Steam For Linux: A Respectable Showing

An anonymous reader writes "Valve has just released its February, 2013 Steam Hardware & Software Survey, and the results are absolutely mind blowing. Linux is now standing strong as a legitimate gaming platform. It now represents 2.02% of all active Steam users." That's in keeping with what new submitter lars_doucet found. Lars writes: "I'm an independent game developer lucky enough to be on Steam. Recently, the Steam Linux client officially went public and was accompanied by a site-wide sale. The Linux sale featured every single Linux-compatible game on the service, including our cross-platform game Defender's Quest. .... Bottom line: during the sale we saw nearly 3 times as many Linux sales of the game as Mac (Windows still dominated overall)."

Comments

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Proves that more intelligent people are gamers... as more computer illiterate people use Mac than linux.

Re:Wow

[jellomizer]

2.02% isn't that big of a number. What percentage of resources did steam put into their Linux version? I am expecting more than 2.02%. Linux desktop use has been stuck between 1% - 3% for decades.
With steam pushing so strongly with advertising and social media buzz on sites like slashdot, that have a stong Linux community. That number isn't surprising And it really isn't that good.

Re:Wow

[UltraZelda64]

Ever hear of growth? You have to start somewhere. I'd say it's not bad. Just give it time, you're passing judgment too soon.

Re:Wow

[pipatron]

And the requirement for joining Mensa is that you belong to the top 2% of the population, rated by IQ. Coincidence? I think not!

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

And remember that Android, too, Linux and has overtaken Apple marketshare. Before you know it, you'll be playing Left4Dead on your phone. There's a HUGE untapped market there.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever hear of growth? You have to start somewhere. I'd say it's not bad. Just give it time, you're passing judgment too soon.

Let me re-iterate the parent here by stating that Linux desktop use has been stuck at 1 - 3% for decades.

And yeah, 2.02% would be considered "strong"...in that range. Unfortunately, in the bigger picture, it's a rather pathetic number that has stayed rather static.

I mean damn, do I actually need to say the words "Year of the Linux Desktop" to remind everyone of just how old and pathetic that meme really is?

Linux isn't dead. It's simply thriving within a community that won't let it go, and yet refuses to collaborate for 2 seconds together to actually give Apple a run for their money. No, instead they demand their "freedom of choice" by insisting there at least 1,742 variants of Linux available at all times.

And they wonder why they've never commanded more than single-digit market share...

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if they put more than 2% of their resources into this, the actual question is whether they made more money doing this than if they had done something else.

Re:Wow

[jbolden]

Proves that more intelligent people are gamers... as more computer illiterate people use Mac than linux.

Almost ever single OSX users who is someone who rejected a platform where gaming is great (Windows) to move to a platform where gaming was so/so. Given the capacities are not hugely different and price leans higher that means that anyone who picked OSX over Windows probably doesn't game much. Moreover the Apple crowd in general has been aging and I suspect Steam type gaming is much more popular ages 10-30 than ages 30-50.

In the case of Linux the capacities are hugely different. The more advanced Linux window managers have no Windows or OSX equivalents. There are no GUI desktop environments with the level of configurability of KDE for Windows or OSX. Many of the applications for Linux have no equivalents, though they have competitors which are vastly more expensive. ETC...

I think it is not unreasonable you are looking at two very different populations.

Re:Wow

[jbolden]

OSX has commanded more much more than single digit market share during that time either, and usually itself single digit. It has commanded huge profit share but market share, no.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

That 2.02% is way over inflated due to TF2 players installing Linux to get the Team Fortress 2 tux item. /v/, /vg/, reddit, /g/ and the TF2 irc channels were absolutely full of TF2 players that were looking for help to temporarily install Linux. The overwhelming opinion also seemed to be that Ubuntu is terrible and that Linux isn't worth using on the desktop.

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

Can you fire Linus Torvalds? Along with most of the team leaders? Sadly THAT is what you'd need for true growth. Look at how Torvalds just keeps cranking out the kernel, this sure as hell doesn't help stability when there isn't an ABI as it makes drivers break more often, and just look at some of the facepalming stupid move the devs have made, ALSA trashed for Pulse LONG before it was ready for primetime, KDE 4 had the same only worse as it was barely functional and had jack shit for features, and how about Gnomeshell? Makes Win 8 look like MSFT gives a fuck by way of comparison, I'm shocked they didn't change the logo to the finger because that is what they were giving their fanbase.

Waste your mod points all you want, call me the devil, as a retailer i've been begging, writing articles, fuck people we ain't asking for much here, just some true reliability and solid functionality and what do we get...now Ubuntu is going rolling release so all the breakage can be totally random! yay!

There is a REASON why pirated Windows beats your free product in marketshare by a country mile and its REALLY simple...see that copy of XP? You could install it at RTM and it would STILL BE RUNNING when EOL comes next year...that is FOURTEEN YEARS OF SUPPORT FOLKS! And see that copy of Win 7? 2020, any system its installed on now will STILL be running it in 2020 bar hardware failure. No "update foo broke my drivers" no playing hardware roulette, no having your gear working before an update and it turned into a broken mess after...fuck has ANY Linux dev heard of testing? Not from where I'm sitting they haven't.

I've been giving "The Hairyfeet Challenge" for 6 years now folks, SIX FRICKING YEARS and NOT ONE PASSED, you name your poison, not one has passed it yet! And I'm not asking for a miracle here, I'm just asking for the hardware that works at the start to be working at the end without the devs shitting on the drivers...is that REALLY so God damned much to ask for?

Fix THAT and me and every other small retailer would be HAPPY, you hear me? HAPPY to have your product on our shelves. Know how much Windows OEM eats into my sales? try 35 fricking percent, think I LIKE handing that money to Redmond? Hell no, I got bills to pay like everybody else and Redmond sure as hell hasn't been treating us system builders right. But until you can deliver a product that won't put me out of business with after sale support costs you can give it up chuck, MSFT could put out windows Goatse with smell-o-vision and it would still get more sales. hell look at that flaming turd Win 8, its already got more users than Linux and its a shitpile.

Re:Wow

[Pino Grigio]

As a Windows 8 user, with Ubuntu on a different partition, I can concur that it is terrible.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, I'd wager that the effort Valve has put in to Linux support is pretty much 2% of their total. The way they seem to work is to undertake a lot of different things, most of which aren't wildly profitable.

Secondly: games on linux is a chicken-and-egg thing. I use *ux daily for work, but my home desktop has been a windows machine forever, because I sometimes want to play games. Most (but not all) of the games I play are Valve titles, so being able to play them on ux makes it more likely I'd give linux on the desktop a serious try, or recommend it to a friend, than before. If they can bring more big developers to the platform (either through improving emulation, or by leveraging the upcoming "steambox" to encourage developers to make their games compatible), then Linux on the desktop becomes a viable choice for home computers for a lot of people that it just isn't at the moment, and then selling games to Linux users becomes more profitable in a spiral of awesomeness.

Every publisher seems to have their own Steam-like service, and the threat of Xbox Live, Windows8 Marketplace and Win8 phones actually interoperating to give one Steam-like system across the PC, pocket and living room is obviously a huge threat. As we've seen time and again, if you're beholden to Microsoft for your business, then you won't be in business for long, so they are pushing an alternate platform through a number of avenues and initiatives to make sure that they have a Plan B for when MS decides that they want to be the sole gatekeeper for the entire Windows games market.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the more relevant question for Valve is how likely are Microsoft to destroy their Windows-based business in the next 5 years. If Microsoft shoves an app store down the throats of their users in the next version and makes it difficult for non-enterprise users to run unapproved software, then that could make things difficult for Valve. Valve need a fallback position that isn't dependant on Microsoft (or Apple who also look to be going in that direction), and this is it, plus they also need it to save Windows license fees on their upcoming Steambox.

Re:Wow

[SteveFoerster]

I love using linux, I've used it exclusively for three or four years now. I have my whole family using it, and when it works, it's a great experience. But everything you said here is the truth. Recently an Ubuntu update, one that should have been trivial, killed off my wifi in a way that took me hours to fix. Bullshit like that is unthinkable on Windows, and until it's just as unthinkable for us, the year of linux on the desktop will never, ever come.

Re:Wow

[UltraZelda64]

Wow. You're going on and on about how Linux hardware support sucks and Windows' is the best ever. The computer I'm on now, a basic Dell from around 2006, came with Vista. I installed my copy of XP a while back just to update the BIOS. Guess what? The fucking Ethernet card doesn't even work! What good is a god damn creaky 14-year-old piece of shit operating system that everyone has moved on from, even the hardware manufacturers?

It's pretty bad... I've experienced some trouble in the past getting wireless cards to work, but at least generally the Ethernet card worked to actually fetch whatever firmware or other files were needed. Windows? Lucky I had an easy way of just getting the file downloaded on another machine and transferred to the target with a USB flash drive, because the last thing I want to fuck with is trying to get something as basic as an Ethernet network card to work. And there you are, bragging that this ancient rotting collection of bits works every bit as well as it did closer to its prime. Bullshit.

And I repeat, this is a Vista-era machine... IT IS FROM FUCKING 2006. The computer itself is old. I would hate to see how XP would react on a brand-new machine. Then again, maybe it would be something dangerously fascinating like a fireworks show. Don't even get me started on how "well" Windows XP worked on pre-XP (Windows ME) hardware.

Really, I'm too tired and don't even feel like reading your full response or answering any more of your points. Assuming you can call it that, it seems like nothing more than random bitching about everything today. Troll on.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

That's only the case if you think the problem with Linux is th kernel. Personally, I'd say the problem with linux is 99% down to the desktop environments.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't confuse iOS with OSX. Apple is riding high only on the success of their iDevices, but if that product line breaks so too will Apple's fortunes.

As a comparison, though probably with somewhat inaccurate data, the Net Applications graphs on the Wiki page for Usage share of operating systems lists OSX at 7.15% (with a quote: "In August 2011, Gartner estimated Apple's PC market share in US as 10.7% for Q2 2011."), and Linux with as much market share in the Desktop space as Windows Phone has in the Mobile space.

However, I doubt /. will be willing to say that Windows Phone has been as rousing a success as Linux in their respective markets.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

If an update to the Linux kernel breaks your drivers then the people who wrote the drivers were using an experimental/obsolete part of the ABI, if they had used a stable part of ABI then they would have had two years warning before the part they were using disappeared.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

"Unthinkable on Windows"

Waaay to show you don't support Windows in any serious setting, or in any significant number covering different models/brands. Either that, or your awfully forgetful, or lucky.

Re:Wow

[Flitcraft]

Bullshit like that is unthinkable on Windows

Bullshit like this made me go from dual-boot to full-time linux some ten years ago. Please don't generalize because of one bad experience.

Re:Wow

[jo_ham]

That 2.02% is way over inflated due to TF2 players installing Linux to get the Team Fortress 2 tux item. /v/, /vg/, reddit, /g/ and the TF2 irc channels were absolutely full of TF2 players that were looking for help to temporarily install Linux. The overwhelming opinion also seemed to be that Ubuntu is terrible and that Linux isn't worth using on the desktop.

The TF2 players learned their lesson after the Mac client release, when playing TF2 during the Mac release got you a pair of earbuds in game - initially the reaction from the "hardcore" players was one of derision, even going so far as to set some servers up that auto-kicked you if you had the earbuds equipped, only for those buds to become high value items in the coming months due to their rarity. Now they're highly sought after in-game.

I get constant trade requests for them, at inflated costs, but I have no desire to sell them. Having been one of those early players who got them by logging in under OS X and facing all the hate for being a "scrub", there's no way I'll be selling them now that they've decided they want them.

Hopefully the same thing won't happen to the Linux gamers playing on their native platform for the first time.

Re:Wow

[jedidiah]

> Bullshit like that is unthinkable on Windows

No it isn't. There's a lot of propaganda about how good and easy Windows is supposed to be but it's mostly boggus.

On the other hand, I just experienced this very thing on MacOS. I put MacOS back on a Mini that had been running Ubuntu for years (without incident).

As soon as it updated itself, networking was completely buggered.

The MacOS update didn't just "kill wifi". It "killed all networking" period.

Re:Wow

[SteveFoerster]

It's a fair observation that my single anecdote is not "data". But if we look at data, are we really going to see that these sorts of issues happen equally often between the two? Believe me, I don't want to defend closed source OSes, and this sort of thing obviously isn't a dealbreaker or else I'd have switched back. But it's a big problem, and not acknowledging it won't get us anywhere.

Re:Wow

[gmuslera]

You mean that already the percent of linux users that is subscribed to steam is the same as windows users subscribed to steam? For something that was out for a couple of months, only works for some new distributions, is closed source and commercial? Those are 2 different communities, numbers must be pretty different.

That linux already got 2.2% is a strong signal that the "single-digit market share" is a stupid measure, as usually linux is not sold in the market, just downloaded and installed in as much computers you want.

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

It doesn't have a damned thing to do with source, it has to do with Torvalds being an arrogant ass. For proof just look at BSD and Solaris, they don't have this problem because they have a stable driver ABI. Sadly they are both aimed at servers and support for consumer hardware is beyond lacking but they show its not the source, its the driver model.

And for those that label me troll? You are NOT HELPING LINUX by taking shit, okay? that does NOT make Linux better, does NOT help Linux move forward, you are taking a shit sandwich handed to you and going "Mmm that is some tasty feces" when you SHOULD be saying "WTF is wrong with you? Take this back and give me something worth having!"

Again I point to "The Hairyfeet Challenge" which you can find posted all over the net, its about as simple and boring a test as you can come up with and I ONLY use bog standard hardware, the same kind on hundreds of millions of machines. Simply take the OS from five years ago, and update to current...that's all, that's it. No miracles, no multiple monitors or fancy graphics, just be working at the end of 5 years of simulated updates and EVERY DISTRO HAS FAILED.

Do you think you are HELPING Linux by accepting that level of broken? Do you honestly truly believe Linux has a snowball's chance in hell as long as you continue to let the devs get away with that? We aren't talking some strange exotic hardware folks, Intel, AMD and Nvidia chipsets, Realtek and Sigma Sound, Realtek and SiS networking, Broadcom and Intel wireless...how fucking bog standard are those? Hell I'm even rigging the test in your favor by limiting it to ONLY 5 years where Windows gets 10, I am ONLY using the most bog standard hwardware, no weird shit like capture cards that Windows supports, I'm fucking bending over backwards to help you win and you STILL FAIL every single time? WHAT THE FUCK!!!

How much more proof do you need? How about the fact that many shops risk hundreds of thousands in fines and even jail for stealing Windows when they could have your product for free? How about pirated Windows, that is a much bigger risk of infection and doesn't get updated in most cases STILL has several TIMES more users than your free for life product has? There is a REASON why this is so, its because you let the devs from Torvalds on down get away with this Mickey Mouse amateur hour shit when you should be breaking out the damned pitchforks! Just stop it already YOU ARE NOT HELPING WITH THIS FANBOY BULLSHIT.

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

Sooo let me get this straight...you installed an OS that came out FIVE YEARS before the hardware was made...and are bitching it didn't have a driver? Really? I doubt Win95 would have drivers for that new Core 2 Duo which just proves Linux is the best evar!

Do you see ANY B&M stores carry your product? No. Do you see any small shops like mine carry your product? No. Well why? We don't get ANY breaks on Windows pricing so by carrying your product we could raise our profits by a good 40% or undercut the competition, so why?

Again I DARE you to take the Hairyfeet challenge. take ANY distro that comes out on what Linux considers a normal release schedule, which seems to be 6 months to a year and a half (No LTS because Canonical has abandoned it for a rolling release), now download the one from 5 years ago (Again I'm rigging the test IN YOUR FAVOR by making your product only support HALF the length of Windows support) and then update to current using ONLY the GUI, as a normal user would. Go ahead, I'll wait...what was that? Your drivers broke? Well there you go friend, now you see the problem.

Re:Wow

[AlphaWolf_HK]

It's what those in management refer to as a loss leader. And you know what? Given time, it works.

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

I've been a system builder for more than 20 years, building on average 3 boxes a week and probably fixing a dozen more, know how many times I've seen Windows update break a driver since XP came out? TWICE, that's it, that's all. The first was a cheapo capture card by some fly by night company that was here today gone later today that wouldn't run on anything except XP RTM for some reason and the second was a K-World super cheapo wireless card that would crap itself if you looked at it funny, it didn't like Vista SP1 but considering I had to use the XP driver because the company seems to abandon products after 6 months I don't know how one could blame Windows for that one.

Again put your money where your mouth is, I DARE you to prove me wrong. Take The Hairyfeet challenge, film it from start to stop with NO breaks (so we know you aren't hunting forums for fixes when the camera is off) and post your video to any of the bazillion sites that will let you. Go ahead and prove me wrong why don't you? You won't and the reason is because you CAN NOT DO IT because in over a dozen tries with different distros and the most boring hardware I could find Linux shit itself and died before 5 years, half the time Windows gets support, of updates could be applied! How fucking sad is it you see in Linux forum after forum the advice to "install clean" for every God damned update, that is the kind of shit Win98 users had to do and you call THAT progress?

if you can't even supply a fucking lousy 5 years worth of updates, when the average low end system has multiple cores and oodles of RAM and thus can be counted on to easily last 6 to 8 years WTF makes you think your product is ready for the masses? You think Grandma is secretly a bash programmer? Sally the secretary has a spare box running Windows to Google for fixes when the Linux one craps all over the wireless?

At the end of the day I want Linux to succeed I really really do. I think Win 8 is an abomination that should be recalled and I think MSFT treats us system builders like dogshit so if anybody wants Linux to be ready its me but I'm not gonna lie and delude myself into pretending that a system shitting on drivers every. damned. time. you update the stupid thing is acceptable, because its not. And frankly Linux users should be ashamed of letting the devs get away with it!

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

Know what is fucking sad? That you consider that acceptable, that is fucking sad. So here you are ADMITTING that your drivers are only good for 2 years MAX, is that correct? With the average lifespan of a modern PC being 5-8 years, did I read you right?

