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Valve Announces Linux-Based SteamOS

Posted by Soulskill on from the inexorable-linux dept.

Today Valve Software announced SteamOS, a Linux-based gaming operating system designed for, as Valve puts it, "living room machines." They say, "In SteamOS, we have achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we're now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level. Game developers are already taking advantage of these gains as they target SteamOS for their new releases." One major feature they're touting is the ability to use the SteamOS machine to stream video games from other Windows and Mac computers in the house to your TV. They mention media streaming as well, but without much detail. "With SteamOS, 'openness' means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they've been able to. Content creators can connect directly to their customers. Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want. Gamers are empowered to join in the creation of the games they love. SteamOS will continue to evolve, but will remain an environment designed to foster these kinds of innovation."

5 of 510 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft had better make a move quick. by Dega704 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This has the potential to end Windows as the dominant gaming platform; maybe even as a gaming platform in general. Once that happens, one of the biggest obstacles to mass desktop Linux adoption will be gone. Excellent.......

    1. Re:Microsoft had better make a move quick. by geek · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Linux is only successful when X11 isn't involved. Like Android. Like servers. Like embedded. Pretty much everywhere Linux is a big deal, X11 isn't. Hope Wayland changes this.

  2. Re:Compatibility by alexgieg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    2014: The Year of Linux on the Living Room!

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    Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
  3. Re:If you notice... by mypalmike · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The icons appear to be...


    "O" - A gaming OS
    "[O ]" - A box running the gaming OS?
    "O + O" - A gaming network?

    --
    There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
  4. Re:What will this mean for Steam on other distros? by steveha · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's what this will mean: game developers will test their games on SteamOS and nothing else, making SteamOS the gold standard for Linux gaming. (In fact there will probably be a single "reference" SteamBox used for the development and testing.)

    The distros will need to include compatible versions of all the libraries used in SteamOS, to get the games to run. Users will be able to file bugs that say "$GAME runs perfectly on SteamOS but does not run correctly on $DISTRO."

    Since SteamOS is just Linux with a particular set of libraries installed, this is feasible. All the distros will have a clear target for which to aim.

    Overall I think this is a win for gaming on Linux. The current situation is far too fragmented for Linux ports to be profitable for the game developers. SteamOS will defragment "Linux gaming" to a single platform.

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    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely