Steam on Linux

[zokudu]

Figured I would post this here. Michael Larabel just wrote up an article. Aparently he was at Valve a little while ago and they are demoing/actively working on a linux client for Steam and porting the Source engine to Linux. As of right now only L4D2 is somewhat running but they plan on porting all Source Engine games in the future.

I'm literally super excited right now.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_linux_dampfnudeln&num=1

Honestly if this happens I might swap my desktop to Linux. Steam and Source Engine games are 75% of my games. The rest are WoW and soon to be GW2. WoW runs fine under Wine. Just gotta figure out GW2 on linux. Hopefully theres a decent Wine implementation.

 

[lxskllr]

I'm less than excited, but it's always good to get more GNU/Linux support. I don't game much anymore, but HalfLife is a good franchise. Getting Bioshock to run natively would get me more excited :^)

 

[zokudu]

I think even if you're not into Steam (Which I figured you wouldn't be lxskllr ) I think if Valve does a big push to bring gaming to Linux it cannot hurt Linux in the long run.

 

[Jodell88]

I believe the Humble Indie Bundle showed game developers that there is a market for Linux games. I think steam coming to Linux is a very good thing.

 

[Nothinman]

That is awesome, I've been running Steam under WINE for a while now with mixed results depending on the version of WINE so it'll be nice to have a native release.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

Linux based steam-box coming soon? Kinda gets me excited, and would pretty much serve as another game system for the living room. If Valve is backing and selling a unit for $200-300, then maybe devs will start developing games for it.

The battle for the living room is still up for grabs, and the ultimate solution is a computer hooked up to the TV (which i think everyone should have). This could be the next best thing, and have games on top of it.

 

[Chaotic42]

That's pretty awesome. If I could game on Linux, I'd drop Windows completely.

 

[ShadowVVL]

That's pretty awesome. If I could game on Linux, I'd drop Windows completely.

same,I tried to runway from windows, But I look at my stack of games and I just cant do it.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

That's pretty awesome. If I could game on Linux, I'd drop Windows completely.

but would you really COMPLETELY leave? It would have to come a long way for me to reach that point. I mean, technically steam and a decent amount of games are on mac, but theyre still not at a point where i could leave windows behind.

A steam box is the only chance of getting devs to adapt linux as a viable platform to make money off of. Outside of that steam on linux is going to be just like steam on mac, except with even less games.

 

[lxskllr]

but would you really COMPLETELY leave? It would have to come a long way for me to reach that point. I mean, technically steam and a decent amount of games are on mac, but theyre still not at a point where i could leave windows behind.

A steam box is the only chance of getting devs to adapt linux as a viable platform to make money off of. Outside of that steam on linux is going to be just like steam on mac, except with even less games.

PC games have gotten pretty lame. We usually get console's sloppy seconds, and infected with egregious DRM. It's taken a lot of the fun from the experience, and is hardly worth the effort anymore.

I won't get a console of any kind. I'm philosophically opposed to them on principle. I have, or can build a perfectly good computer that'll exceed anything that can be stuffed in an idiot box, and I can use it for multiple purposes. I don't want several specialized computers sitting around the house when I can do everything with one unit. Add to that the manufacturer's complete disregard for my rights, and the value drops below zero.

Aside from gaming, the only thing I miss from Windows is Foobar2000. DeaDBeeF is close enough, and covers my core needs. Libre games may not look as pretty, but they're fun, and most importantly, they're libre. Freedom is the most valuable attribute of software, and the hardest to assign value to.

 

[Chaotic42]

but would you really COMPLETELY leave? It would have to come a long way for me to reach that point. I mean, technically steam and a decent amount of games are on mac, but theyre still not at a point where i could leave windows behind.

A steam box is the only chance of getting devs to adapt linux as a viable platform to make money off of. Outside of that steam on linux is going to be just like steam on mac, except with even less games.

I can't think of anything I do on Windows which I couldn't do on Linux, other than gaming. Now at work, that's a different story, but for home, I don't need much.

There are office suites, POV-Ray, I suppose I could bring myself to use GIMP, video players... I'd be okay.

 

[zokudu]

I would need WoW GW2 and CSS/CSGO to be linux and then I would probably swap. Some things I would hate, namely Libreoffice but I could get by and not going to lie full timing linux is actually fun. I don't know why but it just is.

 

[smirk]

That's pretty awesome. If I could game on Linux, I'd drop Windows completely.

I haven't used Linux on a desktop in a while. How's the video card driver performance these days? Comparable to Windows?

 

[Nothinman]

I haven't used Linux on a desktop in a while. How's the video card driver performance these days? Comparable to Windows?

That's been true for nVidia cards with the non-free drivers for like a decade or more. I'm not sure of the state of the ATI/AMD drivers though.

 

[zokudu]

That's been true for nVidia cards with the non-free drivers for like a decade or more. I'm not sure of the state of the ATI/AMD drivers though.

That aren't too bad. I had to compile from source on Debian Squeeze though but my old 4000 card has been chugging along well enough. Most taxing thing I do is WoW through wine sometimes though.

I think this would be the biggest stepping stone ofr Linux Gaming is video drivers can be hit or miss, it took like 3 different packages to get 3d acceleration with the FGLRX drivers on top of having to compile from source. Would an average consumer jump through those hoops? Not quite sure, and if they don't suddenly their opinion of linux as a day to day OS is skewed.