valve client will allow even better system performance while gaming.

Re:I think this is great!

[Anonymous Coward]

absolutely!
i cant get playonlinux to work and wine/steam has stopped working for me - i'm down to one game - halflife 2 and that has no sound.
This would be great, i have missed a lot of new games over the last few years.

Re:I think this is great!

[Anonymous Coward]

I really really like the community aspects of the valve client on windows. While I usually also play the games using PlayOnLinux, having a native client will definitely enhance the experience.

Re:I think this is great!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you get better support on issues than what is available on the M$ Windows side. Their support is "hideous". Realize, that if you purchase a gain from the Valve/Steam store and it does not work, that money is never coming back.
The tech support is there with "canned" answers and no matter how you phrase or elaborate on the issue, you get the same repeated "canned" answer. They have no phone numbers you can research to get a "human", Their ivory towers are comfortable and isolated.
This is not awe inspiring news. They are now going after money from the other well.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[Enderandrew]

Unquestionably, Steam has DRM, but it is some of the least intrusive DRM out there.

I can play games offline. I can download copies of my games as many times as I want on other devices. I don't get limited activations. Steam doesn't break anything else on my box. And Steam routinely has really cheap prices.

I don't like DRM. I feel it punishes paying customers without stopping pirates. But frankly, I think Steam is worth the trade-off. The DRM doesn't get in the way, and the benefits are pretty good.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[nflenz]

It's not for the open source community. It's for gamers who use Linux. Not every Linux user has the same ideologies.

Title a bit misleading

[sl4shd0rk]

Valve is porting Steam and Source to linux right now. Not half-life, not Portal, not TF2, not Counter Strike. Source is just an engine. Steam is a distribution medium.

Steam is new, porting a popular game engine is not. Unreal did it, id did it, others did it. Just because the engine is ported doesn't mean the games automatically follow. Don't get me wrong - I would run Gentoo and compile the Valve games myself if that's what it took to do some good gaming on linux, but I'm not going to get all hot-and-bothered just yet over a game engine. We've been here before with several other companies over the years only to see the support for Linux yanked.

Re:Title a bit misleading

[gumpish]

Valve is porting Steam and Source to linux right now. Not half-life, not Portal, not TF2, not Counter Strike. Source is just an engine. Steam is a distribution medium.

TFA shows Valve dev workstations running L4D2 under Linux.

Re:Title a bit misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

When Valve says they're "porting Source over" they mean HL2, CS:S, TF2, Portal 1+2, L4D, etc. etc.

That's what it meant for MacOS. That's what it always means.

Re:Title a bit misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

You did read the article, right? Okay, fine, you're probably busy. You must have read the summary though? Right? Oh lawdy, not even the summary? That could be why you think the title is confusing.

Re:Title a bit misleading

[Gaygirlie]

Not half-life, not Portal, not TF2, not Counter Strike

You might like to open the link pointing to the article. You don't even need to read anything, but you can just look at the pretty pictures and then go facepalm in your corner!

Re:Title a bit misleading

[flimflammer]

Wow, did the mods seriously not even read the article either before modding this +5? This is completely wrong. This is how Valve enters a market. They bring over steam and their source games, so there's something in the list for the platform.

Re:Title a bit misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you fucking retarded? The lion's share of the work in porting Half-Life, Portal, TF2, or CS is in porting Source over. The rest is just scripting and graphics.

Re:Title a bit misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Except source doesn't use scripting. It uses compiled core where other engines use a scripting language.

Re:Title a bit misleading

[Pseudonym]

Yes, Source uses scripting. I think you're confused between Source and most Valve games, which tend to use scripting very lightly, and usually not during gameplay. They prefer to use the game object I/O system for performance reasons.

Having said that, the AC you're referring to is 100% correct that the lion's share of porting Source games (which doesn't include Half-Life, of course) is porting Source, in particular, the stuff to do with infrastructure, packaging, and low-level I/O. The hard parts have already been done, since Source already works on XBox, PlayStation, PC and Mac. The game object layer, where most of the custom C++ stuff for each individual game lies, is already portable.

Re:Title a bit misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much.

From what I can gather, Half Life (which Source was originally built on) wasn't particularly portable. It retained some portability inherited from Quake 1, but most of the client-side stuff was Windows-only, and the server stuff was portable only to Windows and Linux. Source followed much the same path originally, with the client being more Windows-centric than Half Life, and the server essentially being portable only to Windows and Linux.

Between the Xbox 360 and PS3 ports of Source engine games, they would have fixed a lot of the portability issues. The Xbox 360 doesn't actually run Windows, but it has a similar API. Different enough that you can't really have a single codebase for both platforms. The PS3 is something entirely different, and neither the Xbox 360 nor the PS3 provide anything like a conventional operating system. Porting to those platforms would have forced them to make the code more portable, and to isolate non-portable code behind abstraction layers.

