Valve Begins Listing Linux Requirements For Certain Games On Steam

Deathspawner writes "Perhaps hinting at the fact that the official Steam for Linux launch isn't too far off, Valve has begun updating some game pages to include Linux system requirements. Some games don't list only Ubuntu as the main supported distro, with some listing Linux Mint and Fedora as well. A common theme is that Valve recommends you always use a 'fully updated' OS, regardless of which distro you use. And based on the system requirements laid out so far, it's safe to say that Serious Sam 3: BFE will undoubtedly be the most system-intensive game released at launch."

Comments

Why would you want to game on Linux

[PopAndGame]

As a Mac user I know the feeling, but what would you even acquire by trying to game on Linux? There is Macs for unixy world and it has better support than Linux will ever will. Of course Windows is the best platform but mostly because they have things like XNA and .NET. Microsoft has really played their game well. But why on Linux rather than Mac? While Crossover isn't supporting all the games it's at least better and many games have Mac Ports? So if you want to do both unixy world and games why not Mac?

The only good thing about this is the feeling that maybe Mac ports become more frequent too, but I'm not putting lot into that hope as far as Linux support goes.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll let everyone else explain to you why.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words. Apple haters. Whether that hate is from business practices, price, or just "cool to bash Apple".

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Sylak]

Because some people like video games, and some people like Linux as a primary OS. There's a lot more overlap than you seem to think there is here, especially with people who would rather spend the money on a custom-built gaming rig than on a Mac Pro.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[h4rr4r]

Why as a Linux user would I ever want to game on a Mac?

Windows is the best platform? Can I have whatever you are smoking?

Mac hardware is fine, but the OS quite frankly sucks. It tries so hard to not be unixy that it really repels me.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Kremmy]

Because as a Unix system, OS X is terribly supported. They made awkward changes to break POSIX compatibility in their basic userland. Sure, we can iTunes all day, but when it comes down to actual work, Linux saves the day with by being a serious UNIX that's not trying to glam over its shortcomings.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Crimey McBiggles]

Why would you want to game on an Android mobile device when there are already games on iPad?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

macs cost an order of magnitude more

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[sorensenbill]

In short, it's not open enough, I think Apple over all sucks and won't support them, and lastly I'm not paying an extra $500+ for a fruit logo on my computer.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Mac user I know the feeling, but what would you even acquire by trying to game on Linux?

To put it simply, anyone serious about gaming won't.

However, there are people who run Linux (for whatever reason) who do play games (even if only on consoles/etc.), or would play games if it were possible. Valve's looking at this, and attempting to build a market there. Smart decision on their part, since Steam is at least potentially threatened by app stores on Mac and now Windows.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

"Of course Windows is the best platform" - Troll harder, bro.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

use the terminal then, can't get any more unixy than that

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

The really, really short version: Because Windows sucks and Macs are expensive as fuck.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[HaZardman27]

Because most Linux users don't want to be subjected to Apple's control of what you can and cannot do on your computer. Not to mention the Apple tax you pay for the hardware. Why do you even ask? What can anyone possibly stand to lose by making more software available on more platforms?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[craigminah]

Steam was released for Mac around May 12, 2010. To answer your question, I'd want to game on any platform I use daily. People use Linux for one reason or another and it's nice to be able to play a game or two.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_%28software%29#Mac_OS_X

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

The only good thing about this is the feeling that maybe Mac ports become more frequent too,

I feel so sorry for people like you....

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were willing to put up with closed source proprietary bullshit I would just install Windows and then I could play every game ever made for a PC.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

also using macports/homebrew kind of sucks.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[ilovepi]

So if you want to do both unixy world and games why not Mac?.

1) Some people like Linux more than either of the proprietary OSes. This might be because they can configure Linux more, or because it's free, or because it's ideologically free, or because their friend told them to run it, or any of a thousand other reasons.

2) Why not? Many indie developers have already made Linux-compatible games that are also on steam. For instance, most of the Humble Indie bundles have had a requirement of running on Linux, and most of those games also provided steam keys.

3) Other people aren't a Apple shills/trolls?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[jedidiah]

If it turns out that my video card isn't good enough for Valve, then I can upgrade it. I can't do that with a Mac.

You can kid yourself all you like.

Snickering at Apple products is all about having at least half a clue and knowing that their products just don't cut it.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Dancindan84]

I'm going to go with cost as a primary one. That better support you refer to comes with a pretty hefty premium. Also, most Linux folks I'm imagine aren't real fans of Apple's walled garden approach when it comes to... well everything. Macs may be a closer blood relative to Linux with it being basically BSD under the hood, but ideologically they're a LONG way off.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[h4rr4r]

Actually the mac standard terminal app is a great example at how shitty the UNIXy experience on OSX really is.

I would explain more, but if you think that is a unix experience it would be casting pearls before swine.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

You are either a troll, or extremely uninformed.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh the Irony, if you want to play native AAA games on systems other than Windows it's going to be Linux.
Poor Mac users, they were gaming nobodies for the last 15 years, they will continue to be hippy gaming nobodies for the forseable future.
Enjoy your "true unix" Apple fans, linux users will enjoy AAA games. ^_^

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[h4rr4r]

If I wanted to use a proprietary OS that pissed me off continually, why would I not just use windows?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[poetmatt]

easy answer #1:

no pirating is required, no "stealing" is required, and since the OS is free it's always going to be kept up to date.

Nothing other than Linux is free to keep up to date, and allows you to do so essentially for the life of the hardware.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

>If it turns out that my video card isn't good enough for Valve, then I can upgrade it. I can't do that with a Mac.

Almost all Mac machines are laptops (the Mac Mini and the iMac count as laptops as they use laptop components). When was the last time you saw an upgradeable laptop?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I have used both OS X and Linux over the years for *NIX development and I prefer OS X. The only problem I have with Terminal.app is its lack of clickable links.

Would you please elaborate on why you consider OS X to not be a good UNIX experience?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[toejam13]

The migration to Linux goes beyond simply bringing games to a new platform. It could be seen as an attempt by Valve to diversify in light of Microsoft's and Apple's closed app store platforms.

In the future, Windows and MacOS may only allow you to install new software packages through their stores. They may allow a small number of third party stores to exist in order to prevent anti-trust accusations, but chances are that they'll demand a cut of all sales.

No such issues of power consolidation currently exist in the Linux desktop ecosystem. I don't think the culture would allow it. Just look at how their cousins over in the Android mobile sector deal with it - a few taps in the system settings and you're free to install all the apps from 3rd party sites you want.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[rubycodez]

You can indeed upgrade the graphics cards on some laptops, and there are external graphics cards that can be used with others

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no. I just love linux, and don't care much for other platforms, that's it.

You're the hater :-)

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[PopAndGame]

Windows also has the HUGE subculture of third platform apps (and games). There's no way Microsoft would make such a huge change. It wouldn't even serve them. Remember that Microsoft sells Windows, not give it free!

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[lattyware]

I've just started using OS X (got a Retina MBP, great hardware), and it's way less convenient than Linux. I'm probably going to switch off it soon as some stuff is really starting to bug me - the main one being the lack of a good package manager. Sure, homebrew exists and it kind of does the job, but it's horrible compared to what I'm used to with Pacman and the AUR under Arch.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[h4rr4r]

Lack of FFM, lack of customizability, lack of middle click highlight and paste. The fact that for some reason applications do not live in /bin and for some reason do not end up in my PATH after installation.

The lack of decent package management is another huge pain. It means like windows many application have their own method of updating which is cumbersome compared to apt or yum.

Basically my biggest usability complaints stem from a lack of X11 conventions that I expect with a UNIXy experience. The whole OSX desktop seems to be designed to only have one window open at a time.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Zeikcied]

Because I run Linux, I like Linux, and I want to play games on Linux. Does there have to be a more complex answer than that?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is like going back in time in the '60, to get laid. You have the assurange that your partner is clean, ages well and has a certain disease immunity.
Macs are similar, only that you pay for those services.
Windows ... is like paying Microsoft for the privilege of using their services. Which mean, blindfold, bent over, in stocks in the middle of the town, for anyone with the right equipment to screw you over.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I can upgrade almost everything inside my laptop. It's 4 years old now and I can just replace the cpu and graphics card for current ones.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[PopAndGame]

It improves hugely if you install Path Finder for explorer replacement.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[aaronsb]

You know, I always liked the system layout of the TI-99/4a

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

If you buy into all this hype about "the end of the desktop PC," it is quite reasonable to believe that MS envisions a convergence of the gaming desktop and xbox. Steam would be in a bad place, were that the case. Of course, there will be a million tiny pushes against such a trend, this being one of them. As long as a desktop (including gaming) PC can be had, MS will be forced to stay open. This is a good thing for everyone, especially Windows users who are more technical than your grandma, but less than a typical Linux user (since they have less ability to switch to an alternative OS). And macs don't count, they are just as susceptible, if not more, to this concern.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[h4rr4r]

What exactly does that improve?
It looks like just another finder. I am not sure how that helps me. I am not really interested in some graphical file browser.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Jerry Smith]

>If it turns out that my video card isn't good enough for Valve, then I can upgrade it. I can't do that with a Mac.

Almost all Mac machines are laptops (the Mac Mini and the iMac count as laptops as they use laptop components). When was the last time you saw an upgradeable laptop?

Good point you made there. Apple nigh abandoned its desktop users. Now I'm quite fond of desktops, and desktop gaming. And on my budget my next desktop won't be a mac, but probably/hopefully a linux-mint-debian (I hope I wrote that correctly) desktop. Not a laptop. Not a mac.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac has WAY worse support than Linux, or has apple finally gotten around to a sane X implementation and Wine can work OOTB? I've been gaming on Linux since 2001, and even back then Quake 3 Linux performed WAY better than Quake 3 mac. Windows may be king but don't assume the bastard son of NextStep is the god of unix gaming, it's far from it!

Re: Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt it. Once you've ported the app to use OpenGL you've already done most the work for getting it to work on Linux or OS X. Compared to getting a Windows app to work natively on Linux, getting a Linux app to work natively on OS X is a walk in the park. Plus I imagine the game manufacturers will want to go after the Mac install base. Have you seen the number of Mac laptops in the average college classroom?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[jedidiah]

So Apple goes out of it's way to make machines that will quickly become doorstops. Thanks for clearing that up.

That's a great reason to avoid Apple right there.

A 5 year old Mac is stuck on light duty.

A 5 year old PC can have a (cheap) new GPU shoved in it and it will happily run current games on Steam.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Issarlk]

Because not everybody owns a Mac?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Bangmaker]

Graphics card utilization is still rather far behind in OSX. There have been several tests comparing Windows and OSX for graphics card performance - such as this one (http://www.macworld.com/article/1155124/mac_windows_graphics.html). Because Linux is open source and is supported by avid enthusiasts, it is quite possible that the Linux port of Steam may begin to utilize the graphics card through the operating system more successfully than OSX does. Essentially, one shared barrier to the quality of gaming on UNIX operating systems - graphics support - is conceivably less detrimental to Linux than it is to OSX. I could see Steam for Linux surpassing Steam in a very short time. The upfront cost of the computer means that it is cheeper to get into gaming on Linux that it is on OSX, and Linux users have consistently shown (through the humble bundle) that they are willing to pay well for games.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[jedidiah]

Then you would have to put up with Windows.

Not all proprietary software is as bad as the crap that comes from Microsoft. Not all proprietary software is as prone to trap you either.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[spire3661]

Ever hear of MXM?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[kelemvor4]

Allow me to educate you with this link: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/lucid-gpu-graphics-thunderbolt-external,17520.html

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[iroll]

No, no it can't. A two or three year old PC can have a new GPU and a memory upgrade and be semi-competant again. A five or six year old PC needs to be rebuilt from the bottom up.

I know, because I'm in the process of doing that right now. My Core 2 Duo + AMD 5570 has gone as far as it is going to go. It's had a GPU update and a memory refresh. It is now CPU limited in most games and buying a new GPU for this old box would be a waste of money.

Re: Why would you want to game on Linux

[jedidiah]

Bullshit. Anything not-Microsoft is going to be just as hard to deal with because that's simply how Microsoft has engineered the situation. If you live in their little garden, it's going to be hard to leave. That's just the way it is.

It doesn't matter what the platform is.

