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Steam For Linux Will Launch In 2012
An anonymous reader writes "Gabe Newell has responded to an email asking if Steam for Linux will be released this year with the simple answer 'Yes.' That means at some point in the next 7 months anyone running Linux will be able to download Steam and start playing a number of games, including at least one Valve title (most likely Left 4 Dead 2). After that the emphasis will be on game developers to start porting their Steam games over to Linux. 2012 could be a great year for gaming on Linux. The news follows the revelation in April that Valve was indeed working on a Linux port of its digital games service. At the time though, and as with all Valve software, we had no idea when it would get released."
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The bigger question is, will it motivate developers to port to Linux?
Great!
Remember that all games from the current and previous Humble Indie Bundles (overview of all games) have a Linux version, and most of them are on Steam too. So that's already a nice range of games to start.
DRM in Linux is practically nonexistent, and I'm glad to see this gap filled! I was starting to feel lonely without being groped by a lawyer.
Steam itself runs fine under wine.
Nope, just kidding. Still, excellent news!
If their console will be linux based, running this steam port? That would be very nice indeed if it meant that cross-compatibility would be a side effect!
Seeing as just about all of the Valve games on the Source engine have been ported to Mac, would I be correct in thinking that it is a vastly reduced job to then bring them to Linux?
Anyway, this is great news.
2012 - Year of the Linux Desktop!!
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time
Rumour has it that the decision to finally port Steam to Linux was in part motivated by Microsoft's bold and exciting decision to release Windows Phone as a desktop operating system. With mainstream games being one of the last things keeping me from running Linux full-time, this may be the Year of the Linux Desktop... at least for me, and I'm guessing there are others like me.
This may not be a popular idea on Slashdot, but Windows 8's secure boot requirement may also help Linux: by making it a little more difficult to produce a functioning distro, it could have the effect of culling the distribution to a smaller number, with more developers focused on each. Choice is great and all, but I think the sheer variety in Linux can be a bit dizzying to newcomers.
Nope, nope. I've heard this sort of story before. I still say, binaries or it didn't happen.
This will be the year of linux on the desktop!
It'd be awesome if they can integrate WINE into this. If so, maybe some of the good Windows titles will work regardless of Linux ports.
That sucking sound is all my productivity flying out the window when this goes live. The last few years since the dvd drive on the family Wii console died I have gotten so much done. After all, on linux we all know the fun is in the coding and productivity tools (albeit a rarified kind of fun that you gotta immerse yourself in). If steam goes live with good games, well, I could see the 15 minute break I take when stumped by a coding challenge stretching into a week...
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I might be burning some karma here on this advertising post....
The first seven posts weren't that bad. I wasn't sure what to expect with post until I hit paragraph 8. Based on the article in question I wasn't sure if this post was going to try blaming Steam and I was greatly looking forward to the plot twist. Paragraph 8 ruined my expectations. This story could have been twisted into an anti-steam rant but alas the potential was not realized. I believe others can properly conclude the story.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Considering the direction Microsoft is taking with the desktop (Windows 8) and rumours I've heard about Gabes opinion on Microsofts decisions with 8 (apparently extremely unhappy / disapointed) I suspect Valve is looking towards a future where linux is on significantly more desktops than it is now.
Admitedly, it's highly unlikely but you never know, Microsoft really are making a mess with Windows 8
Maybe then they'll fix the shit they broke in Half-Life 2. They seriously broke the series when they ported it to Mac. It was odd when I saw Alyx close one of them combine doors at Nova Prospekt, only to then walk THROUGH the door as it closed. Then she suddenly teleported out of nowhere.
Also, physics. Broken.
Please remember Steam is a distribution platform, nothing more. So all it does it make it easier to get games. It doesn't bring any new games over, it isn't a system for porting or emulating games. So it will only have games already available for Linux, with the exception of any Valve games they port.
You can see this on the Mac version now. If you look at the games for Windows and games for Mac you find that there are major differences. Some titles are listed as "Steam Play" meaning they run on both, however far more titles are Windows only and will not run on a Mac, Steam doesn't help there.
