9 ms·

Valve joins the Linux Foundation

593 points by kwestro 13y ago

FridayWithJohn 13y ago
The one thing that has forced me keep Windows on my PC is the fact that most games require it. Hearing that such a large player in the gaming industry wants to move to Linux is really fantastic news.
- deviltry 13y ago
  How is Valve a large player? This year Valve released Dota 2. Last year - some counter strike. 2011 - Portal 2 (at last a real game). 2010 - nothing. Yeah that is huge compared to EA or Ubisoft....
- daddykotex 13y ago
  I stopped playing games when I started using Linux. I've been part of the Steam Beta on Linux and things are going really fast. This is great news.
  - gagege 13y ago
    I had to switch to mostly indie games with I switched to Linux, which is great, there are a ton of awesome indie games. There are some mainstream Windows titles that I can get to run in Steam via Wine, but it's a pain. I really hope Valve can get the big mainstream studios on board.
  - jebblue 13y ago
    Actually I discovered great Indie games like Urban Terror and Minecraft among many others.
- easy_rider 13y ago
  The only thing that bugs me is that driver support is lagging behind so bad on Linux. I remember when Linus said something about why you should buy ATI for linux gaming. Because they have open source drivers.. In the end I returned my ATI card. My older Turion x64/hd3650 something laptop is still struggling with whatever flavor Linux. Still a work in progresss to get my Samsung 40" full hd TV through HDMI detected as something other than a 7" tablet screen..hmm.
  - codfrantic 13y ago
    Try again, I'm using my HP Minilaptop with AMD components on (X)ubuntu or Linux Mint, 32 inch samsung is detected better in Linux then it is in Windows. (automatically runs it Full HD compared to Windows' 1366x768 )
    - easy_rider 13y ago
      Cool, could you hint me which version(s) of (x)ubuntu and mint are working out for you? I couldn't get passed the Mint login screen after installation. Couldn't drop to tty either. System froze over :( I'm now on ubuntu 12.04 which seems better, but still.. HDMI/dual monitor is bugging me out.
      - aclevernickname 13y ago
        Kubuntu 13.10 (or the latest Chakra if you don't like *buntu) should work, and solve your HDMI pain.
        easy_rider 13y ago
        thanks!!
  - jeletonskelly 13y ago
    I'd say that there have been some major improvements to driver support in the last year. There are two drivers for ATI gpu's out there, the open source driver and the catalyst driver that comes from ATI. The open source driver has been stable for quite some time, but the performance was lacking. The Catalyst drivers have recently been shown a little love that they desperately needed, and there was a kernel patch sometime around v3.8 that fixed a problem with Radeon and KMS conflicts.
  - keypusher 13y ago
    As much as Linus might not like it, the nVidia closed source drivers are the only Linux display drivers that are production ready for high performance 3D gaming.
metastew 13y ago
What does this mean for Nvidia and AMD?
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Nothing. The people that buy 250 watt, 300mm^2 GPUs to play games will continue to buy them.
  - simplemath 13y ago
    Battlefield dabbler - my 7970 confirms anecdotally.
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    Yep, they'll buy from one of them. How will they choose? I think free drivers will become important. But maybe I'm wrong, and they'll just get the one that consume more watts.
- zxcdw 13y ago
  They probably have more pressure to invest in Linux driver development.
- egeozcan 13y ago
  I guess, as long as this is kept as an open platform, even in the case that they can't get in the official build, they could still create alternative steam-compatible builds.
casca 13y ago
It will be interesting to see whether Valve can encourage the move to Linux gaming. Their biggest asset at this time is the distribution model of Steam, but that's not sufficient to get the big publishers to develop for OSX, never mind Linux. Edit: Valve's game list: http://www.valvesoftware.com/games/ http://www.valvesoftware.com/games/
- terabytest 13y ago
  OS X is not a good platform for gaming. It has a significantly smaller user base of which only an even more significantly smaller are gamers. Playing on a MacBook (or at least on my MacBook) is impossible, and I wouldn't buy an iMac for gaming. On the other hand, you can put Linux on anything (for free!), from your mom's 2002 pc to the latest generation hot stuff. This means there is indeed a potential, and somebody just has to set the foundation.
  - SkyMarshal 13y ago
