“Valve Corporation has today rolled out their Steam Mac OS X client to the general public and confirmed something we have been reporting for two years: the Steam content delivery platform and Source Engine are coming to Linux. This news is coming days after we discovered proof in Steam’s Mac OS X Client of Linux support and subsequently found more Linux references and even the unreleased Steam Linux client. The day has finally come and Linux gamers around the world have a reason to rejoice, as this is the biggest news for the Linux gaming community that sees very few tier-one titles.” This means Linux users can finally enjoy two of the best games in recent years: Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. BOOMER!
to buy my copies of L4D and L4D2 and Amnesia: the Dark Descent
Edited 2010-05-12 15:25 UTC
Gaming is probably the last reason for many users to still use windows over linux.
Looks like 2010 could now be the year of Desktop Linux.
I’ve heard that before. Only it was 2009, 2008, 2007… Good luck, though.
But this time is different… XD
This time there is a valid reason. I still have Windows exceptionally for games… And a lot of my non-tech friends find Ubuntu rather easy… especially in localization.
I never said there are no reasons. I’m just saying that I already heard the story too many times, so forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical…
I’ve heard that ever since the colored text install option in Slackware was considered to be a luxury item
It was actually even more common around 1999, 2001, 2002. After 2005 or so, a lot of people realized how retarded it was for everyone to keep saying it every year, and there was a noticeable drop (only the truely clueless tech writers kept it up)
LOL! You know I never grow tired of that.
I don’t know why, I should, but I find it very funny when people say that.
(And I am not being a jerk, I am serious. And I do think linux deserves and may someday achieve a much larger role on the desktop, if the desktop doesn’t disappear before that time).
I think year of the Linux Desktop will only happen if 99% of Windows/MacOS apps were also available on Linux and web apps worked regardless of what browser is being used.
Steam porting games to Linux is good step forward. A few years back (when the Pentium 4 first arrived) I was considering dropping XP for Linux but I was really into gaming and dual booting ate too much time. Things may have gone different if all my games were available on Linux.
Thats a funny joke.
Gaming is a poor metric for what people desire in a desktop. Not an irrelevant one, sure, but incomplete.
I’ve googled around for some figures and from what I can tell (2yr old results), in America about 40% of computer users play computer games BUT only 1 in 7 of these do so on the computer. The rest are on consoles. (Some figures go as far as 1 in 10.) That means that in America PC gamers are roughly 5% of PC users.
[Please note that by “gaming” I mean actual, fullscreen, “shrinkwrap” games which are played at least 4-10 hours a week, not Flash games or Solitaire etc. played casually. And that the above figures come from sales figures, so they don’t account for piracy, which is obviously very hard to measure accurately.]
I would venture to say that in fact Linux does not, anymore, lack anything in particular to be actually useful to the average PC user. It has Open Office which covers the needs of most users, it has a very decent desktop offering (the actual experience, the design, the hardware support, the applications), it is more secure than Windows (yes, even 7).
The users who absolutely must have specialized software which is only available for Windows are borderline cases. Please note that I mean it in the sense of, for example, actual graphical designers who absolutely must have Photoshop on their home PC, not the casual user who pirates Photoshop, only uses 1% of its capabilities and can’t be arsed to look for a legal alternative.
What Linux lacks is marketing. Apple and Microsoft spend megabucks in various types of media on maintaining awareness for their operating systems. Linux is reduced basically to word of mouth and perhaps seen as a “techie” term in specialized articles. The average non-geek person is hardly aware of its existence.
as of dec 2k9, world of warcraft had 11.5 million subscribers. A casual MMO player is probably 15-20 hours per week, and that is just one MMO (albeit, the biggest)
Linux marketing is totally there, it is just grassroots, which is actually way better then traditional marketing. A lot of people have asked me about it before, because some guy that was at a computer store/in a cafe/fixing their computer/at their work/ etc told them about it and that it was better then windows.
The problem is that its not enough to be “good enough”, “as good”, or “better”. The problem is that only computer geeks actually enjoy learning how to use computers, normal people hate it, and have no problem paying the 130$ or so required for an OEM windows 7, if it means things work more or less the same as they are used to. They also will not use something different from everyone else, because they don’t know (or want to know) enough about computers to make an informed choice. A lot of people also have a financial investment into windows, and probably won’t want to just throw that away.
Lastly, people really are pretty happy with it. The way most people use their machines, it doesn’t really matter what OS they use, windows does the job and they are used to it.
