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Torvalds: SteamOS Will 'Really Help' Linux On the Desktop
nk497 writes "Linus Torvalds has welcomed the arrival of Valve's Linux-based platform, SteamOS, and said it could boost Linux on desktops. The Linux creator praised Valve's 'vision' and suggested its momentum would force other manufacturers to take Linux seriously — especially if game developers start to ditch Windows. Should SteamOS gain traction among gamers and developers, that could force more hardware manufacturers to extend driver support beyond Windows. That's a sore point for Torvalds, who slammed Nvidia last year for failing to support open-source driver development for its graphics chips. Now that SteamOS is on the way, Nvidia has opened up to the Linux community, something Torvalds predicts is a sign of things to come. 'I'm not just saying it'll help us get traction with the graphics guys,' he said. 'It'll also force different distributors to realize if this is how Steam is going, they need to do the same thing because they can't afford to be different in this respect. They want people to play games on their platform too.'"
This doesn't help GNU/Linux on the desktop. It will only lure people into using non-free programs distributed through Steam.
I hope this mean not only first class graphics API porting (e.g. OpenGL), but also production-grade computing API (e.g. OpenCL) without vendor-specific crap (try to rebuild OpenCL stuff with the AMD """""SDK""""").
I only have windows to play games on....So if your telling me my next PC can play all the games I want and not require me to play for a operating system I'm all excited!
Well, the folks who only play games on Windows might. Or they might dual boot, and use Steam on Linux. And a lot of people cite the absence of Triple-A games on Linux as being the big thing stopping them from migrating.
Certainly, it isn't going to hurt anything :)
Seems to me that Steam is already an "app store". Distributing non game software through it shouldn't be a problem, really.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
I'm not so sure SteamOS is going to be such a good thing for Linux.
Yeah, you'll get AAA games on Linux (probably), but if they start tying everything to proprietary APIs and specific environments (say, Ubuntu/Unity/Mir, or worse, some entirely proprietary stack built from the ground up on top of the kernel), that's a loss for Linux. Your freedom is gone and it's Windows all over again.
Corporations don't care about Linux and free software. We already have Google tightening its grip on the "open" Android. SteamOS will probably be more of the same: a corporation using the argument of "Open-Source" to lock users into their closed-source solution.
Steam already does sell non-game software: Steam Software
Yeah, exactly like how Tivo buyers were all open source advocates, and Apple TV buyers are primarily interested in the fact that the kernel has posix API's. Though, there may be a small group of SteamBox buyers who buy it mainly because of playing games, and don't really care about what OS it runs.
If Linux is gathering Steam then it can't just be vaporware.
Why not? Increasingly games are using standard APIs and getting multi-platform releases. They're not tied to an OS anymore. A Windows license is a huge, unnecessary expense for PC gamers. Gamers worship hardware and entertainment software, not operating systems. They're going to go with whatever has support for the hardware they have and the games they want to play. With Valve pushing Linux and GPU makers joining them, all the pieces are in place to dethrone Windows or at the very least drum up some competition.
I'm guessing you haven't tried a Fresh install of any version of Linux lately.
Its no harder than windows. There is actually less tinkering required than with windows.
Especially for those distributions that have aimed their packaging at the new users.
The obstacle is that it was difficult to buy a pre-configured Linux machine. Nobody installs windows these days either. They buy it pre-installed.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The driver improvements are actually what Linus is talking about if you RTFA. That's how desktop Linux will benefit.
As for why SteamOS: about a year ago (I think) Valve demonstrated that you could get superior performance on Linux because the code was open. It's a lot easier to do optimizations on a platform when you have comprehensive documentation on how it works—and where the bugs are. Valve's devs were also greatly elated to discover that they could actually fix said bugs instead of just working around them, like they had to do on Windows.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
steam works pefect in GNOME shell in archlinux. unity is not a requeriment.
To add to this, I don't think SteamOS will use unity period. I suspect they'll use a custom window manager or perhaps full screen mode for steam os will be the window manager. I personally run steam in KDE without issues.