    Why is playing on a MacBook impossible? (not a Mac user, serious question)
    - lazerwalker 13y ago
      The driver performance just isn't there. If you have a cross-platform game and run it on the same Apple machine in OS X and on Windows, the Windows version's gonna be WAY more performant. As a lesser frustration, most Windows games I play natively support the Xbox 360 controller, whereas almost no OS X ports do.
      - Angostura 13y ago
        Just to point out that 10.9 significantly updates OS X's OpenGL support which may have an effect on performance - we shall see (Mac gamer).
      - dimillian 13y ago
        You're right, but it's moving fast (At least once a year...). I would say that native games are 95% on par with Windows equivalent. Wine and other "Translator" are moving fast too, in a few release you'll see a lot of big improvements in the graphics area. Crossover latest release already profit from that.
kayoone 13y ago
While this is great, its a bit sad that Valve is mostly doing all of this now, because they fear losing their dominance on windows to the native Store in Win 8.x In the end its a win-win for everyone if it works out, just their motives are questionable.
- nly 13y ago
  Sometimes people just need a bit of a kick up the arse to see the light.
- Strom 13y ago
  It won't be a win for Microsoft if this transition takes off. Also, of course profits and control are the biggest motivations here, not some inherent wish for linux to succeed.
  - mercurial 13y ago
    No, it's clearly a business decision. But I wonder how long it has been in the works, considering that every few months, you used to get these "Steam on Linux" "news" which never translated into anything solid until Steam for Linux eventually came out. In other news, it looks like the XCom remake will soon be in beta on Linux: http://steamdb.info/sub/35236/ http://steamdb.info/sub/35236/ Apart from the fact that I'd like to play it, it's interesting because Linux Steam has a dearth of AAA title (although it does have good indie games like Unity of Command).
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Nothing is questionable - GabeN wants the soft power to rule gaming. So in the times of walled/wallish gardens his goal is to prevent them of locking in the audience and gaining the hard power.
- yukkurishite 13y ago
  Agreed, I'm get the idea Valve doesn't actually care much about linux. For example, in their presentation highlighting some stuff about porting games from win to linux, every screenshot was made in windows
cabbeer 13y ago
Right now the only thing keeping me from running linux full time is the Adobe Master Collection (PS AI LR ID AE...)
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  Will it run in a Windows VM on Linux?
  - shawabawa3 13y ago
    photoshop is slow enough natively. Running in a VM might be good enough if you use it occasionally, but for people who use it daily I doubt it.
    - jethro_tell 13y ago
      And why would you go that far out of your way if PS it's your primary tool? What would you gain by having a Linux box around your Photoshop install? Once you strip away specialized tool suits and programs that actually sit on top of the OS, most users just need sound, mouse, keyboard, and monitor support so they can run chrome or firefox. Most OSs handle this just fine, so the real deciding factor in your OS should be the tool chain you need to run. It's so backwards and kludgy to pick your os then try make your toolchain work on top of it.
      - jebblue 13y ago
        Adobe is backwards and kludgy and needs to get with the future, get with Linux, get with the program.
  - kazagistar 13y ago
    Probably, but these applications can often use every ounce of performance they can get, including direct graphics card access.
    - venomsnake 13y ago
philliphaydon 13y ago
Personally I think the movement to Linux will greatly help Linux, but will hurt gamers. My opinion. We will see what the future holds.
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  Not a gamer, why would that be?
  - philliphaydon 13y ago
    Because game companies will likely delay games, cut corners to get cross-platform and claim its too hard, but still charge the same price for less content. If that makes sense.
    - officemonkey 13y ago
      You've just described Mac gaming. :-D
    - seabrookmx 13y ago
      I doubt it. Most indy studios use a tool like Unity or gameplay3d to build games, which can already target Linux. Triple AAA titles from studios like EA already have OpenGL ports for the PS3/PS4, so it's just a matter of adding a layer to interact with X and the input APIs. With their huge amount of resources and budgets, this is child's play.