Once you've done that, porting to a new platform is a lot easier. You fix any remaining portability issues (usually assumptions you make in the "portable" part that don't hold on your new platform) by improving the platform-specific abstractions.

Same thing applies to Steam. The Steam client itself was originally very Windows-centric, while small parts of it were portable to Windows and Linux (again, for allowing dedicated servers to use Steam).

The Mac OS X port of Steam and Source gives you two new bits. First, a port of Steam to a Unix platform, and presumably making the Steam client itself more portable. Second, an OpenGL rendering interface for Source.

I'm guessing that the Steam integration on Valve's newer PS3 games is an offshoot of the Mac OS X port of Steam. They'd have needed to make the core more portable, which means that porting Steam to a console was suddenly a possibility, without being too risky or disruptive.

From this point, a Linux port of Steam and Source is a lot simpler, less risky, and less disruptive. So it's probably worth doing, even if it's only for the sake of exercising the portability of their platform (basically, if you have a portable program, but keep developing it on only one platform, you eventually end up with a non-portable program, but porting to new platforms makes the program more portable, and easier to port to new platforms in the future).

May also have something to do with the rumoured Steam console. If you have a port of Steam to a platform you can have complete control over, and have good relationships with various hardware manufacturers, middleware developers, and other game developers, you have a pretty decent starting point. It wouldn't surprise me if someone at Valve were working on something like that. Making their own console from where they were wouldn't have been possible. Making it from where they are now might be.

I don't mean that I think they developed a Linux port as a stepping stone towards their own console, by the way. I just mean that Valve (at least recently) seem to be trying to keep as many options open as possible. Their attitude seems to be that, even if something's not particularly useful now, the extra flexibility might be useful at some point in the future.

Re:Title a bit misleading

[LanMan04]

Well, they did port most/all the Source games when Steam became available on the Mac (at release or shortly thereafter), so I don't see why this would be different.

I imagine the engine is 95% of the work in porting.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's why nobody takes Linux seriously.

Re:Lol dupes

[The Moof]

4 hours? If you look at http://games.slashdot.org/ they're literally consecutive stories. That's some fine duping!

Steam with Whitelisted Wine?

[Zombie Ryushu]

I wonder if this Steam Linux client will act like PlayOnLinux and download Whitelisted Wine Clients that Steam won't flag as "cheating." I say this because I have a family member that keeps one Windows 7 machine just because he plays Left 4 Dead 2, and Steam once banned a whole sloth of Wine Users because their DLL files did not match the database Steam had.

Supposedly, Steam keeps a whitelist of known Wine DLLs to prevent this.

Re:Steam with Whitelisted Wine?

[Anonymous Coward]

sloth of Wine Users

I prefer murder of drunks.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[binarylarry]

I love the technical merits of open source and the general philosophy but fuck you and your religion.

Linux client != windows games to linux

[recrudescence]

Just because Steam will now run officially on linux doesn't mean all the titles existing for windows will magically be available for linux. It only means that developers who had already ported to linux may market it as such. Same thing happened with desura for linux. And you can see how limited the Mac selection on steam is as compared to windows (I'd expect linux to be even less).

The only positive side to this is that, hopefully, companies will have a bit more of an incentive from NOW on to port to linux.

On the other hand, companies that already WERE porting to linux anyway, and in a nice non-DRM manner, will probably opt to do it via steam now instead.

Re:Linux client != windows games to linux

[mactard]

I'm sure the Souce engine code is extremely portable, judging by how well they run on Mac OS X. However the games require Steam, so they port Steam. Source and Steam are one in the same - Steam has just been extended a bit.

Re:Linux client != windows games to linux

[E. Edward Grey]

I think the point you're making is covered pretty comprehensively in this article:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_linux_dampfnudeln&num=1

Re:Linux client != windows games to linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that Valve also have their own Steam based console in the works which will likely run on its own Linux distro. Porting steam to
Linux is probably a combination of a free bonus giving Linux users Steam support and testing out Steam on Linux while they're still prototyping hardware. I imagine the latter is their true intent but hopefully being Valve they'll be kind to their users and maintain it well for PC users. If developers want to sell their games on Valve's console they'll likely be able to run on a Linux PC with little to no modification as well. For once a console will actually help out the PC gaming market.

Re:Linux client != windows games to linux

[Anonymous Coward]

that whole steam console thing was a fabrication

Re:Linux client != windows games to linux

[Gaygirlie]

Just because Steam will now run officially on linux doesn't mean all the titles existing for windows will magically be available for linux.

Of course not, but there's actually several hundreds of games there already that have also Linux-binaries and with Steam coming for Linux the publishers only need to push those Linux-binaries there, too, so people will already at launch have atleast something play. Most more-popular Indie-games atleast seem to sport Linux-support, I've got a handful of such games in my library and I know for a fact that they do run well under Linux. The good thing about this all is that Steam for Linux won't be totally empty even on launch, and with a true-and-tried games delivery platform there's much more incentive for people to release Linux-binaries, too. How much it actually affects publishers and developers in the end remains to be seen, but nevertheless, the chances are now bigger than ever before.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[Anrego]

People are coming around.. taking linux more seriously and the hard core RMS type fanatics less seriously.

