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Valve Announces Linux-Based SteamOS
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."
But does it run Windows?
Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want.
Thus turning the console into - dun dun dunnnnnn - a desktop?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You know, when I think back on my first Linux install way back in 1993 or so with Slackware, who would have thought that Linus's project would end up on hundreds of millions of servers, smartphones, tablets, game systems, embedded hardware and the like. I find the whole thing rather breathtaking. Linux really is one of the great successes of the computer age.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They do allow you to stream it from your main PC, which sounds like an interim step to get over the "no games for the linuxes" problem. Cautiously optimistic.
Odds are they don't make your games... so no.
Actually, they are already compatible or at least playable via the home streaming feature. "In-home Streaming
You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!"
How good that experience will be remains to be seen :)
Read TFA:
"Hundreds of great games are already running natively on SteamOS. Watch for announcements in the coming weeks about all the AAA titles coming natively to SteamOS in 2014. Access the full Steam catalog of over nearly 3000 games and desktop software titles via in-home streaming."
"You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!"
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.......
Now comes the question, How well will XBMC integrate with this? If they both behave well together it's going to make for a damn good HTPC setup. Any word on if this is a completely own-rolled Linux Distro, or is it, as I suspect, an Ubuntu/Debian derivative due to their previous interactions?
"Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three."
I'm assuming Wednesday is the Steambox announcement. You guys *really* need something with with a "3" in it for a launch. I don't think "Half-Life: Source" is gonna cut it.
2014: The Year of Linux on the Living Room!
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
This is amazing technology. All we need now is some graphics drivers and it could be a working console.
No sig today...
You can't enforce DRM effectively until you lock down the device completely. So, of course Steam wants to control the OS. SteamOS sounds exactly like Microsoft's strategy of embracing, extending, and then extinguishing open standards.
So, yes, SteamOS will bring the Linux kernel to the masses, but as to the actual *benefits* of Linux -- transparency and freedom -- Valve is going to kill those.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
What's to stop them integrating Wine into the appropriate game packages and certifying them to run on Linux? That way, not everything would need a re-write. They'd be able to port a significant library right from the start, Valve would be able to verify compatibility and it'd all be pre-configured out of the box.
The original page on steam has two more icons to light up and a new countdown ending 2 days hence. Apparently there are two more announcements to go.
Silence is a state of mime.
ITs a working console in the same way PS4 is going to be with Vita TV. You have one heavy lifter in the house and a bunch of small streamer boxes to get it on TVs around your house.
Good-bye
Short answer: no.
Long answer: they've already made most (but not all) of their own Steam games compatible. They have no such control over the rest of the games on Steam but they aim to encourage as many other devs as possible to do the same.
That's not playing your games on the Linux based SteamOS, that's running the equivalent of VNC server and client between Windows and Linux. I can do that to my phone as well, but I wont claim to be playing GTA on my phone.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Looks like Gabe is doing to PCs & set-top boxes what Google did with the phone. A customized Linux distro is a good start, but still much info missing.. does it integrate some gaming engine (maybe Source?) How much API support for hardware and software that aids in writing games? Is it even a gaming OS or is it just some content provider wrapper around Linux?
- I stole your sig.
Whatever improvements they make will hopefully be sent as patches and pull requests to the open source projects they're likley building upon...I don't want to run a commercially run distro, or at least one that's more restrictive like Ubuntu, etc....
I run Arch for a reason.
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I don't know. If i can install SteamOS on my gaming hardware (that currently runs windows), stream that to my TV, and sit on the couch with a wireless controller.. I think I'd be pretty happy. Steam is by far the largest repository for games in the world so they would potentially have the developer backing to move a lot of future titles to linux.
What's more, if they release this OS in conjunction with a hardware release, that makes the entire process I described above easy for someone with little to no technical knowledge. Developing their own hardware also should alleviate a lot of the notorious driver issues with any *nix distribution.