So unless your problem has been the inability to find and buy games for Linux, it isn't going to change anything for you.
In the long run it isn't likely to make much difference in game availability either. I doubt developers have said "Man we'd so port this game to Linux if only Steam was available." More likely to make a different is Kickstarter, and more in particular how things go in the long run with the games from there. A number of games announced Linux versions due to requests from the community. How the response is (like how many people use it, how happy the community is, how helpful they are, etc) will probably determine if they keep it up with future titles, or decide not to bother.
I'd never port a game over to Linux. It's simply not a good platform to develop a game on. There is no incentive to sink all the work into it. OpenGL, whatever you use for sound, the OS, etc. is completely capable of doing anything Windows can do. I'm not refuting that. It's outside of my expertise and there is no incentive to learn it. Hence, no ports.
A lot of other developers feel the same. You can bash them and exclaim their incompetence and stupidity until you are blue in the face, but it's not going to get your Windows games ported to Linux.
Wait, so Phoronix has a screenshot from *someone* which shows an e-mail from Newell...and this is "evidence"?! What the hell is wrong with the Internet?!
Oh no! If that happens, my productivity will go down! I'll be playing games suddenly!
No technical commentary at all? Come on /. try harder.
I'm curious how they'll integrate with the numerous distros and numerous desktop environments, or sadly, more likely not integrate at all.
I've often thought an interesting add on for apt-get and friends would be the limited support required to set up a "for pay/for donation" app store. Anything other than a really ugly hack would require lots of work.
Several puzzles to solve. Proper place in the file system hierarchy? Assuming its some place in /opt, modifying the path? Icons for popular desktops (or just some?) Integration with the universal menu system? Dependency management?
Of the eleven supported archs seen on debian.org/ports, and twenty three supported plus unsupported archs, which will steam support? Sadly I'm guessing i386 only, not even amd64.
I speak from experience that its much more work to be on Debian but not in Debian, than it is to be on Debian and in Debian.
A funny way to implement this would be to do it all by virtualization. Your host can be redhat or whatever, but you're going to be running a virtualized hypercustomized ubuntu image.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
While Steam on Linux isn't a bad thing, a screenshot of someone's gmail window is hardly evidence of anything, due to how easy it is to fake. Hell, even if it is a real GMail window, Firebug makes it trivial to add new output directly to a live page.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
YAY!
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Even though it's lacking a little in some areas (like accessing resources from different threads), OpenGL 3.3 and OpenCL are more than enough for running the most hardware stressing games currently coming out for the PC and consoles, and nowadays driver support for it is excellent in both AMD and NVidia.
Given that Macs now support OpenGL 3 with Lion, and that mobile world is almost exclusively OpenGL ES 2.0 (which is mostly forward compatible to OpenGL 3), I'm still puzzled that PC developers almost exclusively use DirectX any more.
I can understand the need to develop lower end titles for DirectX9 because it's the only API that works on the Intel GMAs (shipped in most of the low end notebooks), but Steam hardware survely clearly shows that most of their users have DirectX10 / OpenGL 3 compatible hardware installed.
Just a new way to get Sudoku games?
I am not a gamer, but here is to the hope that it provides "real" games. It's good for all of us that use Linux as our everyday OS. It encourages support in other areas as well...
If games are linked to your steam account, will that mean someone who bought a title for windows will automatically be able to run that same title on linux or mac if its available?
I would certainly hope so, i hate the idea of having to pay again for a game i already bought...
This would greatly benefit those who dual boot for the purposes of gaming, depending on the games they play this could eliminate or greatly reduce the amount of time they spend booted into windows... On the other hand, if they have to buy the games again most people won't... Also this would create fragmentation with some of their game library on linux and some on windows, and discourage use of linux for gaming as it will undoubtedly have a smaller library.
