Steam Coming to Linux Soon

[robert01]

Now the only question is. Will Steam be free software?

 

[Bradeck]

I'm sorry to be such a dummy, but I just took the Unbuntu tour, and it looked amazing. Is it really that simple to get a new free OS? Or does Linux mean lots of coding and technical areas that I have to be trained in? I just built a new desktop (First time, no explosions!) and I was debating buying a new copy of Win 7 Ultimate, but this looks great!

So can anyone with experience guide me here? I didn't see any signs saying "Not for dummies, must understand A+ and other types of code, or your computer will explode".

Ubuntu is, as the above post says, "babies first linux". For the most part it's fairly simple. You MIGHT run into issues installing drivers. I just installed Nvidia drivers on my Ubuntu partition, not by downloading and installing it like normal, but using the command terminal to get the files and installing them directly.

The great thing is that there's a huge community for linux in generall, meaning if you have an issue, a quick google search will give you a step by step to solving the issue.

Thanks for the advice, greatly appreciated! But what about coding, do I need to know any? Because I grew up on DOS, but aside from /CD I don't remember crap.

Captcha: White as snow (Captchas are racist!)

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Oh joy, another operating system to "support" by releasing about half their games and a buggy-as-hell client and then never touching it again. Seriously, I'm not holding out much hope that this will do anything worthwhile other than siphon off more employees who ought to be working on improving their existing products instead.

I'm pretty sure this won't be so bad after all. Nobody believed Steam would come to Mac OS X, but here we are 2 years later, with 245 games that run on OS X through Steam. Also, since all OS X games use OpenGL, all those games can be ported to Linux without much hassle. In addition, most of the Humble Indie Bundle and other indie games are released for Linux as well. And one final point, since they are hiring people specifically to do the work on the Linux port, it means they're not taking away any other developers from their work. I've used Steam on my gf's mac, and it worked fine, all updates are released for both platforms as well, how will it be any different with Linux?

While having other game developers release Mac ports on Steam is great, actual involvement from Valve pretty much stopped after the first few months. Like I said, half their own game library has never been ported over, and the client is still incredibly unstable for a lot of people, if the Steam forums are any indication. Also, apparently the one and only person they had working on developing the client for the Mac doesn't even work there anymore. Add to that the fact that they've never released any way to port mods over and the fact that every single AAA title that got a native-binary port on Steam has awful performance, worse than the half-emulated half-ports that companies like Asypr and Feral crank out.

And to top it all off, they still haven't made the Mac version of Doom III or Unreal Tournament 2004 available! The two AAA games on Steam that already had native Mac versions, and you can't actually get them on Steam.

 

[Storax]

I seriously hope I read that right.
Because if it's happening, I've got more reason to switch to Luinx.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Thanks for the advice, greatly appreciated! But what about coding, do I need to know any? Because I grew up on DOS, but aside from /CD I don't remember crap.

Captcha: White as snow (Captchas are racist!)

It wouldn't hurt to know a little Unix, in fact cd is the directory command in Unix as well, but you could get away with not knowing anything when it comes to Ubuntu. My dad is in his mid 60's, has literally no programming skills and still uses Ubuntu. Like I said, if you have a problem, chances are there is a step by step with what commands to enter in the console, if you have to use it at all.

 

[robert01]

Thanks for the advice, greatly appreciated! But what about coding, do I need to know any? Because I grew up on DOS, but aside from /CD I don't remember crap.

Captcha: White as snow (Captchas are racist!)

It wouldn't hurt to know a little Unix, in fact cd is the directory command in Unix as well, but you could get away with not knowing anything when it comes to Ubuntu. My dad is in his mid 60's, has literally no programming skills and still uses Ubuntu. Like I said, if you have a problem, chances are there is a step by step with what commands to enter in the console, if you have to use it at all.

Most distros have their own GUI based repository these days. Using CLI is usually just faster.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Most distros have their own GUI based repository these days. Using CLI is usually just faster.