Even within the community, more permissive licenses are becoming popular.. and I've personally seen a mellowing in attitudes.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[Diabolus777]

Agreed. I used to bitch at people buying digital only assets (ITunes, I'm looking at you) as a no win situation. Steam is all the opposite of that. They get insane rebates you'll never see in stores. They let you play offline, redownload countless times, they have automated patching of games which is worth gold, gone are the days of waiting on gamespy servers and going through hoops becasue the publishers will make you go to shady ad infested download sites with their "wait half an hour or pay for a gold memebership" crap. They even have plus values such as notification of new video cards drivers and it can even patch it for you (opt-in) The only thing I hate is that I can't be logged in from several computer at once on the same account, I could play a game on my pc while my gf plays one on my laptop...I guess shared accounts would be a rampant problem. I used to hate the very idea of it...but getting top notch games for under 20$ helped me cope.

Re:Lol dupes

[crazyjj]

Isn't it sad when the editors obviously don't even read?

FTFY

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[amicusNYCL]

I haven't RTFA, but I'm pretty sure that Valve doesn't have plans to require that everyone using Linux also has Steam installed. So you can just stick with your open-source non-commercial DRM-free game platform. You have one of those, right?

will ATI and nvidia make good drivers? and put the

[Joe_Dragon]

will ATI and nvidia make good drivers? and put the same level of work in to them as they do with the windows drivers?

Steam Box OS is Linux?

[BaronAaron]

Would make sense if the rumors of a Steam Box are true.

Re:Steam Box OS is Linux?

[Mr.Radar]

I completely agree with this. One of the big problems with Valve attempting something like the SteamBox is Steam and games being tied to the Windows and OS X platforms. Apple definitely wouldn't allow a third party to use their OS and it's questionable whether Microsoft would let someone build a console on Windows technology that would compete with the Xbox. Not to mention that even if Microsoft did, consoles generally have a negative or very thin profit margin and paying for an OEM OS licenses on top of the cost of the hardware is the last thing you'd want to do in that circumstance.

From Valve's perspective, building a game console on Linux would be highly preferable to Windows because it would leave them in full control of the software stack without any license fees. Not to mention that a set baseline of hardware would allow them to do mitigate the biggest problem facing gaming on Linux (after game availability) which is the poor and inconsistent state of 3d graphics drivers by providing guarantees for what will work to developers.

If they are truly interested in building their own game console, porting Steam (and Source) to Linux would be a good first step.

Re:Steam Box OS is Linux?

[GuerillaRadio]

Shuttleworth recently said the target for Ubuntu was 200 million users in four years and hinted at some upcoming hardware partnerships...

What if the SteamBox's official OS is going to be Ubuntu and Steam is to be heavily integrated into Unity?

Re:Steam Box OS is Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's true it's going to suck and flop. While it's nice that Linux users will finally get to some great games the truth is that those games only represent about 4% of everything on Steam. No other software vendor is going to go for this anytime soon. That means that Steam Box is going to flop unless it's offered for about 300 dollars *with* the Valve titles. You know that ain't happening.
 
I'm a big fan of Steam but this will fail badly if this is their plan.

Re:Steam Box OS is Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

This all sounds great and makes sense, but has one huge problem - what about games?

The strength of a hypothetical steam box is being able to play PC games in a more reliable fashion. But linux can't play PC games, so a linux-based steam box would be a console with a miniscule game library.

If there was some indication that Valve was working voodoo to support existing windows+directx games on linux, THAT would be amazing.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[thygate]

I completely agree! Steam sales can get a little dangerous though : http://www.fantikerz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/steam_sale_time_wallet-240x300.jpg

Is it DRM? I didn't notice.

[Gordonjcp]

I just installed Steam under wine, and it worked. I bought HL2, and it worked. Then a terrible thing happened, and I accidentally the whole .wine directory.

Guess what happened when I reinstalled Steam again? The first time I fired it up, it popped up a little message saying that it couldn't see the installs of all the games I'd bought, and would I like it to go and download them again? Well yes, of course I would, so I clicked "OK", had a cup of tea, and boom, HL2 just plain worked, again.

This isn't like anything else I've seen of DRM. This is just plain handy.

Re:Is it DRM? I didn't notice.

[The Moof]

This isn't like anything else I've seen of DRM. This is just plain handy.

It's rare, but Steam has had its share of problems. There's been the occasional authentication server outage (translating you not being able to play any games). Or, if your ISP is having issues, you can't launch games. There is an offline option, but you must already be online to enable a game for offline play.

Re:Is it DRM? I didn't notice.