I think this could work. And more importantly I want this to work. The less money I'm forced to give Microsoft, the better.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
There is no semantic difference. You will be able to play your games using whatever inputs and outputs are plugged into your SteamOS system.
I've been wanting to stop dual booting for nearly two decades. The purists complain that locking you out of the OS (DRM) components is vehemently prohibited in the spirit of Open Source and basically creates the very problem OSS was designed to get away from.
On the other hand, software companies complain they need to lock you out in order to combat piracy and protect their digital assets. Without doing so, they have no way to protect their revenue stream.
I have never found a good solution to this problem. It's been a good 20 years, and nobody else has either so those of us who straddle the fence between purity and utility still dual boot.
I do not like the idea of SteamOS. I would really like the entire computer industry to be based on open formats, source and standards but that is a crack dream that will never happen. Something needs to give. Maybe this is it. I prefer to believe I trust Valve more than anyone else with something like this.
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A modern console isn't that far removed from a PC shoebox with liquid cooling.
If anything, the shoebox would likely have the advantage of not cooking itself. The consumer mentality can be a double edged sword when it comes to electronics.
The main thing that keeps bog standard PC parts from being living room friendly is the fact that most of the defined form factors are too deep.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This could have a lot of ripple effects.
1) Improved Wine support.
2) Better cross platform libraries/tools.
3) Linux distro optimized for gaming.
The interesting thing to consider is that Valve doesn't need to turn a profit right away. It's a private company and Gabe is looking at the long game here. He sees his reliance on Windows as a weakness and he intends to change that.
Now Linux users can experience all the heartache and frustration that goes with Steam! Mysteriously vanishing content, random lock-outs, and a customer service strategy apparently developed by EA. I can't wait! [/snark]
On some levels, Steam is a wonderful idea, quick access to varied content, a centrally located distribution/launch point, and exposure to odder and more esoteric media are all benefits of Steam. Except when something goes wrong, which based on my experience is a fairly regular occurrence. That game you've owned for years that suddenly won't launch because Steam gets stuck in verification mode? Send them an email, and you'll probably hear back in about a month or so, and then with a request for more information.
Nah, that was 2011 or so. Right now i count 6 linux installations in my living room: two android phones, one tablet, this laptop, the tv and the pvr. Only one of those installations exist because i personally am a geek.
More like 2014: The year of Linux on everything but the desktop!
"Iterate in the living room"... I love marketing-speak.
Come to think of it, if I remember correctly, "iterate in the living room" is something my wife and I used to do before our daughter was born.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Only broad generalities are being stated on the promotional page, but are they trying to fuse the best of both PC and console worlds? (and then some?) My overly optimistic side interprets it as something like this:
For the user, you have both the reliability of it "just working" (like a console, standard hardware) and absolutely no limitations on customization (e.g. run your own linux applications, install a different linux distro, run the OS on different hardware altogether, change the hardware, run an indie game that is not on Steam but still conforms to the standard hardware, do that thing you've always wanted to do with your PS3/360 but couldn't because they're greedy fucking assholes and/or are afraid of getting sued). And just as important for console users, you also have simplicity beyond "just getting things to work": a standard UI tailored to gaming (where everyone is connected, voice chat, a marketplace, "cloud", etc etc).
For developers, you have consistency (meaning no more custom tailoring your game to tons of different hardware configurations, controllers, etc etc, and also the ability to milk the most out of the hardware), a partially community-run marketplace owned by people that aren't assholes (and the ability to, if necessary, operate outside of it while remaining on the same platform), flexibility (nothing stopping you from adding in Oculus Rift support or whatever else), and an OS specifically optimized for gaming.
That's quite optimistic though. But if this is what they're going for--or at least something close to it--it could change everything (and upset a lot of established interests). And supposing this ideal were to come about and SteamOS gains traction, this could put a lot of power in the hands of a single company. The temptation to be greedy could be too great--especially as management inevitably changes. In other words, I'm hoping they'll proactive about putting in safeguards against their future selves, because my optimistic side (which, I must say, is usually wrong) says this could be big.