On the other hands, most of the other platforms are not nearly as "exclusive" as Windows. They just don't have the gall of Microsoft or the longstanding desktop monopoly based on legacy DOS applications.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

What is it, EXACTLY, that Apple won't let you do on your own computer? I can install, compile, and run ANYTHING I want, including any and all open source products. Sure, by default they try to protect you from yourself to only install "approved" apps, but that's a one-time trip to a Security control panel to turn that off. I'm 100% sure that people who say the things you say have never actually used an Apple computer. Please stop repeating stuff that isn't true.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Infernal Device]

As a Mac user I know the feeling, but what would you even acquire by trying to game on Linux? There is Macs for unixy world and it has better support than Linux will ever will. Of course Windows is the best platform but mostly because they have things like XNA and .NET. Microsoft has really played their game well. But why on Linux rather than Mac? While Crossover isn't supporting all the games it's at least better and many games have Mac Ports? So if you want to do both unixy world and games why not Mac?

The only good thing about this is the feeling that maybe Mac ports become more frequent too, but I'm not putting lot into that hope as far as Linux support goes.

Valve isn't the problem here - they've been good about bringing their AAA content to Mac and keeping it supported. I expect that they will continue to do the same with Linux.

The problem is that they are the distributors (through Steam) for a bunch of publishers that aren't Mac friendly. However, this gives them a reason to change, if they want to. Some of them can't afford to, some of them just won't and some of them will even be dickbags about it.

A lot of those same publishers are willing to be completely mediocre in their support and decide that supporting Windows is enough. Valve apparently looked at the situation, said "Windows 8 WTF" and is moving to expand their offerings so that maybe one day they can laugh in Ballmer's balloon-shaped face.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Nadaka]

If you are planning on playing a lot of video games? Windows is the best platform... for now.

If valve can make steam for linux stable and convert most of its library? Then it will be time to reevaluate that statement.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[silviuc]

I can choose to buy an overpriced computer from Apple or build my own with better specs for the same amount of mullah + doing my own wire management + getting the choice of a case (Lian Li makes some sweet products) and slap Ubuntu (I can choose from a large selection of distros) on there. I have the choice of using an nvidia card not AMD. This is important because of driver support. While people complained of white screens with Macs for Diablo 3, I was happily hacking away at monsters.With an SSD the system is installed in less than 10 minutes. Every piece of hardware I own works right out of the box as soon as it's plugged in.

I can play games with Crossover. I can play some, natively now, with Steam for Linux. I buy Indie bundles that include games which will run on Linux

The point is that I get the choice of both hardware and software, that is why I game on Linux, that is why I chose to support Codeweavers by not only becoming their customer but also and advocate and that is why I'm currently beta testing Steam for linux.

So the short answer to your question in the title is: "because I choose to"

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[poetmatt]

Umm, no. Steam is situated to take advantage of a gaming convergent xbox + desktop combination with their big picture mode. Catch? It works with Linux.

Microsoft creating an exclusively console based environment and stopping desktop development would guarantee they fade away from relevance.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Because some people like video games, and some people like Linux as a primary OS. There's a lot more overlap than you seem to think there is here, especially with people who would rather spend the money on a custom-built gaming rig than on a Mac Pro.

I'm sure this won't win many windows users over to linux, but I can see this letting many linux desktop users finally delete their windows partition.

I'm probably not one of those people. I used to have a dual-boot setup at home, and if it weren't for gaming, I might have switched completely over to linux. But for the games I needed windows (I *sorta* got the games working with wine, but they were glitchy and slower), and once I installed cygwin on windows, I never *needed* to boot up linux, so I went back to windows only. With this development, I'm considering giving the linux desktop another try.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[MachineShedFred]

The GeForce GTX 670 in my 4 year old Mac Pro disagrees with you. Drivers included in Mac OS X 10.8 by default.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[shaitand]

Sorry but you aren't doing it right. My 2 year old desktop runs every graphic intensive game I've thrown at it on max settings. It sounds like you are doing a poor job selecting motherboards and possibly gpus if you need an upgrade at 2-3yrs. With a motherboard it isn't enough to buy something expensive. You need to be forward looking and buy something that has the ability to run not just the affordable chips and cards you are actually buying but can also run the top of the line just released yesterday and stupidly expensive gear. That will get you the latest sockets and ports.

The same is true of GPU's. Spending top dollar will generally get you something good but there is usually a card out there that they screwed up and made too fast. The newest model will be a gimp'd version of the old model instead of a higher performance card. The market usually catches on eventually

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Ziggitz]

For a lot of people who are serious gamers and actually computer literate, Windows is very grudgingly tolerated simply because it is the platform with the most titles. It has zero other redeeming features. It's less stable, poorer memory management and the core OS been demonstrated time and again to be about 25% more bloated than the Linux kernel. There are a lot of people who live and work in Linux and do not want to have to split their time between two OSes to have a non shitty work environment at home and be able to game as well. People also want the developers to have powerful tools. Directx is a bloated piece of proprietary shit that developers cannot look through to debug their code, most of it is guess work and trial and error to figure out what the most optimal means of doing something with it is. Opensource graphics libraries and opensource graphics drivers will make better faster games. Less black boxes means better understanding means better code means better code.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Windows OEM licenses add ~$100 to a system.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is a "serious" UNIX now?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

News flash: the Mac Pro is a dead product line

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[thoromyr]

hmm... uninformed or trolling?

1. "Apple's control of what you can and cannot do on your computer"

Right, just the other day I was thinking, "gee, it would be really nice if I could run non-Mac applications, too bad I can't compile Qt and use a non-native environment." With the ability to compile there is no "controlling what 'you' can and cannot do".

2. "the Apple tax you pay for the hardware"

Man! That always burns me up to. I mean, once I spec out a system from somewhere else that actually meets the same specification why do the prices always line up? I can't figure that one out either.

3. "What can anyone possibly stand to lose by making more software available on more platforms?"

Well, you have a point. I mean, its not like netflix is avoiding a linux release of its client, or Microsoft doesn't provide its Office Suite on Linux. No company or consortium would have anything to lose by making more software available on more platforms.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[tlambert]

You know, I always liked the system layout of the TI-99/4a

Me too. Having to jam everything through a 4K window made you write a lot more efficient code, instead of what we get today when people have free memory to waste on calculating frames that never get composited or displayed.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[rahvin112]

So his post is that a 2 year old desktop can easily be upgraded but a 5-6 year old one cannot and you jump in and say he's doing it all wrong that your 2 year old computer is easily upgradeable.

Either your idiot, you don't know the difference between 2 and 5 or can't read. You decide.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Lumpy]

"Of course Windows is the best platform " For what? Causing you to try and lobotomize yourself with a shotgun in the mouth?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Lumpy]

Imacs can easily upgrade the video card and processor. Done it several times.

Hell I used to upgrade Dell laptop processors on a regular basis.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are planning on playing a lot of video games? Windows is the best platform... for now.

Lots of console gamers would disagree.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Lumpy]

"A 5 year old Mac is stuck on light duty."

Video editing and composting is not light duty. You do know that computers care used for more than games right?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Reapman]

"Man! That always burns me up to. I mean, once I spec out a system from somewhere else that actually meets the same specification why do the prices always line up? I can't figure that one out either."

Cool. Price me out a Mac Laptop with a non Intel GPU for under $1000. Naw I'll make it easier, under $1500 (prices are Canadian, but I'm not sure US prices would help you much)

I can't find one, so please point me in the right direction, your obviously better at this. Case in point my 13" laptop with nVidia GPU and an i5 processor was $800... Find me that. And if you do find one for $1500, explain what features makes it worth 2x the cost.

Thanks.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

While the mac users will enjoy making a lot more money than the others...

FACT: mac owners have higher incomes than windows or linux users.

I can hear the walmart and best buy employee windows fanbois foaming at the mouth from here over that statement of fact.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[realityimpaired]

Better tell Apple that, then.

Seriously... I don't own a single Apple device. I don't consider myself to be in their target market, and I object to paying the prices they're asking for their stuff when I can get gear that's just as good for less. But would it kill you to actually check their fucking website to see if they're still selling it, before you spout off that it's a dead line?

Re: Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

spoken like someone who's never written serious cross-platform code. Writing a little shim layer that abstracts the OS away just isn't that hard.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Sylak]

The problem is that they are the distributors (through Steam) for a bunch of publishers that aren't Mac friendly.

Take it a step farther, and they're not friendly to macs. There are plenty of titles available for Windows on Steam and Mac on the App Store, but not as SteamPlay for whatever reason.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe because mac hardware is shithouse?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Lack of FFM, lack of customizability, lack of middle click highlight and paste. The fact that for some reason applications do not live in /bin and for some reason do not end up in my PATH after installation.

The lack of decent package management is another huge pain. It means like windows many application have their own method of updating which is cumbersome compared to apt or yum.

Basically my biggest usability complaints stem from a lack of X11 conventions that I expect with a UNIXy experience. The whole OSX desktop seems to be designed to only have one window open at a time.

My car doesn't haul things as good as a truck, cars suck! Seriously, you are a tool h4rr4r, it gets old after a while.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[lengau]

(the Mac Mini and the iMac count as laptops as they use laptop components)

No they don't. The iMac and the Mac Mini are desktop computers (or computers in the fashion of desktops), because that's their use case. Typically, when one buys an iMac or a Mac Mini, the competing products they're looking at are the HP, Dell, etc. DESKTOP lines. Likewise, someone buying a Macbook will look at other Laptops.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Better tell Apple that, then.

Seriously... I don't own a single Apple device. I don't consider myself to be in their target market, and I object to paying the prices they're asking for their stuff when I can get gear that's just as good for less. But would it kill you to actually check their fucking website to see if they're still selling it, before you spout off that it's a dead line?

The link you posted shows exactly 2 video cards available for the Mac Pro, ATI Radeon HD 5770 and ATI Radeon HD 5870. These are not 1 but 2 generations behind. ATI Radeon don't even exist anymore the ATI brand was discontinued back in 2010. Then Apple has the audacity to charge over 200 dollars for this outdated card (210 for the upgrade to a 5870 from a 5770 on the quad core system 270 for a 2nd 5770 (which makes no sense at all if 1 5770 is included why is a 2nd of a cheaper card more expensive than a 5870, are they charging for the damn crossfire connector?). If this is all Apple offers for their high end PCs, I am not impressed.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[KingMotley]

Which Core 2 Duo do you have, because I'd be surprised if a E6850 slightly overclocked couldn't handle the vast majority of the latest games just fine, and the E6850 came out 5.5 years ago, and wasn't very expensive when it was released ($260). Of course, the quads were also available at that time, like the Q6600 and Q6700, not to mention the X6800 which is 6.5 years old.

Sounds like you got a 5-6 year old bargain PC and coupled it with a $80 video card ($80 at release!). I'm not surprised you are having some serious performance issues in games today.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Haxagon]

He's right, though. A C2D/C2Q plus a more up-to-date card than the (*snicker*) 5570 he has now can handle most things you throw at it with ease.
He just said "It's already been upgraded, and upgrading it more would be a waste of money because I hold the idea that the CPU isn't powerful enough."

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Haxagon]

"Dead product" means that their hardware is literally two generations behind, and they're still selling it for the most exorbitant prices. Not that they're not selling it right now.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Marxdot]

Quality posting.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, you are supposed to open (graphical) apps the NeXTSTEP way. open -a Someapp to open an app, or open somefile.ext to open a file in its associated app. The latter behaviour is coming to *nix desktops via xdg-open...

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[kiddygrinder]

not if they're sane, we're at the tail end of the xbox and ps3's life cycle and they're really showing their age

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

FFM ? you must be new around here. FFM is one man and two women having sex together.
Very usual in porn movies. The most common male fantasy.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[h4rr4r]

That behavior is braindead.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Tarlus]

Let's back this up...

If you are planning on playing a lot of PC video games? Windows is the best platform.