Ubuntu has got that software "store" thing now, yes, but certain installations are a hassle to do without the terminal. Strange I know. Earlier tonight I installed Nvidia drivers on my Ubuntu partition, but the damn thing wouldn't install as is. I had to manually download and install them via the terminal, and it was much easier. Dafuq?

 

[robert01]

Most distros have their own GUI based repository these days. Using CLI is usually just faster.

Ubuntu has got that software "store" thing now, yes, but certain installations are a hassle to do without the terminal. Strange I know. Earlier tonight I installed Nvidia drivers on my Ubuntu partition, but the damn thing wouldn't install as is. I had to manually download and install them via the terminal, and it was much easier. Dafuq?

I have never had a hassle doing this. It was simply a matter of using the 'Additional Drivers' utility found in the Systems Settings page.

Also all Ubuntu based distros have the Synaptic Package manager which acts in the same fashion has the Ubuntu Store garbage.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Dear Gabe, Greg, and all the other linux fanboys.

What's wrong with using Windows 7 as a gaming platform? Plenty of Devs used WinXP LONG AFTER the launch of Vista.

 

[Smerf]

Now the only question is. Will Steam be free software?

by the standard definition or by stalmans?

 

[robert01]

Now the only question is. Will Steam be free software?

by the standard definition or by stalmans?

\

But of course. Free as in freedom baby.

 

[Mardok45]

1. Developing for wide-distribution across different linux distributions is a complete pain in the butt - I know, I've done it - because by their very nature, different linux distros have different things in them. Yes, you could only support certain distros or go for a lowest common denominator, but then you're not really seeing the full benefits of trying to "go linux", methinks. Thus, I think many developers simply wouldn't bother - especially imagine the support calls! Most technical support departments don't even understand how windows works, so good luck getting any help when the game crashes with a random error on your linux box! Evidence: All Introversion games are released with Linux versions, and I have never once managed to get them to run on any of my Linux boxes, and I wasn't even using obscure distros.

I'm not claiming to be an expert, but this shouldn't be a problem. I've never played Introversion, so I don't know much about that, but I have installed UT2004, Doom 3, Quake 4, and other games on my Gentoo box and they worked fine.

Developers should take one of two paths:

1. Dynamically link everything, and let the distributions handle the dependencies.

Let's say Valve were to port Team Fortress 2 to Linux, and lets say the TF2 binary depends on libCEGUICore.so, libAL.so, libOgre.so, and libOIS.so. If Valve were to dynamically link the executables, they should let the distributions handle the odd's and end's of the shared libraries.

For example, Debian might have named their OpenAL library libAL.so.0.1, and Red Hat might have named it libAL.so.0.1.0. If TF2 depends on libAL.so.0.1.0, that's great for Red Hat and its forks, but Debian will have to add some additional symbolic links in their packages to have TF2 point to the right OpenAL version.

And that's not all. Red Hat might be a couple versions behind on their Ogre implementation, and Debian might have removed the old CEGUI library TF2 depends on. So they would have to bring back that old version just to get TF2 running.

However, the good news is that Valve doesn't have to do that. That's exactly what distributions are here for. Bundling together all these shared libraries and getting them to work correctly with each other. Developers for an application shouldn't worry about these things, let the distributions worry about it.

Or you could...

2. Statically link everything right up until the GCC runtime library.

This is the approach I would personally take. You don't have to worry about any quirky shared library misnaming schemes, broken shared library API's/ABI's because of a new version, or any of that other stuff. All the libraries your binary depends on are all inside your executable. No need to load any shared libraries besides the GCC runtime.

 

[Lucem712]

I'm sorry to be such a dummy, but I just took the Unbuntu tour, and it looked amazing. Is it really that simple to get a new free OS? Or does Linux mean lots of coding and technical areas that I have to be trained in? I just built a new desktop (First time, no explosions!) and I was debating buying a new copy of Win 7 Ultimate, but this looks great!

So can anyone with experience guide me here? I didn't see any signs saying "Not for dummies, must understand A+ and other types of code, or your computer will explode".

If you need any assistance, I can help out. Just shoot me a PM and we can get started!