  - officemonkey 13y ago
    I think having a lot of new competent programmers (like gaming company programmers) on your OS results in bug-fixes, performance improvements, and "itch-scratching" that will improve the Linux desktop experience. I can't think of the downside to gamers, but I can think of the upside to Linux.
- pof33 13y ago
  Why even bother making such a statement without elaborating? Is that you Steve Ballmer?
Xdes 13y ago
Until Linux fixes its desktop story I'm going to stick with my Windows PC.
- ds_ 13y ago
  What's broken about it?
  - Yuioup 13y ago
    Video, sound, competing standards (which will hinder adoption), antiquated X11. Also when a full-screen X11 overlay (like a game) freezes then the whole desktop freezes (CTRL+ALT+F1 doesn't help). A Linux enthousiast will forgive these mistakes and find a way around them but Linux noobs wouldn't know what to do.
    - nly 13y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean about video and sound. OpenGL is first class on Linux distros, sound is almost exclusively pulseaudio now...and X11 is on its way out, hopefully it'll be dead to most desktop users within a small number of years.
      - Yuioup 13y ago
        Video on dual-screen setups is a bit wonky. Yes it's my fault for using crappy proprietary ATI drivers but try to explain that to someone new to Linux. I have two issues with sound: 1) Sticking my headphone connector to my laptop's headphone jack does not work. I have to reboot in order to get headphone sound (works on Windows). 2) Connecting my PC to my TV via HDMI and playing a YouTube video ... Last time I heard a scratchy sound like that was when I tried to play a heavily damaged 45" record on my parent's turntable back in the early 80s.
        VintageCool 13y ago
        For the headphones issue, try using pavucontrol. It allowed me to direct audio output to headphones or speakers on an app-by-app basis. Alternatively, it's possible that you might need to reload pulseaudio after plugging in the headphones.
vivab0rg 13y ago
(Link)[0] to the actual announcement. [0]: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2013/12/cloudius-systems-hsa-foundation-and-valve-join-linux-foundation http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2013...
SkyMarshal 13y ago
Also of note, at the end: "The Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation [1], a nonprofit consortium founded by AMD, ARM, Qualcomm and Samsung, among others to develop open-standard specifications for parallel computing, and startup Cloudius Systems are also joining the Linux Foundation today." [1]:http://hsafoundation.com/ http://hsafoundation.com/
- salient 13y ago
  I hope something interesting will come out of HSA/OpenCL 2.0 in the next couple of years, and that heterogeneous computing will start becoming more practical for more types of programs.
mistresskim 13y ago
I don't like this one bit. All I see is a company that is corrupting the go to free software ecosystem with proprietary software and walled gardens. And worst of all it is targeted at a mostly young demographic that might end up growing up in a world where having a Steam walled garden on your Linux box is the norm. I'd rather kids keep gaming on their Windows partition and dual booting. I also don't think the blow to Microsoft Windows will be all that big that it would be a win for free software. Their strong hold is in the corporate and education sectors not in the PC gaming industry.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
networked 13y ago
If we introduced the Linus-Gates number by analogy with the Erdős-Bacon number [1] but for code, what would Gabe Newell's Linus-Gates number be today? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93Bacon_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93Bacon_numbe...
- dysoco 13y ago
  Did Gabe and Gates write any substantial code? At least lately? I don't think we could relate them.
  - devcpp 13y ago
    Gabe was the 271st employee at Microsoft[0] and "was the producer on the first three releases of Windows"[1], so I suppose that, even if he hasn't contributed to the very same code as Bill Gates did, there must be an earlier employee who has. I don't estimate his Gates code number to be more than 2. [0] http://www.giantbomb.com/gabe-newell/3040-4498/ http://www.giantbomb.com/gabe-newell/3040-4498/ [1] http://www.computerandvideogames.com/172835/interviews/creative-minds-gabe-newell/ http://www.computerandvideogames.com/172835/interviews/creat...
    - dysoco 13y ago
      Oh I forgot Gabe worked at MS, in that case, yeah, it must be pretty low. Gabe worked both at Valve and MS, and both companies have submitted code to the Linux Kernel.