Until a manufacturer can release a product with a driver on the disc and know that driver will work for the lifetime of the product? I'm sorry but your OS isn't ready for the masses, its not. And tell me friend, what makes you think Linux Toravlds is smarter than the devs of BSD, Solaris, OSX and iOS, Windows, and even OS/2? because they ALL HAVE A DRIVER ABI and Linux does not. I'm sorry but when that many development teams go left and you go right its not "cool" or trendy, its you being an arrogant ass just for the sake of it. Linus, like too many of the devs, don't give a shit how much pain he causes the end users as long as it "Works for me (TM)" and it is THAT kind of attitude that has left Linux flatline.

Re:Wow

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I think what might be missing from linux is a solid organization to come in and say "here's what's up" when it comes to what packages we do and don't use. Yes, it is less "open" but when it comes to stability and reliability, it would win in the end.

I've always said that windows understands business but has a poor understanding of infrastructure, and that linux has a good understanding of infrastructure but a poor understanding of business (The later somewhat changing with SAMBA 4, but I don't have my hopes up. Contrary to popular view, SAMBA isn't just about CIFS, but about group management, policies, and a number of other things that are very poorly done on linux yet done so well on windows. That, and linux is very lacking of a solid groupware suite - the best groupware that runs on linux right now is google apps.)

What it would take is a desktop version of linux that can understand both business and infrastructure to topple the competition. Games would be a good start (after all, games translate to business because they are done as a for profit venture) and that said if valve ever released their own linux distro and established some better norms as far as what software stack we should generally stick to, that would probably take it a long ways.

And no, not ubuntu. Yes, they pick a common stack, but they do a really bad job of it. For example they push everybody over to unity even knowing that a lot of people hate it, so even among ubuntu users you have people who modify their software stack.

Re:Wow

[AlphaWolf_HK]

That's a bit like asking for SATA support on linux 2.2.

This just in: Older operating systems don't always support newer hardware. More news at 11.

Re:Wow

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Could have something to do with the fact that unity is a POS that even most veteran linux users hate.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually loved using Linux around 2000-2005, too. Compared to Windows, it was super fast and way more secure. The simple window managers were close enough to the Win9x experience. The powerful command line was a joy to use.

Times have just changed. The main gripe are the modern super slow desktop environments of Linux. The kernel seems to be fine, but Linux desktop has lost its performance advantage. With Win7, you got a full composited desktop and it runs smoothly on a netbook. All the mainstream Linux DEs (KDE4/GNOME3/Unity) are way too slow to comfortably run on low-end hardware like that. Actually, on much more powerful hardware, they run like crap too. Win8 optimizes everything even further. The security of Windows has improved tremendously. If you don't deliberately do stupid things, it's completely secure enough. The one island that Linux still clearly governs, is the command line, but seeing how PowerShell is improving day by day, it starts to be an usable replacement already.

Re:Wow

[maccodemonkey]

Proves that more intelligent people are gamers... as more computer illiterate people use Mac than linux.

Almost ever single OSX users who is someone who rejected a platform where gaming is great (Windows) to move to a platform where gaming was so/so. Given the capacities are not hugely different and price leans higher that means that anyone who picked OSX over Windows probably doesn't game much. Moreover the Apple crowd in general has been aging and I suspect Steam type gaming is much more popular ages 10-30 than ages 30-50.

In the case of Linux the capacities are hugely different. The more advanced Linux window managers have no Windows or OSX equivalents. There are no GUI desktop environments with the level of configurability of KDE for Windows or OSX. Many of the applications for Linux have no equivalents, though they have competitors which are vastly more expensive. ETC...

I think it is not unreasonable you are looking at two very different populations.

Or, the other obvious conclusion. Mac users who wanted Defenders Quest on Steam have already been able to download it, because it's been available this entire time. Linux users represent pent up demand.

At Mac launch, Macs represented 8.9% of Steam users (http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/06/04/win.7.overtakes.xp.mac.gets.significant.share/). That puts the launch percentage of Mac users significant higher than the launch numbers for Linux.

I'd argue against your armchair assessment of the Mac market, but at this point, the entire basis for it is in question.

Re:Wow

[Dan667]

for something that just barely launched and has been continuously shunned, 2% is pretty amazing. I doubt it is going to stay there and will steady climb, especially with windows 8 shooting themselves in the foot with the fear of a only microsoft software store.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

At the end of the day I want Linux to succeed I really really do.

That's why you spend all your time spewing lies and half truths? Bullshit. Ballmer called he wants something called a "deepthroat"? Oh, and you have something on your chin.

pretending that a system shitting on drivers every. damned. time. you update

Every time? All hardware everywhere? You're full of shit.

The truth is that Hairyfeet doesn't ever change. He will spout the same shit tomorrow that he did 10 years ago despite the changing world around him. He's no longer capable of original trolling. He needs to be put in a home.

Re:Wow

[Chelloveck]

Huh. I see it completely differently. During the time period there were three times as many Linux sales as OSX. Maybe it has less to do with market share of the operating systems or quality of their users, and more to do with the fact that all these games are old hat on OSX. OSX users who want to play those games have had plenty of time to get them at discount prices during other Steam sales. For Linux it's a new thing. This is the first time Linux users have been offered the games, (or at least, offered them in a nice convenient [and cheap!]) package. Well, no wonder sales on Linux are higher! It's just a fresh market versus a saturated one. Give it a year, then compare numbers.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

If Linux has no driver ABI then what deep magic is involved in writing a driver? Oh wait, nevermind, the drivers just use the ABI. Specifically system calls, which don't change.

Re:Wow

[VanGarrett]

Steam for Linux isn't really about bringing games to existing Linux users. This is preparation for their Steambox hardware. They're creating a market for viable game development on Linux, so that when they release the Steambox, developers won't be hesitant to develop for it. By using Linux, they don't have to provide Windows licenses for every device, thereby keeping the cost of the device down.

So you see, the existing Linux userbase really isn't an important factor in this, though that it does exist and they are interested in games, certainly furthers their goals.

Re:Wow

[jbolden]

I think that's very likely true as well. I agree we'll need to have to see numbers. My assumption was that Steam sales are stable based on the article. Given your comment and other evidence since I wrote this post that assumption seems off. If Steam sales are unstable and prone to surges....

Re:Wow

[NotBorg]

I've been giving "The Hairyfeet Challenge" for 6 years now folks,

No one sees a challenge. They see trolling. You've been ignored for 6 years.

This is my 02c, YMMV and I ignore Trolls

Do you really think you're the only one who ignores trolls?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Know what is fucking sad? That you consider that acceptable, that is fucking sad. So here you are ADMITTING that your drivers are only good for 2 years MAX, is that correct? With the average lifespan of a modern PC being 5-8 years, did I read you right?

You seem to have misunderstood, that's 2 years as an absolute minimum, not a maximum, as there is no reason for the entire ABI to change every 2 years.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

+9000

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Torvalds doesn't develop his kernel in a vacuum by himself. The biggest push back from having a stable ABI hasn't come from him but other big time contributors.

Re:Wow

[Sulphur]

Before you know it, you'll be playing Left4Dead on your phone. There's a HUGE untapped market there.

My phone left me for dead long ago.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

With the penguin item being non-transferable, this strikes me as unlikely.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just stop it already YOU ARE NOT HELPING WITH THIS FANBOY BULLSHIT."

How strange, if there's fanboys, then where are all the shirts with Torvalds' face on them? And what about all the Torvalds for X bumper stickers?

You might not know this seeing as how you're obviously a non-technical user, but there's this magical thing called "kernelspace": that's where the Linux kernel and drivers are, and this is what Torvalds controls. And there is another magical concept called "userspace": that's where the programs you use are, Torvalds doesn't control this, how programs in userspace behave is up to the people who maintain Linux distros.

And speaking of people not helping, why don't you go to a distro, Linux Mint for example, use the distro and every time there's an issue that most users will run into that forces you to use the command line you go to the bugtracker and file a (useful) bug and help fix it instead of this bullshit "I'm going to whine about a bug but not do anything to help anyone fix it."

However, If even that is too much work for you, why don't you try different distros and make a list of issues you think they have in common.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the machine that I'm typing this on has had a CPU, RAM, hard-drive and NIC card upgrades since it was built(I can't rememebr if the MoBo is the original). The Gentoo install on it is the same one I started with ~2004-05. My home file-server has been converted to ZFS on linux and the drives have been migrated from 7X 500GB drives to 4 x 2TB and 3 x 1.5TB drives. The original install on it was in mid 2007. My laptops only last 4 or 5 years because I tend to give them away to get better systems, so the current ones are only a year and a bit. Granted my wifes machine is still running Win XP (Was installed prior to any service packs, and is now SP3- In that time upgrades have hosed various devices, the worst being video and networking.), and my Mac mini is still using the original Mac OS X it came with in 2008 (plus whatever patches Apple pushes - Still has issues connecting to and reading samba drives).

I'm not going to call you a moron, because I don't know you. But I do question your skill at doing moderately simple tasks. Have there been issues, yes. But none of them have been very difficult to solve. My current list of issues is the newest kernel, 3.7.9+, no longer supports the nvidia driver that works with the video card in my file server (Actually a Nvidia issue, and not kernel issue). Nouveau works fine as a replacement, and it gives me added incentive to spend more time in the terminal. The introduction of the new udev have caused some concerns, but again, nothing that is a show stopper. My biggest actual gripe is that the ASUS Zenbook wifi card likes to turn itself off in both Windows 7 and my Gentoo install. Is it a kernel issue? Driver issue? Hardware issue? Someone smarter then me will figure it out and I'll benefit.

As for why people still use Windows. Who cares. As long as I don't have to, it's all good.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey hairy, why don't you take the no blue-screen challenge. Go find someone who owns a computer somewhere that hasn't experienced one. It's like finding a mobile customer that's never had to dispute their phone bill.... doesn't fucking exist. You know what I remember most about Windows? I remember doing a clean install every 6 to 8 months because the system would become slow or unstable. I used to dual boot. The reason I stopped? Windows fucking stopped booting after an update. I never had that problem with Linux. I never had drivers break with "every. single. time." I upgraded either.

Your challenge has already been beaten by lots of users already. You're full of shit.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't used Windows in about 8 years. I still remember those yellow explanation marks in device manager. I'm calling bullshit on you only seeing it only twice. You're a liar. Windows drivers broke all the time. It's the reason I remember opening up device manager on so many computers. I still remember downloading updated drivers for users who's hardware stopped working for some reason or another. Drivers broke on Windows all the time.

Someone who claims your level of experience that hasn't had to deal with broken drivers more than twice? Yeah. Liar.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

A few forum posts from random dudes on the interwebs is hardly an "overwhelming opinion."

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that Mensa is a bunch of physically untrained autistic emotionally blind antisocial morons. IQ is only a small part of the picture. Sadly, everything I see or hear about Mensa tells me, that it's their only part.

Re:Wow

[symbolset]

I think that if Windows Phone had achieved 2% share after a month Ballmer would be doing a happy dance on national TV.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

or they fell for apple's marketing when they were told you could run windows on a mac
which they then thought meant everything that ran on windows straight up ran on a mac
the reality being quite a different experience though

Re:Wow

[LF11]

Dude. I've been running Linux for years without wiping the computer. My desktop has been a steady upgrade cycle from Ubuntu 8.04. I recently upgraded from 12.04 to 12.12 with absolutely zero trouble.

Years ago, sure. Somewhere around Ubuntu 6.4 I had a heck of a time running upgrades. Let's not even consider early SuSE variants, or RedHat in the days of 4.x. For the past five years, however, every computer I run has upgraded flawlessly every time.

I run Linux on all my computers, both desktop and laptop. The company I work for runs Linux on all the servers, all the development machines, and recently switched their customer care group from XP to Linux with an XP-like theme.

None of us have the kind of bitter experience that you are describing. I think your vitriol is rather outdated.

cej102937

Re:Wow

[LF11]

I don't know what decade you are in, but I know it is not the 2010's. Linux has been nothing but fast, reliable, solid, and virus-free for years, now.

Oh, and let's not forget Android, the fancy graphical shell Google wrote on top of guess what operating system ... that would be Linux, taking over the world right there.

Re:Wow

[LF11]

People like you have been saying the same assinine things for decades. It never changes.

Meanwhile, Linux routes around you. That's the nice thing about open source. Stupid people and stupid ideas get left in the dust to, er, flatline, while the rest of the world goes and does something awesome.

Like Android (which is completely Linux). Windows was made for the desktop, and it formed a virtual monopoly that was hard to beat. So, Linux is now firmly occupying the Next Big Thing (mobile computing) which is rapidly leaving your sad desktop arguments in the dust.

You don't have to agree with me. Visit a local college campus and witness how many people are using tablets versus, say, anything else.

cej102937

Re:Wow

[shutdown -p now]

What surprises me is that desktop Linux distros aren't tapping it. Android being open source and all, it sounds like it would be nearly trivial to take it and have it running on top of X, each app getting it own window. Ensure 100% API and ABI compabitility, and every app in Play Store that's pure Java, or native but has binaries compiled for x86 (which is most of them, I suspect, ever since it became the default option in Android NDK about a year ago), is instantly available. That would mean some high-profile games, too, such as GTA 3 and Vice City.

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

ZOMFG did you even READ what you posted? Anybody wants to see how fanboyism creates delusional thinking here ya go, the guy says "I've not had a single issue...other than my graphics driver is broken (which I blame somewhere else instead of where it should be blamed) which I had to jump through the hoops for, but I drank the koolaid so that is okay"

You do NOT know how badly I want to reach through the screen and shake you right now while screaming at you QUIT TAKING SHIT ALREADY! WHAT THE FUCK, the community is so damned delusional the guys can post shit with problems that are...what? Features now? Serious wake the fuck up folks, this is beyond sad.

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

Quit trying to take credit for SOMETHING THAT IS NOT LINUX...okay? does Android run Torvalds kernels? NO, Does it get distributed like a distro? NO. Does it accept outside changes? NO. Its a fucking embedded OS controlled by a corp that spends a billion a year on R&D you might as well say "Hey my router runs Linux so it must be ready for the desktop!"...facepalm.

And take the challenge, I dare you, double dare you. Film it and post it and prove me wrong. You can't because NO DISTRO PASSES something as normal and expected as a user owning a PC for 5 years and keeping it updated. Pick your poison they ALL FAIL at this simple test. Again say I'm wrong? PROVE IT. You have a camera I'm sure, plenty of places will let you upload your video, no breaks remember because we want to see you actually update with GUI only and not have the drivers break. SHOW ME.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Would mod up if I could.

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

Let me make this VERY simple and easy to understand okay? ANDROID IS NOT LINUX, its an embedded OS controlled COMPLETELY by Google, NO outside contributors, NO Torvalds futzing, NO CHANGES to the driver model allowed by Google that isn't vetted and Google approved and NO GPL V3 anything allowed AT ALL. It has as much in common with Linux as your router does with a graphics workstation IE not a damned thing other than a couple of files. Hey your $2 calculator runs Linux too by that logic, why not try to steal credit for that as well?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Hairyfeet pretty much summed up exactly what I was going to say, so I'll share something personal. ALL the Zelda games for the N64 were shitty as fuck. Blurry, smeary-ass textures, gay music, lame gameplay, retarded story. It's no suprise that a Linux troll like you got a boner playing them.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a well-known Linux troll and FOSStard. You have nothing credible to say on the subject.

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

Ubuntu 11 new enough for you? And after shelling out all the bandwidth charges doing the Hairyfeet challenge for doubters frankly if you want me to run the test on all mainstream distros again we'll have to set up a way so the Linux guys who think their distro won't shit the bed can donate $100 to pay for the bandwidth but I have a perfect test bed sitting right here, a circa 2007 Vista Business laptop I got for cheap because they broke a key on it.

That is the PERFECT AGE for the Hairyfeet Challenge as that would be about as bog standard for 5 years ago as you can get, C2D 3GB of RAM, and a 500GB HDD. If somebody pays for the bandwidth I'll be happy to take a Sunday at the shop with a video camera rolling and you can watch from start to finish and you'll see that the distros DIE HARD and that at LEAST one or more drivers WILL BE FUCKED in the 5 years worth of updates.

Again if the average user can't apply 5 years worth of updates without having a spare box to Google for fixes? your OS just isn't ready end of story. But don't take my word for it, you can buy a 5 year old laptop off of Craigslist for around $50, feel free to take the challenge and post the video. For SIX YEARS I have been issuing the challenge, not a single taker, why? I'll tell you why, because when the rubber meets the road you know it won't pass THAT is why. And I have NO doubt you've forgotten about the forum hunts and Google fixes you've applied over the years, which is something you average user simply wouldn't be able to do.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you fire Linus Torvalds? Along with most of the team leaders?

Yes you can. It's called a Fork. It happens all the time with other projects and hairyfeet and other trolls call that fragmentation. Everyone else either calls it progress (in the case of success) or irrelevant (in the case of failure).

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a lot more than a few and most of those sites see far more traffic than Slashdot.

Re:Wow

[armanox]

Question for you: Is your challenge to take and update the OS to it's current level of patches (so go from Vista to current SP and patches, XP to SP3 and patches, etc) or to go to current level of OS (so I would take a Vista system, update to 7, then update to 8, and install patches)? Because I've done both in Linux as well (RHEL 5 -> current patch level and RHEL 5 -> 6). The former is a lot less prone to breakage in both worlds, the latter I've seen issues with in both worlds (especially for the rapid release distros like Ubuntu and Fedora). I'm not sure that with the second option my laptop passes in Windows (it came with Vista, currently on 7, pretty sure something would break if I install 8 (most likely video drivers, though bluetooth doesn't like Windows 7, so that wouldn't be a good item to measure by since it's not stable as it is, and pretty sure one or two applications that are rather old would break too). I'm fairly sure it would pass using RHEL or Debian, and I could probably get it to pass using Fedora and Ubuntu (but I also know the upgrade paths, and know a lot more about these things then the average user).

