Valve Announces Steam and Left4Dead 2 for Ubuntu

[olstyle]

Liking the Linux approach very much, not so happy about them using Ubuntu. Ubuntu is fading quickly, being replaced by Mint which is on its way to make the jump to a "clean" debian base instead of being an Ubuntu fork.

[SIGSEGV]

debian based linux are awesome, i hope steam also provide rpm and tgz binary package

[Filiprino]

Originally Posted by W1zzard

libGCM on PS3 is faster than OpenGL on PS3 because libGCM is providing lower-level hardware access, which helps developers maximize performance.

LibGCM is a bypass for some things, for others libGCM just relies on OpenGL.

Also lower-level hardware access does not mean better performance. It also means more bugs and errors, and with today's computer compilers (GCC behemoth) manual performance improvements aren't that high except in case of vectorization or if your code is a pile of crap with lots of idiotic hot spots.

It's obvious that in consoles the need of lower level access may appear because the SDKs of consoles are developed by the company that produces the hardware without any other contributors.

GCC, libgc, and the rest of the toolset is developed by much more people and it's surely better optimized than any privative SDK provided by vendors. Only Intel's ICC can compete and exceed GCC's performance, on their own processors.

Also, we are talking about gaming on Windows, an OS that has lower performance than GNU/Linux. If we talk about the graphics pipeline we have to blame graphics vendors, although they already have a very similar performance to Windows drivers, so imagine if they start to work more on them, the performance that can be achieved would increase even more, exceeding that of Windows.

Finally, I only have to say that I wish Steam stays on GNU/Linux and helps to make it more popular and used, so better hardware support comes in. Also it would be a very good thing if they release source code of some parts, interfaces or whatever, if they don't want to open source the whole code. Support from vendors is always welcomed, but if it's open source and free as in freedom, much better. I don't want to continue using the same crappy closed drivers of a lot of vendors that after a year or two get discontinued.

[Deadlyraver]

Having Ubuntu as a gaming platform will be an amazing idea. I wonder if Half-Life 2 would be the next game on their list?

[theubersmurf]

Originally Posted by Deadlyraver

Having Ubuntu as a gaming platform will be an amazing idea. I wonder if Half-Life 2 would be the next game on their list?

I think tf2 would be more likely.

[Vinska]

Along with this Link to a news announcement on SeriouZone, "Starting game package" for steam might be a little bigger than only L4D2
...or at least would be available shortly after, I guess. Weeee!!!

[VulkanBros]

Originally Posted by W1zzard

you guys are aware that 99.5% of games on steam are directx based, which means they can't be easily ported to linux (opengl)

windows pc game sales are barely enough incentive for developers to do sloppy ports from console (xbox360 is directx).
imagine how interesting a tiny linux community is, requiring complete rewrites of the rendering code

All start is difficult.... but without a try nothing will happen - so yeah it may be difficult but at least someone is trying....and that is great IMO.

[james888]

Why is valve going to linux?

Originally Posted by Gabe Newell

“The big problem that is holding back Linux is games. People don’t realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.

https://allthingsd.com/20120725/valv...ws-8-and-more/

[theubersmurf]

I think he's right too. I've thought so for a long time.

[baggpipes]

Originally Posted by theubersmurf

Speaking of which did you run that from your console and download it? I'm wondering if canonical will make it available through their update service or if it will be a separate download.

I was just being dumb really... I'm sure it will be a separate DL... but who knows???

[theubersmurf]

Originally Posted by baggpipes

I was just being dumb really... I'm sure it will be a separate DL... but who knows???

I'm sure if they're able, canonical will make it available via the package manager.

[remixedcat]

if only adobe would join in....

[Aquinus]

I would be pretty pumped if I could

sudo aptitude install steam-client

[Vinska]

Originally Posted by Aquinus

I would be pretty pumped if I could

sudo aptitude install steam-client

I would be even more pumped if I could

cd ~/.steam_source && ./configure && make -j9