[period3]

This isn't like anything else I've seen of DRM. This is just plain handy.

Really? Are you sure you're a linux user? apt-get install game

Steam is a glorified, locked down package manager. It's a system of locks that allows you to donate money to developers, except that you must first pay a cut to Valve. I guess that's not all bad - it's no worse than paypal I'm sure.

Re:Is it DRM? I didn't notice.

[Gordonjcp]

No, you don't have to be online. If you have to be online, why does it work when I'm not connected to the Internet?

Re:Is it DRM? I didn't notice.

[flimflammer]

There is an offline option, but you must already be online to enable a game for offline play.

That's incorrect. If you're disconnected from the internet, there is now a "Play Offline" button in the error dialogue when Steam says it can't connect to its services, which switches to the 30 day offline mode. If you can't see that button, completely close out steam and reopen it. You'll see it on the next connection error you see.

It was finicky for the longest time but I've never had a single problem seeing the button since.

Re:Is it DRM? I didn't notice.

[amicusNYCL]

Steam is a glorified, locked down package manager.

Steam has 40+ million "active" accounts. How embarrassing would it be if the glorified, locked-down package manager had more unique/desktop users than any other package manager?

Re:Is it DRM? I didn't notice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there is no time limit on offline. However the games and the steam client itself have to be completely up to date when starting\restarting steam in offline mode. Sometimes however it can be unpredictable since steam detects updates on the client as soon as it is connected but installs them on the next restart. I typically test everything twice when I know I will need the offline mode.

choice

[Anonymous Coward]

indeed. if one truly value free-choice them don't bitch when people choose what works for them.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[Anonymous Coward]

So in other words, when it's not Draconianly applied....DRM works enough to not bother the customer, and somehow please the board members who have no real clue about the subject. All I see is Win/Win here.

Does Steam DRM work to stop piracy....hell no, nothing does. nothing will. Is it a DRM silver bullet in a way? Yup, executive dolts are happy, customers are happy(for the most part).

Now if Valve just had more leverage to require other forms of BS DRM be removed or you can sell your product elsewhere, we'd have something, but that will never be.
This isn't that I want them having control over other games, just how they are distributed over Steam, I've already seen far too many ignorant posts blaming Steam/Valve for some form or other of bullshit DRM in some AAA title they bought on Steam.

Re:will ATI and nvidia make good drivers? and put

[Anonymous Coward]

You should be aware that graphics drivers on OSX, before Steam for Mac, weren't as good as they are now. So, likely Linux drivers will also be better in the future.

Makes up for Adobe!

[MMC Monster]

This certainly more than makes up for Adobe pulling Flash support from Linux.

(Fingers crossed that this sees the light of day...)

Windows 8: really awful

[shish]

Reading the motivations, it seems we should also be thankful to microsoft for this -- part of the motivation for their devs to work on it is that linux is slowly getting better on the desktop*, but the other part is that windows is rapidly getting worse :P

* or slowly getting worse, if you use ubuntu and don't know how to install an alternative window manager; but Metro is still ahead of Unity in that respect

Slashdotted

[Stormwatch]

Coral cache here.

How about...

[unixisc]

PC-BSD?

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[HeckRuler]

I can play games offline.

Except when you can't. I've had a handful of times when steam wants to connect even when I tell it to play offline. And it refuses to do anything else. It has pissed me right the hell off each time. That's DRM getting between me and what I paid for.
Steam is a pretty good distribution system. And Valve has a lot of sales which make it enticing. But as far as DRM goes, it's still too much.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[Anonymous Coward]

But if Linux is just going to become a bunch of closed source restricted stuff with an app store (like Ubuntu is trying to do) then why would I use that instead of just getting OS X? There's already a polished, usable, professional unix desktop.

Just in time...

[aztektum]

What good timing. There just happen to be a bunch of Kickstarter projects that will need a way to distribute their promised Linux clients.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[bky1701]

That "religion" is why Linux and all its surrounding components exist.

Re:Will this have DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's "heavy" mean? Strong..? Obtrusive..? Because strong isn't an issue, only obtrusive is, and the only complaint I have is having to remember my User/Pass when I reinstall Windows every few years.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[Anonymous Coward]

does Desurium count?

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[evilRhino]

If you need someone to answer that for you, just buy the Mac. I could think of several reasons why *I* would rather use the Linux desktop, with the principal reason being it's cheaper.

Steam is so hot it burns

[s_p_oneil]

I can understand why Steam is such a successful platform, but I bought two games on it and got burned badly enough by them that I got rid of it.

