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Official Steam client for Ubuntu released
- peatmoss 14y agoPrediction: Half-Life 3 releases a week early on Linux in order to spur adoption.
- simeng 14y agoI think they are saving its release for the SteamBox.
- mtgx 14y agoHeck, make it a month. It's not like it's that uncommon to release a game with difference of months between launches for each platform. I'd see a lot of people buying Steamboxes if they made HL3, Portal 3 and the next L4D exclusive for them for a month or so.
- pplante 14y agothere is no proof that valve can count to three.
- vor_ 14y agoSeems like wishful thinking. It's more likely that, if they were to release early at all, it would be on a platform most likely to make them money, such as one of the consoles. However, I think it's most likely that they'll release on all the platforms at the same time because of SteamPlay. Holding back Windows and Mac versions for a week for political reasons would just piss people off for a week.
- zanny 14y agoThe thing is, they make the most money on the platform they take the most money per sale from. That is always going to be Linux, because in the long run, Apple and Microsoft can lock down OSX / Windows and the consoles are already taking per sale cuts for MS / Sony. Valve can only bet on desktop Linux (aka, not Android) to never stop arbitrary application installation.
- bdonlan 14y agoWell, no, they're not currently paying any licensing fees on Macintosh or Windows systems. So they make the same profit per sale for all three platforms. Now, this may not remain true forever - but if HL3 comes out before the status quo changes, pure profit wouldn't be the incentive (and in any case, in the current steam model you can buy stuff for Linux then run it on Windows later anyway). You could argue for driving people to Linux by giving them perks, of course - but that has nothing to do with present-day marginal costs.
- iends 14y agoIs there a list of supported games somewhere?
- dz0ny 14y agohttp://store.steampowered.com/sale/linux_release/ http://store.steampowered.com/sale/linux_release/
- thezilch 14y agoSteam is also throwing a sale for the release of Steam for Linux: http://store.steampowered.com/sale/linux_release/ http://store.steampowered.com/sale/linux_release/; ends February 21st, 18:00 GMT. Highly acclaimed "Team Fortress 2" is free to play: http://store.steampowered.com/app/440 http://store.steampowered.com/app/440
- notatoad 14y agoIsn't TF2 permanently free since they shifted their revenue stream over to selling hats?
- onli 14y agoYes it is, but it really is said to be a good choice out of the games available under linux.
- Symmetry 14y agoI don't normally buy TF2 hats, but if they offer a penguin hat for linux users I'll totally buy one to say "Thank you" for porting this to Steam.
- bvdbijl 14y agoYou get a tux if you play TF2 between now and a month: http://www.teamfortress.com/linux/ http://www.teamfortress.com/linux/
- rmk2 14y agoWhile you are at it, go grab FTL (Faster Than Light)! Its reduced by 50% and quite frankly a fantastic space roguelike! And Trine 2 is good fun and absolutely beautiful! (Not associated with either, I just like them...)
- tuananh 14y agoYou're right! I would add Bastion (currently $3.49) to the list as well.
- dz0ny 14y ago64bit version http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/pool/steam/s/steam/steam64_1.0.0.27_amd64.deb http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/pool/steam/s/steam/steam6...
- thechut 14y agoTried this on 64bit Mint install but having trouble. What are the dependencies?
- dz0ny 14y agojust steam, also ubuntu software center should offer you 64bit version. Notice: It's only metapackage for now, this probably means that 64bit version is coming.
- pferate 14y agoWhen I tried installing the 64-bit version on Kubuntu 12.10, I got a dependency error [steam64 depends on steam (= 1.0.0.27)]. I just downloaded the 32-bit version also and installed them both.
- thechut 14y agoYeah, I got the same error but for some reason the Mint Software center can't find package 'steam' not sure what I'm doing wrong...
- kzrdude 14y agoIt's an empty package.
- Finster 14y agoGreat. Now all we need to do is petition nVidia to kindly unfuck their drivers so we can get decent Optimus support (among other things).
- pavanky 14y agoI have been playing a few games (mostly crusader kings and trine) without having many issues with bumblebee. I have had to install an alternative to optirun called primusrun though.
- Mavrik 14y agoI suggest you petition Linus. Its the kernel devs which don't want to allow nVidia access to needed APIs for Optimus due to GPL pissing contest.
- BiosElement 14y agoI suggest you learn the situation before making ignorant, unfounded comments.
- darxius 14y agoI see this as a very big "win" for Linux. I can't wait to game tonight, thanks Steam.
- Nux 14y agoThis is a big win for Ubuntu+Nvidia; the other distros received a well placed "go fuck yourselves". This is like gaming on Macos being a win for BSDs. :-)
- gtaylor 14y agoIt's running great on my Arch Linux + AMD setup.
- larrik 14y agoAMD can fix their drivers whenever they want.
- Spittie 14y agoWhy only Nvidia? Intel improved their open source drivers thanks to Valve, and AMD pushed some updates related to Steam as well. And, while Steam officially support only Ubuntu (at least for now), Valve doesn't do anything for stopping it to run on other distro. They even modified the license to explicitly allow repacking, so that others could put the client in their repo. They host on their site a .tar.gz with the Steam installer for distro that don't support .deb too.
