Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.......
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.
You think it's breathtaking that the new Steam box runs linux? Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of them!
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
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.
Actually Linux is not Ready for the Desktop. It made it in other areas.
The desktop problem is a problem of too much hardware, in a Windows world. When Microsoft started to push the OS which required drivers, hardware manufactures dropped the idea of following standards and did whatever they felt like, just as long as they made a Windows driver they are OK. Linux, on the other hand, needs to back track and get those drivers made, with or without the hardware vendors support.
Now some vendors are wary of making Linux Drivers, either because of Rabid GNU Fanatics, who will cause all sorts of problem if it is open source. Or they just cannot make their driver open source due to licencing concerns in their own development.
Now with the other stuff where Linux has a strong hold, is where the Hardware Maker, also makes the full environment. A Linux based devices and control all the hardware and software.
The irony is Linux works best on Closed systems.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Actually Linux is not Ready for the Desktop.
Hey now! I'm a regular Linux desktop user and... and... and you're completely right.
No operating system will enjoy mainstream adoption these days if mucking about in a CLI is ever a necessity. Sad but true.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
More like 2014: The year of Linux on everything but the desktop!
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