The first pretty much killed it for me. It was a $60 AAA game that took several days to download over my DSL line, which by itself was fine. However, after waiting all that time to get it installed and playing it for exactly 1 evening, it came out with a patch that took about 48 hours to download. As soon as the patch was available, Steam locked me out of the game without warning and started downloading it. Soon after I finished downloading that patch, there was a new one that locked me out again. Steam wouldn't let me choose whether (or even when) to download a patch. I could force the download to stop, but that just kept me locked out of the game indefinitely until I restarted and completed it. In the first month I was only able to play the game two or three evenings because it pushed me up to my ISP's bandwidth cap. I explained my problem to Steam tech support, and asked for either a way to disable the lockouts or a refund so I could buy a copy of the game that I could actually play. They told me to piss off, and I told them I was done buying things on Steam.

The second was a game I'd bought first, but that I ended up playing for a while after. At some point, Steam ended up locking me out of the game with a cryptic error message. I don't recall the exact message (it's been a while), but when searching Steam forums for it, they recommended a number of things (including deleting the game and re-downloading it, re-installing Steam, etc.), but nothing worked. I would've contacted tech support, but fortunately that game had only cost $10. At that point I decided that $10 was a cheap price to pay to be able to uninstall Steam and walk away from it forever.

Re:Steam is so hot it burns

[Anonymous Coward]

Right click on the game in your library, hit properties, go to the second tab in the popup window, disable automatic patching. Your one and only problem is now solved.

Re:Steam is so hot it burns

[Wyzard]

How long ago was that? In Steam's properties window for a game, there's an Updates tab with the choices "always keep this game up to date" and "do not automatically update this game". That option has been there for a long time.

Re:Steam is so hot it burns

[Anonymous Coward]

Corky is that you?

Re:Steam is so hot it burns

[s_p_oneil]

Oh no, it wasn't anywhere near that old. I turned that option off as soon as the first patch started downloading, but as soon as the second patch became available, it still locked me out of the game. It just didn't start the patch download automatically. When I complained to support about how ridiculous that was, they told me the only way to stop it from locking me out was to play in "Offline mode" indefinitely. Which killed all of Steam's other functionality.

GNOME3 fallback mode

[loufoque]

Notice how the guy in the screenshots is using GNOME3 in fallback mode, on Ubuntu, with the default settings, which looks terribly bad.

I wouldn't trust a Linux developer that doesn't even have a decent Linux workstation setup to be able to code for Linux well.

Re:GNOME3 fallback mode

[Artemis3]

He probably doesn't want desktop compositing in the way, leaving that issue for later.

Re:GNOME3 fallback mode

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice how the guy in the screenshots is using GNOME3 in fallback mode, on Ubuntu, with the default settings, which looks terribly bad.

I wouldn't trust a Linux developer that doesn't even have a decent Linux workstation setup to be able to code for Linux well.

I guess he merely have a different taste then. Some people hate KDE, some hate GNOME, some hate both and don't run either. Often enough, good programmers are exactly those who aren't impressed by eye candy - especially eye candy so heavy it makes the machine slower.

Why have a setup where logging in takes over a second? or booting over 10s? There is no need. Good old xdm and a simple window manager lets me have that. Not flashy, but fast.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[amicusNYCL]

Possibly, for certain values of "open-source" and "non-commercial". The client is open-source, at least, but I doubt a purist would consider the platform open-source and non-commercial.

Game ported too

[DrYak]

Read to original Phoronix article.

They *are* porting games too. Left 4 Dead 2 is their current target, because it's a stable code base they can play with.
And what phoronix's Micheal reported from Gabe, more Steam-based are very likely to follow.
So HL2, Portal, TF2 and the like will probably show at some point in time in the future.
And, still according to phoronix's author, Valve is rather willing to encourage 3rd parties to port games to Linux.

(And besides, there are already Linux games on Steam. Basically anything from Humble Bundles.)

Native Steam

[DrYak]

This is about porting Steam AND the Source engine as Native Linux applications.
L4D2 is running already (that's their test target) and probably the rest of Valve developped/Source powered game will follow.

So no Wine DLL in this. Real native Linux apps.

But Windows games coming to Linux anyway

[DrYak]

according to the phoronix report (Michael spent a day speaking with Gabe at Valve)
Left 4 Dead 2 is currently running on Linux (that's what they use to test).
Other Valve developped/Source powered games will follow.
And Gabe would like Valve to stimulate 3rd parties publishing on steam to port their games to Linux too.
So even if porting source doesn't imply ports of games, Valve (and mroe precisely Gabe) *DO* want Linux ports of games.

STEAM + Jackd + Jamin + AC3 = Pure awesome

[Gimbal]

Granted, it takes a few CPU cycles to run Jamin - a live multiband equalizer with three separate compressors, which integrates with the Jack audio system - but beside that, it makes for a very deep sound in what Jackd picks up (e.g. media player output). It can be really cinematic sounding. I expect that, together with Steam - except for the CPU cycles - I expect that it could make for a gaming experience that would sound, in a word, hot.

I also expect it may result in more attention towards the Linux platform. Some seasoned Linux community members might regard that as a mixed blessing, but I think it can be a good thing. I'm sure that the Ubuntu community might think to scoop this news, as well.

Linux Drivers: Getting better

[DrYak]

ATI
- quality of the proprietary drivers has increased lately. though they tend to only support the last few generation of GPUs only. (Early Radeon HD will be dropped soon).
- open source drivers: they are officially supported by ATI. That's their recommandation for anything not supported in Catalyst anymore (Currently everything up to Radeon X). They are stable although not as goof performance wise for latest hardware as the Catalysts.
- If you want hardware that will supported for long ATI is the thing to go for, thanks to their oopensource drivers policy.

Nvidia:
- the quality of the proprietary driver is really good, though it doesn't play nice with a lot of modern Linux technologies (no KMS, no EGL, no up-to-date Xrandr, no Wayland for that matters, etc...) and miss features that their Windows counterpart offer (no stereo on anything but expensive workstation cards, etc.) Also therewas a recent debacle with exploits against these drivers, and a hasty update that broke performance.
- open source drivers: No support from Nvidia, so developpers have to reverse-engineer everything, but at least Nvidia don't sue either. Performance and quality is patchy. Middle range slightly older cards are best supported and have best performance.
- If you want the best of best current gfx cards, and change for a new one evvery few months, go for Nvidia and proprietary drivers.

Intel:
- their official drivers are the opensource ones, and they have rather good performance (well, for Intel hardware anyway...)

There are signs that things have improved:
- Browser developpers (Firefox and Chromium) have moved from only whitelisting Nvidia binary drivers for hardware acceleration, to whitelisting Nvidia, ATI and Intel for both closed and open source drivers.
- Icculus' Gordon has changed his mind progressively. Whereas last year he was ranting that opensource drivers are catastrophic, this year he mentionned that things have improved dramatically.

Also, according to other Phoronix reports and according to Valve's Gabe's twitter, Valve is hiring not only OpenGL Linux developpers but also Linux developpers with kernel developping skills. One can expect that Valve is going to put some paid workforce to improve driver quality.

Re:Linux Drivers: Getting better

[pantaril]

- If you want the best of best current gfx cards, and change for a new one evvery few months, go for Nvidia and proprietary drivers.

I agree with you post except for the second half of this sentence. The oldest cards supported by current NVIDIA proprietary driver are from GeForce FX Series, which was released in 2003. This is 9 years ago, not a few months.

NVIDIA proprietary driver is imo still the only reasonable choice for linux gamers who want to run windows games under wine.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[fish waffle]

Hmm, let's compare that to the good 'ol days of just buying a game that didn't have ridiculous DRM, or at worst did a CD check:

Steam is all the opposite of that. They get insane rebates you'll never see in stores.

But not as good as buying a used copy.

They let you play offline, redownload countless times,

Almost as good as having the CD! Well, except for the bandwidth usage.

they have automated patching of games which is worth gold, gone are the days of waiting on gamespy servers and going through hoops becasue the publishers will make you go to shady ad infested download sites with their "wait half an hour or pay for a gold memebership" crap.

What?

They even have plus values such as notification of new video cards drivers and it can even patch it for you (opt-in)

A plus or a minus; I like to control what gets installed.

Really, beyond being an online store, steam mainly just gives you back a few of the things taken away from you by the DRM-freaks that invaded the games industry. Which is nice, less regressive than most DRM, but it's still not progress.

The only thing I hate is that I can't be logged in from several computer at once on the same account,

Tsk tsk..you really should pay twice for that feature!

Compatibility layer?

[DrYak]

Wasn't there a rather simple (not Wine-like, but "x86 on x86_64"-like) compatibility layer for BSD OSes ?

Re:Compatibility layer?

[aiht]

Yes.

Interesting...

[neros1x]

Wow, guys, Linux finally gets a major games publisher serious about it and all you can do is worry about DRM? The world is not going open source anytime soon. One thing at a time.

Steam already available for Android.

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam is already available for Android.
No games as yet, But Android does use the Linux kernel.

When I downloaded the Android steam, I was hopeful it would come to the Linux Desktop Distros soon.

And yay! for here it is.

Can't wait to continue playing HL EP 2. And Portal II etc etc when they are available.

Old Linux software is hard to run

[OrangeTide]

My old Linux games take quite a bit of jamming of old libraries and LD_PRELOADs to still run. (Neverwinter Nights, Heretic II, Myth II, ..)
But I have old Win95/98 stuff that starts up in wine just fine.

Given the rate at which Linux changes, and how legacy compatibility is not considered a priority, I think I would rather buy copies of games for Windows and run them in wine. What would be ideal for me is some sort of "wine-certified" program so I can know that the developer went to the effort to test and QA their Windows game on wine. (and either hacked around the problems, or posted a patch to wine)

Re:Old Linux software is hard to run

[staalmannen]

I wish we had a set of permissively licensed libraries for Linux that would make it possible to produce statically linked proprietary programs. Those would never have had the issues with old library dependencies and such... in fact the longer I think about it the more I get convinced that the development of dynamic linking was a big mistake (fuelled back in the days by the requirements of X) - the whole DLL/.so/whatever dependency hell would not have existed if everything was statically linked.