People think that is a trollish thing to say, but it's absolutely true. Windows has the best driver support, performance and variety of games. Let's not tie 'PC vs console' into this.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[MrLizardo]

Yeah, not any more. Go look at the latest iMac teardown from ifixit.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Specter]

I've got a very over clockable E2200 on a rig that old and I'm no where near CPU bound nor have I had to actually OC the CPU. Occasional GPU upgrades have kept me in high resolution on my 24" LCD for years. A C2D should have a lot of life left in it.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[MrLizardo]

I prefer MacPorts over Homebrew. Homebrew has some good goals, such as using OS-included libraries when available, but it's really a house of cards. Meanwhile, MacPorts works reliably and lets you override stuff at a lower level. I used to like Fink, but kept running into issues. It might be better now. *shrugs*

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[HaZardman27]

With the ability to compile there is no "controlling what 'you' can and cannot do".

Except you need to explicitly tell OS X Mountain Lion to let you run 3rd party apps. Also, control means hardware AND software, and you certainly aren't in control of your Mac when it comes to hardware.

I mean, once I spec out a system from somewhere else that actually meets the same specification why do the prices always line up? I can't figure that one out either.

Well that is obviously just a lie.

Well, you have a point. I mean, its not like netflix is avoiding a linux release of its client, or Microsoft doesn't provide its Office Suite on Linux

What a dumb comment to make. Netflix currently can't release a Linux client because they need the DRM of Silverlight, which isn't available on Linux, and Microsoft publishes Office on Mac, so... http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products Plus I was referring to consumers, who could only benefit from more software being available on more platforms.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[MrLizardo]

MacPorts isn't *bad*, but it's certainly not apt.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[MrLizardo]

I use a Mac at work and have an old iMac on my desk, next to my Linux desktop. Apple restricts non-appstore apps from accessing notification center or iCloud document storage. Some people think that's the thin end of the wedge and some people think Apple will go this far and then no further. As for me, I'm just not putting all my eggs in one basket. If OS X keeps being open enough, I'll keep using it. Otherwise, I'll switch to Linux full time.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[shaitand]

"Either your idiot, you don't know the difference between 2 and 5 or can't read."

I believe your problem is the third. I said my 2 year old desktop doesn't need upgraded, not that it can be upgraded. And it will be upgradable at the 5-6 yr mark.

So, if his desktop NEEDS an upgrade at 2-3yrs he is doing it wrong. If his desktop can't be upgraded at 5yrs he is doing it wrong. You on the hand weren't just wrong but a dick besides.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[MrLizardo]

FACT: mac owners have higher incomes than windows or linux users.

[citation needed]

Even if what you say is true, it's somewhat interesting that on in the past, Linux sales on humblebundle.com have been pretty close to Mac sales, and Linux users consistently pay 10 - 20% more when given the choice.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Man! That always burns me up to. I mean, once I spec out a system from somewhere else that actually meets the same specification why do the prices always line up? I can't figure that one out either.

I decided to try test that assertion, for Science!

A few minutes ago I looked up a 21.5 iMac as supplied directly from Apple and compared it to making a similar (strictly equal or better components) machine as normal. I'm afraid that this experiment is heavily biased in Apple's favour because I'm using a retailer's catalogue, which is much more expensive than if I had used a supplier directly, and because the parts used by the iMac don't seem to be available anymore so I had to use significantly later models (double the video memory, high-end motherboard, much faster CPU, etc.)

I added them up and the iMac was 234.3% the price of a PC that would run circles around it.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[ianare]

I'm not a big gamer, but the ones I do play, mainly 0Ad, Oil Rush, & Civ5 all work fine on my Q6600 (no overclock).

But mainly I enjoy having a bunch of applications open all at the same time without any problems: Netbeans, postgreSql admin & server, Gimp, LibreOffice, Firefox with a bunch of tabs, etc... and being able to play a quick game of 0ad without closing out of anything. Not bad for a 6 year old proc & mobo.

I've added memory, and updated the video card twice, it's an AMD 5350 now, but the most measurable upgrade was actually the SSD drive. Running Enlightenement DE also helps, at least when compared to Gnome3 or Unity, maybe only a little better or the same as Gnome2.

Re: Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't hard for me to leave. Have a look in my closet at the 100+ Jewel Case, Windows only games. All it took was getting over that 3 day hump smokers talk about and I was home free and will never look back at Microsoft again. I've already started building my Linux game library; now, what to do with all these games?. =)

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[bjwest]

Here ya go...

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Khyber]

You're the uninformed one, troll. It has always come out that a PC wins on price vs a perfectly-matched Mac.

It's redone on 4chan's /g/ every fucking day, side by side up to date price and spec comparisons.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[GoogleShill]

I'm interested to know what make & model that laptop is.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[bjwest]

My car doesn't haul things as good as a truck, cars suck!

If you need to haul something, then yes cars do suck.

If you want to play games, then Linux sucks.

If you want freedom and choice in software, Windows sucks.

If you want freedom and choice in hardware, Apple sucks.

Everything sucks for some purpose or for some people.

Seriously, you are a tool h4rr4r, it gets old after a while.

What gets old is people saying something sucks because it sucks for them.

I use Linux as my primary OS because I like it. I use Windows as my gaming OS because some games I like don't run on Linux/Wine well or at all. Neither OS sucks (for me) for the purpose I use it, but they do suck (for me) for the purpose I use the other.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[NemosomeN]

Linux, as an almost exclusively business OS, is a "serious" UNIX. It's nearly absent desktop penetration is a testament to that.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

After around 2-3 years and certainly after 5-6 years you are looking at another processor generation/slot (for intel) another type of RAM and usually a new video card PCI (and previously agp) standard. So "Upgrading" at that point involves new CPU/Motherboard/Ram/video which is building from scratch.

Sure you can stick some more ram and the old top of the line cards/cpu from 2 generations ago in a 6 year old PC, but that's putting expired lipstick on a old ugly pig. You could also run down to the local computer junk yard and pull out a PC with that stuff. I'm not saying those PCs cant be functional (hell I still have a p4 that runs linux fine) but their function is no longer top of the line gaming on the newest releases, no matter what you upgrade them to.

Myself, well I haven't had a game interest me enough to play serious since quake/cs/wow/tf2 and the duo core did/does all those + the internet okay for now. It's definitely about time to upgrade though.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[NemosomeN]

Really, an order of magnitude more? Entry-level Mac Pro, quad core 3.2 Ghz Zeon, 6 GB of RAM, 1 TB HD, and ATI Radeon HD 5770 costs $2,500. I'd love to buy that at the $250 price-point. Please share.

Over priced? Yes, but numbers have meaning.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Svartalf]

It would be time to re-evaluate that statement... Trust me on that one (Do keep in mind I port titles... ;-D).

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[NemosomeN]

Macs cost substantially more than PCs, so I would be shocked if this weren't the case. Buying a Mac, however, will increase your income as effectively as XL condoms with increase your penis size.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[bjwest]

I highly doubt the higher income is due to the platform. That's like saying Benz owners make way more money than Chevy owners. It's a no brainier.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Vince6791]

Ha, got myself a phenom ii x6@2700(3200 turbo core), ddr3 8gb stick(up to 32gb ram), 512GB Hard Drive, radeon hd 6570 1gb(shitty 128 bit bus), asrock motherboard am3+ socket, large heatsync and fan for cpu, for $420 a few month's ago. and it runs excellent especially vmware. Intel was too damn expensive.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[petermgreen]

Directx is a bloated piece of proprietary shit that developers cannot look through to debug their code, most of it is guess work and trial and error to figure out what the most optimal means of doing something with it is. Opensource graphics libraries and opensource graphics drivers will make better faster games. Less black boxes means better understanding means better code means better code.

Realistically though anyone seriously gaming on linux is likely to be using either NVIDIA or ATIs propietary drivers. IIRC both of those replace the mesa implementation of opengl with their own.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Strangelover]

Yeh seven years ago maybe, when I left Linux for the Mac. Still UNIX, but with an actual, usable desktop GUI as well as terminal. When I got into Linux in the mid 90's, it seemed the sky was the limit - and the bazaar would beat the cathedral at anything. But X11, Gnome and KDE just got worse. I realized that I was spending twice as much time getting stuff working as I did actually using it. I'm still enthusiastic, and think Linux and BSD are great, but I've put them where they belong: on headless or virtualized servers. It seems to me that what the bazaar lacks and the cathedral has is a vision about what it is all going to be in the end (opblig xkcd: http://xkcd.com/927/ ) Now: I'm not buying any more games on Steam. I'm using the app store exclusively (unless it's Elite IV). Disclaimer: 4th Cognac.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[petermgreen]

Man! That always burns me up to. I mean, once I spec out a system from somewhere else that actually meets the same specification why do the prices always line up? I can't figure that one out either.

Good question.

The answer is that apple avoids making "normal" computers. So trying to find a machine that is perfectly equivilent to a mac requires (if it's possible at all, afaict noone makes a direct equivalent to the retina macbooks) means you end up in expensive speciality product lines.

OTOH that is not how people normally buy a computer. They start with a list of requirements and then look for machines that meet it. And if you do things that way round apple machines generally come out much more expensive.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Blaskowicz]

I'm in the situation of having ditched Windows completely (when my XP was killed by ZBOT, and then when Windows 7 was quite slow and looked ugly when set up with a regular task bar). One of the main issues was a dual boot doesn't work for me. Why reboot?, why maintain two OSes and their updates, why lose the browser's state, why quit what I was doing etc. I would just run Windows 99.9% of the time, could always alt-tab out of a game or quit it and get back to Firefox, hell I had command line ssh and scp under Windows, ssh server, a slow sshfs variant, wget, less, terminal emulator etc. as long with most of the open source software : gimp, openoffice.org, abiword, evince, ffmpeg (in ffdshow) etc.

Linux gaming, and real games at that (NOT openarena and nexuiz, and I don't like Wesnoth) would allow me to gain gaming back, at the moment I can only play card games on the Internet and run SNES emulation with a sound bug I didn't have on Windows.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac Laptops don't have mad GPU's or the option to go discrete, so your little challenge is impossible. Gaming has never been Apples priority. Every single person that buys a mac knows this, yet buys them anyway. How batshit crazy is that!

Now tell me about the build quality on your little 800 laptop? what is the screen res? How does your batter life go? What bout the built in speakers? Talk to me about the quality of your mic? The built in camera? The keyboard up to scratch, has a nice feel, good travel etc? Does the trackpad work well for you when you are not gaming? Is it big enough for those sweet desktop gestures? How about the backlighting? The ambient light sensor doing it's job? The case is strong and light, looks nice?

Ohhhh, you're probably running windows... Still it's almost as good right?

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[dbIII]

Windows sucks with multiple screens, or even multiple actions (antivirus puts a fucking big window in the middle of your game screen to tell you it's downloaded updated definitions - or the entire box reboots without warning because MS Windows has done an update and told you about it in a hidden window). To me that's why it's not a fitting platform for gaming and why I think a console or linux would be superior if it can actually run the software.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[cyn1c77]

If it turns out that my video card isn't good enough for Valve, then I can upgrade it. I can't do that with a Mac.

I am sorry to read that you couldn't figure out how to change a Mac video card!

I've upgraded my Mac Pro's video card twice. Let me know if you need help figuring out how to do it!

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Bonobo_Unknown]

I just popped a new hard drive in a 6 year old imac (replacement for one that broke) which is still someone's daily business machine and it's still running fine. That's the good part of starting off with systems with pretty decent specs.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[bjwest]

Turn off automatic updates. I have two screens and I do just fine when booted in Windows (7, never had duel screens with XP), even while gaming. Hell, I like it while gaming as I can have the keyboard shortcuts or whatever else I want on the one screen while playing on the other. You may have to set your game to windowed mode and maximize it on one screen to get it to not try to use both screens, but so? It's not a deal breaker for me to actually have to make an effort to do something I want.

Windows sucks with multiple screens...

Again, just because you think something sucks, doesn't make it suck.

TLDR: Don't be lazy, you'll miss out on a lot...

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Gwala]

Speaking as someone with actual experience in this - DirectX is a monumental improvement over OpenGL; there's more to it than just being able to look at the underlying code (and frankly, 90% of both are just shims to pump commands into the drivers which is where the real magic happens -- drivers which generally tend to be very closed.)