Re:Wow

[armanox]

Laptop in question, for the record, is a Toshiba L505D, and shipped with Vista (I bought it shortly after Windows 7 came out - store wanted to get rid of it because it still had Vista on it, great price).

Re:Wow

[Blaskowicz]

The Windows vs Linux difference there is you can spend a few minutes downloading that Ethernet driver, probably from Realtek and probably a 100KB .exe, copy it on the target computer then double click it and it's done. No way you can do that on linux.

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

So you wasted the time to post "La la la I'm not listening" and you wonder why I have started calling Linux zealots like yourself FOSSies? Because like Moonies the ONLY answer that you accept is "Hey Biff, isn't Linux doubleplusgood? It sure is Skip and RMS farts cure global warming". Meanwhile your adoption? FLATLINE. Stolen Windows actually has MORE THAN FIVE TIMES what you have! Does that not ring ANY bells? or are they just noobs who aren't leet enough to see that shit sandwich tastes like watercrest?

Its a simple challenge that frankly gives Linux multiple advantages over the competition yet you won't take because you KNOW you can't pass it, you can't. I have given the challenge to, in no particular order, the *buntus, PCLOS, Debian, Fedora (I know but a FOSSie swore it would pass...it didn't) Knoppix, pretty much EVERY distro that at one time or another was touted as "user friendly". Well riddle me this...how "user friendly" is a distro you can't update without drivers dying? How "user friendly" is an OS with such piss poor design that features Windows has for over a decade, common sense features like rolback drivers, update drivers, and system restore by simple GUI aren't even implemented? Those technologies came out with Windows fucking ME and you STILL haven't caught up and you have the brass plated balls to lecture ME about trolling? Anybody who pushes such a horribly broken mess as ready for the masses is the fucking King God of Troll Mountain!

Re:Wow

[jbolden]

I've never met someone who believed that and I know a lot of mac users.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, I'd wager that the effort Valve has put in to Linux support is pretty much 2% of their total. The way they seem to work is to undertake a lot of different things, most of which aren't wildly profitable.

Secondly: games on linux is a chicken-and-egg thing. I use *ux daily for work, but my home desktop has been a windows machine forever, because I sometimes want to play games. Most (but not all) of the games I play are Valve titles, so being able to play them on ux makes it more likely I'd give linux on the desktop a serious try, or recommend it to a friend, than before. If they can bring more big developers to the platform (either through improving emulation, or by leveraging the upcoming "steambox" to encourage developers to make their games compatible), then Linux on the desktop becomes a viable choice for home computers for a lot of people that it just isn't at the moment, and then selling games to Linux users becomes more profitable in a spiral of awesomeness.

Every publisher seems to have their own Steam-like service, and the threat of Xbox Live, Windows8 Marketplace and Win8 phones actually interoperating to give one Steam-like system across the PC, pocket and living room is obviously a huge threat. As we've seen time and again, if you're beholden to Microsoft for your business, then you won't be in business for long, so they are pushing an alternate platform through a number of avenues and initiatives to make sure that they have a Plan B for when MS decides that they want to be the sole gatekeeper for the entire Windows games market.

What the heck is *ux? Do you mean *nix??? Only LINUX ends with 'ux' so there is no reason to lead into it with a wild card. And you use the *ux, at work??? They must be terrible hiring managers...

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You should do some research before spouting nonsense. Ubuntu is going to discuss moving to rolling release (nothing has been decided yet) and even if they do, LTS releases will continue to exist as snapshots similar to how every other rolling release distro works. Addressing every other incorrect point you've made in your rambling posts would take a good chunk of the night so I'll just end it by saying that if you don't understand why Linux does not have a stable kernel ABI then you are missing the whole point of the project.

It is one of the main reasons (besides licensing) why people choose to contribute to it rather than Solaris or BSD. When support for a piece of hardware you own is suddenly abandoned by the manufacturer or becomes buggy/insecure or is made obsolete when a new version of windows comes out because they decided to produce a revised model and expect you to spend money on that instead, then you can be grateful that the driver in your linux kernel has continued to be updated, maintained, and secure and will function until no one uses that hardware anymore.

Re:Wow

[uM0p ap!sdn]

I have never seen someone as unhappy as you, being a retailer and all, maybe it's time for a new line of work

Ubuntu on the other hand would be my last choice as a linux distro to use/install, it is the AOL/Windows of linux

I for one, don't even count ubuntu as a distro, it is nothing but a frozen snapshot of debian, bastardized and not even debian binary compatible.

Friends don't let friends install ubuntu

Linux developer & system builder and 100 % happy & retire in 9 years & counting
Been M$ free 100% since 1993 and very happy, my workplace is also M$ free

Life is good

Re:Wow

[Gavagai80]

The linux desktop has not been stuck at 1-3% at decades -- it was never above 1% until recently, and has grown steadily and rapidly over the last few years to reach the current ~1.2%.

Re:Wow

[Gavagai80]

Making people install drivers from CDs is not progress, it's masochism. Things need to just work.

Re:Wow

[atomicxblue]

Oh look. hairyfeet posted, so I guess that means Katherine Noyes will be trolling ./ in a bit looking for new article material.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote parent : "My current list of issues is the newest kernel, 3.7.9+, no longer supports the nvidia driver that works with the video card in my file server (Actually a Nvidia issue, and not kernel issue)." (emphasis mine)

You probably wouldn't know this but these magical things called "servers" are normally accessed via the cli (aka Command Line Interface), so they don't actually need a graphics driver.

Also, I would point out that you seem to have a major bug in your reading comprehension, but you're likely to just write it off as a feature.

ZOMFG did you even READ what you posted?

Honest question here: How old are you?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll just leave this here.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to issue the anti-hairyfeet challenge but I wouldn't know where to start. Just too much is swept under the rug every time someone compares Windows with some generic, unnamed Linux distribution.

For those who don't know, the 'Hairyfeet challenge' is a dual boot apples-to-oranges driver-working-after-update challenge on unspecified hardware.

I think this is the same 'hariyfeet challenge' on the techworld article on the Linux broken toilet problem:

"Hairyfeet challenge". Just to make the challenge more fair I will take the WORST MSFT OS release this decade, Windows Vista RTM, and will place it in a dual boot with ANY Linux released that same quarter...your choice. We'll make sure all the drivers are working and then update to current..know what will happen? The Vista will be running just fine, all drivers functional and all software working, the Linux? BROKEN, horribly broken. the video will be trashed or the DE wonky or Pulse will puke and WiFi you can forget about, it'll be completely trashed.

The camera requirement is new. I don't know if the challenge is doable just because of how long it would take for a reasonable single-shot video to be taken. That's ignoring the other problems with the challenge. (Remote logins? Off camera assistance? Do upgrades count or do I need to do distro upgrades? If so will you install Windows 2008 server as one of the upgrades over Vista? How about 2008 server to 2012? Windows 8 on top of that? )

Distribution upgrades are hard. Microsoft does it pretty well. Most Linux distributions don't even offer them because you cannot guarantee freedom from cruft. Some versions go through fundamental system parts changes that have absolutely no equivalent in the Windows world since Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP.

For a car analogy, the hairyfeet challenge is to compare replacing the engine in a stock off the line Ford pickup and a sailcar developed by a university racing team. (It is really that ridiculous of a comparison.)

OT: nothing will stop somebody from claiming that sailcars will be your daily driver for work in just a few years because someone put Steam heated seats in it.

Re:Wow

[NotBorg]

I don't know how many times I've updated my computer and not had a driver breakage issue. Yeah I know. I'm a liar or I'm blinded by my RMS god. No one can win your challenge because you'll just dismiss them out of hand as being a FOSSie that is so fanatical that they lie. Is that it? Your challenge is a sham, let it rest in peace already.

And really who are you talking too? Steam, the thing that all us "FOSSies" are excited about, is not FOSS. I think your mis-characterization that you blindly assign to anyone who would use Linux won't work in the context of this article, troll. How can you even call people that are excited about closed source software FOSSies?

You're not even making sense anymore.

Re:Wow

[NotBorg]

You're the one with a vested interest in proving something. You pay the bandwidth. Put YOUR money where your mouth is and do it. Pay the bandwidth... lol what a fucking cop out.

So your challenge comes down to one specific machine of YOUR choosing? It has to be that specific machine? I through your challenge was for ANY machine. LOL keep it coming. Moving goal posts are fun!

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

OMG did you compare Linux to a sailcar? Maybe built by crazy Earl in his basement. And if you want details? happy to give them. Its a CONSUMER OS challenge so only CONSUMER OSES will be used, that means NO Server 2Kx on the Windows side and no RHEL or SLED on the Linux side...simple enough? And the reason i added the camera requirement is because I once had a bozo supposedly "prove" he could beat the challenge with some screencaps...until somebody pointed out the wireless card he was using wasn't even supported in 2007 so it obviously wasn't working in the beginning which then he suddenly talked about how "anybody can use the forums" thus showing what he did was play "google for fixes" and thus failed the challenge.

But the only place its apples to oranges is in your own mind, you say Linux is ready? here is your chance, we'll take ANY consumer version of Linux YOUR choice and put it head to head on the SAME HARDWARE so that there can be NO BIAS. And the reason I don't name the distro is simple, every time I did I got the standard use distro x excuse. Oh Ubuntu doesn't pass? use Knoppix, Knoppix don't pass? use debian, round and round and round it goes there is over 500 distros on distrowatch so a game of use distro x could go on for a dozen years and never get through all the choices for X.

As for why I let you do it? I'm tired of paying for bandwidth so i can rub the truth, which is the current OS model in Linux is TOTALLY BROKEN, into the nose of the community like rubbing a puppy's nose in its mess. As I have said, you want to pay for the bandwidth? I'll be happy to take a Sunday and do it on live cam, I'll take some random laptop out of the shop and do the challenge right there on a live cam for all to see. you can watch as i format, install the OS, make sure the drivers all work, then update and watch it crap itself. But where I live bandwidth costs $1.50 a GB over the cap and since "use distro x" is an endless excuse i have no intention of throwing more money away only to hear "Oh that one didn't work? Well that is YOUR FAULT for not using distro x! See we win" bullshit you have just moved the goalposts just as they do when they scream paid M$ Shill to try to deflect away from the fact they can't pass the challenge.

Again this is about as simple a test as you can come up with, NO multiple monitors, NO funky hardware like capture cards, just a random laptop from any of the major OEMs with the consumer Linux OF YOUR CHOICE. What could be more simple? the fact that you try to make it sound more complex than it is just tells me you know in your heart whichever distro x you choose won't pass muster either.

Re:Wow

[UltraZelda64]

Except... how old is Ethernet? Did it just get popular last year or something? It has been on every single machine I've seen since broadband Internet connections took over dial-up. How long was that again? It is basic, expected functionality... not working by default. Hey, isn't that what people bitch about with Linux? The complete lack of drivers for something that important or even critical by default, and even a lack of installable XP drivers on Dell's own site (I checked--I was considering dual-booting), is pretty fucking pathetic. That [basic networking support with Ethernet] is one thing that no Linux distribution (or even Windows up to that point) has ever failed me on. And that's pretty damn bad.

And by the way... SATA and Ethernet are interfaces, while hardware and the drivers that run them are not exactly comparable as you seem to be trying to do...

Re:Wow

[LF11]

Actually, you are quite wrong. On any Android phone, go to Settings > About device. You will see a "Kernel version" entry: this is the build information for the version of Torvalds' (et al) kernel running that device. Mine (Galaxy S3) says 3.0.31-370274 etc etc etc. Google "3.0.31" and you'll see it is a Linux kernel with a whole lot of forum questions regarding that kernel on various Android devices.

Then hit "Legal information" > "Open source licenses." Right at the top, there should be "/kernel" which will bring you to the actual license for the Linux kernel.

Android is Linux, through and through. That is a fact which seems to have escaped you somehow. Google did not adapt one of the existing distros; they saw the failures and made their own. Android is not shipped like Ubuntu, but it is definitely a distro with its own distribution mechanism, update mechanism, code contribution system, and so on.

Of course I haven't had a video recording for 5 years. Even if I did, I would not bother to upload it for you, since you are so painfully ignorant of the prevalence and excellent acceptance of Linux among non-technical computer users all around the world.

For whatever it is worth, my desktop was loaded with a clean install of Ubuntu 8.04 in May, 2008, right after it was released. I have upgraded faithfully with every release since then, with zero driver difficulties (or any other difficulties requiring command-line intervention) since then. It will be 5 years in just a couple months.

I think you are demanding, unfair, and ignorant. In fact, I doubt you are as familiar with Windows as you claim. Have you ever actually tried to upgrade directly from any version of Windows to another without wiping the drive? Hello major problems! Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's a real crapshoot, and there's no reliable reason why. I've been upgrading Ubuntu installs without clearing the drive for at least 5 years with absolutely zero difficulties on any of them. Huge difference.

Oh, and, ANDROID IS INDEED LINUX! DO YOUR RESEARCH! The most popular mobile platform in the world not only runs on the Torvalds (et al) kernel, but it uses a whole batch of regular open source software on top of it (things like gpsd to run the sweet GPS sensors and so on). I don't know what the ratio is between Google software and regular Linux software, but Android is most definitely a Linux distro.

cej102937

Re:Wow

[LF11]

You are actually very wrong in this case. Android is definitely Linux, and the pieces of it that are not completely built in-house are most definitely GPL'd. Check the open source license listing that is distributed with EVERY phone (it's under Settings > About device).

On the front end, you are wrong, too. The app store does indeed allow GPL'd apps to be submitted (unlike, say, Apple's app store). Go to https://play.google.com/apps and search for "GPL."

I'm not an Android developer yet, so I can't comment on whether all of the front-end interface is open source, but I think it is. Perhaps someone else can correct me on this if I am wrong.

You don't have to like it, but it's still true. ANDROID IS LINUX. For fuck's sake, read the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system).

cej102937

Re:Wow

[LF11]

Somehow I remember you comparing Linux and Windows.

Let's do the same exercise, but with a Windows box next to it, shall we?

Why would I bother? You have proven yourself to be painfully ignorant about some very basic facts of the computer world (Android), and have an obvious, ugly ax to grind. Even if I did take your challenge, it would do nothing to change your mind. In fact, it SHOULDN'T change your mind, because the truth is that reliability is measured by metrics far larger than one single machine.

And by those metrics, Linux is a winner hands down. In 2005, not so much. In 2013, Linux is winning, and winning at an increasing rate.

Re:Wow

[NotBorg]

NO outside contributors

LOL!! Now you're telling me Google wrote their kernel from scratch!!!??? LOL. Did you know that Google is upstreaming their changes and as a result, their changes get the same peer review and nudging that the rest of the commits get? They're now rebasing new kernels from Linus's tree for use with Android. They can't use a new kernel without getting outside contributions. It's a two way street, son. "Torvalds futzing" is actually still being included no matter how assertive and loudmouthed you are On the Internet(tm).

Google's not the only one that sends patches for ARM hardware either (in fact ARM architecture support existed before Android). Google didn't provide their own GL stack from scratch. Google didn't "invent" WebKit and it's not a one way street where Google only pulled from WebKit once and never sent patches back.

It's a fact that significant parts of Android are developed outside of Google and it doesn't stop at the Kernel. Google tweaks a few things here and there and puts a development framework on top. It doesn't stand by itself. They provide the development framework and for the rest, they end up riding in the bitch seat upstreaming a good amount of their work like everyone else.

Android would not exist without Linux and Google doesn't live outside of everyone else's development trees.

Just shut up. You're a Windows tech. Stick with that. You sound moronic when you try to tell people how Linux is developed. You're not a developer. You're not even a Linux user. You're an outsider claiming inside knowledge because you read a few forum posts.

Re:Wow

[uM0p ap!sdn]

As said by Hairy

""How "user friendly" is an OS with such piss poor design that features Windows has for over a decade""

Hmm, perhaps another college educated person ?

It really amazes me

How anyone with any type of a pea sized brain that knows anything about computers (yes, even so called "retail" personal) and yet, has the "balls" to compare windows and linux

Yes, I do consider you a troll, a troll that has no clue why ?

Why ?
Why ?

Intellectual Property

Copyrights
TrademarksIP
Licensing
Licensing Terms
Terms of Use
Piracy

I actually AIN't going to go any further, I barely thought you credible before, but this post was the funniest I have ever seen , especially from a "business person"

You see, the difference between YOUR challenge and My challenge is mine works

Be thankful you have a choice, I choose Linux it works for me

That is my choice and I am happy

It's not your choice and your happy

Over the years here, reading your posts made me wonder .....

This thread was excellent it really shows how ... you really are

In fact, I wouldn't let you touch anything electronic with a billion foot pole.

How you ever got by in so called "retail" "system builder"

I have no clue, I would not go to you even for free, your criteria of measurement does not measure up to me

You my son, yes, I can say son, cause you are young, have lost what little respect I had for you to begin with

You have lost cause of plain old stupidity

plain & simple

I do have to say, you are one of the best trolls I have seen on ./

Re:Wow

[NotBorg]

Nothing? Am I on ignore now? How about you start with hardware that ships with Linux installed. Or are those machines not valid candidates for your "challenge"? Do you have a blog post somewhere that lists all the rules for your challenge in one place?

Re:Wow

[uM0p ap!sdn]

Why download a .exe for linux ???????????

It's much easier & faster in linux

apt-get update && apt-get install firmware-linux-free firmware-realtek

takes about a blink of an eye and your done, not a few minutes

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

The ONLY one moving goal posts is YOU. I chose that system simply because its from 2007 and since the tests if for 5 years that would be about as bog standard and typical as you can get. Don't like that system, which would you prefer? I have an AMD quad, an Intel Pentium D, even a couple P4s in the back, which one do YOU want to use?