      - vanilla 13y ago
        Gabe was not just "release producer" at MS, he was the driving force behind windows gaming (port of Doom from DOS to windows) http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/167253-gabe-newell-made-windows-a-viable-gaming-platform-and-linux-is-next http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/167253-gabe-newell-made-wi...
lobo_tuerto 13y ago
And here it is, straight from the horse's mouth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8PMUvuHK4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8PMUvuHK4g
- NikhilVerma 13y ago
  Wow that's the most childish video graphic I've ever seen.
Aardwolf 13y ago
DOSBox and Wine make Linux quite perfect for gaming. Interestingly, for some games, running the Windows version in Wine works better than running a native Linux version they've made of the game. E.g. the native Linux version will complain that some library .so is not the correct version, or that it cannot connect to X, etc...
- gagege 13y ago
  I appreciate and use Wine quite a bit, but it's far from perfect. A lot of things just plain crash from the get go. Also, I wish that Steam on Linux would attempt to install and run Windows games via Wine. If I want to play, for instance, Spelunky, I need to close Linux Steam (can't log in in multiple clients, last time I checked) and open Windows Steam in Wine. Maybe there's a way to get Wine games to run in Linux Steam, I don't know. It would just be cool if it did it by default.
  - Groxx 13y ago
    Yeah, I've only had success about 3/4 of the time I've used Wine. Maybe less. That's still 3/4 more than 0, so I absolutely love it, but it's definitely not perfect.
    - Aardwolf 13y ago
      Often if something doesn't work, winetricks helps get the right components, and sometimes also settings like the one where Wine creates a "desktop" window inside of which the game gets ran.
      - Groxx 13y ago
        Often. And that's why I've achieved 3/4 success rate. But finding the magic winetricks incantations, even with the help of winehq.org, can be an enormous time-sink with low guarantee of success once you've exhausted the standard DirectX/VCRedist stuff.
  - codygman 13y ago
BrixSprix 13y ago
I would love to have a bit more motivation to set up a linux partition. Getting pretty tired of developing on windows...
- int0c 13y ago
  Once you start developing against the POSIX API you will notice how beautiful it is and how horrendous the Win32 API is in comparison. :)
  - taspeotis 13y ago
    Once you start developing against the POSIX API you will notice how beautiful it is and how horrendous the Win32 API is in comparison. :) Yeah, that POSIX standard for displaying windows on Windows is much more beautiful than Win32.
Mikeb85 13y ago
I must say, I'm surprised by how many naysayers there are, considering Gabe thinks Linux is the future of gaming. There really is no technical reason why this can't happen, we just need to make it happen...
- Finster 13y ago
  Agreed. After years of haranguing Nvidia, for example, it wasn't until Valve started pushing linux gaming that Nvidia FINALLY started clearing the air a bit on their atrocious driver support. Valve has a lot of influence in PC gaming. Whether it's enough to raise linux as a preferred platform for PC gaming, only time will tell, but I hope it does.
  - yapcguy 13y ago
    Developers (should) prefer using Linux over OS X. Mac gaming languishes like it always has. Pro video users have jumped shipped (still waiting for the new Mac Pro sometime this month, 18 months after Tim Cook teased folks after WWDC, years after any serious update) What future OS X?!
    - stormbrew 13y ago
      Pro video users have jumped ship from Macs? To what?
      - ics 13y ago
        Could be referring to the micro-exodus of users after Final Cut X came out, but then of all my friends in film and video none have switched from Mac since then, only to...
        reustle 13y ago
        I'd love to do most of my amateur video editing on my powerful ubuntu desktop instead of my macbook air. Is there a good community around any particular video studio project for linux?
erikpukinskis 13y ago
That video is painful to watch. Here's the source of those video clips of Gabe: http://youtu.be/Gzn6E2m3otg?t=12s http://youtu.be/Gzn6E2m3otg?t=12s It's from LinuxCon in September.
jebblue 13y ago
These guys have so much smarts and common sense, congratulations guys. I'm enjoying Steam on Ubuntu, holding true to my promise to buy games and play them. Even bigger news for me, now I can look forward to purchasing a Steam Machine down the road. Sorry Roku, you've been great but you may have just gotten steam rolled.