Start with;
- A (arguably) better shading language (HLSL vs GLSL - I tend to find HLSL is easier to work with)
- A scenegraph representation that is not built around a 1980's pre-acceleration stack based renderer. (e.g. Objects are represented as full OO objects - complete with materials, rather than a matrix pushed onto a stack followed by a few vertex buffer array calls)
- A suite of excellent debugging utilities - which give you useful feedback (looking at the code != the value of a good debugger suite)

Leaving the 'free software' arguments aside, DirectX is better - by virtue of the fact that it's kept up to date with modern programming techniques. OpenGL needs to be replaced or at least significantly overhauled -- something which Khronos has not in the past actually been willing to do. OpenGLES improves the spec marginally, but it really needs a replacement to be on par with the ease and power DirectX offers you with far less effort.

That said; if anyones doing things at the DX/OGL level, they probably need to be hit over the head - anyone serious is using one of the many decent engines out there.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that they are the distributors (through Steam) for a bunch of publishers that aren't Mac friendly.

Take it a step farther, and they're not friendly to macs. There are plenty of titles available for Windows on Steam and Mac on the App Store, but not as SteamPlay for whatever reason.

That's the sort of thing that really gets my goat. I can find a game (e.g., Sim City 4) on Windows, New In Box, for $20 easily. The same title can be found on Ebay, NIB... IF one is prepared to part with a king's ransom. And heaven forfend it be available as digital download, or dare I say, SteamPlay? (Yes, I'm looking at you Aspyr Media)

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that they are the distributors (through Steam) for a bunch of publishers that aren't Mac friendly.

Take it a step farther, and they're not friendly to macs. There are plenty of titles available for Windows on Steam and Mac on the App Store, but not as SteamPlay for whatever reason.

That's the sort of thing that really gets my goat. I can find a game (e.g., Sim City 4) on Windows, New In Box, for $20 easily. The same title can be found on Ebay, NIB... IF one is prepared to part with a king's ransom. And heaven forfend it be available as digital download, or dare I say, SteamPlay? (Yes, I'm looking at you Aspyr Media)

That is to say, the Mac version would cost me a king's ransom to buy via ebay/amazon if I want it new.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[dbIII]

Again, just because you think something sucks, doesn't make it suck.

If I've seen it suck on a couple of dozen machines so I know it sucks. Even now the multi-screen behaviour in Win7 sucks in comparison to the Matrox window management addon for Win2k onwards and the more recent Nvidia one. It sucks so badly you need to fix it with twelve year old software!

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Eunuchswear]

When I use a word it means what I say it means, nothing more, nothing less.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would I want to give any money to MS or Apple when I can get OS for free?

Windows does not have any reason to exist other than gaming. It is time to change that for good. Lets see how long MS limps along with only their Exchange/Office shit.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Lumpy]

Only 8 people own the latest ones, so that dont count.
Only after a couple of years when the 99% can afford to buy a new imac will that be a problem. I'm still very happy with my horribly out of date 2011 27" imac.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

SC4 is a bad example. It won't run on most computers that steam will because it's a PPC native game.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

The rest of the world is "repelled" by disgusting Linux zealots like you.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm writing this from MacOS and you are full of shit:

- Middle click highlicht and paste "just" works for me (i'm on mountain lion).

- Packet managers: Have you heard of the AppStore? Have you ever heard of hombrew, macports, and fink? I would even say that homebrew is better than most linux packet-managers just because it installs everything in /usr/local/ by default. How moronic is it to type sudo every time you install something?

- Customizability? I'm using a tiling wm on my mac. I guess it must be customizable enough. A friend is using kde as desktop environment. Is there a menu for these things? Nope, but there isn't one in most linux distributions either. Every time I want to change something in Awesome I need to change a Lua script which is awesome by the way.

-X11? MacOS uses Aqua by default. You can install XQuartz and compile everything against it. I use XQuartz every day and can't tell the difference between X11 in my linux boxes and XQuartz.

Summarizing YOUR post: MacOS is not Linux, if you don't bother to learn how it works, your experience will probably suck. I'm happy with mine. The biggest problem for me is that the filesystem is not case sensitive but that too can be changed...

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[rubycodez]

general purpose computer code no longer needs to be efficent for the computer, it is more important that it is clear to build, understand, maintain and modify by the human mind.

Re:Why would you want to game on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats your argument? A list of specs that the user doesn't care about?

Dude forget about the features you need, the larger mouse pad will make up for the software you can't run!

Why game on anything other than Windows?

[getto man d]

Because having the freedom to choose is good.

Disclaimer: I avidly use Steam on OSX, but I'm constantly frustrated with it's buggy state. If the linux client proves to be better over time (with a good offering of games) I'll be upgrading my linux box and going that route.

Re:Why game on anything other than Windows?

[synapse7]

As soon as some portion of my steam library is supported on Linux I'm blowing Windows off my gaming PC. I can't wait.

Re:Why game on anything other than Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on the frequest crash logs (is it that hard to quit without segfaulting?) Valve's port was re-implementing the win32 API (or maybe just compiling with Wine). Point is, why would a linux port be any better than a Mac port?

Re:Why game on anything other than Windows?

[lengau]

Perhaps the programmers they have working on the Linux version are better than the programmers they got to do the Mac version? Perhaps they know the system better (e.g. the programmers writing the Mac version are Windows programmers who got reassigned, vs. the Linux version where they specifically hired Linux devs)? Perhaps Valve learned some stuff when porting Steam to Mac that they couldn't apply to the Mac version (because it was too far along), but had the advantage of applying to the Linux version? Perhaps they have another reason to make the Linux version particularly better (rumoured Steam console)?

Point is, there are lot of reasons a Linux port might be better than a Mac port.

Re:Why game on anything other than Windows?

[thetoadwarrior]

OS X steam isn't buggy for me. TF2 can be buggy but the client itself works just fine as do most games.

Re:Why game on anything other than Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or even perhaps just luck. Even if some Linux hater tries to discount all of those reasons, there is always just a matter of doing it again might come out better (or worse possibly too though).

Re:Why game on anything other than Windows?

[Tubal-Cain]

Many of my Humble Bundle games were automatically available, though not all.

Re:Why game on anything other than Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice how the minimum system requirements for SS3 are higher in Linux than in Windows.

Windows XP SP2
Dual-core from Intel or AMD at 2.0 GHz
1 GB RAM
4GB free hard drive space
nVidia GeForce 7800/7900/8600, ATI/AMD Radeon HD 2600/3600 or X1800/X1900

Linux Ubuntu 12.04
Dual-core from Intel or AMD at 2.8 GHz
2 GB RAM
4GB free hard drive space
nVidia GeForce 8600/9600GT, ATI/AMD Radeon HD 2600/3600

That is why I supported fully static builds

[jellomizer]

While I know of the advantages that Linked libraries give, such as being to update a huge set of programs at once, Allowing us coders to change how programs operate by changing the library source. However in the terms of Distributing software for different distributions it becomes a nightmare for the author. Because they can only really test a small percentage of these distributions, and who know if that unknown distribution uses that library or has the library requires to install it...

Systems like APT do a wonderful job of solving the problem for us. But not all distributions use APT and/or they may have a different set of repositories.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[h4rr4r]

So you promise to update your application forever whenever a problem with such a library is found?

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Trepidity]

That's the main reason Debian is against applications shipping their own static versions of libraries instead of using the system library, because it requires everyone be on top of updating, especially for security issues. If everyone links with the Debian libfoo, then if there's a security issue they can just update it. But if some projects have their own local copy of libfoo in their git tree, then you're hoping the upstream maintainer is going to promptly re-sync it. Often that doesn't happen: projects sometimes ship ancient internal versions of libraries where they just did a cp -r into their own project tree years ago and never kept up with updates. So Debian expends considerable effort ripping out these local forks.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the GPL? If you statically link a GPL library to your code, I believe you must release source code for the whole shebang. Game developers aren't going to go for that.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Marxdot]

So you promise to personally fix problems for developers every time shared linking is the cause?

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[jedidiah]

Then simply tell the user to run ldd against the game binary and then fend for themselves.

If you run something that doesn't hold your hand, then that's a conscious choice that you've made. It's completely reasonable for Valve to treat you accordingly and assume that you can fend for yourself and understand the related instructions.

Or you could just go the "windows style installer" route and stop acting like a stupid hysterical ninny pretending that these kinds of tools for Linux haven't existed for years and years already.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[mrvan]

Totally off topic, but actually I think the main problem with APT is not the linking, they do solve that wonderfully; and the few times that I need something that is not (yet) available from apt I can just compile myself.

What I do find problematic is the interface of apt with language-specific library repositories. Eg pip for python, cran for R. I generally want to use those repositories since they are the de facto standard in those communities, but (1) that gives clashes if some other apt package requires something that I installed using pip, leading to multiple copies and version problems, and (2) the library repos can't specify "out-of-language" requirements, e.g. the libxml for some python library that binds to that lib. That means that I have to try installing via pip/cran/..., see what is missing, apt-get install those libs, and then try installing again.

Does anyone have a good solution for that?

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[h4rr4r]

You know what fixes both of those issues?
FREE software. Then the code can be fixed even after the original developer is long gone.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[wed128]

you could in theory make .debs that just contain scripts to pip or cran or cpan or whatever...

that's one solution.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Baloroth]

You know what fixes both of those issues? FREE software. Then the code can be fixed even after the original developer is long gone.

Hardly. Not everyone who wants the problem fixed has the skills or time to do so, and not everyone who has the skills or time wants to fix the problem. The result is a ton of problems in FOSS ends up going unfixed all the time.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[PhrstBrn]

Static and dynamic linking are treated the same as far as the GPL is concerned. Changing from static to dynamic linking won't make your software compliant. Fortunately most important libraries are released under the LGPL (or a more permissive license such as MIT or BSD), which makes your issue irrelevant.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[h4rr4r]

If someone who cannot do it wanted the problem fixed they can simply pay someone to do so.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[denvergeek]

For python, virtualenv maybe?

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why each public interface needs a contract that doesn't change. If your program specifies the version number of the library, it should be able to work with any later version of the library. You only need to make sure your program doesn't walk on the broken glass of undefined behavior.

Linux can still run binaries compiled in 1993. It has an unchanging public interface. There is no reason the majority of libraries in the open source world can't do the same.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[MikeBabcock]

I see no reason not to distribute both (as Skype sort of does) ... distribute a dynamically linked version in a package format, so it explicitly shares its requirements with YUM/APT, and a static build for everyone else that may or may not be perpetually updated with library fixes.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Marxdot]

So, not actually specific to free and open-source software then.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Microlith]

If only it was that simple.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the alternatives aren't quite like that - the choices are really the app needs to be updated, or the shared libfoo updates and breaks API and now apps that link against it doesn't work anymore. Sure, they're not supposed to break API; in practice, however...

Open source/free software can help, but only if somebody steps up and makes the changes. Seems like people reinventing the wheel and making a new alternative application that does the same thing is more likely, though.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Anonymous Coward]

FREE != OPEN

There's plenty of FREE software that is CLOSED and therefore CAN'T BE FIXED " even after the original developer is long gone."

What we need is OPEN software (regardless of cost). Then the code can be fixed even after the original developer is long gone.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[MrLizardo]

Basically, the job of a Linux distribution is to vet updates to libfoo to make sure that in the process of fixing some random bug they didn't break the API. If they did, the distribution has a choice of of patching libfoo to fix the API break (or cherry pick the just the fix) or mitigating the security issue in some other way.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[hairyfeet]

And HOW many libraries are in the average Linux distro again? This is why the whole "let the devs do it" thing falls apart because you quickly end up with more work than your average distro is gonna be able to do. You name the distro and we'll go to the bug tracker and see how many bugs they have over 2 years old, is it because they don't care? Nope, its because they only have so many hours in the day and way too much on their plate so more and more falls through the cracks.

So I'm sorry but this is one of those areas where the math just don't work, there are simply too many libraries to allow for QA and QC so this needs to change. If you don't then you have to deal with the dev who maintains libfoo pushing changes that end up causing multiple programs to break which just makes the whole ecosystem look bad. I mean when is the last time you heard of an update to Windows or OSX killing Firefox? By having too much relying on shared libraries you make it all the easier to break.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what fixes both of those issues?
FREE software. Then the code can be fixed even after the original developer is long gone.

No. Open software could possibly allow for someone else to fix it. Free software won't.

The real solution is of course to not rely on library internals and make sure that you use it correctly. This could be problematic with open libraries if the developers don't feel like documenting a proper interface. (Hey, it's open, just look at the .h-file right, it's not going to show any internal structures or methods that you aren't supposed to call.)