Yeah, great, but.... you have run silverlight based app via Wine, so it is kind of wierdly possible.. SteamOS can bring native Linux Netflix, at least there's hope.
Qt and Qt Creator is more than "decent". It's excellent. Especially when compared to Visual Studio -- and yes, I use both, professionally.
M$, with every iteration of xbox, has been subconsciously trying to diminish the viability of windows as a gaming platform, this is mostly due to the 10 dollar royalty they get for each xbox game, compared to no royalty for each windows game. Games are the last reason for many technically minded people to retain a windows machine. Dev's won't take linux over windows yet, but in three months...if it's easy to port from ps4 to linux...then gamedevs may start to view windows as "not a worthwhile endeavor". Though allot of how that will turn out depends on the ps4 vs xbone face-off that's going to happen soon.
The console crowd doesn't get to take advantage of PC hardware the way PC games do. Have you ever seen an Xbox hooked up to two or three monitors?
This is an alternative for PC gamers who might like to dump Windows and use an OS better suited for their games, coming from a company that already makes a lot of popular games. The people who will buy this thing are people who use PCs and are fans of Valve games.
The Linux fanboys don't need to buy the SteamBox; they'll just use their existing custom PC and run Steam on that, like they're already doing. This will merely help improve support for Steam on the Linux platform by getting the gfx card makers to better support Linux.
Look at all the Linux users...
As a Linux user, I have to say, you're seriously overestimating the market there.
How much of the gamer market would ditch Windows in the blink of an eye if they could play the same games on Linux
Even if every member of the intersection of "Gamer" and "Linux user" switched, devs would have to be shirt-soaking drooling stupid to "ditch Windows" for that tiny slice of the pie.
You might want to go read about it some more; what you're talking about is preemption. The kernel has been preemptible for years now. Here's an article about it from 2002: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5600
I like to bash Miguel de Icaza as much as the next guy, but he hasn't been involved with GNOME for many years now, so you can't blame the current state of GNOME on him. He left the project long before GNOME 3 was envisioned, more like back during the GNOME 1.x days or perhaps early early 2.x days IIRC.
The sad fact is, GNOME is largely under the control of Red Hat, as they employ several of the most prominent GNOME developers including Jon McCann. So if you want to blame someone for attempting to ruin desktop Linux with the abomination that is GNOME3, blame Red Hat.
I reckon the degree to which SteamOS "converts" Windows people to Linux will depend on whether SteamOS allows for general-purpose computing. Take the scenario that boxes running SteamOS are just games consoles. People will be able to use them for games but not much else, in which case they'll still keep their Windows PC or partition for writing letters to the bank, or what have you. In this scenario, Linux would benefit from driver improvements but won't see much increase in user base. On the other hand, if SteamOS allows you quit Big Picture and enter a fully functional and feature-complete desktop then people may start to switch from Windows. Why boot into Windows if you can write your bank letter on Steam OS whilst taking a break from HL3? With an increased user base and a ready to go "app store" in the form of Steam, we might see more productivity software (e.g. Photoshop) appear for Linux. If Steam allows people to make money writing Linux software then that's got to be a positive thing. I know the die-hard free software guys shudder at the thought, but let's face it: the reason Linux is struggling on the desktop is because few developers think they can make money on the platform.
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Never mind. Kernel preemption was added in 2.6. Good for them.
Slowly.
Valve plays an incredibly long game compared to most tech companies (hell, most companies, period). They started Steam because they could see where constantly-increasing bandwidth was leading. They missed on some of the particulars, but by getting the main point correct early on, they were able to gather the momentum to overcome minor obstacles before anyone else could seize initiative. So not only did they avoid being tied down to another company's proprietary platform, but they managed to become the de facto digital distribution system while still being a relatively minor player.
SteamOS is a defensive move. They're concerned that Microsoft may lose its Windows dominance, or might try to move it to an Apple-like locked store (they sort of have, with RT). So they ported Steam and their own games to both OS X and Linux.
