Steam for Linux, Valve says no.

[DannibusX]

What about the very real possibility that Rage will be on Linux? id Software pretty famously makes all of their games available on linux.

[Easy Rhino]

Originally Posted by DannibusX

Jesus, must you troll my thread?

What about the very real possibility that Rage will be on Linux? id Software pretty famously makes all of their games available on linux.

dannibus, just ignore the haters! investing a small fortune in developing steam for linux could be a giant waste of money. it could also be a giant success and open up competition.

for all the people who complain about how microsoft is evil and they force up the prices of PC games because of their licensing and yadda yadda you would think more people would actually see the "non-monetary" value of a move like this.

[AthlonX2]

i dont hate Linux i just dont see all the greatest games coming to linux.. not in my lifetime anyways

[DannibusX]

Meh, it's still something I'd like to see happen. I'd learn 2 linux real fast if it did.

[Perseid]

Porting Steam to Linux would presumably get you the Source engine games, but is there really much of a commercial market beyond that? There isn't much of one for OSX, either, but surely it's even smaller on Linux. What would be the point of Steam if everybody has Orange Box and Left 4 Dead and that's it?

You're basically asking Valve to try and create the market by releasing Steam. While that would be neat, I don't see it happening.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Originally Posted by AthlonX2

there is an alternative. get a console

Thats not an alternative.

[devguy]

A lot of games on Steam are already linux ready, like iD's lineup, and many indy games. I personally play Wolfenstein:Enemy Territory almost daily and it rocks. Also, when it comes to OpenGL performance, modern Linux kernels have been smoking OSX for quite some time (although I haven't seen any comparisons since Apple's big update for Snow Leopard last week).

As far as Rage goes, my thinking is that if iD gets it running on Linux, it'll just be a binary they have uploaded on their FTP site (likely after the game launches). My opinion there is influenced by John Carmack's recent lack of enthusiasm for Linux. However, should Steam be around at that time on Linux (they have a freakin' year ya know), then I'm sure his opinion will be different!

[PVTCaboose1337]

I use Steam via Wine in Linux. Seems to work ok. The problem is getting the games to work. TF2 is fine, but it is in DX8! I guess I will have to stick to Windows!

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by DannibusX

Where'd you get the numbers?

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_s...rating_systems

Originally Posted by Easy Rhino

not yet there isn't. right now, PC gamers MUST use windows to play the newest and greatest games. what if there was an alternative?

I think the better question to ask is why would people running on a free operating system pay for games? The only software on Linux that is commonly paid for is RedHat and other server-engineered operating systems and that is mostly for security sake. Virtually all software is either free or no one uses it. Basically, asking Valve to convert their software to Linux is asking them, as a business, to shoot themselves in the foot.

[crazyeyesreaper]

if games came to linux id ditch windows forever

fact my 3d software runs better in Linux

fact linux uses less resources and with the newest unbuntu it looks pretty sexy as well

fact PS3 runs a form of linux that means any multi platform game could be made for linux relatively easily another fact to tie into this developers are lazy and it costs money so it dosent happen.

theres no reason not to use linux for games when last i checked PS3 holds 31% of the console market thats 31% of console gamers using a Linux + open gl based system and if the PS3 runs linux and games just fine the coding is pretty much already there someone just has to have the balls to say hey we can make this work and then just do it. But sadly money talks and smart ideas get flushed away. lol

[FordGT90Concept]

PS3 did run a form of Linux for "OtherOS." Sony killed that feature.

[crazyeyesreaper]

uh the system itself uses a form of Linux for the os and interface for gaming everything on the PS3 is run of a linux base granted performance is currently handicapped on the PS3 hardware using open gl but fact is the base code is there and it does work and some developers altho miniscule do use it since the support is there and avaible to developer consoles means that while Linux may be small in support most of that lack of usage is in a great deal tied to user functionality and ease of use and if anyone here has used the newest Ubuntu would realize that lack of support on the Linux side is truly a shame since it offers just about everything win7 has and does but uses 75% less ram to do it

running Vista i used nearly 1.75gigs idle at desktop

running Win7 i use 1.38gigs

newest Ubuntu i run around 390-440mb as far as the ability to give me better use of system resources Linux wins me over right there

[FordGT90Concept]

The PS3's operating system is called "System Software." What the OS actually is, like most consoles, defies a common consumer name. They are DRM to the core and have very limited capabilities by nature. Basically, it is proprietary/closed-source operating system engineered specifically for the console.

[wahdangun]

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

if steam really ported to linux i would ditch windows, and migrate to linux forever,

and with someone said that linux can't compete with windows, just give it a chance, just like android os in phone market its just need killer stuff like droid and look now it even surpass iPhone market share so it really need steam to be killer stuff for linux to rise from the ashes

[crazyeyesreaper]

all i know is i would really really love to have my 1gig of ram that win7 tends to waste or 1.4gigs i could get back compared to Vista. and some games run just fine i know Enemy Territory Quake wars runs silky smooth without issue along with a few others. It comes down to support from 3rd parties if linux had that support there wouldnt be much of an issue

but fact is Mac OSX is built on Darwin which is built on BSD

Linux distros while different are all based on Unix or a form of Unix meaning the base forms of how this all works are the same.