If you really want to be an evangelist, best thing to do is market to the kids and give the adults up as a lost cause. Kids don’t buy software, they spend a LOT of time on computers, they are more willing (and better at) learning things about computers then adults, and they don’t have to work at a job using windows. If you are successful, the landscape in the next 30-40 years will be different enough that most of the previous things wont apply anymore, and you won’t actually be doing people a disservice by trying to push them on to something different.
2004 was the year of Desktop Linux for me, and has been ever since.
Gaming is probably the last reason for many users to still use windows over linux.
Looks like 2010 could now be the year of Desktop Linux.
Even with Steam and several really good Valve games going Linux I still have to keep Windows for all the other games. I don’t have a modern fusion-powered interdimensionally phased qubit-crunching PC and as such all the games I like to play run like crap under Wine :/
I actually find that some older games, e.g. Thief 1 & 2, actually are more stable and play better under Linux/wine than under Windows; not sure why, maybe something to do with multiprocessor systems not playing nicely, but I couldn’t solve the instability problems under Windows.
When I first moved to Linux, I used to play Quake 3 a lot, and it played as fast under Linux as it did under Windows. I kept Windows round for Steam, until the hard drive failed, and never bothered to replace it. I will admit there are a few games that I’m a little interested in, but if Steam is made available for Linux I’ll be sorted.
It’s true that this is significant step forward for linux, but it still has a looooooong (like… from here to mars) way before it can be a viable desktop alternative for pc gamers, even the more “casual” ones.
I hope they will backport their old games to Linux, this press event did not talked about it. One thing for sure, the day of the release, I will buy my copy of The OrangeBox and L4D[1-2]. I cross my fingers!
I’m not a gamer. So, I don’t really comprehend the significance the Steam engine and what it means to those who wish to play games on Linux. Never the less, your mention of the Orange Box caught my eye.
My kid loves playing TF2 on his PS3. He plays it everyday. The Orange Box is an amazing value. I think the most creative and best games I’ve ever witnessed is Portal.
Anyway, can you (or someone) tell me more about Orange Box on Linux? My kid has begged for the PC version because it seems to get updates and has weapons he doesn’t have. But, I’ve told him “No” because I don’t have Windows at home and I like it that way. This may be good news for him.
The funny side note is that my kid wanted a couple of other games. So, we went to the game store and I spotted the Orange Box. I did use to play some of those games a few years back. I thought he might like them. But, he wasn’t interested. So, I just bought it for him anyway. Now, TF2 is the *ONLY* game he plays. And, I’ve never seen him play games with this much regularity.
Having gone and RTFA, I see the significance.
The Orange Box is TF2, HL2 and Portal.
As all those games will be released on GNU/Linux when Steam and the source engine is ported (a bit later for TF2), you can buy them online and expect your kid to play them under Linux
Actually it’s TF2,Portal, HL2, HL2:Episode 1, HL2:Episode 2.
Any source based game should “Just Work” when steam comes to Linux.
No, Vavle still have to port the game. They use an old version of the source engine. They have to be ported to the newer one and have some code cleanup to work. Look likt they did it with Counter Strike Source (the new version is in beta (Windows only)) right now). They will probably do it some day, but it may take a while. Until that, the orange box seem to work well in Wine.
I think it is safe to assume that all games that are coming to OS X are coming to Linux as well. AFAIK that includes all of Orange Box at least.
As a user who owns many of these games, I usually run them under Windows. I have a 64-bit Win7 box for gaming. I have also run Steam under Crossover Office, with varying results. Certainly, I always pay a price in performance under Wine.
The idea that I could run my Steam Games directly under Linux is an exhilarating thought. I did purchase the “Humble Bundle” recently, so I do also support native Linux games. The thought of Half-life 2, L4D[1-2] running on Linux would really be exciting.
p.s., I will put my money where my mouth is.
I’m pretty sure this is the main motivation for Valve releasing Steam for Mac and Linux. Perhaps they saw how well Blizzard’s games have done on the Mac and are trying to get in on that action.
Whatever the reason, I’m just glad they did it. By the way, Portal is available for free until May 24th via Steam; I’m downloading it now so I can finally see what all the fuss was about. (And whether the cake truly is a lie…)
Expect Portal to stop working on May 25th, if that wasn’t clear.
I’m pleased that Valve is going beyond the Windows world. If more companies see opportunities to grow, they might follow.
I saw some Mac user complaining somewhere else that Valve’s whole library wasn’t completely available on launch. It reminded me why we have software developers and construction workers. (Each kind of work is harder to do by the other.)
Edited 2010-05-12 23:47 UTC
That’s what I gathered; like I said I just wanted to see what the game was like. I just played it for a few minutes and it was really fun! Definitely my kind of game.