That was enough to spur an initial kick of OS X games following after them. It's not nearly universal now, but it's respectable, and growing.
Linux didn't get the same kick, mainly because they don't have as much market share. So Valve is giving it more support, and perhaps more importantly, lending it a more prestigious (among gamers) brand name.
Will it be a success? Perhaps. At the very least, it's enough a threat to Microsoft that they're not going to try to take over the digital distribution market, because if they do, Valve will just drop Steam on Windows and enough publishers will follow them to wherever they lead that Microsoft will ultimately have lost. So in one sense, it's a deterrent. But it could become a legitimate gaming platform in its own right, particularly if they get enough console-like games for Steam Machines to go up against the PS4/Xb1 in the coming generation.
They are not ditching Windows. They are making Linux a viable option. This is the first step on making Linux an equivalent platform. This is the next step on making Linux the preferred platform. THEN they can consider ditching Windows. Valve believes that Windows is currently the leading PC gaming platform. They also don't think it is a viable long term platform. Given those to assumptions, you neither ditch Windows today, nor do you just wait for your platform to collapse. You do just what Valve is doing, and build an alternative platform that is ready to take over when Windows fails. The best part for Valve is that if Windows stays as the dominant platform, they lose very little.
Games are the only thing keeping me from moving. And (as pointed out earlier), NetFlix, but that's less of a problem. Everything else on my linux install is fine. I have used OpenOffice and now Libre nearly exclusively since 2003 (I say nearly because work still requires Office and file formats still don't perfectly interchange, but there's nothing I need out of Office or any other windows apps that aren't available to me in Linux, with the exception of high end gaming support).
Linux beats Windows.
Order of easiest OS installs I did the last 2 years:
- Debian (about 6 times pressing [enter], and once a down button or something, takes about 20 minutes between second to last [enter] and the [enter] to reboot)
- Ubuntu (needed a few more down buttons and [enter], so, a couple of more minutes before the download+install happens)
- Windows pre-install on a Dell system (takes about 10 minutes, reboot, 15 more minutes, reboot, 10 more minutes, reboot, 20 more minutes, etc.)
- MS-DOS 4 on a modern PC using magnets
- Windows pre-install on a HP business system
There is netflix for linux.....it just matters who is willing to pay the licensing fee.... the WDTV Live+ is a linux device and supports netflix...western digital was willing to pay the licensing fee....your major distros however probably arent willing to bear that cost.....
When people have a nice steambox already there and running, they will want to run other apps on it too. Check facebook, read webmail, play youtube, soundcloud, stuff like that. That's a web browser that will most certainly be running a lot on those steamboxes. Next thing you know it, they'll be running XBMC for media too. Once they have all that, why have a PC for only office stuff, if you can run it on the steambox? Even if you have a PC for desktop use, you already know how to use linux, it's cheaper (free) than Windows and practically all your apps run on it anyway.
This is how home users will learn about linux on the desktop and use it without much thinking about it. Once it's commonplace in the home, BYOD and other business uses will follow. They will do that anyway, since only supporting windows won't ever work with the plethora of web clients and mobile devices people use these days, regardless of the client will be Linux on the desktop.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Android has a DRM (digital restriction management) subsystem. The linux standard based does not.
You can do it, it's called VGA passthrough using an IOMMU, need two graphics cards, the right CPU (any AMD, any Intel where it isn't disabled on purpose by Intel) and the right motherboard (compatible chipset, mobo vendor serious about supporting their BIOS like Asrock and Gigabyte)
You have to use a bare metal hypervisor too (Xen or VMWare ESXi), and at worst you'll fail to have the other graphics card in the linux VM (which would require you to use second display or KVM or a monitor's second input, anyway) so you can be forced, or choose to have the Windows desktop as your primary/only desktop and accessing your linux VM by ssh-ing into it (or VNC, xrdp, whatever). That sucks a bit but on the plus side you can reboot your Windows while leaving your linux alone.