I look at it like a battery a AAA and a AA give the same volts but last different lengths of time and are of different sizes granted i can wrap tape around the AAA add a conductive item and make it work where a AA goes point is the porting of the code wouldnt be all that difficult from Mac to Linux the key point is that for a company Steam cant finacially do it without backing from other developers. IE they need a reason to do it and backing to mitigate cost which we all know wont happen. AFter all nothing is Free. Linux might be free but the people who code for linux dont code for free Linux has about 75% of its code developed by paid coders. eventually that will catch up to it and even if linux did get support it wouldnt really take long before it cost money for the end user to keep it. and we all know that.
.
So while i want gaming on Linux so i can better use my hardware and system resources i also realize its a pipe dream. In a market controlled by a monopoly.

besides paying for coding to be developed updated fixed and improved across 3 different operating systems would not be cheap Linux is Free coding for it is not

[kg4icg]

Here is something to think about which I have seen no one bring it up. Which version of linux would you like Steam ported to, under which kernel? Then there are the games too. Not everyone uses the same version of linux under the same kernel. Would you like it in Gnu? or KDE?, under Suse, Redhat, CentOS, Mandrake, Unbuntu, Debian. Linux is just a generalization with so many different flavors and personalities. So make a decision and decide which one?

[crazyeyesreaper]

it would most likely be Ubuntu since it has around 50% + of the desktop linux market and is offered as an OS by OEMs such as Dell etc

[Solaris17]

Just develop it for the debian code base.

[ctrain]

Originally Posted by crazyeyesreaper

uh the system itself uses a form of Linux for the os and interface for gaming everything on the PS3 is run of a linux base granted performance is currently handicapped on the PS3 hardware using open gl but fact is the base code is there and it does work and some developers altho miniscule do use it since the support is there and avaible to developer consoles means that while Linux may be small in support most of that lack of usage is in a great deal tied to user functionality and ease of use and if anyone here has used the newest Ubuntu would realize that lack of support on the Linux side is truly a shame since it offers just about everything win7 has and does but uses 75% less ram to do it

running Vista i used nearly 1.75gigs idle at desktop

running Win7 i use 1.38gigs

newest Ubuntu i run around 390-440mb as far as the ability to give me better use of system resources Linux wins me over right there

ps3 doesn't use opengl. support is apparently there, but it's never used as sony provides a fast alternative that lays right over direct hardware access... and it's an entirely different cpu architecture. power vs x86.

and don't start with the vista / w7 memory usage thing. it's by design, it's not just eating memory for no reason. it does it to improve performance and will fork over what it needs to when it needs to.

[douglatins]

Originally Posted by Easy Rhino

are you really that narrow minded? i would most definitely be a gamer using linux than PC if i had the option. there are already a slew of free games out for linux that are older and some that are newer. also, just because linux users are accustomed to not paying for stuff does not mean they won't pay for stuff... in fact, the money they would save on not paying for a windows license, and other licensed software they could spend on games!

The money saved is like worth 2 games. And they will never get directx, i'm not narrow, im realist, and how much trouble would it be for 2% of users? At least apple fans have the money.
And you said it, a slew of FREE games...

[KieranD]

I asked if you could run Doom 3 on a PS3 years ago but you cant because the linux doesn't use all the features of the PS3 like the GPU because it wasn't coded too.

SOMEONE has to set the ball going if people want a bevy of games on linux.
Id be more inclined to dual boot if they did this, id be able to play some Valve titles on linux.
Mac's have taken off especially Mac books and the fact that when you buy a copy of a Valve title you get one to use on Mac is cool.

Plus doing the Mac client it allowed Valve to develop for PS3 themselves since the architecture is similar. Maybe they are worried that no one would port to linux which is strange because i would also be worried about the port to Mac rate even though its not terrible not every company is willing to port over to another OS for whatever reason.

[Solaris17]

[KieranD]

DirectX is a windows API, linux and mac use OpenGL i thought that would be common knowledge.

lol at above image

[crazyeyesreaper]

Originally Posted by ctrain

ps3 doesn't use opengl. support is apparently there, but it's never used as sony provides a fast alternative that lays right over direct hardware access... and it's an entirely different cpu architecture. power vs x86.

and don't start with the vista / w7 memory usage thing. it's by design, it's not just eating memory for no reason. it does it to improve performance and will fork over what it needs to when it needs to.

and yet its by design and will fork it over but its STILL slower then linux which offers 99% of the same features except Direct X

[KieranD]

Originally Posted by crazyeyesreaper

and yet its by design and will fork it over but its STILL slower then linux which offers 99% of the same features except Direct X

Yeah there are a lot of add-ons and programs for linux, very customisable! Windows is known to be bloated i have no idea why its like that, you would think one of the biggest companies in the planet could improve on resource use so there must be a reason.

There are a few different desktop environments like Xfce also depends on the distro but there are a few that run on measly specifications like Damn Small Linux and Puppy.