I think the idea is to get the game manufacturers to maintain WINE compatibility of their games. Some of the more adventurous may even recompile and link with WINE directly.
It will fail spectacularly. There is no money to be made on console hardware. Who is going to bother building a SteamOS device besides Valve? No one, because Valve is going to be making all the money.
I predict that you will see at least one or two companies selling small form factor PCs intended for the living room and with SteamOS pre-installed.
There are companies now selling PCs. Why wouldn't those companies sell those same PCs as "SteamBoxes"?
I want a SteamBox in my living room. I usually build my own computers, but I'd be willing to buy a pre-made one if it is made properly. What I'd really like to see is a shameless copy of Apple's new Mac Pro design... a small motherboard and one or two small GPU boards attached to a giant heatsink with a single, large, quiet fan to cool everything. That's something I can't really build for myself, and it is something I want for my living room.
And, by the way, Valve is giving away SteamOS. So, rather than paying for a Windows license and then making back some money by bundling bloatware on PCs, the PC makers can get SteamOS for free and then make back some money by bundling games. The last graphics card I bought came with five bundled games.
This announcement is great news for gamers. It is only bad news for Microsoft.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Well, it is a practical way to overcome the relative dearth of Linux games on Steam. But it probably won't endear this device to the hardcore Linux crowd, who were no doubt hoping for the Steambox to be a boon for Linux games (especially in light of a lot of recent pro-Linux talk by Valve).
http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/
With the help of the Indie Bundle and Steam's increasingly large library of games on Linux, it's been over a year since I bought a game that doesn't have a Linux native version, and I'm buying a fairly large number of games.
I have exactly 1 game I still play that actually requires Windows to play, and this would allow me to play that on a Linux system as well, as it's a Steam title.
Um, no. It has been in living rooms for over a decade. TiVo runs linux. Now get off my lawn!
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.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
How big is your house?
The delay over 1GB copper from office/closet to living room can't be that much.
IMO Origin is the best thing that ever happened to Steam: now I won't accidentally buy a game to discover I had been fooled by the ads and it was EA shovelware. Now if only the other "pile our own DRM on top of Steam's DRM" jerks would also leave!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
But won't it, eventually? It's a chicken-and-egg problem. Few native Linux games because of a virtually non-existent install-base, a virtually non-existent isntall base because there are few native Linux games.
This could be an end-run around that. If the streaming works well enough, it could help get a lot of SteamOS boxes in the wild, which builds the install base, making it a more attractive target for native development.
I dont get it. What are they talking about? Has Linux ever been rock solid? Upgrade your kernel, and things breaks apart. That is hardly rock solid to me.
Actually the kernel is really, really good. My experience is that when there is a problem with Linux-based OS, it's without exception in some userspace component.
Many modern games are pretty enormous to install; often taking 5-10 gigs or more of hard drive space. In comparison, my entire / partition, including all* the software I have installed on my laptop (kernel, X, KDE, productivity software, web browsers, SQL servers, and thousands of other things), weighs in at 8.8gigs. In cases where a game absolutely requires a certain version of a library, it would be much more sensible to just statically complie them for distribution via steam. Maybe it would increase download sizes by 1%. Even if it cost an extra 10% (it wouldn't), making a consistently functional experience would be well worth it for Valve.
*except steam games, which are installed on a different partition
I was looking forward to the Valve box, but all this talk of linux has put me off. The reason a wanted a valve box is to break free of the proprietary xbox sony console paradigm. A valve flavor of linux is more of the same.
So what you're saying is that you're annoyed they're using an open system because you were lokking forward to a new proprietary console OS to help you break free of the propietary console paradigm? **SYNTAX ERROR IN LINE 1**
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