Re:Old Linux software is hard to run

[OrangeTide]

Then nsswitch type stuff wouldn't work. I think the NetBSD guys have managed to maintain backward compatibility not only with libraries, but with system calls too. You can roll back a NetBSD box to a specific interface version on a per process basis.
Linux could be modified to do this, but nobody seems to care. It's not exciting enough development compared to drivers and schedulers and file systems.
You could switch to MINIX 3. They are mostly complete and functional, except they have no shared library support.

kernel module.

[Truekaiser]

the article does mention they want someone with kernel module experience. looking at what the steam client does drm wise and how linux is, it makes sense because the only way it can do such things is have hooks in the kernel.

self process obfuscation to prevent cheating programs in general.
network interface monitoring to prevent the packet modifying cheats.
a hook into the opengl rendering stack to allow checking for aim-bots and the like.
system process monitoring and inspection, can't do this as a normal user. used to prevent some other cheating programs that disguise themselves.
input-dev hooks to check for marco and other bot programs made to enter input.

some things it does can be done without it.

handling each game in one large file while hiding the .bin from the user.
payment and network encryption for payment, libssl maybe?

either way any such module would put the kernel into 'taint status' like the amd and nvidia drivers simply from what it needs to do to facilitate the same level of protection from cheaters.

So?

[Osgeld]

steam functions under wine now, and really what good is it to me? Great, maybe eventually source engine games will get ported, which makes up 2 games in my library of like 20 games

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[Deltaspectre]

This bit me last time I lost my internet connection too. The solution is to enter offline mode at least once while online so your computer gets authorized for offline use.

If I could get all Games on steam running in linux

[the_Bionic_lemming]

I would switch to linux in a heartbeat. The only thing preventing me from running linux is the fact that I mainly use my home machine for gaming.

I want off of the windows cart and on to an alternative. Really.

I do not want to go past xp to another microsoft operating system. I do not want to spend a long amount of time getting games to run. I want to be able to d/l my games and start playing like I do now.

I am not alone in this. I have many friends who don't care for the latest and greatest that microsoft offers. They just want to game. If they and I could d/l an OS, Load up steam, d/l the game and play - you would have a LEGION of people doing a mass exodus of the windows platform.

I hope that Gabe and the Linux community pulls this off.

Mod Parent Up

[Anonymous Coward]

The elitist attitude will prevent Linux from overtaking Windows. Period.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[mug funky]

well, it could still win by default. linux is on the increase, be it at a small rate. windows is on a decline, so presumably at some point there will be more linux machines than windows.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[DaVince21]

Ummm... False! I'll go with false.

More seriously, most oses have people with elitist Attitudes. Not gonna stop this from succeeding.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[Anonymous Coward]

There are already more linux machines than windows, far, far more.

They aren't all desktops though.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[Trogre]

Cool, so can I sell my Steam games second-hand when I'm finished with them?

Re:If I could get all Games on steam running in li

[Osgeld]

dont take this the wrong way but you should upgrade windows when you get a chance

its not security, or the impending doom of XP, its not XYZ os being better IMO, its one simple thing

moving past directX 9, dx9 is an artificial limit to windows XP microsoft conned into vista, but really 10+ is night and day faster and you get some slightly better shader effects

think about it ... no rush

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[bloodhawk]

I ran into the same problem early last year, I installed some games on my laptop when going away as I knew I would have no internet connectivity thinking steam would let me play offline as after all they were single player games and steam said they permitted offline play, only too find of the 8 games I installed NONE of them would work without an internet connection to steam. Turns out it was a steam bug at the time, but to say steam DRM is unintrusive is definitely wrong.

hardly

[Anonymous Coward]

...Games Coming To Linux

only if game developers take the time to port or rewrite for a platform that has less than 1/5th the desktop market share of osx, another platform most developers stay away from because it is already too small to be worthwhile.

So not interested.

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely not interested in this. If I could get a full refund after playing the game, maybe I'd do this (after all, they got use of my money for as long as I got use of their game). But I'm not going to be begging a third party to let me use someone else's game.

Is DRM possible at all? No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at how long it takes those DRM processes to be broken.

You have to authorise for offline play online

[Anonymous Coward]

Or do you have a reading comprehension problem?

Log on to Steam, ONLINE, say "I want to play offline" (if it feels like it). THEN you can play offline.

Unless there's a Steam update or, while you're online to say "I want offline", there's an update to a game started downloading.

Re:You have to authorise for offline play online

[Gordonjcp]

I've never had to do that. It's always pretty much just worked without any faffing.

Happy Days

[AltF4ToWin]

It's not Half-Life (Episode) 3, but it's as good as.