Incidentally, dual booting can actually be beneficial... Plenty of people use windows for gaming (and only gaming), and use linux for everything else... It means that their windows install doesn't get bloated up with random applications that might interfere with their games.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Whomever gets the first well supported opensource drivers for their mid-grade GPU first, stands to win the affections of the Linux community. AMD vs nVidia. Intel could possibly be a contender if they had a mid-grade GPU to offer.
I have a Windows box for gaming, who doesn't... I bought GTA4 when it came out, and am likely never to buy again.
GTA4 was basically ported from XBOX to the PC, complete with a few remnant Xbox logos here and there in various dialogue boxes... I couldn't even use a gamepad, I was told I MUST use a XBOX controller... Worst gaming experience ever.
Debian is 250 % more effective than MyCleanPC, already the first millisecond. Debian then just goes on and on, beyond the pathetic performance of MyCleanPC.
Check out www.debian.org.
Debian makes MyCleanPC look like a virus.
Debian wipes the floor with MyCleanPC.
Check out www.debian.org.
Debian has about 30,000 apps for free.
There is no need to use MyCleanPC.
Debian makes MyCleanPC look really bad.
Check out www.debian.org.
does anyone know which distro's primarily will get steam? from what ive been reading and hearing it looks like its mostly going to be ubuntu. im am not the biggest ubuntu fan ever, i mainly use Arch and Fedora and im sure in time they will get ported to those distro's as well. but right now is it mainly ubuntu?
There is only one reason STEAM is doing this, and it's pretty simple.
When they decide to release their own console (oh and they will), they want to make sure their platform will work on it, and that game developers have already started thinking about porting them over to *nix. Why pay a licensing fee for some OS to put on a console (or a licensing fee to XBOX or Sony to get STEAM on their platform), when they can instead make sure their platform works flawlessly on *nix, and then create a console using *nix.
the desktop *nix community will be like a beta test for their console, without all the demands of "I want a fix yesterday" that you would get from the Windows community.
Long term, they will end up taking a significant chunk of the current consoles market share.
Apple opposes you buying and using their OS if your computer isn't a Mac.
If you buy a computer and it has Windows 8 preloaded and you hate it, Mac OS may be available to you as a pirate, but Apple's position is that your computer is a doorstop, not a ludicrously overpowered computer which can be salvaged by installing decent software. They aren't going to try to directly use that machine to increase their OS market share.
They don't hope to get you as a customer until n years later when that machine is finally obsolete (and I think n is getting to be a pretty big number), and they're counting on you remembering how unhappy you were with your previous purchase being non-Apple hardware.
Except that when that day comes, you may have been running Mint for n years and probably don't actually have negative feelings about your hardware purchase. Turns out, the non-Apple hardware was fucking awesome (probably; most of today's shittiest garbage computers are just incredible, or at least in my experience). It's the preload you have bad feelings about.
There are a few angles; maybe you will keep Windows on the machine despite your unhappiness, so the bitterness will last longer. Maybe your otherwise useful machine has something weird for which drivers are hard to get or don't work well (e.g. realtek wifi), so you can't ever upgrade the OS. Maybe you'll recommend Macs to your friends and family, so someone else might get a Mac due to your purchase of a Windows-preloaded box.
There are opportunities for Apple, but most of them seem pretty fringe.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
I'm probably going to regret posting this, but I hope it works on FreeBSD as too.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
I once returned CIV V after reading the Steam EULA.
Who would want to agree to that?
Since then I carefully avoid any Steam games.
"That means at some point in the next 7 months anyone running Linux will be able to download Steam and start playing a number of games" you are clearly unfamiliar with the concept of https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_TimeValve Time
which Linux-based OS will they support?
By the end of 2012? Knowing Gabe, this likely means we won't see it until Christmas 2013, at which point he'll release Half-Life 3 alongside it and the world will end.
If Duke Nukem was the rapture, then Steam on Linux is the Armageddon. And when it comes to timeliness, I never trust Valve. Quality, sure, but meeting or setting deadlines? Not a chance in frozen hell.