And YOU are the one that says your OS is ready NOT ME. I have given you a simple test, one that has cost me $300 in bandwidth charges BTW to apply, that PROVES YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT so if you say I'm lying? Here is your chance, take ANY system, YOUR CHOICE, film it and upload...scared? you should be because in the 6 years not a SINGLE UNIT PASSED, not one. Not Debian nor the *Buntus or derivitavies, not Fedora nor PCLOS, not Knoppix or any other supposedly "user friendly distro".

so here is your chance, put up or STFU and sit down because frankly i'm tired of the community's lies and bullshit. Here is a simple test ANYBODY can do with ANY SYSTEM they desire, why won't you step up? I'll tell you why because you KNOW what will happen, you'll apply the updates and Pulse will shit itself, the DEs will get wonky and wireless will go buy bye. Your entire system is a house of cards and this test shows your lies for what they all, total bullshit. Step up or STFU.

Re:Wow

[NotBorg]

because frankly i'm tired of the community's lies and bullshit.

That explains why you click on every article related to Linux... lol troll harder. There are other things on the Internet but you specifically seek out Linux. You wouldn't have clicked this article if you didn't want to get all pissed off and fired up at the "lies and bullshit."

Your challenge is a sham because in the end you'll just call everyone liars and use weasel words like "wonky" that could mean anything.

So you're saying that if I grab a disk with any distribution on it from 2007, install it on any computer, and just run the updater then everything will be totally fucked? Is there another step in there? Where does the $300 dollars in bandwidth come in?

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

I don't have to say anything, the test if filmed can't be faked since you won't have access to making new time stamps on the video and i doubt you'll be good enough at editing for everyone not to see the jump cuts. You have a simple measure, easy to show as a dipstick on a car, so why are you afraid? Just fire up the hardware manager in whatever DE you have chosen at first boot to show all the hardware is working, then apply the updates, then show the list to see its still working....what is hard about that? And I haven't moved the goalposts, i haven't accused anyone of working for sekret orgs you and your batshit buddies have done that, so the proof is on you. I have given you the most simple test in the world, one frankly rigged in your favor, yet you fear it...is it because you know what will happen? Because taking bog standard laptops from Dell, HP, and Acer i can tell you EXACTLY what happened with over a dozen distros, a broken mess.

You know what is truly sad? here is every rebuttal ever written here to me...note what its called? the circle of the loon, because its a circular argument that never ends. But don't worry I've removed Linux from both my RSS feeds and now from /. as well so please, go back to your giant circlejerking. Won't change the facts, Linux is flatline, nobody wants it, its numbers haven't moved in years Android is owned by Google, and MSFT could put out windows Goatse with smell-o-vision and still have ten times your share because you won't listen, not to users nor OEMs, nope its all circlejerking about how "Nobody knows how to be leet!" They are teh noobs for teh lusers, we are leet!"

So please, enjoy your little fantasy world where anybody gives a rat';s ass, because after 5 years of dealing with the monkey house I sure as fuck don't, If Linux were a company it would have been chap 11 a decade ago, its badly run, no central planning AT ALL, nobody cares about anything but their own little fiefdoms, you should be proud as you copied old Soviet style communism better than I thought anybody ever could, must give the squatter a big old stiffie. Meanwhile the big three will turn the world into locked down cellphones and the people will take it because its the choice of a locked down corporate controlled device that WORKS...or your product. Given that choice is it any wonder Apple is bigger than God now?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically you can install KDE on Mac OS. ;D

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

That shit still happens in Windows too.
Hell, there's a guy in one of my classes who has a Wifi driver that causes Windows to BSOD as soon as a call to the driver is made.

Re:Wow

[NotBorg]

I've removed Linux from both my RSS feeds and now from /.

You'll be back.

Re:Wow

[blind biker]

Yeah, well, I'll just go ahead and disagree with you: Android uses the Linux kernel, hence it's a Linux distribution, albeit a very specific one (it has a different userland from most other distros).

Re:Wow

[hairyfeet]

Nope, I couldn't get the keywords to stick for some reason from my news feed, I found a new one that I could choose only the sites I like that would let me filter any and all keywords from headlines. I put in KDE, Gnome, Debian, Linux, Ubuntu, I would have put Red hat but the way it works I would have not gotten any article with the word red in it so I'll just have to ignore than one, same as Mint which is also too commonly used in headlines to block.

So please go back to circlejerking over a bash script, the numbers have spoken and Linux can enjoy the company of BeOS and OS/2 and all the other failed operating systems throughout the years, for I have learned common sense will never be applied. Its a damned shame that Shuttleworth didn't just choose BSD as Jobs did, his company might not have ended up bleeding to death but that is what he gets for walking into the monkey house and not expecting all the poo flinging. Enjoy your failure, me I'll be trying to find an easy to automate DE for Windows 9 that can be deployed en masse in case ballmer's fat stupid ass is still in the big chair in 2014.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF?

What is the hell does Alsa, Pulse, KDE 4, etc have to do with Torvalds?

You are an MS ass sucker of epic proportions and retarded to boot.

The last hardware issue I have had in Linux was in 2005. Then again, I am not a dumbass like you.

Seriously, pull your head out of Ballmer's ass and clear your head.

I award you this weeks "Hairyfeet award for epic dumbassery". Not the first time that the award namesake has gone to you. Congrats.

Re:Wow

[HairyFeetLovesBallme]

You got something on your chin Hairy...

Re:Wow

[HairyFeetLovesBallme]

"La la la I'm not listening"

That is you when you claim Android isn't Linux.

"Building on the contributions of the open-source Linux community and more than 300 hardware, software, and carrier partners, Android has rapidly become the fastest-growing mobile OS." http://developer.android.com/about/index.html

"Android consists of a kernel based on Linux kernel version 2.6 and, from Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich onwards, version 3.x" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)#Linux

Pull your head out of Ballmers ass and read this http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/11/14/What-Android-Is

In my distro I can rollback drivers and any app with a simple button click at least one version, sometimes 4-5 versions back if I need it. Try that with Windows.

You keep repeating crap that no one else experiences, maybe it is just you? You will feel better if you come to terms with your low IQ, seriously.

Re:Wow

[HairyFeetLovesBallme]

You are an amazing concern troll.

Hate to clue you in but Linux runs the world.

The reason you struggle outside MS's wall is that living under Microsoft's thumb makes you stupid. Well, more dumb than you were before, in your case.

"Programmers" that drink from the MS firehose are completely worthless if they step even an inch past the MS approved boundaries.

"Admins" that use nothing but MS crap are equally inept.

Every distro has failed? What the fuck? You do realize that there are plenty of older machines that run Linux for years without issue right?

Unless you have tested every distro for 5 years you are talking out of your ass.

My machine has been running opensuse since 2007 with zero drive wipes, just straight up point the repos to the new URL's and zypper dup. So there ya go six years and counting.

Meanwhile my Windows 7 box slows down every year and last week Microsoft's check disc utility destroyed ntfs "security" descriptors making the system unusable. Of course, all Windows systems slowly rot due to the stupid idea of the registry

Keep sucking on the Ballmer cock, it makes for some hilariously stupid posts from you.

Re:Wow

[HairyFeetLovesBallme]

Since Linux is running the world, you should consider the fact that it is you that is incompetent, and not the Linux devs.

Of course, you are just a rabid MS shill that starts frothing at the mouth every time a good story about Linux shows up and not capable of introspection.

Like Ballmer you are a monkey who loves to throw his shit a little too much.

Re:Wow

[HairyFeetLovesBallme]

No no no!

Driver issues on Windows is the fault of the HW manufacturer.

Only when the driver issue is on a Linux system is it the fault of the OS.

It is on page 17 of the MS Shill Handbook. Just ask Hairyfeet

Re:Wow

[HairyFeetLovesBallme]

I am pretty sure XP SP3 came out around or a little after 2006...

Holy fucking shit, you are one stupid motherfucker. You give your fellow shill Mr. Dee from Cnet a run for his money.

Re:Wow

[HairyFeetLovesBallme]

" does Android run Torvalds kernels? NO"

Not that we needed more proof but this shows how fucking retarded you are.

You are telling me that Google built their own Linux clone?

Fucking retard.

Re:Wow

[HairyFeetLovesBallme]

It means that the public facing API's rarely change and when they need to you get two years warning minimum. Is that hard to understand?

There are lots of Linux programs written 18 years ago that will still compile and run flawlessly.

How many Win95 apps run of 7 or 8?

It is Windows that often breaks shit from version to version.

You truly are retarded.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good thing the population keeps growing and making room for all the retards in mensa ;p

THIS JUST IN: LINUX DEAD, NETCRAFT CONFIRMS IT!

[Narcocide]

I like the part about how it took of all atrocities, Steam, to convince people that Linux is a viable gaming platform.

Re:THIS JUST IN: LINUX DEAD, NETCRAFT CONFIRMS IT!

[Noughmad]

Interesting... it took a game distribution platform to convince people that Linux is a viable gaming platform. Isn't it ironic?

Re:THIS JUST IN: LINUX DEAD, NETCRAFT CONFIRMS IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember how you asked me to store your hopes & dreams in my silverware drawer? Well...

I had to dump, and I had to do it bad. So, being that I'm an educated, intelligent citizen, I decided to do what is natural and dump in my silverware drawer. I hung my ass over my open silverware drawer and then I repeatedly dipped my ass down and brought it back up around 15 times. Each time I dipped my ass down, dump fell right out of my ass.

Then I remembered that your hopes & dreams were in there! It's too late for them. They're now... One With Dump! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Re:THIS JUST IN: LINUX DEAD, NETCRAFT CONFIRMS IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting... it took a game distribution platform to convince people that Linux is a viable gaming platform. Isn't it ironic?

No, actually that isn't ironic at all.

Re:THIS JUST IN: LINUX DEAD, NETCRAFT CONFIRMS IT!

[jedidiah]

I went to comdex in my Loki t-shirt and got mistaken for a Loki employee. I went to a LUG meeting and people were flabbergasted that there were games for Linux. I have had to "beat the bushes" sometimes to find games for Linux.

Humble Bundles have benefited from being widely publicized without any real effort on the part of those running it. They have benefited from the same media effect that Apple enjoys. Steam is the same way.

They end up being a success even if the people making the games put no real effort in ensuring that their target demographic knows what's going on.

Something like Steam makes the games easy to find even for people not willing to go off looking for them like Odysseus.

The same goes for the Apple and Google "stores". It's not limited to Linux really.

Re:THIS JUST IN: LINUX DEAD, NETCRAFT CONFIRMS IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you listen to the crap people say On the Internet(tm) then the 2% of Steam users that use Linux simply can't exist. Some of these were never true, some are no longer true, but all of these were echo-chambered within the last 24 hours:

* All Linux users are fanatical idealists that won't use any closed source software, ever.
* Linux doesn't exist on the Desktop and is only good for servers.
* Linux is only good for phones.
* Linux users spend all their of their time at the command line.
* TCO of Linux is too high.
* ... blah blah blah

It's all bullshit that was never true or is no longer true (and hasn't been for some time). Linux excels everywhere there isn't a monopoly. You're not looking for the year of the desktop where Linux finally overcomes it's shortcomings. You're looking for the fall of a monopoly.

Direct link to results

[gman003]

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Not a bad showing for Linux, all things considered. The top variant of Linux is nearly tied with Windows 8.

Re:Direct link to results

[Maxx169]

32 bit windows 8. X64 Windows 8 has 9% share...

Re:Direct link to results

[Kjella]

Not a bad showing for Linux, all things considered. The top variant of Linux is nearly tied with Windows 8.

That's a wildly misleading statement, since it doesn't include 90%+ of the Windows 8 sales:

Windows 8 64 bit: 8.89%
Windows 8: 0.74%
Ubuntu 12.10 64 bit: 0.71%

Re:Direct link to results

[Sigg3.net]

Is _Wine_ in there?
I use Wine in XP mode to play L4D2 on Fedora 64-bit. I know Steam knows who plays in Wine, but is it part of the stats?

I also have the Fedora client from OpenSUSE, but I usually just play L4D2. Viz. It's the best quick-game for me atm; but before Wine I played a lot of AssaultCube, which is brilliant on older hw and laptops on older connections.

Re:Direct link to results

[JazzVoid]

Been ages since Steam have learned to detect wine, so probably it is in "Other"

Re:Direct link to results

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam isn't a group of something.

Re:Direct link to results

[Anonymous Coward]

And L4D2 was the first port - why are you still playing it on wine?

Re:Direct link to results

[Anonymous Coward]

For me I need to upgrade to Wheezy to install the Steam Linux client. It seems like a lot of tinkering to get it to run on Squeeze, which is running my primary computer. I do not currently have the time to do that. I will be upgrading to Wheezy soon. All of my secondary systems have been updated in the last two weeks. Things went fine, so it all looks good.

I did install Steam on Wheezy in a VM and things went smoothly. No issues and I even got my Tux TF2 trinket. Plus I run Steam via WINE for most of my other games. I think I have booted into Win7 maybe twice this year.

Main thing for me right now is that my gaming time is spent in Minecraft on Squeeze, via Openjdk.

Re:Direct link to results

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not in the Store yet. It was the "Test" port and isn't done. I believe TF2 is being used to test and debug so they can release a good product on Linux for a profit. TF2 is free so who cares if you're beta testing it for them.

Re:Direct link to results

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that they count OS based on which one downloaded the game rather than which one it is played on.

Re:Direct link to results

[DiSKiLLeR]

Not surprised since squeeze is ANCIENT. In fact debian is ANCIENT in general.

Yes people argue that leads to stability but in all seriousness debian is so far behind modern distros and hardware its almost irrelevant.

My employer (and others I know of) who had standardises on Debian have had to jump ship to another distro (most end up going Ubuntu Server but plenty use RedHat) because they're more up to date. We had so many problems getting Squeeze to run on modern IBM servers and having to fuck around with backporterted kernels and build custom installers because Squeeze just had no idea how to support hardware designed and built in the last few years >

Yeah redhat is based on older kernels aims for stability too but redhat employs employees to backport new features and drivers to their older stable kernel.

And both Redhat and Ubuntu have commercial support, if you need that.

I've forgotton why I went on this rant now... :/

Re:Direct link to results

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. In "other" category.

We you look at Steam "info about machine" or something similar it will report "wine" in Operating System section.

A respectable showing.

[Maxx169]

2% - the same market share as Windows Phone 7/8... I agree, absolutely mind blowing.

Re:A respectable showing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or 3 times as many as a platform that has long been targeted by developers. I agree, this level of popularity is absolutely mind blowing. It's a huge win for Linux as a gaming platform.

Re:A respectable showing.

[Gregg M]

2% - the same market share as Windows Phone 7/8

Yes 2% share in a few weeks VS a gigantic company that has thrown billions into advertising.

Re:A respectable showing.

[lxs]

You make it sound like Valve is a poor struggling indie company and not a major player.

Re:A respectable showing.

[Anonymous Coward]

They just handed a tenth of their workforce walking papers. Linux is killing Valve just like it killed Corel, Loki, and every other company that tried porting consumer software to it.

Re:A respectable showing.

[jedidiah]

...yes. Never mind the fact that Microsoft is a monopoly that chose to clone Word Perfect and force feed it to everyone. Corel's real problem was supporting Linux.

You are confusing cause and effect here.

Re:A respectable showing.

[Anonymous Coward]

And Loki didn't do anything but port games to Linux. So Linux gave birth to it, but could not nourish it in the end.

Valve has its own game engine and if that one is ported to Linux, then suddenly many new games could get ported a whole lot easier to Linux in the future. Even though OpenGL support on Linux rather sucks (on NVIDIA/Linux it's fine), it's not behind OpenGL support on embedded platforms, which is a huge new market. And Steam will also be able to run on those, so the embedded gaming market will mostly overlap with the linux gaming one. So Valve is not betting its future on the viability of the Linux gaming business at all.

Proprietary software issue needs fixing first!

[Anonymous Coward]

As a community we need to put our money where it counts and stop endorsing companies which are hurting OS adoption. Proprietary drivers and other software for Linux is not a good thing. It's making it increasingly difficult to use Linux and the general masses ultimately give up. The tiny user base we have isn't enough to sustain most products that companies release to test the water with Linux. Without more people contributing there dollars to free software friendly solutions we won't see increased adoption and we won't see the OS take off.

I want to see gaming on Linux succeed although not before the hardware problem is fixed. Right now there is only one company I'd buy a system from and thats ThinkPenguin. They don't sell gaming systems because they know how badly it hurting adoption.

2.02% so quickly?

[blind biker]

That's not bad at all. Is Microsoft shaking in their boots? Not really. Are they watching carefully? You get your ass. Is this an opportunity to upend the horrorshow that is Windows 8? I hope so.

Is answering your own questions a bit douchy? Perhaps.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[blind biker]

Mentally replace "get" with "bet" to make sense of the comment above. Is this embarrassing? A bit. Did I laugh when I noticed the mistake? You get your ass.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Ragzouken]

You don't get a lot for free in life, but at least you get your ass.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[dbIII]

If that happens Steam may end up with the equivalent of the ASUS tradeshow lunch with Microsoft after which the CEO of ASUS publicly apologised for linux on netbooks and discontinued selling them. Microsoft probably have Steam by the balls almost as much as they have ASUS.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

how?

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[c0lo]

If that happens Steam may end up with the equivalent of the ASUS tradeshow lunch with Microsoft after which the CEO of ASUS publicly apologised for linux on netbooks and discontinued selling them. Microsoft probably have Steam by the balls almost as much as they have ASUS.

If it doesn't happen in the next year or so, too late... many gamers will "upgrade" from Win7 to a Linux distro (instead of Win8).

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, get your own ass buddy!

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[blind biker]

You don't get a lot for free in life, but at least you get your ass.

Or vagina.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was born without an ass you insensitive clod!