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Man On Pink Corner]

So you promise to update your application forever whenever a problem with such a library is found?

Why not? That's standard procedure for the vast majority of real-world commercial software.

Shared libraries were a stupid idea when Linux did them, they were a stupid idea when Windows did them, and they're a stupid idea now that storage is free. It's way past time to ditch the whole concept.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, wait, I think I see the problem

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[shutdown -p now]

You're never going to have modern mainstream games released as Free Software, for Linux or any other platform. Even id, the champions of major titles on Linux, only release the source code after a few years, when they've sold all the engine licenses they wanted (and the code is therefore no longer representing any competitive advantage).

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Hadlock]

I have yet to find someone who will take money to fix the DX11 bug in Mumble.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly. Not everyone who wants the problem fixed has the skills or time to do so, and not everyone who has the skills or time wants to fix the problem. The result is a ton of problems in FOSS ends up going unfixed all the time.

Is it a guarantee that all issues will be fixed? Of course not, but it's still one more option that you wouldn't have with closed software. In saying that, I do use closed source applications, but whenever OSS is an option I tend to pick it.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[dbIII]

You don't have to use them if you want to make your application portable. That's how some stuff from 1995 can just run on linux after you copy the binary and nothing else over (eg. the old shareware graphics viewer "xv", although there are updated versions of that too).

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. So when your Apache puts its configuration files in /etc/httpd/conf.d, and my software puts it in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled, we'll all just get along perfectly because it's free?

Even better, when your software had a module called ""Music::Version", and my software has an entirely different module called "Music::Version" with entirely different syntax, we'll all just get along toegether?

Youngsters. Gotta love 'em, but they do need a bit of seasoning before they're ready for the group.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[GNious]

I could be inclined to pay to see certain features implemented into, or have specific bugs fixed in FOSS, but know of no channel(s) for requesting offers for such.
Is there any specific ones you can recommend?

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[allo]

and a very unclean one. It would be like a postinst script, which means the files are still not tracked by dpkg.
if its in the rules script, then it would mean, that you package your local files from pip, but do not use pip on the install-system, so nothing is gained.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[MrLizardo]

Sure. Here's one for Mac:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=700835

I'll admit I didn't immediately find one for Windows. Instead I found that fun incedent where MS added their own Firefox extension as an update to Windows Live without prompting. So I guess the responsibility of the OS distributor goes beyond just keeping API breaks from affecting users.

You keep saying it's too much for one group to handle and yet, Linux distributions don't seem to be having all that many API-break related problems. Maybe you have a specific example to support your case?

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[h4rr4r]

Free has nothing to do with cost. Free software is not no cost software.
Open does not mean you can fix it as you may only be allowed to look and not touch.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[h4rr4r]

All Free software you can modify, open software does not have to allow that. Free software is not the same as no cost software.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Sigg3.net]

Name a few, if you can.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[nobodie]

notice that fedora (rpm, not apt) is also supported for somethings which means they cover almost all the distros, exceptions being distros that use a gentoo/slack type system.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Anonymous Coward]

It really is that simple. If it's theoretically feasible to do it, then it is the user's responsibility to find skilled help.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[GuB-42]

The thing is : linux dependency management is designed for FOSS.
For example, if a program uses a deprecated function, it may stop working after the library is updated. With access to the source code, independent developers can fix these problems relatively easily.
It is much more complicated for closed source software where the original developers have to cope with numerous environments and updates.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[hairyfeet]

How about dozens of show stoppers, would that work? Well here ya go and here is the page from 3 years ago so you can compare. Hell even one of the developers of Red Hat says trhe current "let the devs do it" is made of fail and the problems he list are damned near identical to mine, too many drivers and too few devs equal no QA and QC so buggy shit gets shoved out the door, so I really don't know how much more proof one needs besides the fact that every major OEM and BB retailer has tried your product and now treats Linux like a pox upon their houses, never to be mentioned again, why? because unlike Internet sellers they actually have to support the products they sell, and the mess that is Linux makes that a losing proposition.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Anonymous Coward]

No such responsibility is enforced or implied anywhere outside of your ego.

Re:That is why I supported fully static builds

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Debian.

If I wanted a distro running 5 year old software, I would just use a 5 year old version of red hat or suse.

In debian-land, stable means old

mixed feelings

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be signing up as soon as it becomes available just to show some Linux support love. But, I won't actually install it because of the D.R.M. in Steam.

Re:mixed feelings

[wed128]

DRM that works well isn't so bad

it's when it doesn't work that screws us

Re:mixed feelings

[Anonymous Coward]

Our benevolent dictator isn't so bad...

Re:mixed feelings

[Elbart]

Game-devs and publishers aren't forced to use Steam's CEG. Many games are using it just like a repository, i.e. you can copy the game-folder out of the Steam-folder and uninstall Steam, and the game will still work.

Re:mixed feelings

[Elbart]

A non-exhaustive list: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/list_of_drmfree_games_on_steam/page1

Got Beta invite ... for Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got my beta invite yesterday -after specifying I was on Debian Sid (I never expected an invite since I'm not using Ubuntu). Will fiddle with it and get it running today, I'll definitely buy a few games just because.

Seems like they are close to releasing.

Re:Got Beta invite ... for Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

It's almost like Valve realizes game betas are good for testing out different hardware/software specs, instead of a means of free publicity and to confirm the game works on the same specs tested in-house.

Re:Got Beta invite ... for Debian

[bigdanmoody]

I got an invite yesterday, too, and I specified Fedora 17.

Re:Got Beta invite ... for Debian

[icsx]

Got also invite to beta for being a Debian user. I guess they run out of Ubuntus or are looking for wider distro audience now.

Re:Got Beta invite ... for Debian

[Luckyo]

I can solidly confirm this, as one of the people who got to joyfully beta test the wonderful mess that was steam back on CS 1.6 release. When we were told it was just a "new matchmaking system for CS".

Very little good PR came out of that one, but they sure got their unwilling beta-testers in droves.

Re:Got Beta invite ... for Debian

[alexwh]

I also got an invite - I specified "Other" (Arch Linux) - which is pretty surprising. Pretty sure they invited the vast majority of people - I only saw one out of about 10+ people without an invite so far.

Re:Got Beta invite ... for Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if only nVidia would release a fucking solution for Optimus. TF2 doesn't quite manage the quality and frame rate I want on the Intel GPU...

Re:Got Beta invite ... for Debian

[deek]

Yep, I received my invite 4 or 5 days ago, when I mentioned I was running Debian testing/Wheezy.

Just a note about the steam deb package. It contains dependencies that Debian doesn't have, like libc6 2.15, and libjpeg-turbo8, or something like that. You'll have to open up the deb file, and alter the control file to change the dependencies. You'll also have to download a copy of the ubuntu libc6, and throw it into the user steam directory where it stores its dynamic loadable files. Also, steam is a 32 bit package. If you're running 64 bit, you'll have to enable multiarch support by adding the i386 architecture to the dpkg system. You can then do a dpkg -i / apt-get -f install combo to install the (modified) steam deb and all dependent i386 files. Oh, and if you're running proprietary drivers, make sure to install the i386 version of the glx drivers.

So, in summary, it takes a bit of fiddling, but I'm running steam fine on Debian. Works quite nicely, in fact. TF2 is very smooth.

Someone is misunderstanding...

[bmo]

... what "fully updated" means. It certainly sounds like the author thinks that the latest distro and kernel is what's recommended.

It's not.

>Ubuntu 12.04

Valve is recommending the LTS and not 12.10, as well they should. Recommending the latest kernel and distro is asking for nothing but pain for everybody involved.

As far as the hardware recommendations go, they're not outrageous either.

--
BMO

Re:Someone is misunderstanding...

[Deathspawner]

I'm the author. I take "fully updated" as meaning A) take one of the listed supported distros and then B) keep it updated. I'm really not sure how else you could take it.

Re:Someone is misunderstanding...

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, am already pulling the kernel sourcecode from git a couple of times per day (cronjob). Then cron starts my own script that runs "make oldconfig" with my old .config, but which makes clever guesses about which new features I want and which to exclude. Finally, the freshly compiled kernel is copied into /boot, my grub config is updated (also my own script, I _hate_ grub2-mkconfig), and a notification is sent to the desktop using libnotify-notify-send.

So I naturally assume that "fully updated" means "fully updated".

Year of the Linux Desktop

[masternerdguy]

The way I see it, this entire situation is hilarious. Us Linux people have been wanting something like this to happen for, well, forever, and it is finally happening. The lack of serious gaming on Linux has been one of the things holding it back on the desktop market. Now that we're finally getting that, and a serious contender to the Windows gaming hegemony is present, all anyone can do is cry and scream "not good enough dammit not good enough" because not every Steam title ever made will be available on release. I bet if the year of the linux desktop ever happens /. will be the first one to criticize it.

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[gman003]

See, by the time of the Year of the Linux Desktop, Linux will be too mainstream. We'll have all switched to some more "trendy" or "underground" OS. Possibly one of the BSDs, or maybe OS/2 if it's "retro" enough, but possibly some yet-to-be-written OS. HURD, perhaps?

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

By the time HURD works, we'll have colonized thousands of planets.

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically using Windows 8, even.

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Plan 9.

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Us Linux people have been wanting something like this to happen for, well, forever

Don't speak for me. I've been happy with the state of Linux for 13 years.

and a serious contender to the Windows gaming hegemony is present

If you want to waste away your life playing closed-source games please go back to Windows World and leave Linux damn well alone. Some of us are using it to create things and we don't need vendors jumping in to "help".

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

See, by the time of the Year of the Linux Desktop, Linux will be too mainstream. We'll have all switched to some more "trendy" or "underground" OS. Possibly one of the BSDs, or maybe OS/2 if it's "retro" enough, but possibly some yet-to-be-written OS. HURD, perhaps?

Or god forbid, to MINIX 3...

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[Millennium]

Haiku, man. Gotta be Haiku.

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Which explains the amazing variety of high quality open source games, right? Wait, very few open source games are even worth playing because they are unpolished, or buggy, or incomplete. Play the OSS Gaming Pick 2: Stable, Polished, Fun

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

It is the situation of humanity to never be satisfied. And that's not a bad thing.

One should always strive to improve things, and never claim perfection or "good enough, forever". Because that leads to stagnation and irrelevancy.

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[Marxdot]

That's not criticism I've seen anywhere.

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Menuet sounds good.

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

See, by the time of the Year of the Linux Desktop, Linux will be too mainstream. We'll have all switched to some more "trendy" or "underground" OS.

Windows RT

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

[dbIII]

Actually FreeBSD with the ports collection looks a lot to me like what Gentoo should have been - but then again, maybe Gentoo has changed a bit in the last few years and is like that now.

Amnesia multi platform not really surprising

[mrvan]

The linked article shows how Amnesia (which is an excellent game, btw, at least part 1 is) will be supported on different platforms, but I'm pretty sure Amnesia already runs on those platforms. So it seems to me that Valve is supporting ubuntu, but will list other OS'es that happen to be supported by the (original) publisher?

Of course this is all deduction from rumors and two screenshots, so take cum grano salis....

Re:Amnesia multi platform not really surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

You're correct. Amnesia and all of the Penumbra games (the dev's earlier offering) have always been available for Linux. This isn't really interesting...

Re:Amnesia multi platform not really surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

The games being listed on Steam can be installed and managed through Steam, presumably because the developers chose to add the Linux listings. Valve isn't just listing every Linux game that exists and happens to be on Steam too. When I redeemed my Humble Bundle keys on Steam, many of the games showed up installable in Linux, but not all. For example, Spirits has a working Linux build, but isn't in the Steam library yet. In some cases, the Steam version is also being better supported. Dungeons of Dredmor's Humble Bundle version is behind the Steam one, and last I checked, also couldn't be upgraded to the expansion version, while the Steam and Desura versions could.

So, it's interesting that they're being listed on Steam because it shows interest by the developers to not just port to, but also support the platform instead of porting and ignoring.

There are also some new ports, like Serious Sam 3 (good game), and some others that aren't available yet (Left 4 Dead 2). Who knows, maybe with Steam's Linux release coming, Runic will get Torchlight II ported faster than the first.