- Nux 14y agoOh, if that's the case then I'll withdraw my hatred. Thanks. :-)
- drivebyacct2 14y agoThere are already packages for Arch, and as per the new licensing terms for the client there's no reason it can't or won't be packaged for other distros. AMD also improved their drivers with Valve. Not sure where the hate is coming from. Fedora, OpenSUSE, Gentoo, Arch: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_under_Linux#Native_Steam_on_Linux_Beta_Client https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_under_Linux#N...
- matthewinrw 14y agoThis is a really important development -- games have been one of the big things missing on the Linux front (excluding android). Excited to see where this leads!
- waltz 14y agoThis day did come
- noahl 14y agoI think most people are excited about Steam on Linux because of gaming, but I've actually been excited because of better driver support. If this makes Nvidia put more effort into their Linux drivers and tools, it will make life a lot better for CUDA programming too. (I haven't tried OpenCL or AMD GPGPU stuff yet.)
- desireco42 14y agoYes, this will do wonders for linux support.
- kunai 14y agoAgreed, but it's doubtful that nVidia will support the Quadro (which is pretty much the best workstation chip around, and also what I use) just because of Steam. If anybody wants to render very complex gradients and shading using a regular GeForce, it's not going to be nearly as good as with a workstation-optimized chip. Many CAD apps are much slower on an nVidia gaming chip than they are on a workstation card. So, at least for me, I'm still probably going to get left in the dark if I buy a new chip because support for the Quadros are egregious.
- noahl 14y agoInteresting. Do you know why CAD programs are slower on gaming chips? I know the gaming cards sometimes have much worse double-precision performance than the GPGPU cards, but I must admit that I don't know what the difference is on any particular chip. It could also be a memory issue or something like that.
- pmh 14y agoFrom what I recall when I previously looked into this, it's almost exclusively driver optimizations that are present/enabled for workstation cards and not the gaming equivalents.
- jevinskie 14y agoDuring the GeForce 2/3 era, the BIOS on the card would lock out Quadro/professional features using software. The hardware was identical. I am not sure if this is still the case.
- drivebyacct2 14y agoI would have liked to see the rest of the Source games released first. I feel like it would have given it more momentum.
- mtgx 14y agoIt supports 101 games. Not bad! http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/ http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/
- Afal 14y agoNot quite. A lot of the 100 "games" are DLC for other games.
- zokier 14y ago60 games, 47 DLC. Don't know if this url works: http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_230_linux__12&term=#category1=998&os=linux&advanced=0&sort_order=ASC&page=1 http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_230_linux__12...
- okor 14y agoIt's a big step forward. The games are getting better but they really need a knockout game to push the linux platform forward, something like Borderlands. Something epic. Artsy/Indie games only go so far. Still, happy things are moving forward.
- AdrianRossouw 14y agoAlso, from what I can tell, you should be able to unlock the indie bundle games in steam. even if you don't buy anything, it might be a good show of support.
- renanbirck 14y agoUnfortunately, not all of the Humble Bundle games are available on Steam for Linux, even if they have Linux versions.
- AdrianRossouw 14y agoI'm aware of that. But a lot of the ones i've seen, such as bastion, have steamplay support. This means that you only have to buy/reclaim them once, and they will be available on all different platforms. It can't hurt to push up the number of titles that linux users have in their libraries.
- ajross 14y agoThis is a link to some kind of Ubuntu app store thing. Where are the binaries we can download for other distros?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- fletchowns 14y agoThere's a link to a .deb on this page: http://store.steampowered.com/about/ http://store.steampowered.com/about/ In another comment here somebody mentioned it contains a .tar.gz
- zoko 14y agoHere is a screenshot of my desktop running steam http://www.flickr.com/photos/zokatomicic/8474868290/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/zokatomicic/8474868290/in/photo...
- spuz 14y agoI wasn't able to download it. Clicking the link on this page took me to the Software Centre saying "Not Found - There isn’t a software package called “steam” in your current software sources.". So I go to the main landing page of the Software Centre and find a link to Steam there. There is a banner saying "Free" with a button "Buy" next to it. I click it and it asks me to log into to some sort of payment service... I love linux and Ubuntu but this is the kind of thing that I am starting to get sick of having to deal with. Can't I just use apt-get?
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoFor some reason, no, because it's delivered through Canonical's special proprietary software channel. I suppose having the account means you can redownload this freeware for free?
- gnu8 14y agoAgreed, this is not what I expected and this is not the Linux way. I guess I'll make a Ubuntu account so I can give Steam a once over, but if I wanted to be abused I'd just get a MAC.
- jvert 14y agoIf you manually add the Valve repo at http://repo.steampowered.com http://repo.steampowered.com then "apt-get steam" will do exactly what you expect. Or you can download the .deb from http://store.steampowered.com http://store.steampowered.com and install it.
- improv32 14y agoDirect link for the lazy: http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/archive/precise/steam_latest.deb http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/archive/precise/steam_lat...