This is incorrect. It can be purchased for free up until that date.
Official confirmation
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1265319&page…
I’m happy to be wrong. They were not clear.
This is fantastic. !!!!!
So where is Valve officially confirming this?
I will believe it only when I see it in Valve’s site.
Edited 2010-05-12 17:15 UTC
They haven’t officially confirmed this.
I used to run steam games through wine. But then I thought it was too much bother, especially source games. And now I don’t really feel like playing valve games any more. Perhaps they should have worked on this a bit earlier because now this is too late for me to enjoy this.
What do I mean by this?
First off, before I piss off lot of people, let me start by saying that for the most part, I think Linux rocks, in fact I actually use Linux far more often than OSX, but I use Linux as a compute node / developer env, and not as a desktop OS. In my experience, the Linux kernel is more stable, and much better performing than the OSX kernel. The virtual memory subsystem in OSX is real pile of crap. That said, I do use OSX only as a desktop OS mostly because of the state of 3D hardware support in Linux.
This really is a great accomplishment on Steam’s part considering the state of 3D hardware support in Linux.
I’m referring to the ridiculous cat-and-mouse game between the Linux kernel developers and hardware manufacturers. Face it, graphics hardware vendors do have some trade secrets that they develop and need to protect to give them a competitive advantage over competitors (nVidia / ATI…).
Now the Linux devs who want to block binary drivers at ANY COST. So (read the kernel mailing lists and the goals of kernel mode switching), every time nVidia, ATI, etc.. release a new driver, the kernel devs try to change some kernel interface to intentionally break the proprietary drivers. In the end, this just ends up screwing the end user. Then the hardware vendors re-compile their driver, and the game starts a new. This is why I use OSX as desktop OS, and Linux as a compute node OS: because 3D just works.
Are proprietary drivers ideal? absolutely not, but one needs to understand the hardware vendors POV also. It would be really nice if every piece of hardware had a full open source driver, but that is simply not realistic. If Linux just had a stable kernel binary ABI for device drivers, so a binary driver would not break every time somebody issues some security fix, I probably would switch to 100% Linux. Until the Linux devs find a way to co-exist with hardware manufacturers who only want to provide binary drivers, we all loose.
Sure, but some probably most of us are not as bleeding edge as it takes for your scenario to create an issue.
I don’t think the kernel devs go out of their way to intentionally break anything. They just aren’t going to hold back from doing their work because of Nvidia, etc. If you use Fedora, the Nvidia drivers are easy to set up and automatically updated if you add rpmfusion to you repo list. Its no harder than installing the drivers in Windows.
They intentionally have an unstable abi that breaks binary drivers.
Their position has long been that they don’t care if this makes life difficult for hardware companies.
They have not only broken video drivers but VM Server as well since it hooks into the kernel.
Linus and the peanuts gang are open source purists that could give a shit about any problems they cause downstream.
So… you basically agree with the post you’re addressing.
Linux is a real pain to support for hw companies. If i worked for a hw comany i would really advise against Linux support. I ported a webcam driver from Netbsd to Freebsd, this was really easy and just needed some minor tweaks. But the driver was ported from linux and a saw a zillion ifdef’s for different kernel versions (yes, also minor versions). The changes between Netbsd and Freebsd were less than most minor Linux versions.
Linux should make a stable abi. Freebsd guarantees that it will not remove stuff between minor versions, this way we don’t have a moving target. But Linus will never allow this since he wants a monolitic kernel and have complete control over the source. This makes sense from a opensource and techical pov (for debugging), but i think it is not the right call.
Funny, then, that practically no hw company bothers with *BSD support.
It is because the userbase of *BSD systems is considerably smaller than that of Linux, isn’t it? I thought everyone knew this?
However, it isn’t that no hardware company bother with BSD support. There are support from hardware companies. If you haven’t heard of it, you were just ignorant on *BSD. Have you installed nvidia driver on FreeBSD? Have you not known that there were companies provide documents on their hardwares?
Edited 2010-05-12 23:12 UTC
The different approaches taken by the two operating system families might have something to do with the above result? Maybe? Or is it also solely due to another big conspiracy carefully executed by Linus and his minions?
How dare we question the design philosophy of Linus and Greg K-H when Linux is such a resounding success on the desktop. Telling hardware companies to open source their drivers or f off has worked wonders.
Having a consumer desktop Unix with a stable abi is non-sense just as Greg famously claimed. Oh except for OSX which has over 10x the share of Linux in the US. But other than that, non-sense.