Re:Amnesia multi platform not really surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

As a beta tester I am under the impression that it is the actual Steam client that is the "beta" test here and not so much the games. Sure, there will still need to be some Linux driver testing and porting work done (especially the video cards experimental drivers) but I consider that part of the beta program to be secondary objective.

It is in the Steam client the buying, downloading, communication (as in chat, community, likes and recommendations etc) and hardware/driver evaluations take place. I think that now that I've been trying it out for a couple of days that I am not really fond of the client neither on Windows nor GNU/Linux. I'd rather launch a browser to search/buy/download games than the actual Steam client. In a browser I can middle click to open a description of a game in a new tab. In the Steam client I often lose the place in history of the list I was browsing if I go back and I don't really like the "next 10" scrolling either.

That being said I must say that launching a game though Steam rather than Wine is nice as there is no configuration to be done. I have three compatible games that I already bought that I could download for Linux without fuzz. I had to tweak the Pulse Audio a bit to get any sound, which was a surprise for me as I've heard so many people having problems with Pulse but never experienced it myself until Steam. And there's no native x64 but that's a minor complaint as the client work as well in XFCE as it does under any other VM/DE.

Anyway, although it does not differ much from my experience with Wine, and that gaming on my machine is not the primary function, I would like to extend a big thank you to Valve for making this possible as I can now see a brighter future for my beloved platform. Valve - congrats It bloody works! Keep working on the polish now.

As a final word I just wish that NVidia and Co. would work more openly with their drivers as I can see some stability issues rising from this.

Kind regards,
An impressed AC.

Ubuntu minus the bad decisions.

[AftanGustur]

I surely hope Linux Mint catches on,, it is basically Ubuntu minus the bad decisions Canonical has made recently.

Re:Ubuntu minus the bad decisions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Catches on? Mint is more popular than Ubuntu and is the current distro of choice. Replacing Ubuntu because of their stupidity.

Even the Mint desktop alternatives are at the top places. Replacing Unity, GNOME3, etc.

Basically, both Ubuntu and GNOME screwed up royally by not listening to their users and cramming insane and stupid design ideas down everyone's throat. Bye bye Ubuntu and GNOME! You are on your way to becoming the next XFree86, Sodipodi, etc. and every other project where the maintainers just went batshit insane for some reason.

Re:Ubuntu minus the bad decisions.

[bojanb]

I wholeheartedly agree.

Re:Ubuntu minus the bad decisions.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope not. Mint is fast-release debian without Ubuntu.

Mint will not move anything Linux forward, while Ubuntu did and does!

Re:Ubuntu minus the bad decisions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please provide references.

Re:Ubuntu minus the bad decisions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Recently? I ditched Ubuntu for Mint in '09 when the corporate writing was on the wall.

Re:Ubuntu minus the bad decisions.

[Blaskowicz]

It's easy : Mint is more popular than Ubuntu on Distrowatch, a website where people come to find distros other than Ubuntu.

Re:Ubuntu minus the bad decisions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or take Gentoo, which is basically Ubuntu without all the bad decisions made by Canonical and Debian, plus a few good ideas of their own.

Re:Ubuntu minus the bad decisions.

[Windwraith]

I know you Mint users love your Mint, but is it really necessary to advertise it at every single occassion? And why isn't your comment modded offtopic? You are being like the noisy internet atheist stereotype. Not good advertisement for Mint.

And, all the "bad decisions Canonical has made recently" can be fixed from within Ubuntu with less than 10 clicks and typing a few words, so there's nothing Mint can offer me that isn't already available.
Such a Linux user you are if you don't know that Unity can be replaced from Synaptic, apt-get or even the Ubuntu software center.

A rebranded Ubuntu with different defaults doesn't impress me at all.

No DirectX, useless

[Dunge]

Most existing games won't update to support OpenGL, and newer games developers won't want to do additional work to do it either. DirectX development is still the easiest.

Re:No DirectX, useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Wine.

Re:No DirectX, useless

[Khyber]

Please. We've got wrappers from O*L to DX, and the performance hit is so negligible in proper implementations as to be absolutely laughable.

It's pretty simple, really

[mcrbids]

More choices typically work out better for consumers. Sure, you can game on your WinPC, or OSX, or your Dreamcast or XBox or whatever, but arguing that enabling Linux gaming is a bad idea is terribly short sighted. More choices = more competition = better value for consumers.

I, for one, will likely sign up for steam/Linux and make sure to buy a game or three to see how it goes as I support this development. I sincerely hope Valve gets plenty rich doing this as it finally proves a business model that Loki Games (remember them?) couldn't do a decade or so ago. (I bought all their games)

Re:It's pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

More choices are bad for consumers. Consumers aren't intelligent enough to make informed choices in computing so they'll get a crappy experience. Think of all the poor people who buy shitty Chinese android tablets. If they'd bought an iPad they'd be having a better quality of life. More choice == more chance of consumer disappointing. Its better to have one or two at most great options than a bunch of mediocre ones and some great ones that are more expensive. Think of it this way, you wouldn't make your Grandma change her own transmission would you?

Re:It's pretty simple, really

[jedidiah]

Except the market isn't split between shitty Chinese tablets and iPads.

Furthermore, this is 2012. You don't need to go into any purchase blind. You can check around and see if a device is all of that.

That includes doorstop computers like Macs.

Only a blithering Apple fanboy would equate consumer product selection with automotive repairs.

Re:It's pretty simple, really

[filthpickle]

If they'd bought an iPad they'd be having a better quality of life.

I have an iPad 3 and I can tell you that being able to read webpages whilst shitting has really improved all other aspects of my life.

Re:It's pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't happen. You restrict choice, you end up with two mediocre options. You need to learn more about basic economics. The crowds will get over their chinese android tablets and buy a better product eventually.

Re:It's pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

> More choices typically work out better for consumers.

Please read "The Paradox of Choice"

Re:It's pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, try it yourself! Get a bunch of friends and family together, give them a bunch of menus, and ask them where they'd like to order. Then, have them rate their happiness on a scale of 1 to 10. Get some more friends and family together, and give them one menu, ask them where'd they'd like to order from, and have them rate their happiness on a scale of 10 to 10.

Re:It's pretty simple, really

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the book based on studies that could not be satisfactorily reproduced?

Re:It's pretty simple, really

[MrLizardo]

... and have them rate their happiness on a scale of 10 to 10.

I see what you did there. _

Re:It's pretty simple, really

[morian97]

Thumbs up for remembring Loki! Valve has more ressources,although it is a grand task. I applaude to both for their efforts.

Re:It's pretty simple, really

[morian97]

maybe think of nvidia vs amd? prety good to have a choice -> competition

Will they be adding Debian as a supported distro?

[jez9999]

Or is the Debian open philosophy just too incompatible with the idea of Linux gaming?

Because you have a Linux Box??

[RobertLTux]

My big question is if you have a TriBoot Linux /Mac /Win system short of the publisher being a Rotted Male Organ wiould you ahve to buy each platform seperately?? (or would your Steam Account load the "correct" platform each time from one purchase)

Re:Because you have a Linux Box??

[PopAndGame]

On Mac almost all games work on every platform. Only different game I know is Activision's Black Ops.

Re: Because you have a Linux Box??

[Anonymous Coward]

If Steam on OS X and Windows are anything to go by then the answer is no. When Steam came out for OS X and I installed it on my MacBook Pro, I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to install Half Life 2 and other games I bought for Windows years ago for no additional cost. I imagine it will be the same with Linux.

Re:Because you have a Linux Box??

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam already gives you the PC version of a game if you buy the Mac version, and vice versa. Hell, IIRC, they gave you the PC version of Portal 2 if you bought the PS3 version.

Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[a-zarkon!]

Maybe this is how it already works - but if it isn't here's an avenue I would investigate:

Shouldn't it be possible for Steam to build a hypervisor type environment? If they have a common hypervisor they port the game once to run in that environment. Then all they need to do is get their hypervisor running on Windows, *NIX, MAC, whatever.

There's definitely some additional processing overhead on this, but it seems that it would be a very efficient model once you have the hypervisor built. I would think you could probably push the specs/API/etc to the game publishers and have the game developer team adopt their game to the platform.

I don't know anything about how Steam works under the covers so maybe they're already doing this. I'm curious, but not enough to do the legwork.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[masternerdguy]

This technology already exists in the form of Java. Java solved this exact problem in 1997 but despite massive improvements Java is still about 1.5x to 2x slower than native code (it used to be 5-10x slower, so they've really done some work!) which doesn't hurt most applications but the overhead makes it less attractive for game development.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[a-zarkon!]

*slaps head* Yep. Java should do it, but you're also dead on with respect to the slowness.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[Bieeanda]

The only thing Valve does with other people's games is make sure the code gets from their servers to your box. That's all. They don't port, and they don't patch until and unless the publisher provides them with a patch to download from Steam's servers too.

Publishers are not going to bite at something that demands they keep specific-distributor-only builds around just so Valve can build some clunky hypervisor. The only segment of PC gaming that might be worth the effort are sports titles, and EA pretty much has those sewn up tighter than a drum.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Any interpreted language would do it, but since they are all run as a program being read and executed by another program, performance loss is inevitable. I think Java is the only one that compiles to a foreign binary and lets the VM run the binary, but there is no reason any other interpreted language could not be adapted to have a similarly obfuscated deliverable form. (I've yet to open a swf in a text editor, but those might be partially compiled as well)

If the gulf between game complexity and hardware capability continues to grow, it may become feasible to offer more serious games on interpreted platforms.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Java was designed to run on multiple architectures. This idea could be limited to x86.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

> Java is still about 1.5x to 2x slower than native code

[citation needed]... especially since the HotSpot JIT compiles bytecode to native.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure as hell wouldn't trust Valve hypervisor level access to my computer, that's like the root of roots.

I assume you mean something like Chrome NaCl however, and yes, I agree, it would be fantastic for most indie games, atleast if they released the entire source tree as something like BSD license, so the indie developers could also distribute it outside of steam.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[thoromyr]

its fun to bash java for being slow (having slow execution speed), no matter how untrue it is. I'd rather bash it for its faults -- to start I'll name two:

1. Slow startup. This may contribute to the reputation for slowness, but is really just the setup. It isn't slow execution speed, its the latency from "I want to run this" to "application is started". I'm not saying startup speed should inherently be faster, just that this is a negative and it is also true.

2. Static memory allocation. WTF! You too can re-live the glory days of Apple's operating system before they jumped the shark and went bsd. How much memory an application can possibly use is set as a property/execution parameter and can only be altered between executions. Ummm... seriously? I've always assumed this was due to the VM model they chose and a misguided attempt at security by shackling programs to outdated paradigms, but really?

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[ninjackn]

I would be plenty happy if Steam would just redirect and store all the games files to a specific folder in the steam directory, much less implement a hypervisor. As it is now, installing a number of games from steam poops data all over my hard drive. I have game saves, settings and common files in My Document, "My Documents\My Games", AppData\Local, AppData\Roaming, AppData\Saved Games, steamapps\user and probably in other places I discovered yet.

While i'm at it, another nice feature would be for steam to be a unified DRM scheme. Install steam and buy a game and install only the game (and necessary libraries such as XNA for windows). Somewhere along the line I didn't pay enough attention and now I have junk like SecureROM and that Rockstar Social Club crap.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called a game engine. Look it up!

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Get real. The most successful java game turns an i7-3930k and GTD 670 with 16GB RAM with SSD into a machine about on par with a P2 running off diskette.

Come back when there's a real game using Java on a modern PC that runs remotely close to the 7 year old 360 and PS3.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

use J9 from ibm

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[gmueckl]

Despite what all the others in this thread claim, the technology that you suggest has already been created. It's Google Native Client. They compile any code down to a x86 binary with some additional restrictions (for security - they're sandboxing the code) and this binary is then run inside a special environment that is the same regardless of the underlying operating system. It's even already deployed as a part of Chrome as far as I know and Bastion is a nice game that was ported to it.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[VGPowerlord]

I think Java is the only one that compiles to a foreign binary and lets the VM run the binary,

Java does it. .NET does it. To a certain extent, Python does it (that's what .pyc files are).