593 points by kwestro 13y ago

The one thing that has forced me keep Windows on my PC is the fact that most games require it. Hearing that such a large player in the gaming industry wants to move to Linux is really fantastic news.

deviltry 13y ago
How is Valve a large player? This year Valve released Dota 2. Last year - some counter strike. 2011 - Portal 2 (at last a real game). 2010 - nothing. Yeah that is huge compared to EA or Ubisoft....
daddykotex 13y ago
I stopped playing games when I started using Linux. I've been part of the Steam Beta on Linux and things are going really fast. This is great news.
- gagege 13y ago
  I had to switch to mostly indie games with I switched to Linux, which is great, there are a ton of awesome indie games. There are some mainstream Windows titles that I can get to run in Steam via Wine, but it's a pain. I really hope Valve can get the big mainstream studios on board.
- jebblue 13y ago
  Actually I discovered great Indie games like Urban Terror and Minecraft among many others.
easy_rider 13y ago
The only thing that bugs me is that driver support is lagging behind so bad on Linux. I remember when Linus said something about why you should buy ATI for linux gaming. Because they have open source drivers.. In the end I returned my ATI card. My older Turion x64/hd3650 something laptop is still struggling with whatever flavor Linux. Still a work in progresss to get my Samsung 40" full hd TV through HDMI detected as something other than a 7" tablet screen..hmm.
- codfrantic 13y ago
  Try again, I'm using my HP Minilaptop with AMD components on (X)ubuntu or Linux Mint, 32 inch samsung is detected better in Linux then it is in Windows. (automatically runs it Full HD compared to Windows' 1366x768 )
  - easy_rider 13y ago
    Cool, could you hint me which version(s) of (x)ubuntu and mint are working out for you? I couldn't get passed the Mint login screen after installation. Couldn't drop to tty either. System froze over :( I'm now on ubuntu 12.04 which seems better, but still.. HDMI/dual monitor is bugging me out.
    - aclevernickname 13y ago
      Kubuntu 13.10 (or the latest Chakra if you don't like *buntu) should work, and solve your HDMI pain.
      - easy_rider 13y ago
        thanks!!
- jeletonskelly 13y ago
  I'd say that there have been some major improvements to driver support in the last year. There are two drivers for ATI gpu's out there, the open source driver and the catalyst driver that comes from ATI. The open source driver has been stable for quite some time, but the performance was lacking. The Catalyst drivers have recently been shown a little love that they desperately needed, and there was a kernel patch sometime around v3.8 that fixed a problem with Radeon and KMS conflicts.
- keypusher 13y ago
  As much as Linus might not like it, the nVidia closed source drivers are the only Linux display drivers that are production ready for high performance 3D gaming.

metastew 13y ago

What does this mean for Nvidia and AMD?

venomsnake 13y ago
Nothing. The people that buy 250 watt, 300mm^2 GPUs to play games will continue to buy them.
- simplemath 13y ago
  Battlefield dabbler - my 7970 confirms anecdotally.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  Yep, they'll buy from one of them. How will they choose? I think free drivers will become important. But maybe I'm wrong, and they'll just get the one that consume more watts.
zxcdw 13y ago
They probably have more pressure to invest in Linux driver development.
egeozcan 13y ago
I guess, as long as this is kept as an open platform, even in the case that they can't get in the official build, they could still create alternative steam-compatible builds.

casca 13y ago

It will be interesting to see whether Valve can encourage the move to Linux gaming. Their biggest asset at this time is the distribution model of Steam, but that's not sufficient to get the big publishers to develop for OSX, never mind Linux. Edit: Valve's game list: http://www.valvesoftware.com/games/ http://www.valvesoftware.com/games/