Since you need one account for each machine

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you need one account for each machine that plays at the same time (i.e. you and your S.O. play Steam games), that upps the count. Since you can be locked from ALL games when you get locked out of ONE, many have one game associated. And if you get a game bought from Amazon et al as a present, it may require Steam. Another account.

And NOT ONE chose Steam. They chose a game that only comes out on Steam. Those accounts are proof of how well-loved the games are, not Steam.

Lets face it, far more people have Windows Vista. This doesn't prove Vista is brilliant, though. Hell, how many millions have GfW, yet you aren't worrying about people calling GfW shite, are you. Why?

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not for the open source community. It's for gamers who use Linux. Not every Linux user has the same ideologies.

test

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you have a time machine, good for you. But times are changing and we are living in the present. Hell, my computer doesn't even have a CD drive...

Before doing business with Apple, they have to

[lnaie]

It makes sense, yes.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[binarylarry]

I'm pretty sure Linus doesn't subscribe to the FLOSS nutjob newsletters.

Steam as an application framework?

[blackorzar]

Is it possible to develop applications other than games on Steam? It would be great for developing apps with great graphics.

The other way around

[DrYak]

I didn't mean that you *need* to upgrade your card every few months in order to use the proprietary drivers, but the other way around :
If you upgrade your card every few months, you need to use the proprietary drivers, because the Nouveau drivers will be lagging a lot behind (need to be reverse engineered), but the proprietary drivers are always up to date.

Whereas if you keep 9 years old graphic cards, ATI are even better: you get rather good opensource support in drivers for older generation (r300g). These drivers are developped with the help of ATI, and over this time, they have matured well enough to be useful - both stable and decent performance.
Nvidia could also still support old hardware, but with ATI's opensource drivers, you usually get a modern drivers using modern architecture (Mesa's Gallium3D framework) and playing nicely with latest technology (KMS, EGL, up to date XRandr, support for latest Xorg Server,even support for the Wayland display server, etc. And once support for the early Radeon HD is moved to opensource too, you can bet that the compute support like OpenCL will be developped and updated too) because the drivers get maintained and developped together with the rest of the Linux echo system.

140 characters or 14 sockpuppets?

[tepples]

Twitter was on Slashdot long before the hashtag was invented. If you write "sockpuppet" 14 times, that's 140 characters.

Sony v. Hotz

[tepples]

I don't think DRM on games is capable of imposing the same kind of subjugation

How do you make this belief consistent with Sony v. Hotz?

and although I would praise any game company who opened the source code to their engine

Which in fact Idthesda often does five years later.

Re:Sony v. Hotz

[pxc]

Geohotz wasn't acting in a professional capacity when he jailbroke the PS3. His ability to feed his family did not depend upon the kinds of limitations Sony imposed or hoped to impose with their PS3's DRM. The kind of subjugation I was talking about is ‘the kind of subjugation that makes you starve’. I also meant only those limitations imposed by restraining from violating the DRM, not the possible legal consequences of reverse-engineering it.

So, as I intended to say before: I don't think DRM on games is capable of imposing the same *kind* of subjugation on end-users, although it's still subjugation and it still sucks.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Used computer games? Most places won't sell software used.

2. Losing a CD, the CD gets scratched, or you have to dig the CD out of a closet somewhere to play it....

3. The CD / disk doesn't have the updates. Affected by a bug? Maybe you can dial Apogee or Sierra's BBS long distance and download the patch, or get it off a CompuServe board while connected at $2/hr! Or maybe you can call them and they'll send you some media for $5 S&H.

4. DRM, yeah, it can be a bummer. But I'll take sane DRM over those ridiculous "5th word on page 12 of the manual" checks ANY day.

Don't get me wrong... classic gaming had a certain appeal and it was probably responsible for getting a lot of people interested in computers, but I have no illusions about the shortcomings of the era.

Re:Juts what the open source community wants...

[WorBlux]

Not really, there is still open stuff (and the base system is open), it's just that that model lets you tax closed source programs that run on an Open Source OS and dump the money back into improving the base system.

bob's game

[tepples]

His ability to feed his family did not depend upon the kinds of limitations Sony imposed

This is true in the narrow case of a hobbyist. But subjugation on developers is also worth considering. What should a video game developer that plans to sell its game but has been rejected by Sony do?

It's just a matter of time is all

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a lot of people are looking at going over to Linux. Unfortunately, they wont cause they cant get there games to either work in Wine or just wont work. I know there is a huge younger generation out there that are biteing at the chops to get on Linux. I guess, open source or not, I would say the community would welcome the larger user source coming in. That would make a lot of Gaming companies port or start to design engines for games in Linux. Think about it from the gamers side, get Linux, save a minimum of 400 for O.S.. Thats like another 15 games to them they could go and get. Most of the users in the community, ya they like the open source, gamers though, they could give a diddly doo, but I think the community would most definitely welcome the larger numbers coming in.