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[murdocj]

Nope. That's why Valve is doing this... to avoid having MS having them by the balls.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Kjella]

But then Microsoft was not in competition with ASUS, it's the good old fashioned "don't mess with our business and we won't mess with yours". Steam's relationship is more similar to Microsoft's launch of Surface, the OEMs are basically being told Microsoft has a long term plan to supply the hardware themselves and boot them from the market. That's not a message they can accept, nor can Steam accept Microsoft's pushing of the Windows Store which is a very direct competitor to the Steam Store. Mac, Linux, the "Steam Box" and the market power they have to bring Windows customers with them are Valve's bail-out plan, and I can't imagine them giving up on it without a massive pay-off by Microsoft.

Sure, right now it doesn't seem very intimidating because there's so far AAA games, but in an all-out war imagine the incentives Steam could give to make people port, like a one-time prize for supporting new games, porting old games or a higher cut of sales made on non-Windows platforms. How about the ability to bundle the Steam box with "gift certificates" for games to boost sales? They don't want to launch the war because the more time they have to prepare the better positioned they'll be, but I'm quite sure they're preparing for one. Unless Microsoft steps away from the aspirations to be like Apple there will be major clashes in the next few years.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Lonewolf666]

I think Valve (the owner of Steam) are going for Linux because they are afraid Microsoft will eventually turn Windows into a "walled garden" like Apple's iOS, introduce their own application store and force out competitors like Steam.

Gabe Newell said:

We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It is a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space.

quoted from http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/07/26/gabe-newell-windows-8-is-a-catastrophe

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Jaysyn]

There should be a lot more games coming. I noticed when I was installing Steam on Kubuntu that there were about 25 games that I've acquired thru various Humble Bundles & Indie Royales that actually have Linux ports but haven't had those versions put on Steam yet.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Woogiemonger]

You don't get a lot for free in life, but at least you get your ass.

Most don't give their ass away for free, as shown here: http://www.littlefriendsranch.com/Donkeys%20for%20Sale.htm

I'd demand top dollar for your ass if I were you! Unless there's something wrong with your ass. Then god bless the kind soul who gives your ass a nice home. Just remember to treat your ass well. Insurance doesn't cover most things that can go wrong with it.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[niftydude]

Oblig. Coupling:
"When god gave us our asses, he had to stick them round the back just so that we wouldn't sit and stare at them all day..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkfmUhZRh8

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Eirenarch]

The "horror show that is Windows 8" has over 9% in the same survey :)

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Eirenarch]

They are doing this for their console. Everything else is P.R.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Ginger Unicorn]

He was talking through a ventriloquist's dummy.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[rve]

You're showing your age with conspiracy theories from a decade ago. Microsoft isn't the fear inspiring behemoth it was a decade ago. No one talks about them any more, no one fears them any more, if anything, they are the ones being bullied out of a market or two these days. The only place still obsessed with them is Slashdot.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[dbIII]

That tradeshow lunch didn't happen a decade ago. The CEO proudly showed off his netbook in the morning and publicly apologised for it in the afternoon. No "conspiracy", just business being done via blunt methods.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 8 marketplace is going to kill off Steam's market on Windows. That's obvious to every single person with the capability for abstract thought.

Steam moving to Linux is yet another escape window - part of which involves the console.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Eirenarch]

First of all, no it won't. Second if Windows Store does have the power to kill Steam on Windows then Linux won't save Steam.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, looks like hairyfeet has mod points... I don't see his bullshit anywhere and no one else would mod this informative.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[murdocj]

Valve is incredibly successful as a store selling games on Windows. Creating a Linux gaming platform is an enormous amount of work to enter a currently miniscule market. The ONLY reason Valve is doing it is they are worried about Microsoft deciding, in Steve Ballmer's immortal words, to "choke off their air supply".

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, right... “a decade ago”... They totally didn't put Elop as a mole in Nokia, and totally didn't put a non-replaceable Internet Explorer in the Windows 8 for phones, the very day their probation officer (from nearly a decade ago) left.
I followed this in every detail. You're a moron talking out of his ass, who fell for the same damn lies, that you already knew were lies the last couple of decades.

Old habits don't change. Microsoft is the company equivalent of a repeatedly convicted criminal, who managed to get out of jail free all but one time, and right after doing their time, started doing the exact same shit again.

And you're telling me about "conspiracy theories" and "they're not what they were a decade ago" ??
It's you, who is delusional and having a crazy anti-conspiracy theory, mate.

But I guess you also vote for the same one or two parties over and over again, even though all their promises were lies and they fucked you over the last time, every damn time.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes... it will. Microsoft is locking down the Windows platform to ensure that they are only vendors for software - and they take the cut for digital delivery etc. Where exactly does that leave Steam on Windows 8? Gabe Newell agrees... and as I said... it's fucking obvious to anyone with even a basic capability for abstract thought.

* Linux won't save Steam.

Never said it would... alone. Steam will make Linux a more viable platform for games. Steam consoles will start to do the rest.

I bet you're the sort of fucknut who thinks things have to change overnight to be real. Steam on Linux and Valve's attempts to provide more consoley PC hardware isn't going to change the world quickly... but it does provide Valve with options and escape routes from Microsoft.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would Microsoft care?
They are all for Gaming on PC to die. They are not making a single dime on games for PC, unlike with consoles, where they charge $10k just to release an update to a game.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nina Simone, is that you?

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[marcosdumay]

The point is not if Linux will save Steam or not. The right question is "how much will MS lose if Steam only creates games for Linux?"

Do you play chess?

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[tlhIngan]

I think Valve (the owner of Steam) are going for Linux because they are afraid Microsoft will eventually turn Windows into a "walled garden" like Apple's iOS, introduce their own application store and force out competitors like Steam.

Well, Steam's two platforms have their own stores. The Apple Mac App Store is pretty innoculous as it's filled with indie games - the AAA titles tend to be on Steam (or a reason why Apple won't be closing OS X anytime soon).

So it's prudent to have it on Linux, and because they're also one of the most well known names in online app stores (probably the second after the original Xbox Live Arcade), and one of the oldest for PCs. Put it on Linux, which has no native app store, and there's a potential market there. Remember how one of Linux's complaints is lack of commercial software? Well, Steam makes it possible. If they do a SteamBox on Linux, even better - commercial app vendors now have a configuration to target. And with its name, it'll probably be one of the app stores on Linux.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft probably have Steam by the balls almost as much as they have ASUS." - you may want to read the tech news once in a while.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux may be too little to "save" Valve's Steam, but

STEAMBOX?

That can have enough kick to break Win+Consoles duopoly on games.

(And Valve hired people from across whole Linux landscape including some multiplatform tooling, kernel devs, audio devs, etc.. Steam for Linux do not merit so deep involvment, and for sure not kernel devs!)

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like they say, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your ass, and I think you know where this is going.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[jones_supa]

Did I laugh when I noticed the mistake? You get your ass.

I actually laughed my ass off when I noticed that mistake.

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

One would hope that having a vagina does not disqualify you from having an ass...

Re:2.02% so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is now lying on the desk in front of me, and I can't stop staring at it.

Too bad they're selling broken games

[Anonymous Coward]

Games shown to not work out of the box are on sale too, prime example:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/214970/discussions/0/846945955359138053/

Off to a great start. Glad Steam has a solid quality control method in place...

Re:Too bad they're selling broken games

[pablomme]

Does not match my experience, I have 43 Linux games on Steam (mostly redeemed from Indie Bundles) and they all work fine, even on my Intel HD 4000. A quote from your "prime example",

The game runs under Linux and I bought it, but had I known it's Flash I would not have bought it...

seems to agree with my experience (not that I like flash, not that I like the status of flash on linux, but if it works, it works).

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[manicb]

Genuine question- why would you use the steam key when you have direct access to a drm-free version? Was this just curious testing, or am I missing something?

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[vux984]

You buy the indie bundle... humble bundles for example and you are entitled to a DRM free copy. Awesome.

You use the steam key anyway because its as easy as using any other linux package manager. You select what you want, you click play and a few minutes later your playing. You switch to your laptop up stairs, launch steam, click what you want ... and start playing.

The DRM free direct downloads are great in the event steam fails or is down or something. But honestly, for all that I dislike about steam, it is easy to use. I use GoG a lot too, but find myself wishing that I could download and install those games via steam as well. Its just nice not to have all the clutter of manual downloads, manual patches, expansion packs, etc.

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[razorshark]

Its just nice not to have all the clutter of manual downloads, manual patches, expansion packs, etc.

Actually, manual downloads and patches sounds great to me. Means you retain control over how you want to use your game installation, such that if a newer patch is rubbish you can choose to stick with something earlier. Yes I know in Steam you can tell it to not update a particular game, but sooner or later Steam will force the update either due to resetting that setting, or a reinstall which will necessitate it making sure everything's up to day. I don't like this automatic control because there are some games, like RAGE and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which have problems with their respective latest patches that don't exist in former ones.

People seem to enjoy trading convenience for control. I understand why, but I don't agree that the increased benefit of giving the vendor more control is the direction we want to take things.

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[alexgieg]

I use GoG a lot too, but find myself wishing that I could download and install those games via steam as well.

This. I have about 100 games from GOG and love their DRM-less nature but were they to partner with Steam and offer some kind of "manage in Steam" upgrade for 5% to 10% of a game's price I'd surely go for it. (Not all of them at once though.)

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[Sigg3.net]

Some of the Flash games, like Lone Survivor, doesn't really work any longer..

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[devent]

How is that easier then "other linux package manager"? If I want a game or application, I just click on "Install" and a few minutes later I'm playing/using that application.

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[Anonymous Coward]

You buy the indie bundle... humble bundles for example and you are entitled to a DRM free copy. Awesome.

You use the steam key anyway because its as easy as using any other linux package manager. You select what you want, you click play and a few minutes later your playing. You switch to your laptop up stairs, launch steam, click what you want ... and start playing.

The DRM free direct downloads are great in the event steam fails or is down or something. But honestly, for all that I dislike about steam, it is easy to use. I use GoG a lot too, but find myself wishing that I could download and install those games via steam as well. Its just nice not to have all the clutter of manual downloads, manual patches, expansion packs, etc.

Not all games available through Steam and downloaded through Steam require Steam to play. Some games you can go to the location where Steam downloaded and installed the game to, and just launch the game straight from its executable without Steam running. Not all Steam games are like this though, but I have encountered a few that are.

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[vux984]

Its not easier then using another package manager with a repo. Its as easy. But that is a lot easier than visiting various game websites downloading things, downloading updaters, etc etc etc

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[vux984]

I don't like this automatic control because there are some games, like RAGE and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which have problems with their respective latest patches that don't exist in former ones.

The fact that it makes keeping everyone in sync version-wise trivial for multiplayer, is a godsend, that more than offsets the regression-bug argument I think.

Avoiding a few regression bugs is certainly not worth the effort of manually downloading and manually patching every game one wants to play.

People seem to enjoy trading convenience for control. I understand why, but I don't agree that the increased benefit of giving the vendor more control is the direction we want to take things.

That's fair, and finer end user controls over things like that would be cool. Perhaps the ability to select patch level to play a game at for example. I'm not sure it would really be worth the effort to develop something like that though just to have that level of control.

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam makes it easy, in my opinion, to set up multiplayer games.

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[razorshark]

Well I agree with you on multiplayer. That's one case where automating patches should always be done, since everyone needs the same version obviously. I generally play mostly single player games these days though so it's not as big of a deal, but I get where it's useful.

As for a patch level, that's too much effort I reckon. It's just a consequence of having a platform like Steam or Origin or whatever keeping tabs on your game library, and I'll admit regressions don't happen THAT often (except when a patch removes features, like a lot of useful console commands were in a RAGE update). As for manual downloads, bit deal - we dealt with that years ago and lived through it. It's hardly what I'd call a huge bother. Call me an old fart, I'm accepting of that. :)

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[devent]

Sorry I misread. Yes you are right of course.

Re:Too bad they're selling broken games

[Jaysyn]

Odd, I have no problems with Machinarium on Linux & I'm pretty sure it's a Flash game as well. I may be wrong though.

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[Anonymous Coward]

You have the option to have Steam not update games automatically on a per title basis. Also they allow you to sync saves across multiple machines.

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[Anonymous Coward]

Same AC, Steam also seems to have the abilitity to let you trade games to other Steam users, I have yet to try this one myself but I see it in the forums there from time to time.

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[Krneki]

Even if steam or your internet connection is offline you can still play the game in offline mode. But if steam or your internet connection is down when you want to activate the game (to play it on another PC), then you are fucked.

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[vux984]

You can only trade games you haven't 'redeemed' onto your account. So it mostly only comes up if you buy a bundle that includes a game you already have... in some (but not all) cases you can gift the extra copy to someone else.

If you buy something as a gift for later, it also goes into that same owned, but not redeemed state, and while its in that state you can gift. But there's not generally much point in deliberately buying a game you don't want to trade for a game you do.

Once a title is in your games library, whether or not you've installed it, you can't trade it / gift it.

Frankly I wouldn't mind if steam allowed games to be traded even if they took a little fee for the process or limited how often you could do it to prevent abuse. That would eliminate one of my big gripes about the product.

Re: Too bad they're selling broken games

[Anonymous Coward]

just because it uses steam doesn't mean it has drm.

Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[Anonymous Coward]

Bing market share = failure. Linux 2% = Victory.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a point but:
1) Windows "smartphone" share a few years ago: maybe 60%? Linux share in gaming/desktop has always been low
2) Predicted Windows Phone market share, according to "analysts": 20% or so? Linux desktop: No idea, probably they never bothered to predict
3) Marketing budget: Even with what Steam spends on it Linux must be close to 0 compared to Windows phone
4) shelf space Windows Phone compared to Linux? See 3 I think.
5) Steam for Linux on market: officially since 1 month. Windows Phone? A lot longer.

So I think it is quite accurate and not exactly biased to say 5% for Windows Phone is a complete failure while 2% for Linux desktop gaming is respectable/as expected (which obviously is not the same as "victory").

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[UltraZelda64]

What is your point, and what exactly are you talking about? Bing *or* Windows Phone?
And this is not "Linux 2%," it is "Steam for Linux 2%." Big difference.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[Bert64]

Phones are a more open market too, it is easier to compete when the majority of existing users are not locked into a single platform... And windows mobile has been around longer than both android and ios.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[MrKaos]

Bing market share = failure. Linux 2% = Victory.

5% of the market leader is a failure, 2% for the market trailer is a success.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[BasilBrush]

Microsoft has never been market leader in either phones or search.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[ThePangolino]

Remember Window Mobile?

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft coined the term, "SmartPhone." They were the innovators of the market. Then Research in Motion came along and showed them how they sucked at it. Then Apple came along and showed Blackberry how much the failed the consumer market. Then Android came along and showed Apple how they failed the emerging markets.

Point being, Microsoft created the smartphone market and destroyed Palm and the PDA market in the process.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[BasilBrush]

Sadly, yes. It was never the market leader. At that time, Symbian was the market leader.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[Anonymous Coward]

1) When iPhone was first released "a few years ago", Windows Mobile had under 15% market share.
2) Linux desktop has been stagnant for years, and that stagnation is not expected to change. Windows Phone is a relatively new product that just had a semi-major update with a huge marketing push, so analysts are still waiting to see if this new version takes off or stagnates like its predecessor. Also, "analysts" = less accurate than a monkey throwing its crap at a dartboard to pick stocks.
3) In a comparison of market share, only the number of users matters. How they got the users is not part of the equation. But maybe Linux should try some marketing to see if that changes their fortunes, instead of wallowing in self-aggrandizement while jealously looking out the windows.
4) Indeed. See 3.
5) Linux users on Steam (all distros): 2% in 1 month. Windows 8 users on Steam (32-bit and 64-bit): 9.5% in four months (but wait, anecdotal evidence of Win8 being 4.69% market share after 1 month). Check back in 3 months and see how well Linux is doing compared to Win8. Until then, Windows Phone 7 was released 2 years ago. Windows Phone 8, 3 months, and it already holds as much market share in its market as Linux holds in the desktop market.

So, no I think it's entirely biased to say Steam on Linux is not a failure when it isn't doing any better than Windows Phone's supposed failure, and it's doing worse than the supposed failure of an OS, Windows 8. Or did these two suddenly become successes when /. wasn't looking?

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[jedidiah]

> Microsoft has never been market leader in either phones or search.

Microsoft has been a desktop monopoly since before the first line of the Linux kernel was written. They are one of the largest corporations on the planet with enough market power and leverage to push their way into new markets easily.

In the market where Linux lives, simply not having been put out of business by Microsoft is remarkable. Apple is very unusual in this and nearly didn't make it. The corpses of companies that tried to offer competitive products liter the landscape.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[BasilBrush]

In the market where Linux lives, simply not having been put out of business by Microsoft is remarkable.

Linux isn't a business. It's a hobby. People work on it for no money, and it's given away for no money. If it was a business, it would indeed be dead. That Linux has failed to gain more than 1-2% of the desktop market despite the fact that it's been given away, is testament to how bad it is.

Google made Android successful, basing it on Linux, by making a real business out of it.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[Anonymous Coward]

With 5 seconds of fact checking, you will discover that Microsoft did not coin the term.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[Anonymous Coward]

And the only reason that there is a near monopoly on the desktop is that most people don't know they are buying it. If people realised the amount of money that they spent for the half assed BS that is Windows, they would think twice about it.

Of course there are a few fanbois who actually go out and actively seek to pay for windows, but there are also people who prefer screwing kids and recently deceased to screwing live, consenting adults, so you can never account for the perversion that is at the edges of the human bell curve.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[Anonymous Coward]

1) No, windows smartphones has never had more than 10% market share tops. Before iphone and android it was symbian that reigned supreme in the smart phone market.

You are correct with point 2, the reason this is a success and windows phone is seen as a failure is the expectations. If you exceed the expectations it is a success, if you fail to meet them it is a failure.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[skine]

Bing accounts for 2% of the group of people who use search engines.

100% of people able to use a search engine are capable of using Bing.

Steam for Linux accounts for 2% of the group of people who use Steam.