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[VGPowerlord]

The most successful java game

"most successful java game" != "well written java game"

That is, assuming you're referring to MineCraft as the most successful java game.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[VGPowerlord]

I would be plenty happy if Steam would just redirect and store all the games files to a specific folder in the steam directory, much less implement a hypervisor. As it is now, installing a number of games from steam poops data all over my hard drive. I have game saves, settings and common files in My Document, "My Documents\My Games", AppData\Local, AppData\Roaming, AppData\Saved Games, steamapps\user and probably in other places I discovered yet.

Steam's not involved in all aspects of the game... most are just C++ compiled against DirectX and the like. It's up to the game to write the saved games to the correct directory. As I recall, officially it's supposed to be "AppData\Saved Games" in Vista and newer. Which isn't even used by Valve themselves.

While i'm at it, another nice feature would be for steam to be a unified DRM scheme. Install steam and buy a game and install only the game (and necessary libraries such as XNA for windows). Somewhere along the line I didn't pay enough attention and now I have junk like SecureROM and that Rockstar Social Club crap.

The publishers are at fault for that, and you have to actively watch Steam's store pages for the words "3rd Party DRM" to see which games have crap like that.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[gbjbaanb]

this technology already exists in the form of virtualbox or vmware - the game can come complete with everything it needs to run in a fully tested, no-weird-upgrades-installed configuration and run, seamlessly at that.

It will be faster than Java too :)

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked Java was only 10-15% slower than C when not counting the VM start time.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[aaron552]

How much memory an application can possibly use is set as a property/execution parameter and can only be altered between executions.

Most VMs do this. I believe .NET does it too. I won't pretend to understand the reasoning behind it. Why not set the limit for the VM at the process limit of the OS? (2GB or 3GB with LAA on 32-bit Windows, 8TB for 64-bit)

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[jcfandino]

but there is no reason any other interpreted language could not be adapted to have a similarly obfuscated deliverable form.

In fact, Scala, Clojure and probably some other, are languages that compile to Java Bytecode that runs on the same virtual machine.
Also there are interpreters for many languages that were made in java (Ruby, Python, groovy, js), some of these interpreters support JIT compilation.

Java popularity may be decreasing, but its platform it's becoming more popular.
It may still not be as fast as native code, but runs on most platforms and has acceptable speed.

Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

When I think of Java, I think of Open Office. Google Docs runs faster, consumes less memory, and has the same features that I use.

Why is javascript faster than Java?

TF2 Or GTFO

[Anonymous Coward]

Team Fortress 2 or GTFO, Gabe!

Re:TF2 Or GTFO

[HaZardman27]

It's already there for anyone with beta access to the Linux client.

Re:TF2 Or GTFO

[thedarknite]

You don't even need beta access to run TF2. The steam.deb is fairly easy to find and you can bypass the beta check by starting the client with "steam steam://open/games/" from a terminal window

Being in the beta gets you access to extra features but there isn't a huge difference in what I could do before I received the beta invite to now.

Re:Will they be adding Debian as a supported distr

[Iswandulla]

Serriously? FFS "Or is the Debian open philosophy just too incompatible with the idea of Linux gaming?" Quit acting like nerd complaining that the library only had DC and YOU only like Marvel. Be happy that they have comics there in the first place. Maybe they will expand in to that distro, give it some time.. maybe go back to making your "2013 will be the year of linux!" shirts

Sad

[hduff]

Sad to see that they are not being distro-agnostic and standards-compliant. That would solve many, many problems.

Re:Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Sad to see that they are not being distro-agnostic and standards-compliant. That would solve many, many problems.

I got it working just fine on my Gentoo box. Well, Steam and TF2, at least. SpaceChem still seemed to be demanding access to apt-get during its own launcher for some reason, but otherwise, it seems to work on non-Ubuntu.

Re:Sad

[dkleinsc]

standards-compliant

Which standards? That's always the problem with standards, there are so many of them.

If you're going to pick the Linux Standard Base, the problem there is that it's decidedly not distro-agnostic, but specifically demands RPM-based package management.

Re:Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Sad to see that they are not being distro-agnostic and standards-compliant. That would solve many, many problems.

They might very well be distro-agnostic - but the decision which platforms to support does not only depend on which platforms your game/application runs on but also which platforms you want to provide customer service for.

As a game publisher would you really want to argue with some nerd who claims that his favorite distro (that has maybe a few hundred users and which you had never heard of before) is LSB compliant when you are pretty certain it isn't? Can you trust your cheap, outsourced customer-support drones to handle such cases?

Re:Sad

[Microlith]

Far beyond "standards compliant" is simple binary compatibility between distros. While this isn't hard, it isn't guaranteed either. Not to mention that Ubuntu and its derivatives have far more users than other distros, all of which are of varying increases in difficulty to get going, let alone use.

That would solve many, many problems.

Like what, exactly.

Opened up the Linux Trial

[RichMan]

They opened up the trial and invited more people yesterday. I got my invite.
I have been playing games on Linux for years.

Re:Opened up the Linux Trial

[synapse7]

Soon we can watch Linux overtake OSX in numbers on steam.

Year of the Linux Desktop?

[waddleman]

I kid, I kid. But this in pretty cool.

Of course this day is brought down by RMS

Now if only there was theme to make Unity look like Pinterest I wouldn't have to convince my wife that Linux was better, she would just know.

Games are sometimes a secondary consideration ...

[perpenso]

Why would you want to game on Linux

If a person is primarily interested in games then a Windows PC is probably the best choice. Hence the popularity of dual boot Windows/Linux rigs among Linux enthusiasts.

However games are sometimes a secondary consideration. A person may have chosen their computer and operating system for some non-gaming reason and that person may still want to play games. This is just as true for Linux as it is for Mac OS X.

Wine and Crossover are doable but they have a cost, an overhead. A fully native port will yield a better experience.

That said, the economics of a fully native Linux port has yet to be proven. If Linux game sales merely cannibalize Windows game sales then the developer will not really see a benefit. Valve may be in a unique position in that Steam for Linux will subsidize their ports.

Mac OS X is an open platform ...

[perpenso]

Because most Linux users don't want to be subjected to Apple's control of what you can and cannot do on your computer.

Mac users are not subject to such control. Mac OS X is an open platform. You are free to get apps straight from the developer, the Apple App Store is not required.

Re:Mac OS X is an open platform ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me when you can make a .kext for unsupported hardware, I'll be anxiously waiting by my phone until I die from old age.

Re:Mac OS X is an open platform ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I don't have your phone number, but http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/referencelibrary/GettingStarted/GS_HardwareDrivers/_index.html

Re:Mac OS X is an open platform ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So where can I get the source code to Mac OS X so that I can modify it as I choose?

Re:Mac OS X is an open platform ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not by default. You have to go into settings to allow non app store apps in the latest version of OS X. And you can bet based on their current path that that option will go away in a few releases.

Re:Mac OS X is an open platform ...

[MrLizardo]

Even now, non-appstore apps can't access certain APIs, such as Notification Center. As far as I'm concerned, the writing is on the wall for OS X.

Re:Mac OS X is an open platform ...

[perpenso]

Not by default. You have to go into settings to allow non app store apps in the latest version of OS X.

No. I am running the latest version of Mac OS X and earlier today I dragged software from 3rd party media and dropped it into the system application folder. Since I was running from a user login rather than an admin login I was prompted for a password to allow the installation. Things seem the same as they always have been outside the App Store.

And you can bet based on their current path that that option will go away in a few releases.

Doubtful. That would essentially require 3rd party developers to give 30% of their revenue to Apple. Apple would lose the big established companies that have the infrastructure to do their own online stores, Adobe, Blizzard, etc.

Re:Mac OS X is an open platform ...

[perpenso]

Even now, non-appstore apps can't access certain APIs, such as Notification Center. As far as I'm concerned, the writing is on the wall for OS X.

Notification Center is a very specialized API and it requires Apple to have servers serving developer requests and notifications. Its not something where a 3rd party directly interacts with a user, the 3rd party is asking Apple to interact with the user on the 3rd party's behalf. It is not unreasonable for Apple to expect that such 3rd party developers identify themselves and obtain certain security credentials in order to interact with Apple Notification servers.

Re:Mac OS X is an open platform ...

[MrLizardo]

My point wasn't that it was unreasonable. It's their OS and they can run it how they want. But it's hard to call an OS open when users don't get to be the ultimate decision makers anymore.

Re:Mac OS X is an open platform ...

[perpenso]

My point is that Notification Center seems to be an aberration due to its implementation details and it does not seem to be an indicator of some sort of trend. I think it is a bit of a stretch to suggest that Apple is on a path to remove the ability of 3rd party developers to directly distribute to users.

Will Apple recommend to users that that they go through the App Store because of its screening of developers and apps and the reduced likelikhood of malware? Yes. I just don't see them requiring it.

Re:Will they be adding Debian as a supported distr

[jez9999]

I'm not complaining, just asking a question.

Re:Will they be adding Debian as a supported distr

[Anonymous Coward]

Glen Beck also "is just asking questions"

Serious Sam 3

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not affiliated, but I just want to say that Serious Sam 3 was well worth the ten dollars I spent with it on sale. It is a lot of mindless fun, and it is apparent that the team really listens to the players, with this Linux support and the split screen coop on the PC version also.

Updates sometimes break things ...

[perpenso]

So you promise to update your application forever whenever a problem with such a library is found?

Do you promise not to complain when an update to the library breaks the game? Or when the game fails to run on your favored niche distro?

Re:Updates sometimes break things ...

[Microlith]

Do you promise not to complain when an update to the library breaks the game?

It behooves the platform vendor to not break the platform for software that is dependent on it. That is, presumably, the purpose of an LTS release. Not that this is impossible, Microsoft updates have broken software on Windows, but it is unlikely to happen in a way that doesn't blow up a lot of other stuff.

Or when the game fails to run on your favored niche distro?

That's your problem and no one else's.

Re:Updates sometimes break things ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look man I'll run steam in a chroot environment for $distro that they compiled for if need be.

Re:Updates sometimes break things ...

[Sycraft-fu]

No actually it is your problem. If Linux is a fragmented mess and it takes a lot of man hours to support all the distros, companies may just give it a miss.

Re:Updates sometimes break things ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh... There IS a fix for that. It's been done by numerous studios already.

You're on your own if you use the system version of the library. If you use the vendor provided version...not as much so.

Re:Updates sometimes break things ...

[onefriedrice]

No actually it is your problem. If Linux is a fragmented mess and it takes a lot of man hours to support all the distros, companies may just give it a miss.

Fortunately there is no reason why any company would ever have to support "all the distros." My main desktop runs Gentoo. My laptop runs Arch. I also do not care whether or not Valve or any other company with a proprietary product decides to support my niche distros. Those of us who choose to run a non-mainstream distro presumably also know how to make it work with whatever software we want to run. Your concern over the lack of support companies give to people like me is heart-warming, but it's also quite unnecessary.

Any proprietary package built for Ubuntu can easily be repackaged to work with any community distro that is capable of providing secure and more-or-less up-to-date packages--and, if there is any demand at all, it will be. Shared library versioning and distro packaging policies work together to make this whole thing a non-issue.

LGPL is not viral ...

[perpenso]

What about the GPL? If you statically link a GPL library to your code, I believe you must release source code for the whole shebang. Game developers aren't going to go for that.

That is why many key libraries are LGPL, so there is no such requirement when statically linking.

Re:LGPL is not viral ...

[allo]

are you sure? LGPL says, you need to redistribute the changes on the project itself. So its not "viral" when you link dynamically. But if you link statically, your project becomes part of the lib/the lib becomes part of the project, so its one project as result. Then you may be required to give access to the source.

Re:LGPL is not viral ...

[perpenso]

are you sure? LGPL says, you need to redistribute the changes on the project itself. So its not "viral" when you link dynamically. But if you link statically, your project becomes part of the lib/the lib becomes part of the project, so its one project as result. Then you may be required to give access to the source.

I *think* you can distribute object code, not source code, so that a user can relink your code with a LGPL library.

See Q2a: What is the implication of static linking?
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/439136.html

Re:Will they be adding Debian as a supported distr

[jedidiah]

I think you two are both idiots.

It doesn't really matter what Debian thinks. Once the software is in your hands, you get to use it any way you like. That even includes running Oracle on it. None of this stuff is new at all.

If you want to run Steam with Debian, nothing is stopping you.

Your choices will dictate the nature of your experience. That's just life.

YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now people with a shit OS can pretend like its a real one also by running around blindly screaming "STEAM IS ON LINUX! LINUX IS THE BEST THING EVER BECAUSE STEAM IS ON IT!! ITS A REAL OS GOD DAMNIT BECAUSE IT HAS STEAM AND I AM COOL FOR USING IT"

This will be the chant that linux users mindlessly spew out constantly in a desperate attempt to look smart and savvy, kind of like the same thing mac users do when they constantly shout that mac's cant get viruses because its the only thing they have to justify themselves.

List of projected games?

[TCQuad]

Out of curiosity, is there a list of games that are expected to be released on Linux? Is it everything that says "SteamPlay" or some subset therein?

Re:List of projected games?

[trdrstv]

There's 36 listings now if you search the steam store by OS = Linux. Valve is porting the source Engine and those games over to Linux and have got really good FPS on L4D2, but so far only TF2 is on there now. There's also ~ 100 or so games that were in the Humble Bundles that had both linux clients and Steam codes so I figure those are likely the next up.

Also there's ~ 800 titles under the MAC section which ... if nothing else can't have a DirectX dependency so ... "up to MAYBE 1000 games" ? based on the current selection ? Realistically from just the Humble Bundles and Valve internal support you're probably looking at a little over 100 titles in the next year.

Given the choice between Windows and Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the choice between Windows and Ubuntu, I'll take Windows.

Re:Games are sometimes a secondary consideration .

[Anonymous Coward]

Wine and Crossover are doable but they have a cost, an overhead. A fully native port will yield a better experience. That said, the economics of a fully native Linux port has yet to be proven. If Linux game sales merely cannibalize Windows game sales then the developer will not really see a benefit. Valve may be in a unique position in that Steam for Linux will subsidize their ports.

At least on Steam for Mac most ports are not "fully native" in your sense but rather based on Cider (which is in turn based on Cedega which is a proprietary Wine fork).

Indie games

[dmneoblade]

I have a lot of indie games in my steam library that support linux. I will be VERY interested to check this out once it hits general release, and those developers start pushing out the linux versions on steam. Will be nice to start losing my last few reasons for choosing windows as my primary OS.

I can't wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Games has been the show-stopper for me switching to Linux. I'm actually excited about this and I hope it works for steam.
I'd support and recommend it.

Because Windows and Mac are not good enough

[Foresto]

I want to game on linux because linux is by far my favorite of the big three.

Windows isn't good enough because it is so full of inconsistencies and poorly-implemented features that I find it difficult to do the things I want to do (note: I do a lot more with my computer than the average consumer), because it tends to build up glitches and other cruft over time to the point of almost requiring periodic re-installs, because keeping it malware-free is practically a part-time job, because bug fixes depend on the whim of a single corporation, and because that corporation's anti-competitive and anti-compatibility policies have repeatedly and significantly hampered progress in the software and hardware used by most of the world.

OSX isn't good enough because it is rather expensive to buy and to upgrade, because the hardware it officially requires is likewise, because I find the user interface choices to be oversimplified to the point of constant frustration, because bug fixes depend on the whim of a single corporation, and because that corporation's anti-compatibility and anti-openness policies are unacceptably hostile to users trying to use the things they buy.

Linux has none of those problems. It has a few of its own problems, but those that I run in to are usually solved with a bit of reading and exchanging information others. It's even getting better for non-savvy users (my mom mainly uses Unity and Firefox) and specialists (e.g. color management, media editing).

Overall, I simply have a much better time and get a good deal more utility from my computer using linux. That's why I made the switch a few years ago, and I've never wanted to go back. This has been so much of a win for me that not even games are enough to make me dual-boot. If I can't get it running on linux, I don't bother playing it.

Steam on OS X is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I avidly use Steam on OSX, but I'm constantly frustrated with it's buggy state.

You said it. The damn thing keeps getting trapped at launch in neverending cycles of download update/install update as I'm trying to launch it. Sometimes if I click cancel, another process will launch that lets me run Steam. Other times it's messed up beyond repair, and I have to download Steam again. A 3MB executable followed by 100MB of updating from scratch isn't that much when I'm at home, but it's really annoying when it happens at the airport or some place with crappy WiFi. (Of course on a PC I would just start in Offline Mode, but naturally that doesn't work when Mac Steam goes haywire.)

Another problem is that often the Mac OS X version of the same game will be programmed much less competently than the Windows version: there are Steam games that until recently I preferred to run in a Parallels VM running Windows 7, because it was faster and less crash-prone than the OS X version. There are also games where the activating the Steam overlay causes the in-game cursor to vanish: basic stuff that would have never made it through QA if OS X weren't a red-headed stepchild.

Steam sure does suck on a Mac, but there's also nothing better.

Re:Games are sometimes a secondary consideration .

[Anonymous Coward]

"If Linux game sales merely cannibalize Windows game sales then the developer will not really see a benefit."

No, you can hedge your bets against MS doing something to harm your core market too. It's both a market opportunity and insurance at the same time.

I don't know what all the excitement is all about

[Stan92057]

I don't know what all the excitement is all about? Stream sells games they don't make them. Valve make a few games and they own Stream. So Games will still have to be made to support Linux. Nothing has changed as far as Games supporting Linux And isn't the Linux community against DRM? ALL Games sold by Stream contain DRM that i am aware of that's why they are popular with tital makers . And from the latest Update which i refused to agree to i was shut out of ALL Stream Games. So i was forced to agree just to be able to pay the games i bought. This is hardly something i thnk the Linux community will like at least thats what they have been saying for the last 12 years or so.

2x slower you say?

[gumpish]

2x slower?

Is that the same thing as being "twice as cold" or "twice as thin"?

You don't measure slowness, you measure speed.

You don't measure coldness, you measure temperature.

You don't measure thinness, you measure thickness.

Re:2x slower you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

"2x"=0.693np

And it's absolutely valid to talk about an attenuation of 0.693np, it means exactly the same as a gain of -0.693np.

So why shouldn't "2x slower" mean exactly "0.5x as fast"? It's clean, well-defined, no ambiguities -- the only justification for banning it is silly prescriptivism.

Re:2x slower you say?

[TeknoHog]

2x slower?

Is that the same thing as being "twice as cold" or "twice as thin"?

You don't measure coldness, you measure temperature.

I agree with your general point, but I think there is a possible exception. Just recently here in Finland, the temperature went from -10 C to -20 C. I'd say that's a legitimate case of "twice as cold". Of course, temperature as a physical quantity is nonnegative (one Kelvin is a definite amount of kinetic energy). But in a natural scale where the zero is chosen by the freezing point of the essential substance behind weather and life, it makes sense to talk about "coldness".

Valve should start their own steam-distro

[juancn]

Since I heard they were doing Steam for Linux I can't get it out of my head that they should build their own distro. They should probably pursue a similar strategy than the one Google did with Android.

They could partner with hardware manufacturers and certify PCs or console-like devices that they are compliant with the distribution hardware requirements, maybe setting several levels of hardware support. So you can buy a 'level 3' Steam PC, and be sure that a certain number of games run on it without issues.

I would probably buy something like that if the experience was hassle-free enough.

Re:Valve should start their own steam-distro

[muridae]

Since there is the rumor that they are working on a console or console-like device, and they've found their games ran at a higher FPS for same quality when running under Linux, I would expect them to announce that if they announce a console.

Re:Valve should start their own steam-distro

[Sigg3.net]

I hope they DON'T make their own distros, unless it's for their own hardware.

Why? It should be a well-maintained application that works regardless for the top ten on distrowatch. When Steam gets Office (which is what the bosses must have) it will make Linux more attractive. Admins get to choose what they can admin and users get the ribbon.

If I wanted to run a commercial OS, I'd run Win8 or Ubuntu.

I'd be willing to wager that they'll wont...

[mark-t]

... support Slackware.

Re:I'd be willing to wager that they'll wont...

[ppz003]

Yet I'm running Slackware64, got an invite yesterday, and just followed some simple instructions from the forum on linuxquestions to get up and running with no problem. Slackware users can support themselves.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/steam-on-slackware-4175436118/

Re:Will they be adding Debian as a supported distr

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is going to be Debian's slow-and-stable philosophy more than its openness one.

Right now, for example, Steam works well on Debian, but you have to jump through some hoops to get it installed, like keeping a copy of Ubuntu's libc6 package for use with LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Depending on how Valve handles library dependencies, this may correct itself eventually, or it could result in an ever-moving target that Debian will rarely (if ever) catch.

Steam is cool hopefully other dev's follow

[Vince6791]

one problem i have with linux is that it's too internet dependent. I can't find some full application installers(.rpm or .deb)which i need for the linux you have to either download it through repositories or compile the source code which is especially a pain if you can't upgrade the dependencies with no internet connection. But with windows, I can download and save in storage; vlc, gimp, blender, inkscape, etc... and install it later on without any internet connection needed. Especially when you have TWC, comcast, dsl providers fucking people through the ass for their shitty ass internet services. Lucky that I have FIOS in my neighborhood, but might be moving out of the state in a few month's.

But, I find that the linux distros i tried like opensuse, ubuntu, mint, all run faster than windows 7 and 8, and especially firefox which fly's on linux and runs slow on windows. I would be happy if steam got activision to bring cod games over to linux especially cod4mw1 which i play the most. I was able to run netflix on ubuntu but failed in mint 13 kde, which is fine and will solve it. But if there is a netflix native and games are coming to linux than there is no need to use windows full time anymore, i will just run windows in a virtualbox for development.

Why Can't Steam Manage the OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want steam to the manage the OS for me, that way I know that if Steam is happy; I am happy. I love Steam. Steam will make sure I have all the right drivers and versions and things. In the future I would advise you to just let Steam take over and be happy.

Re:Will they be adding Debian as a supported distr

[Anonymous Coward]

Just use sid.

Let's correct it again

[dbIII]

If you are planning on playing a lot of Microsoft Windows compatible video games then Microsoft Windows is often the best platform. Sometimes it sucks and is not even the best platform for Microsoft Windows compatible video games - poor handling of multiple screens, poor multitasking due to background tasks, and unexpected sudden breaking of the fourth wall with antivirus and updates.

How's that for a fix? I see that as one reason why steam is moving to other platforms, to get more solid console like behaviour instead of occasional reminders that the computer is doing other stuff.
The "driver" argument got old and worn out about a decade or more ago when Nvidia started releasing drivers for everything that moves.

Re:Will they be adding Debian as a supported distr

[Anonymous Coward]

Just use sid.

Said like someone that doesn't know anything about the subject at hand. The version in sid isn't high enough, either. Debian testing is in deep freeze right now so new packages are mostly bug fixes to prepare for the next stable release.

Furthermore, why advocate running sid instead of testing? If you knew what you were talking about instead of parroting what you read somewhere, you'd be suggesting using Testing instead: packages in sid get pushed to testing after ~10 days*, barring major bugs being reported. So, you get a relatively up-to-date rolling release-esque distribution, without most of the major breakage you can run into in sid.

If you like living on the bleeding edge, fine, but it's idiotic suggesting it for everybody.

Discount Nike jordan shoes,Jeans, sale

[shuduown]

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Lots against Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

4) The game might be compatible with the hardware, but the older OS X version might not be.
5) Recommended tools used in OS X are not transferable, nor is the workflow.

UNIX is dead. Long live UNIX.

Why not? Slowness = 1/speed

[KWTm]

While the usual convention is to measure speed, I wouldn't say it's non-intuitive to measure slowness. Slowness would be the reciprocal of speed, so if it requires twice the time, then it's twice as slow.

In a similar vein, in the US, people seem to measure fuel performance by mileage (miles/gallon), whereas in Canada, it's measured by fuel consumption (litres/100km). So better fuel performance is a higher number in the US, but lower in Canada, the advantage of the latter being that it is additive (you can take two numbers and average them, unlike mileage).

So that addresses your other examples: thinness can be measured in pages/inch (in the case of paper, say) or # rack servers/metre, etc. And coldness would be Kelvin[to the power of]-1, of course.

Re:I don't know what all the excitement is all abo

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all games have DRM on Steam, only most.

There are two types of DRM on Steam.
1) 3rd Party: SecureRom, etc
2) Steam: Pseudo-DRM. Achievements/etc, Steam cloud storage for settings/saves/etc all require Steam. DRM in the same way Slashdot has DRM by requiring me to have Internet access to access its web-site.

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