- zmmmmm 14y agoFantasizing wildly, I hope this is a step towards one day releasing Steam for Android. (Perhaps when Intel Android devices finally arrive?). I imagine that the next generation of mobile GPUs must have pretty close performance to desktop graphics chips from not too long ago - there must be a huge back catalogue that could be deployed if games could be ported relatively easily.
- mkhpalm 14y agoIts too bad they don't package for debian sid/unstable.
- gcb0 14y agoubuntu is trying to not be 'just another linux'. sadly they are using a lot of lock-in tactics similar to Sony since the 80's or apple more recently. that said, they are the distro with the best live-usb installer by far.
- drivebyacct2 14y agoThe debs work fine under debian/sid and most deb packages work fine between debian and ubuntu and the places where they don't are by some evil design. yeesh
- zanny 14y agoHey, Arch takes like, 5 minutes! You just do the exact same process (format -> bootstrap -> locales -> users). Whats that about not knowing how to use visudo?
- gcb0 14y agojust fired up the Ubuntu Software Center and searched... i can't install it. it show a button "buy..." instead of "install" and it's disabled.
- teraflop 14y agoAlso, Team Fortress 2 for Linux [1] was officially released today (it's been in open beta testing for quite a while). What I find particularly interesting about this is the time-limited item giveaway. Valve did something very similar when they released the OS X version of TF2, where anyone who logged in on a Mac received a free cosmetic "earbuds" item. The promo triggered a mad scramble of players to find a Mac to play on, and when it ended, the buds acquired a huge scarcity value -- they currently trade at the equivalent of about US$30 a pair, even though they have no effect on gameplay. I don't think the penguin will end up valued as highly, but what it will cause is a sudden influx of relatively non-technical gamers trying out Ubuntu for the first time. Should be interesting to see what pain points and rough edges they expose. There are already tech support threads popping up in the Steam forums, e.g. [2] [1] http://www.teamfortress.com/linux/ http://www.teamfortress.com/linux/ [2] http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3072955 http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30729...
- sigkill 14y agoI'm quite amused by Valve's business decision. One may say that this is the logical next step but I'm smiling on the insides. I can't help but think that they're tryig to out-Microsoft MS. The embrace, extend, extinguish policy is obvious as day. They waited all these years to gain a significant foothold in the Windows segment. Now that they've got this, we could see them slowly expanding to Mac first, and today Linux. I mean, it's certainly a huge incentive if you're given ready access to your game library on the other OS, even though you didn't expect it when you purchased the game on Windows months or even years ago. Screams of extend. I just wait to see if the market forces themselves will play the 'extinguish' card or will Valve play it? Once Office and a decent number of games port over to the penguin, I'm really confident that the only people who use Windows will be (a) people who know nothing about computers and use whatever it came preinstalled with (b) at work since they're not allowed to format the computer (c) they need a very specific software that is not available on Linux or Mac (Ansys etc.)
- jiggy2011 14y agoThe tipping point will when/if a major OEM starts offering a large quantity of their products with a Linux distro as the default OS (i,e you have to specifically select Windows). Realistically Steambox would seem to be the most obvious place for this to start happening. Of course how much the Steambox will be a "real" Linux computer vs just a kernel+whatever the minimal software stack is required to get Steam running remains to be seen. I wouldn't hold out much hope for an Office for Linux regardless of what Phoronix thinks. Porting office to Linux would be a tantamount to MS admitting they have given up on Windows and would probably hurt their stock price significantly. From a technical point of view the biggest thing that would make Linux a viable choice for the majority of desktops would be a WINE layer that provides at least as good compatibility as Windows XP for Windows software thus allowing legacy VB6 etc stuff to be moved over.
- jebblue 14y agoCongratulations Valve! This is good news although unusual timing considering the layoff story that came out recently, but this is good news!
- mck- 14y agoIf you click on 11.04 or 10.04 versions, you get: Environment for cooperative knowledge management sTeam provides a technical platform which allows groups of students, lecturers and any other groups to construct and arrange their individual and cooperative learning and working space... I suppose it only runs on 12.04 and up?
- buro9 14y agoUh-oh, Counter Strike: Source is available on Linux... there goes my startup.
- jrogers65 14y agoIt's a happy day. I was considering installing Windows so I could dual boot on my Arch machine but this has made me reconsider. I remember how years ago, on KDE2, wine barely ran anything and the best games available on *nix were things like NetHack. What a long way it's come! Now we have a prominent gaming platform and ports of some excellent premium games. Things like this are edging GNU/Linux towards mainstream success on the desktop. I think that one thing which would help here is a more complete gaming API ala DirectX. We can already achieve this with OpenGL/SDL/OpenAL/whatever good networking libraries there are but a project which aggregates these into one would be beneficial, in my opinion.
- kzrdude 14y agoHey, we had Heroes III, 13 years ago. http://www.lokigames.com/products/heroes3/ http://www.lokigames.com/products/heroes3/ (Also the only commercial title ever to grace Linux/PPC.)
- Aardwolf 14y agoI read in the comments that you can also get it to run on other distros than Ubuntu. Does this also apply to the games you install through it though? I use Archlinux. Thanks!