1.2% of people able to use Steam are capable of using Steam for Linux.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[Man On Pink Corner]

Also, the original-crust Hawaiian BBQ Chicken from California Pizza Kitchen is way better than the Nissan GT-R.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting Steam on Linux requires the concious choice to install an alternative OS and then to install a third party software package outside your regular software distribution channel. Getting Bing search requires you to fail the "spot the change-my-browser-settings-behind-my-back checkbox" game.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[Anonymous Coward]

hardly a fair comparison. computer gaming has tended to lean towards the computer literate crowd, In that crowd the percentages would differ from the average. You are basically comparing apples and oranges.

Re:Windows Phone. 5% = Failure. Linux 2% = Victory

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I guess the fact that the vast majority of kernel devs are paid by various companies eludes your tiny brain. Very few, if any, large open source projects are run by mainly non-paid volunteers.

Linux runs the world. From embedded devices( on two planets no less), to switches and routers, to servers, to supercomputer clusters. The only market that Linux is small in is the desktop and that is due to MS's bullying tactics over the years. FYI: The desktop market is stagnant to slightly shrinking.

Windows 8 is an abomination and 7 is about 5 years behind Linux desktops. 7 is about on par with KDE 3.5, and despite many missteps KDE 4.10 is far and away superior to 3.5. Windows file systems are about 25 years behind Unix based file systems. I have yet to see an unrecoverable Unix based FS, and just recently had NTFS ruin an install because the "security" file descriptors got reset to an unusable state by Windows shitty FS check utility. MS's insistence on over-complicating everything they touch is the main reason that EVER MS product is dog-shit, with no exceptions.

Only shitty games

[loufoque]

Still no decent games though, only random indie stuff. It's probably good for them; since there is nothing good to buy, people buy the indie stuff that no one would have bought otherwise.

Re:Only shitty games

[Anonymous Coward]

Have I misunderstood the modding system? Is there a troll +3 I'm unaware of, or why is this crap at that rank?

Re:Only shitty games

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be interesting to know what you consider indie vs. what you consider mainstream.

I can only one or two titles from mainstream companies that are actually worth playing and at least five from what I consider to be indie developers.

Re:Only shitty games

[Anonymous Coward]

You're terribly misinformed. Valve has released HL1, CS1.6, CSCZ, and CSS for linux.

Re:Only shitty games

[rusty0101]

So, have you asked "mainstream" developers why they don't have their steam games ported to Linux yet? Or is your category of 'shitty games' inclusive of all Steam games as well?

Re:Only shitty games

[heypete]

While there's certainly some indie games, games like Counter-Strike (standard and Source), Half-Life, and Team Fortress 2 are available and are quite popular. Not bad for starting out for a new platform. I'm sure that'll increase in time.

Re:Only shitty games

[xaxa]

Have I misunderstood the modding system? Is there a troll +3 I'm unaware of, or why is this crap at that rank?

+3 Troll could result from some "Underrated" moderations, which increase the score but don't affect the category.

The interface isn't working (I can't see the actual moderation), and it's probably changed by now, but for example +2 underrated, -2 Troll, +1 Interesting = +1 Troll.

Re:Only shitty games

[Bert64]

Companies won't port games unless they see enough potential customers, and they have traditionally made the assumption that there are very few linux game players and that the few there are would just dual boot to play games anyway.
If enough people buy the linux games available on steam, then you will get more being made, and you will also see developers creating their initial games with portability in mind (eg using opengl instead of directx etc) to decrease the cost of porting.

Re:Only shitty games

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe their assumptions are not that far off.

Windows has been an active target for game developers for years. It has become somewhat of a tradition to support Windows if a PC version is to be supported at all. Most gamers are used to this idea. Those that are major gamers are entrenched in Windows because over the years they've built up large collections of games that are exclusively for Windows. There is WINE, but it is hardly perfect causing some quirks in existing games. People don't want to worry about that stuff. They don't want to worry about whether or not a new game release is going to work well on WINE when they can just use the platform the game is made for and that would be the end of it.

So long as Windows is an active target, existing gamers will not have a compelling reason to switch. They are not going to be attracted to Steam on Linux because it would mean switching to a subset of their existing collection. The people that would be attracted are Linux users who only play a few games or people who are not already gamers. This demographic is what Linux depends on to gain traction with the gaming industry and unfortunately it is not particularly strong one.

Re:Only shitty games

[cyborg_monkey]

What new platform? I'm pretty sure Linux has been around for a long time. Quit making excuses.

Re:Only shitty games

[Jaysyn]

You are wrong of course. Psychonauts, Half-Life, Portal, The Cave, The Killing Floor, Serious Sam 3 & Team Fortress 2 are hardly indie games. Trine, Faster Than Light, Uplink, Darwinia, Dungeons of Dredmor, World of Goo, Bastion, Towns, Legend of Grimrock, Osmos & Waking Mars are hardly shitty games.

Actually, Waking Mars was bar none the best game I played last year.

Re:Only shitty games

[Patch86]

Actually, Waking Mars was bar none the best game I played last year.

Thanks for the tip; I'd never heard of that game and just gone to look it up on their website. Looks like $10 of my money is going to be well spent there...

Re:Only shitty games

[cstdenis]

The rest of valve's source engine games like portal2 and left4dead 1&2 are bound to be ported before long.

Now that they have the engine working with HL:Source and TF2, it can't be too hard to get the others over, it's just a matter of applying the necessary patches and doing time consuming tweaks to make it run well, instead of just run.

Re:Only shitty games

[Jaysyn]

Hope you like it, it had my fiance' & I enthralled for a few days (it's not a very long game, but very fun).

Re:Only shitty games

[marcosdumay]

That rationale doesn't work for something like Steam, because all the games those people brought are available for them at Linux too, they won't need to buy them again.

Re:Only shitty games

[HairyFeetLovesBallme]

I am still working to get the coveted and rare 5 Troll mod.

The year of the linux desktop is irrelevant

[MrKaos]

As Linux based distributions are incrementally re-defining what the desktop is.

Thanks for coming to the party Valve, we welcome you - now it's time to buy some games for Linux.

Re:The year of the linux desktop is irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

As Linux based distributions are incrementally re-defining what the desktop is.

They could not declare every year the year of Linux on the desktop if they did not keep changing the definition, could they?

Re:The year of the linux desktop is irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay, mainstream gaming on linux, but i'm afraid i wont be thanking valve where possible, i'll throw money at any dev offering their game through the humble store or similar in a DRM-free form, steam for linux might be cool, but it's a layer of unnecessary crud between me and the products i'm paying for, meh.

Re:The year of the linux desktop is irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice FUD, but steam != DRM, and you can publish DRM free content through it. It is 100% up to the developers of the game.

Re:The year of the linux desktop is irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam==An unnecessary layer of shit between me and my downloads, DRM is a popular feature of it but not a requirement, still, do not want, is not positive.

Don't Count Your Chickens

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Right now it's brand new and much-hyped, we could easily be dealing with a case of regression to the mean.
Let's see how the numbers looks 6 months down the road.

Re:Don't Count Your Chickens

[VzXzV]

Sadly to an extent this will happen. I dual boot and I love Arch Linux and FreeBSD. So I specifically booted into Linux to buy my games during the sail just to support the platform. But to be honest at home I'm in windows most of the time mainly due to my friends saying lets play a random arma2 mod or most other games, leading to me having to reboot back into windows just to play. I have a feeling this is the case for more people than will admit to it.

Re:Don't Count Your Chickens

[Sigg3.net]

Arma isn't platinum, but silver in Wine atm. Would be fun to get some DayZ action on my Fedora rig (only play L4D2 atm).

Re:Don't Count Your Chickens

[vdorie]

Hi, statistician here. That's not what "regression to the mean" is.

Regression to the mean applies when you have a pair of comparable measurements, the first one of which is high (or low) when compared to similar quantities. So a father and sons' heights, for example. High measurements tend to be a combination of nature + luck. Looking at the other of the pair, the luck component isn't likely to be as good, so on average you're left with just nature. Hence, really big regresses back to big.

You are, however, likely correct that the hype is what is at play. Or that there was pent up demand. Or that people love sales. Or whatever. Kind of hard to imagine a good experiment on introducing Steam to Linux over and over again that we could analyze.

Why buy for Mac when they run Windows

[T-Bone-T]

It doesn't suprise me that Mac games aren't doing that well. Why buy a Mac game when you can run Windows and buy Windows games?

Re:Why buy for Mac when they run Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux PCs also run Windows and in many cases come with it pre-installed and the license included as part of the cost of the computer. With Apple, you have to buy Windows additionally and then install it yourself.

Re:Why buy for Mac when they run Windows

[BlackPignouf]

I bought a Mac in 2009 because it was (and still is) the only platform where I can use Photoshop/Lightroom/Steam/vim/ssh/git/ruby natively.

Re:Why buy for Mac when they run Windows

[theVarangian]

It doesn't suprise me that Mac games aren't doing that well. Why buy a Mac game when you can run Windows and buy Windows games?

If you RTFA there is an update at the bottom stating that according to his 'Lifetime direct sales" data Macs, Linux and Windows were at 11, 7 and 83% respectively meaning that Mac games out did Linux games in post purchase downloads. That data contrasts with that one weeks worth of Steam sales figures and interestingly enough it wasn't mentioned in the /. summary. Nobody buys a Mac, or installs Linux for gaming. The main interest of Mac and Linux are usually not gaming. It's programming, photo processing, graphics work, word processing, CS research, general nerding around with the OS, etc... or just a desire to use something other than windows... gaming is (usually) a secondary activity for Mac/Linux and game X not being available on Mac/Linux is not the end of the world for them. Those that are really serious about gaming dual boot.

Re:Why buy for Mac when they run Windows

[cbhacking]

Depending on what you mean by "natively", I have all of those on Windows ("depending" because they're native on the NT kernel, but not on the Win32 subsystem). The first four and the last are certainly native on Windows. There are full git suites for Win32 as well, although differences in the permissions model and such might be stretched enough to disqualify them from being "native". Ssh client is of course available. Ssh server is the most questionable, I suppose; there are of course ssh servers for Win32, even discounting Cygwin and its ilk; the network protocol is hardly beyond the capability of the Windows API. The bigger question is what you run after connecting; the lack of a Unix shell on most Windows systems could again be used to consider sshd on Win32 as "not native".

But, what about openssh (including sshd) on NT? That *is* available, although it goes through the POSIX subsystem rather than the Win32 subsystem (both are available although the POSIX one only on high-end editions; the OS/2 subsystem was dropped around a decade ago). My Win7 box is running about 7 POSIX processes right now, including init, cron, a localhost-only inetd, and sshd. If I ssh into the system with my Windows user account credentials and otherwise normal options, it will run bash for me. If I invoke bash (or another POSIX shell; I have several installed) and then run sudo, it will actually work as expected (setuid root) - something Cygwin is incapable of (the "sudo-for-cygwin" project is a complete hack that only vaguely achieves the same thing). I have git (and subversion and a couple even older ones), ruby (in case you don't like the win32 version), vim (gvim works but uses an X11 server rather than using Windows GUI code directly), gcc, gdb, GNU make (plus a few others), and all the various required headers and object archives, plus manpages. The filesystem behavior is case sensitive (this occasionally confuses Win32 programs, but generally they cope; NTFS has always been case-preserving and will preferentially match on exact case even in Win32). Shared object libraries work, and can be compiled. Although the binary images are PE-format (there's an ELF loader available, but it's very, very third-party-hack), they don't need extensions like .exe or anything; in Task Manager, the Image Name column for my sshd process is simply "sshd", not "sshd.exe" like it would be on Cygwin.

I like Windows because it lets me natively run all the programs you listed (though I don't use the Adobe stuff), plus a bunch of stuff that won't natively run on OS X or Linux (or any other OS).

Re:Why buy for Mac when they run Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

ummm windows can run all those natively. Their have been native versions of everything in that list for a long time.

Re:Why buy for Mac when they run Windows

[BlackPignouf]

Thanks for your explanation.

By natively, I meant "where I feel at home". :) I realize it's a totally subjective thing to say, and that some apps really are native.

cmd+Putty+WinVIM+TortoiseGIT+Pageant+Ruby work pretty well on WinXP/Win7 but they just feel like late add-ons to me, and don't integrate very well with the environment.
On the contrary, yakuake-like terminal+console tabs+vim+zsh+ruby+git+ssh just feel right at home on my Linux/MAC OS X setup.

Re:Why buy for Mac when they run Windows

[HairyFeetLovesBallme]

As a programmer that uses Ruby quite often, saying Ruby runs on Windows is true but misleading.

There are so many Rubygems that won't even compile(if they have part written in C) or run on Windows. Even if you install Cygwin.

Similar story for most non-MS programming languages.

Windows is just a subpar development platform.

Wow, 2% is "standing strong"

[obarthelemy]

I guess MS is making a killing with Windows Phone then :-p

Re:Wow, 2% is "standing strong"

[jbolden]

Lumia is supply constrained, has been for months and looks like it will be through all of 2014.
HTC with the 8X is supply constrained.

Microsoft OEMs are selling as many Windows phones as they can make. What more do you want from a phone OS?

Re:Wow, 2% is "standing strong"

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends if you want to consider how much Valve verses how much Microsoft spent on development to get that 2% market share. Also, how long as Linux on Steam been out to get 2% verses how long as the Windows 8 Phone been out to get 2%.

Probably the most telling is how much advertising did you see from Microsoft to get that 2% market share verses how much Valve spent to get 2% of the market share. I have seen millions spent on game advertising for other platforms, even if that advertising is bundled with console platforms.

Re:Wow, 2% is "standing strong"

[Patch86]

Source on that one please (although I doubt I'd believe it, if it's come from PR).

Nokia, just a couple of years ago, had about 60% share of the smartphone market (and more similar for non-smart phones); they manufactured and sold 10's of millions of phones without a hitch. Now you're telling me that their flagship, "save our company" phone is inexplicably impossible to manufacture in batches of more than a handful a month? That they're selling every single phone their factory can squeeze out, and can still barely turn a profit? I literally don't believe that.

Re:Wow, 2% is "standing strong"

[jbolden]

Nokia said this during official investor conference calls. If they are lying it is fraud. Besides: LG, HTC, Apple and Motorola have all indicated they've had problems with this generation of phones. Factories like Foxconn have complained about this generation of phones and construction problems. The Ashas and the Nokia dumb phones are made in the factories you are talking about, and no Nokia doesn't have any supply problems there. But yes the targets are:

2012- 35m
2013 - 55m
2014 - 85m

and assuming that all goes well that's what Nokia is capable of doing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/nokia/9793624/Nokia-admits-Lumia-supply-problems.html
(specific to China, only able to build 30k of the 920T first quarter of sales):
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-02-06/nokia-china-stumble-risks-delaying-rebound-from-1-percent-share
If you are Finnish: http://www.taloussanomat.fi/informaatioteknologia/2013/02/23/triplamyynti-sivu-suun-lumia-920aa-saa-yha-heikosti/20132750/12

Just do a web search on lumia supply constraints there are thousands of links.

Re:Wow, 2% is "standing strong"

[Man On Pink Corner]

Surface is also "supply constrained." Stuff the retail channel with a 100-unit pilot build of anything, and gee, surprise, it will sell out.

Re:Wow, 2% is "standing strong"

[jbolden]

That's likely too. I don't know about how Microsoft ordered capacity for Surface but I doubt they wanted to do huge numbers of units, rather they wanted to set the bar on the next generation of touch systems. Nokia could really really use the money though, so I doubt they are playing games.

Standards

[cgt]

If only they would bother creating a standards conformant window instead of trying to replicate their non-standard GUI on Linux, which results in it being unusable under tiling window managers (at least i3, which I am using).

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear, hear. There are many applications who don't set their X window hints properly, leading to poor showing on minimal standards-compliant window managers like i3. I'm in the process of filing a load of bugs on this matter; particularly annoying ones are the GNOME keyring unlock dialogues, for instance.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

If only they would bother creating a standards conformant window instead of trying to replicate their non-standard GUI on Linux, which results in it being unusable under tiling window managers (at least i3, which I am using).

Yes, we can't have developers trying to engage in free expression. Linux, gotta fit all the developers into a bunch of tiny boxes.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Never had any problems running Steam under Awesome WM.

Re:Standards

[arth1]

Speaking of, it would be nice if they made it standard enough to run on anything but Ubuntu (and Ubuntu in a particular minor revision at that).
Yes, it is possible to get it to work under other Linux distros, but not without a lot of tinkering of the type that doesn't appeal to anyone but enthusiasts. And in some cases (64-bit systems without multilib, for example) it's impossible.

A complete and correct list of requirements would be welcome too, because you may spend hours trying to get it to work. This even varies from game to game - assumptions are made that libs are installed OS-wide, instead of including them.

I also tried getting the Steam client to work in a VM, not to play games but to be able to use the IM, and to buy games. No can do - the client won't run without proprietary drivers for specific hardware.

Steam needs to make it a lot more standard, and not dependent on so many specifics if they are to get much higher than 2%.
I'm probably not the only Linux user who is unwilling to change distros just to use Steam. If I have to dual-boot, I might as well dual-boot to Windows.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Seconded. There's nothing more annoying than a Wintard coming over to Linux, and assuming that everything must be just as limited and crippled as under Windows, because he can't even imagine anything outside of his Windows box in his mind.

They're like people that lived in a small town where everybody wears the same clothes from the same single store, builds the same house, drives the same care, watches the same single news station, and has the same opinions... who then come to New York or Paris or some other very diverse city with thousands of possibilities and opportunities. They just can't handle it. They still expect everyone to watch the same shows, eat the same food, have the same mentality and culture.

Worst of all, most Linux UI developers are already like this. Look at KDE, Gnome, XFCE... Where is "everything is a file" in there? Where is the modularity of small tools that do one thing and do it right? Where is the automatability/scriptability?
The cancer of windowsation and tabletization (aka appleization) are already in advanced states. The only hope is to cut off both arms and grow new ones.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Year of the linux desktop.. every year.. until the problem you just described hits users in the face.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah. i think they have some de-sliming(windowsland residue) to do before i use it. The last i looked into installing it , the client required me to bastardize my system by using a specific outdated version of flash player instead of the latest version that flashplugin provides. stupid shit like this, leftover from when the market was all windows users has got to be cleaned up. there's also evidence of other forms of douchebaggery on the website that i hope gets a second look.