Since the steam client isn't available now, you can still do a live-cd and test it out without actually installing a single thing!

Ubuntu is fairly easy to set up (You can run into issues, but the community is fantastic, even to newbies)

A-lot of people have issues with the massive amount of choice. Suddenly there are these completely free programs available at the click of a mouse.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Eh. Windows has worked just fine for me; I've never come across a program or game I want that can't run on it and I've yet to come across any bugs or side-effects that one would expect in something that's open source and in a constant state of communal tampering. I've got no reason to ever switch.

All my money is belong to Microsoft.

CAPTCHA: "do more sit-ups"--how rude.

 

[Wintermoot]

crap I just got another reason to switch OS,s

 

[Treblaine]

Wasn't the PS3 version of Skyrim the derpy version? Or was that more down to the PS3's specific hardware design issues, like how there is only 256MB of system memory, pitifully small for 2012 where 4GB of dedicated system memory is almost ubiquitous on PC, 16x as much memory.

But interesting none-the-less. If open-GL versions are made for every game that gets a PS3 release, then it's no huge leap to also release a Linux version as well. There are already 533 Mac games on Steam store (UK), I imagine most of them could easily be ported from there to Linux.

I'm pretty sure it was down to memory limitations. Skyrim worked in a way where it loaded any changes made by the player (stored on the save file) into memory. The PS3 has two lots of 256MB with one dedicated to graphics. The 360 has 512MB shared over system and graphics. Both had issues but I think PS3 might have been affected slightly more. Don't take that as absolute truth. Both suffered the same memory issue but I don't have hard evidence suggesting one was worse.

OSX is a Unix-like OS. In my experience in writing C/C++ on Linux I have definitely found it easier to go between Linux and OSX rather than Windows and Linux. Mostly due to the fact Windows uses a different indicator to signal a new line in plain text (source code) where Linux and OSX use the same system. All my Linux written source code appears as one line when opened in Windows.

no personal experiences here, I just heard vehement (but still anecdotal) accounts of how the PS3 version can quickly become totally unplayable and they are forced to start again on 360 or PC. I'm no expert but I am getting a picture that PS3 is in many ways at significant disadvantage to Xbox 360 in certain aspects of it's architecture.

So - assuming there is a will - there is a way to bring all these games that have been getting Mac-ports on Steam. But I guess while Mac is an untapped market for gaming, Linux is very much one to grow. I find it so hard when recommending a PC build how you always have to tack on an extra $100 for the Windows OS. This could be the step towards making Linux a serious option for PC gamers without missing out on too much.

Of course, Windows will always be more comprehensive as is runs Open Gl and DirectX and no one else can run DirectX, and DirectX 11 I hear is very strong right now jsut from the ease of use part.

 

[Ed.]

Eh. Windows has worked just fine for me; I've never come across a program or game I want that can't run on it and I've yet to come across any bugs or side-effects that one would expect in something that's open source and in a constant state of communal tampering. I've got no reason to ever switch.

All my money is belong to Microsoft.

CAPTCHA: "do more sit-ups"--how rude.

This only applies to certain distros fedora for example that i use daily can have bugs but is the most cutting edge OS I use. on the other hand my media server runs debian because its incredibly stable much more than windows or even OSX but lacks many bells and whistles and has a bland functional look but for some things like servers that is perfect.

Ubuntu is the sort of all rounder user friendly version that is best for typical desktop.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

Well, that should reduce the number of times I'll have to reboot my PC into Windows just to play a game. It will probably still take quite a while before most PC game makers will put in the effort to make their games cross-platform, although there are quite some Windows games that work very well under Wine.

Unfortunately the Linux drivers for my graphics card are pretty awful (I can't even run games like Minecraft or VVVVV in full screen, for instance), and because of that I will probably have to stick to Windows for most games after all.

 

[mrF00bar]

It seems we are one step closer to Linux Direct X. TO THE DOWNFALL OF WINDOWS! YAAAARRRRR!!!

I don't why I turned into a pirate at the end there...