Edited 2010-05-13 01:08 UTC
Are you seriously claiming that Apple’s success is due to having a stable hardware API?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
AHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Heck, Apple doesn’t even allow a lot of hardware to run on the OS at all – hence the hackintosh community that has sprung up. OSX is popular because of the user interface and the massive advertisement campaign they run, not because lots of hardware runs on it or because they are friendly to developers. (Ask any iPhone developer what they think about that)
Edit: Oh, and questioning is fine, but you don’t seem to be doing much of that. What you’re doing is declaring that you’re right and they’re wrong, without even putting out any argument other than “it’s hard for companies with proprietary drivers so it must be bad”. I assume you realize that everyone agrees that it’s hard, and that some of us just think that there are other benefits to the non-stable API that outweigh the harm it causes.
Edited 2010-05-13 06:36 UTC
Where did I claim that?
I pointed out that there is a successful Unix desktop that has a stable ABI. I said nothing about the reasons behind its success, just that one exists.
If all you wanted to do was prove that with enough money a stable API could succeed, you’d be much better off using Windows in your example.
If you were trying to prove that it was necessary to succeed, then I think your own example actually disproved that, given that OSX has less hardware support than linux does.
And if it didn’t have any bearing at all, then why even bring it up?
ABI, not API. And as much as myself and nt_jerkface are typically on opposite sides of most issues, he’s right about this. An os needs both a stable ABI and stable API to be attractive for hardware (and even some software) makers to even consider it. How much hardware supported by the OS itself is irrelevant if the manufacturers can easily and quickly write drivers that they can be reasonably sure will continue to work within the os/kernel’s current major version. As much as I like Linux, it seriously fails at this. The ABI and API both change with each kernel revision. Drivers compiled for 2.6.32 will not work with 2.6.33 without a recompile. That is not the kind of crap hardware companies want to deal with. And then there’s the software side of it, each distro has different versions of glibc, different libraries installed by default, different distro-specific patches for those libs, etc. It can seriously be a deployment nightmare for precompiled software. And yes, I know it’s all awesome from an open source perspective, but it’s horrible for those on the other side.
Well, we don’t want to hear about OS X/BSD here, it’s all about Steam on Linux.
You’re on the defensive, since as usual the whole Linux driver stable ABI debate comes up. That’s fine, we will live with and are(Linux is doing fine thanks in regard to drivers). I couldn’t care less about OS X and how it’s better in this regard because in my view, it’s a very restrictive platform.
Will this stop me and others from playing games on Steam? No.
“The ABI and API both change with each kernel revision.”
Is this true? If it is, then Linux is worse than I thought. That sucks, how can you use it in Enterprise then? You can not have a stable environment where things breaks for a small upgrade. Then better off to other OSes, where the ABI and APIs has been frozen for decades, such as Solaris.
Simple. They use RHEL or SLED, where major changes like this simply aren’t introduced in a version cycle. Both Red Hat and Novell treat their enterprise distributions as they should be treated, as a whole complete os rather than a bunch of different components. Debian stable can be used for the same reason. However, things like Steam can’t target these easy platforms, they need to target the latest desktop systems most people will be using, where these changes *do* happen and often.
I think you’re missing the point. Which is that I don’t care how horrible it is for people on the other side. What i care about is the final result, and in that regard Linux actually supports more hardware than OSX does. Thus, the lack of stable API/ABI matters less than zero to me.
I do think you have a point about the userspace side though – i’m sure lots of commercial software hasn’t been ported over because each distro has it’s own modifications that need to be taken into account, the poor state of audio, etc.
OS X hasn’t even close to 1/10 of the hardware support Linux has, so your example isn’t only irrelevant, it’s exceptionally poorly chosen. You obviously just thought it would be a great idea to state OS X as a shining example of how to do things right, and entirely forgot what your example was supposed to be about: hardware support, not market share. Linux has better support for Apple hardware than OS X has.
OSX is an example of how Unix should be on the desktop. A hardware company can compile a binary driver and expect it to work with OSX for years. The audio and video stacks are clean, the software distribution system is source agnostic and there’s no holy war against proprietary drivers by the developers.
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.
If anyone doesn´t know the song, check out in Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01r_ftIzEIU
It´s a serious song about serious times, but every little victory is worth celebrating. Those of us who have been around for a while value what the linux community has accomplished and how far it has come without giving up on its central values of collaboration and equal access to technology.
Floss software has opened up software development to a huge number of people who now have free access to great compilers, development languages, web servers, databases and can create the “next big thing” based on talent and creativity, not how much money they were endowed with at birth.
And now, we can eve waste time “gaming”. You can see it´s not my thing,but it was one of the last walls to crumble and it is slowly and surely coming down.