Re:Standards

[Urkki]

That's the problem with not-for-profit software. Few developers are willing to go to the extra effort to test it under different environments. And I guess that's just fine too with OSS, let the community test and report (which you seem to be doing, great!) , and preferably fix, if there is a community that cares. And if there is not, why should the developer care about it more than new features or bugs that actually bother him/her?

Re:Standards

[TennCasey]

You say all that, but it works just fine in Arch without any tinkering. There package's even available in the Community repo.

Re:Standards

[arth1]

You say all that, but it works just fine in Arch without any tinkering.

Unless you have a 64-bit installation without all of a multillib toolchain, 32-bit graphics drivers and 32-bit flash installed.
And only if you already have the Mesa texture compression libraries installed because you installed something else that pulled them in.

Never mind that you have to hunt down just which libs to install for which games. ArchWiki even has a long as a leg page tracking all the potential problems with Steam under Arch, and all the workarounds.

You call that "without tinkering"? I don't.
.

A Thought

[Mike Frett]

Yes more people use Windows, but when XP and 7 finally have their support ended, the people using those Microsoft platforms will be forced into using precisely what they are avoiding, the 'modern' interface. It's going to be interesting to watch if they move to Mac, Linux or suck up to Microsoft and push themselves into that new UI.

Let's say they pushed themselves into that new UI. Now after months and years of using that, they will be hooked into it by Microsoft's hooks. At that point, switching to Mac or Linux would be extremely difficult due to the UI differences. It would be devastating for the future of Linux without a similar UI, that's what worries me. For Linux to have any future, the users of these OS's which support is ending, need to jump in our (Linux) lake and let their feet get wet.

That's how I'm thinking, it may be difficult for some to understand what I mean. In any case, Defender's Quest shows that there is money in the Platform. And I don't give a hoot what Microsoft is doing, I have already jumped in the Linux lake and no interest in going back again. But there are a lot of folks that, apparently, enjoy being chained up and forced to do things. You can't save the world, so grab whoever you can, unchain them, and run as fast as you can before the roof caves in.

Re:A Thought

[Bert64]

Linux has always had choice over UI, there is no reason someone couldn't create something similar if users actually wanted it.

Re:A Thought

[jimicus]

Yes more people use Windows, but when XP and 7 finally have their support ended, the people using those Microsoft platforms will be forced into using precisely what they are avoiding, the 'modern' interface. It's going to be interesting to watch if they move to Mac, Linux or suck up to Microsoft and push themselves into that new UI.

People were saying the exact same thing about Office 2007 6 years ago. As long as the magic word "Microsoft" is on the splash screen and in the title bar, it appears to make precisely no difference - you only get wailing and gnashing of teeth if that word is taken away.

In a hypothetical universe that wouldn't result in being sued to kingdom come, I wonder what would happen were you to build your own distribution based on Ubuntu but with some strategic rebranding - call the OS "Microsoft Windows 9", rebrand Firefox as "Microsoft Internet Explorer 11" and LibreOffice as "Microsoft Office 2014", take a test group of 100 people and tell them it's the "next big thing".

Then take another, similar group and put them in front of plain, vanilla Ubuntu.

Re:A Thought

[DarwinSurvivor]

It wouldn't be hard at all actually. Just take any of the tiling window managers, rip all the resizing code out and add prime colors.

Re:A Thought

[DarwinSurvivor]

s/prime/primary/

Re:A Thought

[jbolden]

The equivalent GUI for Linux is Gnome 3. Gnome 3 is arguably better for non touchscreen because the Gnome developers weren't quite as aggressive as Microsoft, but shifting the balance once everyone owns Metro / Touchscreen will not be hard. KDE also has some touch enabled stuff though I'd say they are lagging a bit.

So Linux will be fine.

Re:A Thought

[jbolden]

Me thinking you are thinking too much like an user. Take the boss of the 100 people in front of the Microsoft 9 version and tell him that his entire: document management, email, collaboration, vertical solution will migrate over at no cost. Tell the boss of the 100 people in front of Ubuntu that he's looking at 500k in server / software replacements including consulting time.

Re:A Thought

[ildon]

It takes about 30 seconds to download a "classic start bar" mod for Windows 8, and then you never have to see Metro/Modern again. There's about a dozen to choose from, and at least one of them is even on the front page of ninite.com. A friend of mine did this on his first boot of Windows 8 and didn't even know (or care) how to get back to the Metro interface.

Re:A Thought

[Patch86]

KDE have taken the highly sensible approach of keeping their touch stuff segregated from their standard point-and-click stuff- it's in the KDE Plasma Active package. Same approach as Unity (with "Unity Touch" distinct from "Unity not-touch"). It's a myth that Unity sucked because it was touch optimised (it isn't in any way)- the ways that Unity sucked were entirely distinct from the issue of touch screens.

Re:A Thought

[jbolden]

I understand. There is a real question as to whether Steve Job's belief that different interfaces necessitate different interfaces is correct or Steven Sinofsky is right about ubiquitous computing. KDE is going with Steve Job's keep them separate. Gnome is more mixed. Unity I don't know what they are doing.

Re:A Thought

[Anonymous Coward]

But there are a lot of folks that, apparently, enjoy being chained up and forced to do things.

Giggity

Re:A Thought

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are trying to say using Linux would cost much but using Windows would cost nothing, you are insane and beyond delusional, because you got that completely backwards.

And on top of that, you are deliberately leaving out the money it did cost, to get into the Microsoft world in the first place... apart from the shitloads in yearly license costs (= artificial scarcity of software, by treating it like a "product" instead of the service it is... something Microsoft invented in the first place! [Yeah. I'm that old.]).

Re:A Thought

[Urkki]

I'm fairly confident MS will bring out a Win 8 for Desktop edition. When apps needed are desktop apps, going through Metro with every Win-key press is just untolerable for productivity in many ways, and needing to use external tool to get "normal" desktop usability back is a barrier to upgrade in many ways, especially for businesses.

All it would take is, allow metro to be windowed to desktop, and bring back some kind of start menu.

I also want Aero glass back, but maybe that's just me.

Re:A Thought

[Urkki]

But it takes half an hour of googling and testing to find the alternatives which seem safe and not add-ridden/trialware/crap, and also actually work the way you want. Less time if you are lucky, much more if you're unlucky.

Re:A Thought

[Mike Frett]

That's right, but we both know that Modern was the first step for removing the Classic UI. Microsoft is well known for leaving previous things in their OS while users get use to the new thing, and later removing it completely. I strongly feel the next version of Windows will have the Classic UI removed entirely.

Re:A Thought

[westlake]

Yes more people use Windows, but when XP and 7 finally have their support ended, the people using those Microsoft platforms will be forced into using precisely what they are avoiding, the 'modern' interface. It's going to be interesting to watch if they move to Mac, Linux or suck up to Microsoft and push themselves into that new UI.

Ten percent of Steam gamers are running Windows 8 ---

five times Win 8's broader market share.

I'll take that as a more than a hint that gamers are not having a problem with the Modern UI.

Why should they? Games not running under a browser are almost always running full screen --- and each has its own UI.

The Modern Start page is filled with tiles that have an always active online component. It isn't hard to see that PC gaming is headed in the same direction.

Re:A Thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Why download unsupported 3rd party apps when Kubuntu offers the UI I want right from the start with no hassle?

Re:A Thought

[Anonymous Coward]

No cost for a business to migrate to a new version of Windows? Really? I guess that's why so many corporates are still running XP and old Office versions.

Re:A Thought

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Sinofsky getting his stupid ass fired and people still talking about Jobs answers that.

Re:A Thought

[HairyFeetLovesBallme]

Only if they are stupid. Business are not moving and will not move to 8, not ever. MS's tablet experiment can be put in the epic fail column and Windows Phone is yet again a failure. If MS wants to hold on to its only cash source, they will make Windows 9 business friendly.

Re:A Thought

[HairyFeetLovesBallme]

What exactly is "modern" about 8's shitastic interface?

Calling it modern points you out as a MS shill spewing talking points.

Metro or whatever they are calling that bullshit is not new in the slightest. It is an old interface style long discarded because it sucks shit.

Re:A Thought

[jbolden]

No it doesn't. There were plenty of times when Steve Jobs' beliefs were in the minority. Popular opinion being in your favor for a few years doesn't prove much. We'll know much more in a decade.

Still completely not interested.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and if "the game is licensed not sold", then my money is being LOANED not GIVEN, OK? I'll want it back later.

Re:Still completely not interested.

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I pay you $20 to stick my dick in your asshole (that's your going rate, right?), you'll give the money back after I pull out? Awesome!

Re:Still completely not interested.

[carnalforge]

Too bad i don't have mod points, nice one.

2% in one month.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you started with the idiotic "maths", I'll continue for you to balance it out: this means in four years time, it'll be 96% linux!

Re:2% in one month.

[efitton]

Or it will still be 2% as that is how percentages work.

Re:2% in one month.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, since Windows 8 had 4.7% share of Steam after one month, then in 4 years Steam will be 225.6% Windows 8? Ha! Suck it, hipsters. Steam is gonna be 320% non-Mac in 2017!

mod Tdo3n

[Anonymous Coward]

centralized models whether to repeat During this file ME! It's official Dabblers. In truth, Users 0f NetBSD 1. Therefore it's tangle of fatal there are some

What %age did it for the Penguin?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know someone who installed Linux and then Steam on Linux just so she could get the penguin in TF2. She doesn't even play TF2, but she damn well was going to get the penguin thing.

I wonder how many out there did the same.

Re:What %age did it for the Penguin?

[Anonymous Coward]

troll harder

Seems a little incomplete.

[Seumas]

When you buy a game on Steam, you get access to it in all available Steam formats. That means that for people who may use OSX, Linux, and Windows (as I do, for example) may not necessarily count as a "linux" sale, even though I'll play some of the purchased games there.

Re:Seems a little incomplete.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the hardware survey, not a sales survey. It counts anyone running the client that doesn't disable the anonymous statistics gathering, regardless of if they buy anything or not.

Re:Seems a little incomplete.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even buying the game on Linux won't count as a Linux sale, if you play it more often on Windows. Forget where I read that, but Newell said it.

Re:Seems a little incomplete.

[Anonymous Coward]

YES. Most of the games on Linux I already owned. Right now the biggest paid for game on S4L is Crusader Kings 2, and I already own all of Paradox's first party games. But as soon as it was working on Linux, I reformatted my computer and got rid of Windows.

I have so far spent about $20 on Linux games through steam, but my gaming usage shifted from 100% windows to 100% Linux.

lucky enough to be on Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they have a lottery for inclusion? I don't know how it works, but this seems strange. How lucky do you have to be? What are the odds for getting included?

wtf

[kelemvor4]

A respectable showing? The steam client may be the greatest thing ever but there isn't even a single current AAA title available. Not one. The biggest game they've got is half-life 1. It was released in 1998. 15 years ago. That's something we should be getting from gog.com. This looks to me like a token effort in order to get some cheap advertising on Linux friendly sites such as Slashdot.
News flash, that game's so old it probably plays perfectly in wine anyway. When steam for Linux starts getting AAA titles within a few weeks of the windows release then they will have something worth talking about.

Re:wtf

[zwede]

Serious Sam 3 is on steam. I bought it during the Linux sale and I've been playing it the last week. Runs perfectly. Yes, it's a few years old but still looks good.

Re:wtf

[Jaysyn]

When steam for Linux starts getting AAA titles within a few weeks of the windows release then they will have something worth talking about.

The Cave: released Jan 23 2013 - Double Fine Productions / SEGA

Let me guess, this doesn't count as far as you are concerned cause it isn't Call of Black Ops or whatever the latest shitty FPS is?

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you understand what AAA means? I know you don't but I'm curious if you know that you don't.

It's one thing to argue that 8-bits and casual indies are "just as good" because they have more creativity or soul or whatever, it's another thing to just not acknowledge that The Cave is in a whole different ballpark than Deus Ex, X-Com, Starcraft, etc.

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to refer to them as "spunkgargleweewee" games.

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

Wargame: European Escalation, looks, plays, priced as a AAA title, runs like butter on Linux, produced by a developer that's more been more than accommodating to Linux. It's also a lot of blow'd-er-up-real-gude fun.

Re:wtf

[Patch86]

Actually, I don't really. I mean, I know AAA means "big name game", but I have no idea how you would technically qualify that.

Is it synonymous with "best selling"? In which case, according to the "best selling games" section on Amazon.co.uk, that would include such hits as Just Dance 4 and Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3; clearly colossi of the gaming world, those. Or is it just a budget thing? Is Aliens: Colonial Marines AAA because it cost a fortune to make, even though the end product is shit? Whereas the universally acclaimed and quick-selling The Walking Dead game is disqualified because it cost considerably less to develop?

Pedantry aside, all that really matters is whether the games on Steam For Linux are good ones that will sell well, and if the number keeps going up at a good rate over time. The ones on there at the moment are all great games bar none, and we'll need to wait and see before calling judgement on the second point.

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure it's a great game but it is not the kind of big-budget, tentpole game that millions of users will flock to. When you are running a business, sometimes the number of users matters.

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

Um ... Crusader Kings 2. Granted, grand strategy games are too complicated for the majority of people, but I'd hardly call Paradox Development an indie dev.

Now of course we didn't get it released within a few weeks, Steam for Linux was just released from Beta within the last few months, quit being a douche. 2% of the market for only being out a few months is HUGE, especially against an established monopoly.

Re:wtf

[Cajun Hell]

there isn't even a single current AAA title available.

I like Missile Command and vaguely-similar games as much as anyone, why why is everyone so obsessed with the anti-ballistic missile and anti-aircraft artillery genres so much? Most good games involving aircraft, have the player flying the aircraft (instead of shooting up at them) which is more fun, and evading AAA is typically only a small part of the game. Quit concentrating on micro-genres and look at the big picture.

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

AAA just means it has a budget in the 10s of millions, including major marketing efforts. The quality of a game versus its budget lately has been on a downward spiral to the point that Triple-A is becoming almost as big a joke as Movie Tie-In.

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

Your counter to the latest shitty FPS is the latest shitty platform game? Looking at some screen caps, a game that could have been released any time in the last 15 years...

I don't play COD... I'd like to see Fallout3 and New Vegas, ARMA 2, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Farm Simulator 2013, Tropico 4, Hitman Absolution, GTA4/5, Far Cry 3... I'm sure i'm not the only one.

Only one on those lists I recall being mentioned for Steam Linux was Euro Truck Simulator 2, and that was a long way down in the 'probably in development' list, behind all the generic platform games, puzzles and 'arena battle' TF2 type games.

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't TF2 and L4D2 both on Linux? If so, those would both qualify as AAA titles.

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

probably plays perfectly in wine anyway

No, it does not play perfectly in Wine. CS, a HL mod which is played much more than HL itself, can't be played perfectly with erratic framerates. And Wine is erratic performance wise (maybe the 150K context switches per second have something to do with that), at least outside NVIDIA/Linux.

Re:wtf

[Jaysyn]

Oh even worse, you are a "pretty graphics wee" kinda moron & an AC to boot.

Re:wtf

[Jaysyn]

You have a point, I wasn't thinking of a game just costing tens of millions of dollars to make as AAA & you're examples are definitely what I would consider AAA even if they are all pretty old. I was getting AAA confused with "decent non-indie" games. You gotta admit, it'd be pretty funny if Valve released HLE3 for Linux a few weeks before they released it on Windows.

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious Sam 3 is on steam. I bought it during the Linux sale and I've been playing it the last week. Runs perfectly. Yes, it's a few years old but still looks good.

I think you missed the AAA part.

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not a AAA title...

Re:wtf

[alexwh]

Uh. TF2? Valve will soon port all of their titles over too (e.g. DotA2, CS:GO, etc).
If they're not AAA, what is?

Re:wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

Half life 1 showing up on native linux is still a big deal - even if its just a start. It's not like they just put a wine layer on top of linux or something -- they _ported_ that code over for linux. Valve did the same for a bunch of games they made ranging up to CS:S and TF2. There's still a bunch in that collection, but given time I'm sure the rest of the colleciton will make it over as well. What I'm hoping for is that Valve will see a ton of dough from these re-issues to the Linux platform, and that other dev shops will follow suit with their most popular titles, thereby increasing the viablility of Linux as a gaming platform overall.

If this was Microsoft...

[DiamondGeezer]

If this article had been on neowin and had praised Microsoft's new OS for breaking through on a gaming distribution platform after a lot of marketing effort from the distributor including an opening sales and had managed 2% share, Slashdotters would have been cackling and calling it hype.

What the TFA is is hype and wishful thinking. Linux has an enormous long way to go before its even considered worth porting to as part of current game development.

Its a start, but no more than that.

Those of us who are old enough can remember lots of dawns in the IT industry - most of them false.

Re:If this was Microsoft...

[jo_ham]

If this article had been on neowin and had praised Microsoft's new OS for breaking through on a gaming distribution platform after a lot of marketing effort from the distributor including an opening sales and had managed 2% share, Slashdotters would have been cackling and calling it hype.

What the TFA is is hype and wishful thinking. Linux has an enormous long way to go before its even considered worth porting to as part of current game development.

Its a start, but no more than that.

Those of us who are old enough can remember lots of dawns in the IT industry - most of them false.

You don;t even need to imagine it - this is exactly the reaction slashdot commenters had when Steam for Mac launched (along with a lot of questioning why it wasn't a simultaneous Mac+Linux launch).

How times have changed!

Still, the more gaming platforms we can establish as "legitimate" (ie, directly and actively supported by a major distribution platform), the more likely we are to see all of the alternatives to Windows grow.