terabytest 13y ago
OS X is not a good platform for gaming. It has a significantly smaller user base of which only an even more significantly smaller are gamers. Playing on a MacBook (or at least on my MacBook) is impossible, and I wouldn't buy an iMac for gaming. On the other hand, you can put Linux on anything (for free!), from your mom's 2002 pc to the latest generation hot stuff. This means there is indeed a potential, and somebody just has to set the foundation.
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  Why is playing on a MacBook impossible? (not a Mac user, serious question)
  - lazerwalker 13y ago
    The driver performance just isn't there. If you have a cross-platform game and run it on the same Apple machine in OS X and on Windows, the Windows version's gonna be WAY more performant. As a lesser frustration, most Windows games I play natively support the Xbox 360 controller, whereas almost no OS X ports do.
    - Angostura 13y ago
      Just to point out that 10.9 significantly updates OS X's OpenGL support which may have an effect on performance - we shall see (Mac gamer).
    - dimillian 13y ago
      You're right, but it's moving fast (At least once a year...). I would say that native games are 95% on par with Windows equivalent. Wine and other "Translator" are moving fast too, in a few release you'll see a lot of big improvements in the graphics area. Crossover latest release already profit from that.

kayoone 13y ago

While this is great, its a bit sad that Valve is mostly doing all of this now, because they fear losing their dominance on windows to the native Store in Win 8.x In the end its a win-win for everyone if it works out, just their motives are questionable.

nly 13y ago
Sometimes people just need a bit of a kick up the arse to see the light.
Strom 13y ago
It won't be a win for Microsoft if this transition takes off. Also, of course profits and control are the biggest motivations here, not some inherent wish for linux to succeed.
- mercurial 13y ago
  No, it's clearly a business decision. But I wonder how long it has been in the works, considering that every few months, you used to get these "Steam on Linux" "news" which never translated into anything solid until Steam for Linux eventually came out. In other news, it looks like the XCom remake will soon be in beta on Linux: http://steamdb.info/sub/35236/ http://steamdb.info/sub/35236/ Apart from the fact that I'd like to play it, it's interesting because Linux Steam has a dearth of AAA title (although it does have good indie games like Unity of Command).
venomsnake 13y ago
Nothing is questionable - GabeN wants the soft power to rule gaming. So in the times of walled/wallish gardens his goal is to prevent them of locking in the audience and gaining the hard power.
yukkurishite 13y ago
Agreed, I'm get the idea Valve doesn't actually care much about linux. For example, in their presentation highlighting some stuff about porting games from win to linux, every screenshot was made in windows

cabbeer 13y ago

Right now the only thing keeping me from running linux full time is the Adobe Master Collection (PS AI LR ID AE...)

SkyMarshal 13y ago
Will it run in a Windows VM on Linux?
- shawabawa3 13y ago
  photoshop is slow enough natively. Running in a VM might be good enough if you use it occasionally, but for people who use it daily I doubt it.
  - jethro_tell 13y ago
    And why would you go that far out of your way if PS it's your primary tool? What would you gain by having a Linux box around your Photoshop install? Once you strip away specialized tool suits and programs that actually sit on top of the OS, most users just need sound, mouse, keyboard, and monitor support so they can run chrome or firefox. Most OSs handle this just fine, so the real deciding factor in your OS should be the tool chain you need to run. It's so backwards and kludgy to pick your os then try make your toolchain work on top of it.
    - jebblue 13y ago
      Adobe is backwards and kludgy and needs to get with the future, get with Linux, get with the program.
- kazagistar 13y ago
  Probably, but these applications can often use every ounce of performance they can get, including direct graphics card access.
  - venomsnake 13y ago

philliphaydon 13y ago

Personally I think the movement to Linux will greatly help Linux, but will hurt gamers. My opinion. We will see what the future holds.

SkyMarshal 13y ago
Not a gamer, why would that be?
- philliphaydon 13y ago
  Because game companies will likely delay games, cut corners to get cross-platform and claim its too hard, but still charge the same price for less content. If that makes sense.
  - officemonkey 13y ago
    You've just described Mac gaming. :-D
  - seabrookmx 13y ago
    I doubt it. Most indy studios use a tool like Unity or gameplay3d to build games, which can already target Linux. Triple AAA titles from studios like EA already have OpenGL ports for the PS3/PS4, so it's just a matter of adding a layer to interact with X and the input APIs. With their huge amount of resources and budgets, this is child's play.
- officemonkey 13y ago
  I think having a lot of new competent programmers (like gaming company programmers) on your OS results in bug-fixes, performance improvements, and "itch-scratching" that will improve the Linux desktop experience. I can't think of the downside to gamers, but I can think of the upside to Linux.
pof33 13y ago
Why even bother making such a statement without elaborating? Is that you Steve Ballmer?