Gamers should also check out:
http://www.playdeb.net/
Phoronix has been pretty… lax in its reporting on Steam for Linux. It’s nothing more than a big rumor mill at the moment.
Valve HAS NOT OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED JACK SHIT for Linux. Not a single word. Phoronix is blowing their load over a line in an article on an unrelated site, which could be nothing more than the result of a lazy journalist who read Phoronix and thought their past articles meant Valve announced Steam on Linux.
Valve hasn’t announced anything. There is proof that someone at Valve is experimenting with Linux support for Steam, but there isn’t even a remotely usable client beta yet, and they may very well decide to dump the entire project. It may even just be a side project of a single developer at Valve with no company support at all. Or it may even just be released for no reason other than to make it easy to install the already existing dedicated Linux server binaries Valve makes available, not to deliver the actual game clients. Even if it is coming, it could be many, many months before it’s actually available.
The OS X port makes a Linux port a lot easier, certainly. It means they already have working OpenGL support. It means they already stripped any hard Windows dependencies. It means they already have the necessary abstractions and code cleanups necessary for cross-platform development. At the very least, it means that they have a clear path ahead when it comes to implementing a third platform, which should be a lot less work than adding a second.
What the OS X port does not mean is that they actually are adding the necessary glue code and platform bits for X11+POSIX support. The unofficial binaries people have gotten off of the Steam servers for Linux can’t even render a few simple boxes and text properly, so it is probably safe to assume that there are a lot of platform-specific bits that need to be tweaked or rewritten to support the Linux stack. We have no official confirmation that Valve is actually going to put forth the time and money to code up all the missing Linux-specific bits that both Steam and Source likely need to get running. The OpenGL part is out of the way, sure, but there are quite a few more bits that are needed besides just the basic graphics. Steam might even be using platform-specific 2D rendering libraries for all we know, requiring a whole third rewrite of the entire UI library backend to get it working correctly on Linux (which would explain why the unofficial binaries are so broken looking). Text rendering APIs at the very least are still heavily platform specific, with Windows and OS X having their proprietary libraries and Linux having 34 of its own for each widget toolkit. I rather doubt they are using Cairo for their cross-platform toolkit, so they may need to go and get a backend for that working, too. Let’s not even get into audio (including voice chat), where they’re definitely going to have their work cut out for them unless they’re already using OpenAL. And then there’s the Valve DRM mechanism (yes, there is one, albeit a very tame and unobtrusive one compared to most of the others, and only some games use it) that may or may not require kernel modules as I do not know any details about how their DRM is implemented.
Until Valve says otherwise, zip your pants back up and calm down. We may still never see Steam or Source on Linux. Throw the party when Valve themselves actually says we will.
Then why suggest something as extreme as a kernel module? Steam downloads each game in encrypted form and unencrypts it when first run. The game itself will look for Steam when booting up and once a month the Steam client will call home to make sure everything’s alright with your account.
Why on earth would they need a kernel module for that?
That my well be true but look at this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7715209/Steam-for-Mac-g…
“Valve has also confirmed that it will make Steam available to Linux users in the coming months.”
I wonder where that came from because even a well know British tabloid claims it.
I understand advising caution about these sorts of things, but the thing I’ve continually found about business in general and more specifically the business of gaming, is if you are loud enough, and are demanding enough– literally, demonstrating a economic demand for their supply– and we also say and give them proof we WILL pay them money, they will eventually roll over. Eventually.
This could be Valve taking the first steps into moving Steam onto smartphones.
Having compatible Steam games available on an Android or Meego phone, tablet or netbook would be pretty cool.
I just had a look in the Steam store at the Mac titles. Because people are saying that they have ported the source engine to Mac. But it is full of lots of other games as well.
Civilisation IV, Football Manager 2009
Many pop cap and casual games as well
Also all the Indie games that probably already had a Mac client.
This may mean that if they port to Linux as well there will be quite a lot of titles.
I also definitely think that Valve is looking at the portable market or trying to shore up the entire PC/Mac market.
Linux getting a lot of attention because a lot of people are on the defensive here. It seems to me that some people on other OS’s just don’t like it, so they need to attack Linux, it’s API and desktop share with the same old drivel.
If Valve truly get Steam up and running properly in Linux(so far it’s not working very well in OS X, in regard to games working because only Portal and a few 2d stuff work properly) then the jealously will set in and one less reason to attack Linux.
I will buy my first game since 5 years back.
Not that i have been pirating games for 5 years. but i thought a dual boot environment was to much hassle for games so i just dumped my windows partitions a couple of years ago. And now it looks like i can do casual gaming again.