Re:If this was Microsoft...

[nine-times]

I'm not even sure what you're trying to compare. If Microsoft made a new OS and got a tiny adoption rate, yes, we'd be making fun of them. But we're not talking about an OS here. We're talking about an alternative distribution channel that doesn't have much content yet for a platform that currently has a small user base. All things considered, the numbers aren't bad.

But either way, the numbers aren't important this early on. The real question is this: If Valve can somehow port over the bulk of their catalog to run on a free OS that runs on commodity hardware, do we have any doubt that it would make an impact?

I think that it will at least change the console market. Even if you we're to suppose that Linux is not suitable for the desktop, you would still see vendors competing over making SteamBox consoles. You'd see the console market blown open, and it might spell the end of the Playstation and the XBox.

But I don't think that's a bold enough prediction. I think that if Valve could allow platform independence for games, Microsoft would lose a huge chunk of their current market. There are a lot of people (myself included) who have Windows installed on a computer for the sole purpose of playing games. Speaking as an IT pro who is comfortable on a wide variety of platforms, there are 2 main things that keep me using Windows on my own computers: at home, games; at work, Outlook. If you let me play all my games on Linux, I'll probably never run Windows at home again.

Re:If this was Microsoft...

[cyborg_monkey]

shut your fucking hole.

Re:If this was Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

What the TFA is is hype and wishful thinking. Linux has an enormous long way to go before its even considered worth porting to as part of current game development.

Lol, dude people have already ported their games to linux, pull your head out the sand.

Re:If this was Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

ahh Did someone make you feel bad for not blowing Ballmer's remarkably tiny dick?

Don't feel bad, you can run that shitty Windows OS all you want.

Skyrim: Dawnguard is coming out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any word when Skyrim: Dawnguard is coming out? It seems like Bethesda is playing favorites with Xbox again. Never again Egghead, you bastards. Seems like we have been waiting forever.

mind blowing?

[Lumpy]

It sounds like a lot of the kiddies dont remember Loki Games.

Loki pretty much did what steam did but with actual game disks. But they did it the hard way. Linux ONLY and paying dearly to game studios to help port or wine wrap the games.

Every linux guy I know still has several Loki game disks in their collection.

Re:mind blowing?

[Tapewolf]

It sounds like a lot of the kiddies dont remember Loki Games.

Loki pretty much did what steam did but with actual game disks. But they did it the hard way. Linux ONLY and paying dearly to game studios to help port or wine wrap the games.

Every linux guy I know still has several Loki game disks in their collection.

I have Rune. It's a little difficult to get it to run because the infrastructure has changed over the last 10 years, but last I played it a couple of years back, it did still work.

This was actually the reason I didn't buy Deus Ex on first release - I was waiting for the Linux port. Sadly Loki imploded before it could be completed.

Re:mind blowing?

[Jaysyn]

Every linux guy I know still has several Loki game disks in their collection.

I'm hoping they get put on Steam (or Desura, it works damn good in Linux too) soon.

The first step in statistics:

[__aaqvdr516]

The first step in statistics is to understand what the data you have represents.

The hardware survey represents all hardware samples, month by month. Now take into account the fact that those samples include dual and triple booting systems, which is a difficult number to derive from the data provided by Steam.

My experience from reading the Steam forums as a beta tester suggests to me that a large portion of the Linux test base were multi-booting. My feeling from reading the support threads is that many of these people will not be using Linux as their primary OS.

In other words, if I use the same extrapolation method as the original author: It's 2 degrees colder this morning than last morning. In just 1 more month, this area will no longer support any life.

I don't have to reboot anymore

[menot]

I haven't booted Windows since Valve released the games I play for Linux. As most "Linux Gamers" that don't enjoy Tux Racer, when I take breaks from work I want to play for a while, and that's the only reason I own a legal copy of Windows. It's not HL2 Episode 3, but I'm very happy with this.

Linux vs OS-X

[unixisc]

He's not confusing iOS w/ OS-X. He's stated the facts about OS-X - that its numbers are static. However, the least that can be said for OS-X is that it at least makes margins that continue to fund the development of the Mac platform. Which unfortunately can't be said for Linux.

For Windows Phone, it's just been out, as opposed to Linux, which has now been there for more than a decade. When you're stuck at 2% of the market year after year, it's worth looking into what you are doing wrong. If in a year or 2 Windows Phone hasn't moved (as it probably won't), it would be valid to call it a failure.

Problems w/ Linux have been that it's based on a license whose copyleft requirement prevents any distro from being profitable (w/ some rare exceptions such as Red Hat) and whose lack of compatibility b/w versions has meant that even if an application is developed for one version of a Linux distro, there is no guarantee that it will be easily installed and run on a subsequent version of the same distro. That, coupled w/ a lack of drivers in the first place, make Linux tough to adapt even for those who genuinely want to give it a try, but are not whizzes in bash or any other *sh. Linux could have used someone like Apple doing what it could to completely hide its Unix underpinnings from the user, so that both installation and usage would be seamless.

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[jedidiah]

You are a dwarf calling a midget shorty.

Both platforms suffer from the problem of "paying their own way". You are a deluded fool to try and claim otherwise. MacOS is in the exact same boat as Linux here.

As far as this "compatibility" problem you're trying to manufacture goes: I still play my old Loki games.

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[unixisc]

Unlike Linux, Apple does not aim to corner the market - they've picked a niche that they want to play in (which they had since the days of the M68k and the PPC Macs) and stuck to that. They could easily have decided that like the Hackintosh, they wanted to support all PCs w/ their OS and sold it that way, but fact remains that they'd not have broken even, much less dominate the market, so they decided that the headache wasn't worth it. Unlike Linux, which breaks depending on where one tries to install it, Apple cleanly disclaims that OS-X will work on anything other than a Mac (even if a Dell or a Toshiba may have the same specs), so they are not held to the standard that Linux is, as a result of the latter's claim to be able to run everywhere.

The compatibility thing - good for you. I've installed and run things on one version of RHEL which wouldn't work on the next.

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[jbolden]

Exactly right on my post unixisc.

Windows Phone right now has sold out the manufacturing capacity of Nokia on the Lumia an HTC on the 8X. If the players are selling every phone they can make at good margins the OS is doing its job. My opinion is that right now it is fairly successful. It has helped two manufacturers regain footing and it has gotten Microsoft to the point of being able to credibly offer an alternative to companies migrating to Apple.

As far as Linux's failures. I'd say that Android more or less is someone taking a Linux and shielding end users from the details, and that's been rather popular.

I don't fault the Linux community too much for losing on the desktop. Linux was supposed to beat Microsoft on the desktop. But with Windows NT 4.0, 2k they locked up enterprise and with XP Microsoft really created a quality system for home. That left only price. Microsoft's willingness to forgo profits for market share at the low end cut the market off. 2013 is really the first year where Microsoft has been willing to allow a void for in their lineup and we'll have to see if Linux mainstream or Android fills it.

Conversely in areas where the competition hasn't been as tough:
server -- Microsoft wanted margin badly so Linux could compete on price
embedded -- configurability really mattered
mainframe -- open source really mattered
supercomputing -- configurability really mattered
ARM -- price and configurability really mattered.

Linux was done well.

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[ilguido]

Exactly right on my post unixisc.

Windows Phone right now has sold out the manufacturing capacity of Nokia on the Lumia [...]

That's because the manufacturing capacity of Nokia is primary supporting their best selling devices: Symbian smartphones.

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[uM0p ap!sdn]

""I don't fault the Linux community too much for losing on the desktop. Linux was supposed to beat Microsoft on the desktop.""

I bet your college educated ( in the USA ) or just reaching puberty

"From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
    Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
    Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
    Summary: small poll for my new operating system
    Message-ID:
    Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
    Organization: University of Helsinki

    Hello everybody out there using minix -

    I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
    professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones."

Nowhere does Linus say it's supposed to beat M$ on the desktop

Notice the keyword - HOBBY

For me, actually , every year, linux has been the year of the desktop

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[nukenerd]

Unlike Linux, Apple does not aim to corner the market

Eh? Linux aims to corner the market? Since when? "Linux" has no "aim", as it has no governing corporation to set out such "aims". It is just there, take it or leave it. It is true that some entities such as the unmourned "Lindows" project have taken it and pursued such aims with it, but they are not Linux. Google are perhaps pursuing a similar aim with Android (and with some success) but they again are not Linux.

For myself, I am quite happy with it remaining roughly where it is now in usage share (there is no such thing as Linux "market"), as long as it remains viable, and leave Windows where it is as a sponge to absorb Joe Sixpack and his world of upgrade treadmills, adware, botnets, scams and malware.

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[jbolden]

Yes. Minix was an academic operating system with a hobbyist fan base. Linux evolved from the Minix community. Very quickly, by around 1994 Linux was already being used professionally while Minix never was.

Things change.

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[jbolden]

They aren't making Symbian anymore. Symbian sales have been crashing since mid 2010. All sales stopped this quarter. And even when there was a Symbian, the factories for Symbian and Lumia weren't the same.

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[symbolset]

There is enough Symbian hardware in the channel for Symbian to outsell Lumia for the rest of Nokia's time as a public company, even if they never make another one.

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[symbolset]

"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. " - Linus Torvalds

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[jbolden]

No there isn't. There is probably less than 2 mo, and that's 2 mo where Symbian was underselling Lumia 2::1.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/World_Wide_Smartphone_Sales_Share.png

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[ilguido]

This is what driving Nokia smartphone sales, it isn't a WP and it entered production a few months ago.

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[ilguido]

Breakdown of Nokia smartphone sales, last quarter of 2012:

*2.2m Symbian OS
*4.4m WP 7 + WP 8
*9.3m S40 full touch
total: 15.9m smartphones [1]
Windows Phone (7 and 8) makes up about a quarter of their total smartphone sales. The last quarter of 2011, they sold 19.6m smartphones, and the last quarter of 2010 28.3m, I can't see how 4.4m WP can max out their industrial capacity.

Re:Linux vs OS-X

[jbolden]

Because they can't use the same factories for Symbian, S40 and WP. It is not one capacity it is a variety of capacities. The process of making the S40s, Ashas, is wholly different than how a Lumia is made. One of the reasons they can make Ashas so cheap if they needed to (i.e. cut the price in half from where they are) is that they can use factories that are fully written down, rather than paying 3rd parties for assembly.

Nokias lack of margin from 2002 on did tremendous damage to the company.

Settle down, people

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of those Linux "users" are people who installed it in a VM or dual boot so they could run TF2 once and get a penguin item. Some people take TF2 items really fucking seriously. Wait until they release a hardware survey whose recording does not overlap with a promotion like that and check it out again. Plus, 2% is abysmal. Be serious here.

Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

According to various surveys such as NetApplication's, all Linux variants only have 1% desktop market share. This means that 2% of steam users running Linux is twice the size of the desktop share and is mostly Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10 (so there's potentially more). Also, all this in a matter of a couple of weeks means Victory for Steam and more games means Victory for game players on Linux.

cs 1.6 is ported and smooth

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been running linux as my main home computer OS since 2008.
xubuntu 12.10 and steam. playing cs1.6 on a 5 year old laptop and 22 inch monitor.
PRICELESS lol.
GO STEAM!

Its TF2 players who wanted the Tux promo

[Anonymous Coward]

...sales data aside. Its a release sale as well, not an indicator as to what the actual revenue will be.

I want to see the month or two worth of active Linux accounts post March 1st, when the TF2 Tux promo isn't available and the sale/new smell has long since past.

I have used it since the beta

[xarragon]

I have actually used it since the beta invite popped into my inbox. For those of you who havn't tried it here is a short summary:

I run Arch Linux, which is not supported. Valve only supports Ubuntu and provides the software as a .deb file which contains the "bootstrapper", basically a "netinstall" version if you were to make a comparision to the average Linux distro. The bootstrapper is easily taken apart via a script in the custom installer program that some of the Arch Linux folks whipped up and ends up installed system-wide by default.

This caused some problems for people like me, who are too paranoid to install untrusted software system-wide or even in my own home directory. I gave it a separate user account and denied the installer root access (which it asked for every time it tried to auto-update). It cried and bugged out, but you could run TF2 from day one. As they continued to improve the software they actually listened to the complaints at github (where they keep their Linux issue tracker) and made the software runnable as a regular user. It now resides completely inside my 'steam' users directory and the bootstrapper is long gone from the system-wide install.

If you are like me, and only run ALSA, hating PulseAudio's tentacle guts, you can actually run Steam anyway. They are using SDL as the backend, so when launching Steam you just export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa before running it, and you'll get sound! Even in-game voice is operational, but you still can't permanently disable it to get rid of all the jackasses screaming into the microphones.

Steam itself still uses the look from it's Windows roots, the ugly custom-skinned UI. And it can't be resized on my machine, which runs PekWM. It is also slow as molasses to start, and so is TF2. That might be in part to me using ONLY a 3G modem for my gaming though. The store also works like a charm.

An interesting feature is that you can actually switch between the OpenGL game window and the rest of your desktops seamlessly, with no apparent bugs or performance loss. Faster and more painless than on Windows. This wasn't always the case though, as early versions would switch to your desktop as soon as you got an archievement and completely screw up your mouse input once you switched back. This has been long since fixed though.

The only recent bug I came across was an apparent lack of support for multi-user environments, where I once started the bootstrapper as my regular user by mistake and let it install, thinking it was an regular update. Once it was up I figured what was wrong, uninstalling it and starting up as the 'steam' user, whereas it sefaulted hard. It took several hours and a lot of support ticket reading to figure out that leftover temporary file descriptors left from the first session screwed up the second one. Kinda stupid bug for a modern software, but that's what beta testing is for I suppose.

For me, Valve has really made my Linux experience a lot better. Hat's off to them. Now I just need to find some TF2 servers with players that are as beligerent and offensive as me!

Re:I have used it since the beta

[Anonymous Coward]

You JACKASS! My TAMPON has a FLAMETHROWER!

Well then

[Chompjil]

In coordinance with the EEE-PC problem, that happened a while ago, MS doesnt want any other Online store on Windows 8 unless MS aproves, can someone tell me if MS has aproved Steam?

Steam for UBUNTU

[Anonymous Coward]

Get it right people, it's not yet Steam for Linux.

Steam installed as root

[RichCrewe]

The thing that puts me off using Steam under Linux is that I have to install it as root. I only use Windows (XP) for games. One of the endearing features of windows is that it's useless at interfacing with other file systems. My assumption is that if Steam develops a security hole, gets hacked and starts trampling across my system from a Windows install, it's not going to be able to do any subtle damage to my Linux disks containing my life. From a Linux install it already has access to the entire system.

Re:Steam installed as root

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? I'm running Steam natively in Linux right now, and it's running under normal user permissions. Sure, you have to have root permissions to install it, but that's true of any other application you download from the repositories. So how is Steam any different than something like Chromium or Open Office?

Re:Steam installed as root

[Anonymous Coward]

BS, FUD, idiocy, etc. EVERY program you install system-wide requires root FOR INSTALLATION. That doesn't mean the installed program subsequently runs as root.

Stunix Anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Valve are smart (and they are), they should build ans release a Valve Linux distro.

100% Game Linux distro - f*ck yeah.

That would draw in a lot of fence sitters into the fold methinks.

Wait, what?!

[marcosdumay]

does Android run Torvalds kernels?

Yes. The phone manufacturers add some modules modules to kernel.org's code, and compile. (Just like Debian or anybody else.)

Does it get distributed like a distro?

Yes. Put your head out of the sand, and take a look. Google has a tool for that too, by the way.

Does it accept outside changes?

How the hell do you think any code goes in it?

Re:Wait, what?!

[LF11]

For so certain a fellow, that guy really missed the mark. Thanks.

cej102937

Re:Wait, what?!

[NotBorg]

Yes. The phone manufacturers add some modules modules to kernel.org's code, and compile. (Just like Debian or anybody else.)

Now you've done it. You've pointed out a fact directly counting his ignorance. You'll be ignored now because stating facts is trolling.

Re:Wait, what?!

[NotBorg]

*countering

I am one of the 2%

[the_Bionic_lemming]

I am leaving windows because of the way win vista win 7 and win 8 suck. Ever since steam launched their linux ubuntu, I have not booted into my XP gaming station.

I am trying to find how to load a virtual version that actually boots my XP already loaded so I can toggle back and forth.

Please, Linux devs, support and port all the gaming . I need to be able to play x-com, defense grid, fallout etc.. on the linux platform.

Great job, thanx for an awesome os - keep it up and get it so I can tell microsoft to piss off.

Just installed Steam on Ubuntu this morning

[Kimomaru]

For me, installing Steam on Ubuntu has been an extremely straightforward experience on my non-gaming Dell laptops, but for whatever reason I had not been able to get Ubuntu running on my gaming rig. I woke up this morning, a man on a mission, to find out how I could make this happen. Took three hours of sweat, Google, and forums - finally got it figured out. Apparently Ubuntu's included graphics drivers (including the proprietary ones) just don't do the trick for a GeForce GTX 580. After a separate driver download from Nvidia and installing the kernel headers from repositories I was able to finally make it happen (and I've had this gaming rig for exactly a year to this day).

There are still plenty of folks out there who need to go through some trouble to get Ubuntu to work on their rigs, but it's much better than it used to be and it is so worth it. I'm impressed with how well TF2 and Counter Strike: Source run on Linux and am hoping a large Valve console install base will encourage all developers to port their games over to Ubuntu.

So, now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go look into this "Defender's Quest".

Always better than others

[TowhidaNashrin]

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Re:Always better than others

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh fuck off.

Looks like it is going to pass Mac soon

[Junafani]

Looks like Linux gaming is rising fast on Steam. It is going to pass Mac OS soon and Mac OS support has been on Steam for few years.

neobux of referrals

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to get neobux of referrals go to this site sign up and you can post your referral link and people will click it and sign up. its awesome .
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[rundsaiw214]

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Re:Discount Jeans,handbags,jersey,sunglasses sale

[Anonymous Coward]

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