How many "non-tech people" do you know who actually maintain their Windows box? No, they have their kid or their cousin or their neighbor who's "good with computers" do it. My wife had to get me a t-shirt that says "No, I will not fix your computer." for me to wear to family reunions.
From a "non-tech user" perspective, Linux is actually easier to maintain than Windows, since there's a centralized updata service for basically all the software on the system.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
In an era where the average consumer has moved away from a "PC" in favour of garden wall devices, I am seeing Linux becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Also, I have to say, Linux is an EPIC fail. Linux was a OS the pretty much could run on anything with an IC in it however it has been pretty much shut-out of all current mobile platforms. This is extremely significant. While there may be variants of *nix in Android, iOS (and arguably Windows Mobile), pure Linux has failed to catch on both the desktop and now all mobile platforms.
I think the Linux crowd has to ask themselves one basic question: "What is the point of Linux". Once it was to create a good Windows (desktop/server) alternative, that failed. Now one could argue it is to create a free and open mobile/consumer electronic platform and that if failing. 20 years on and Linux is still a footnote in the history of operating systems without any core product to promote it.
Maybe Valve should become the Linux champion, pull it from the cloud of uncertainty and mediocrity and turn it into the best gaming OS platform known to mankind. Make a set top box that rivals game consoles and entertainment boxes putting Linux into every living room. Make it the ultimate choice for any future consumer electronic devices. What is necessary is for SOMEONE to guide Linux towards a vision and ultimately a GOAL! Linus Torvalds has failed to do this in almost every conceivable way.
Linux just exists, period. There seems to be no motivation to move it past existence and as the core platform it was created for dwindles its existence is greatly threatened.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Can one of you tell me, does Linux have good drivers for video-game oriented desktop graphics cards? I mean, will I be able to play Skyrim (which is a steam game I think) on Linux if this pushes through? I don't build computers anymore because it is cheaper and easier for me to play on xbox, but if this works well I will switch back. Firefox's spell checker wants me to capitalize 'linux'. Sweeet.
I don't think any such stories have ever come from Mr. Newell himself, however.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Doesn't GPL force closed-source commercial applications to open up their source code for anybody who request it? Isn't the GPL the major reason why no developer want's to write for linux. It seems GPL gives freedom to the user(access to code and make modifications) and Windows gives freedom to the developer(making money off of closed source not forced to open). If i owned a game developing company I wouldn't even consider developing games for the Linux, I need to pay for the company building, utilities, employee salaries, Lawyers, etc... Even as a individual game developer I would like to make money off of my products to make a living especially during this shitty recession.
It is probably easier for some games to be ported to Linux. But Steam for OS X has been out for how long? and the main/most titles still have not been ported to OS X, so i see it hard to see that the steam for linux will be successful.
Screw rent-ware
When is Left 4 Dead 3 coming out?!?!?!?!?!?
Given that games are being ported to the mac now (library is still small, but) - which is using OpenGL, OpenAL and OpenCL, then porting to linux if a mac port is already done should be relatively trivial - all those libraries are cross platform.
Don't expect DirectX ports any time soon though, the mac doesn't appear to get them either. But, its a start. Also, the beauty about Steam is that if the game is available on Linux as well as Windows, you can deinstall Windows, install Linux and not have to re-purchase. This works on the Mac at least.
The "barrier to entry" of having to re-purchase all of your software is lessened somewhat.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
What was that? A rat farted? Who gives a shit, really?
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
No story about your wife this time? C'mon, we need to know more about your soap opera.
I've alway found that water is good for cleaning my PC.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
1 B$ Half-Life 3 will support Linux!
May I add my contribution to the many elucidatory and finely-expressed commentary as is usual here at Slashdot?
I've not seen anyone ask which Linux platform Steam is going to arrive on. There's desktop Linux, which may make a fine foundation for a 'Punk' or 'Boiler' Steam box*, or there's Android, which will help Steam sell to casual, mobile and hand-held users. Steam games on either would be quite welcome.
*: Steam Punk variety has ornamental gears and intricate woodwork (I'm sure you could see that one coming).