Xdes 13y ago

Until Linux fixes its desktop story I'm going to stick with my Windows PC.

ds_ 13y ago
What's broken about it?
- Yuioup 13y ago
  Video, sound, competing standards (which will hinder adoption), antiquated X11. Also when a full-screen X11 overlay (like a game) freezes then the whole desktop freezes (CTRL+ALT+F1 doesn't help). A Linux enthousiast will forgive these mistakes and find a way around them but Linux noobs wouldn't know what to do.
  - nly 13y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean about video and sound. OpenGL is first class on Linux distros, sound is almost exclusively pulseaudio now...and X11 is on its way out, hopefully it'll be dead to most desktop users within a small number of years.
    - Yuioup 13y ago
      Video on dual-screen setups is a bit wonky. Yes it's my fault for using crappy proprietary ATI drivers but try to explain that to someone new to Linux. I have two issues with sound: 1) Sticking my headphone connector to my laptop's headphone jack does not work. I have to reboot in order to get headphone sound (works on Windows). 2) Connecting my PC to my TV via HDMI and playing a YouTube video ... Last time I heard a scratchy sound like that was when I tried to play a heavily damaged 45" record on my parent's turntable back in the early 80s.
      - VintageCool 13y ago
        For the headphones issue, try using pavucontrol. It allowed me to direct audio output to headphones or speakers on an app-by-app basis. Alternatively, it's possible that you might need to reload pulseaudio after plugging in the headphones.

vivab0rg 13y ago

(Link)[0] to the actual announcement. [0]: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2013/12/cloudius-systems-hsa-foundation-and-valve-join-linux-foundation http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2013...

SkyMarshal 13y ago

Also of note, at the end: "The Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation [1], a nonprofit consortium founded by AMD, ARM, Qualcomm and Samsung, among others to develop open-standard specifications for parallel computing, and startup Cloudius Systems are also joining the Linux Foundation today." [1]:http://hsafoundation.com/ http://hsafoundation.com/

salient 13y ago
I hope something interesting will come out of HSA/OpenCL 2.0 in the next couple of years, and that heterogeneous computing will start becoming more practical for more types of programs.

mistresskim 13y ago

I don't like this one bit. All I see is a company that is corrupting the go to free software ecosystem with proprietary software and walled gardens. And worst of all it is targeted at a mostly young demographic that might end up growing up in a world where having a Steam walled garden on your Linux box is the norm. I'd rather kids keep gaming on their Windows partition and dual booting. I also don't think the blow to Microsoft Windows will be all that big that it would be a win for free software. Their strong hold is in the corporate and education sectors not in the PC gaming industry.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

networked 13y ago

If we introduced the Linus-Gates number by analogy with the Erdős-Bacon number [1] but for code, what would Gabe Newell's Linus-Gates number be today? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93Bacon_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93Bacon_numbe...

dysoco 13y ago
Did Gabe and Gates write any substantial code? At least lately? I don't think we could relate them.
- devcpp 13y ago
  Gabe was the 271st employee at Microsoft[0] and "was the producer on the first three releases of Windows"[1], so I suppose that, even if he hasn't contributed to the very same code as Bill Gates did, there must be an earlier employee who has. I don't estimate his Gates code number to be more than 2. [0] http://www.giantbomb.com/gabe-newell/3040-4498/ http://www.giantbomb.com/gabe-newell/3040-4498/ [1] http://www.computerandvideogames.com/172835/interviews/creative-minds-gabe-newell/ http://www.computerandvideogames.com/172835/interviews/creat...
  - dysoco 13y ago
    Oh I forgot Gabe worked at MS, in that case, yeah, it must be pretty low. Gabe worked both at Valve and MS, and both companies have submitted code to the Linux Kernel.
    - vanilla 13y ago
      Gabe was not just "release producer" at MS, he was the driving force behind windows gaming (port of Doom from DOS to windows) http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/167253-gabe-newell-made-windows-a-viable-gaming-platform-and-linux-is-next http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/167253-gabe-newell-made-wi...

lobo_tuerto 13y ago

And here it is, straight from the horse's mouth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8PMUvuHK4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8PMUvuHK4g

NikhilVerma 13y ago
Wow that's the most childish video graphic I've ever seen.

Aardwolf 13y ago

DOSBox and Wine make Linux quite perfect for gaming. Interestingly, for some games, running the Windows version in Wine works better than running a native Linux version they've made of the game. E.g. the native Linux version will complain that some library .so is not the correct version, or that it cannot connect to X, etc...

gagege 13y ago
I appreciate and use Wine quite a bit, but it's far from perfect. A lot of things just plain crash from the get go. Also, I wish that Steam on Linux would attempt to install and run Windows games via Wine. If I want to play, for instance, Spelunky, I need to close Linux Steam (can't log in in multiple clients, last time I checked) and open Windows Steam in Wine. Maybe there's a way to get Wine games to run in Linux Steam, I don't know. It would just be cool if it did it by default.
- Groxx 13y ago
  Yeah, I've only had success about 3/4 of the time I've used Wine. Maybe less. That's still 3/4 more than 0, so I absolutely love it, but it's definitely not perfect.
  - Aardwolf 13y ago
    Often if something doesn't work, winetricks helps get the right components, and sometimes also settings like the one where Wine creates a "desktop" window inside of which the game gets ran.
    - Groxx 13y ago
      Often. And that's why I've achieved 3/4 success rate. But finding the magic winetricks incantations, even with the help of winehq.org, can be an enormous time-sink with low guarantee of success once you've exhausted the standard DirectX/VCRedist stuff.
- codygman 13y ago

BrixSprix 13y ago

I would love to have a bit more motivation to set up a linux partition. Getting pretty tired of developing on windows...

int0c 13y ago
Once you start developing against the POSIX API you will notice how beautiful it is and how horrendous the Win32 API is in comparison. :)
- taspeotis 13y ago
  Once you start developing against the POSIX API you will notice how beautiful it is and how horrendous the Win32 API is in comparison. :) Yeah, that POSIX standard for displaying windows on Windows is much more beautiful than Win32.

Mikeb85 13y ago

I must say, I'm surprised by how many naysayers there are, considering Gabe thinks Linux is the future of gaming. There really is no technical reason why this can't happen, we just need to make it happen...

Finster 13y ago
Agreed. After years of haranguing Nvidia, for example, it wasn't until Valve started pushing linux gaming that Nvidia FINALLY started clearing the air a bit on their atrocious driver support. Valve has a lot of influence in PC gaming. Whether it's enough to raise linux as a preferred platform for PC gaming, only time will tell, but I hope it does.
- yapcguy 13y ago
  Developers (should) prefer using Linux over OS X. Mac gaming languishes like it always has. Pro video users have jumped shipped (still waiting for the new Mac Pro sometime this month, 18 months after Tim Cook teased folks after WWDC, years after any serious update) What future OS X?!
  - stormbrew 13y ago
    Pro video users have jumped ship from Macs? To what?
    - ics 13y ago
      Could be referring to the micro-exodus of users after Final Cut X came out, but then of all my friends in film and video none have switched from Mac since then, only to...
      - reustle 13y ago
        I'd love to do most of my amateur video editing on my powerful ubuntu desktop instead of my macbook air. Is there a good community around any particular video studio project for linux?

erikpukinskis 13y ago

That video is painful to watch. Here's the source of those video clips of Gabe: http://youtu.be/Gzn6E2m3otg?t=12s http://youtu.be/Gzn6E2m3otg?t=12s It's from LinuxCon in September.

jebblue 13y ago

These guys have so much smarts and common sense, congratulations guys. I'm enjoying Steam on Ubuntu, holding true to my promise to buy games and play them. Even bigger news for me, now I can look forward to purchasing a Steam Machine down the road. Sorry Roku, you've been great but you may have just gotten steam rolled.