
Beta Late Than Never (Steam Linux Beta) - phenylene
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/beta-late-than-never-3/
======
octotoad
I find this announcement kind of bitter-sweet. It's awesome, amazing and
inspiring that a company like Valve has put this much effort in to supporting
Linux, no matter what their underlying motives are. At the same time, it's
really sad that this is the biggest thing to happen to mainstream Linux gaming
since Loki and id/Epic since the early '00s.

As somebody who was briefly caught up in the "convert-all-the-things-to-Linux"
evangelism of the early 00's to the "fsck it, I don't care who uses it. I like
it." attitude, I sincerely hope this makes an impact. Forget the FLOSS ideals
and morals; if this means more 'power users' realize there's a viable Windows
alternative for gaming (and more), everybody wins.

I know a lot of 'purists' will inevitably complain about the influx of
'noobs', but, fsck it. No matter what beliefs/philosophies you follow, it's
always a good thing to be able to show people that there are other options.

As a long-time follower & sometimes contributer to the free/open Unix scene,
this makes me proud.

~~~
white_devil
It's alright to say "fuck". We're all adults here.

~~~
winter_blue
Expletives just aren't fun to hear every now and then. It's probably not
because there's anything intrinsically bad about them (it's just a sound), but
we've been trained since we are young that they are "bad" words. And to some
extent this is true, many expletives do ave "bad" dictionary definitions, but
in the context they're used the meaning is never (or rarely ) implied.

I can see here that many people want to change this, and make expletives a
common part of daily usage; but I don't see being a good thing overall. A lot
of people hold to former way of thinking (that they're bad), and if you get
into the habit of using such words it might affect you ability of form
relationships with the majority of people who think they're bad.

In addition I think, even internally, it's hard to get that idea from years-
of-training (and one that's held by the majority of society) out of your head.
I know I'm probably going to be criticized for this, but using myself
expletives gives me a "dirty" or "uncivilized" feeling. Finally, I also don't
think they really add to a conversation in any significant way. There are much
better words ou there (and more eloquent sounding ones, too) to imply emphasis
(I presume this is the primary use-case of expletives), and a conversation
does sound more "intelligent" and "cultured" like so.

~~~
teach
I've always like this quote: "Profanity is the effort of a feeble brain to
express itself forcibly." - Spencer W. Kimball

Cursing is like salt: judicious use can improve a well-made dish, but overuse
doesn't make bad food into good.

~~~
jff
I have a related quote: "People who try to say profanity indicates stupidity
can go fuck themselves" -- me.

~~~
teach
Not stupidity, necessarily. Just laziness.

------
zissou
I don't even play video games anymore, but I played a hell of a lot of CS back
in the day. Many years have passed, and I jumped on the Linux bandwagon about
3 years ago, and am now supposedly a productive member of society. But dammit,
all I can think about now is plowing over AK-47 slinging bastards running
through the top tunnel on de_dust with my pump shotty, or mowing people down
with the UMP or headshots with the scout. I don't know, I loved the obscure
weapons.

I would increase my consumption of video games from a non-zero amount if I
could play CS on Linux.

Make it happen Valve. You got me, I'm now nostalgic.

~~~
bmcorser
scoutzknivez

~~~
zissou
Like a boss.

------
DigitalSea
It's about time a major player got behind Linux, I'm glad it's Valve as they
are arguably one of my favourite game developers not just because they make
great games, but because of their overall attitude and work culture. Hopefully
this gives Linux a little needed spotlight boost and perhaps gains Ubuntu a
few new users.

~~~
forrestthewoods
This isn't _really_ a major player getting behind Linux. The move has nothing
to with Linux the desktop and everything to do with a future Linux-powered
console/SteamBox. Desktop Linux could quintuple it's number of game purchasing
users and it would still be inconsequential. The ancillary benefits for Linux,
such as non-shitty gpu drivers, will be great but let's not make this out to
be something it isn't.

~~~
wazoox
The fact that they state they want to test steam on as many different
configurations as possible directly contradicts the idea that they're testing
ground for a console. After all, a console will only ship in one hardware
configuration by definition.

~~~
bnr
Maybe they haven't found that one hardware configuration yet.

~~~
jlgreco
Why would they bother with all the Intel GPU work they have been doing?
Whatever "that one" hardware configuration would be, it _wouldn't_ include an
Intel GPU...

~~~
roc
Unless their work convinces Intel they might be missing out.

~~~
jlgreco
I think even Intel would have a hard time producing something not just
comparable to Nvidia/AMD's offerings today, but future-proof as well. Their
stuff has gotten a lot better recently so I don't think there is any lack of
effort on their part, there is just too much catching up to be done.

------
cookiecaper
At first thought this seems like a major blow for CodeWeavers and the
commercial WINE consultation crowd; Steam and Valve games are among their
staples, selling a large number of CrossOver licenses. However, on further
consideration, if Valve wanted to make Steam/Linux a more seamless experience,
one could see them becoming a major patron of CodeWeavers et al and/or
becoming major WINE contributors themselves, in an attempt to ensure that most
Steam games work perfectly on WINE.

This makes even more sense if one supposes that Valve ultimately intends to
release a "Steambox" console. In such a condition, the question emerges: at
what point does Microsoft feel WINE is damaging its profits sufficiently to
revoke the free pass its enjoyed for a long while and bring out the legal
banhammer? I think a Steambox that relied heavily on WINE would be excellent
provocation.

~~~
sandyarmstrong
Just because games will be distributed via Steam, does not mean that
developers will stop depending on CodeWeavers and other WINE bundling
techniques to actually create their ports.

I'll bet CodeWeavers couldn't be happier right now.

------
shmerl
Would be better if they'd drop using DRM.

Let's hope GOG will follow with shipping native Linux games. With their DRM
free stance - they'll be very well received by Linux users.

If you are interested, you can vote to show them that there is a demand for
it:

[http://www.gog.com/en/wishlist/site/add_linux_versions_of_ga...](http://www.gog.com/en/wishlist/site/add_linux_versions_of_games)

~~~
sliverstorm
I love how Valve is going _way_ more than the extra mile to bring a very
successful game store to Linux, and here we're just complaining about the DRM.

~~~
cookiecaper
I don't think we're "just" complaining about the DRM, but it's something worth
talking about. Do you suggest we all placate Valve, write them great big love
letters, and ignore all their faults? It's worth exploring the full range of
consequences, positive and negative.

I think it's established that gamers will be appreciative to have Steam
running on Linux officially. Do you think we owe Valve something more than
that, like pretending like potential downsides don't exist and that everyone's
problems will be solved permanently by drooling at the Steam/Linux window for
ten hours a day?

~~~
jiggy2011
I suppose there's a risk that Steam becomes the defacto way to ship software
for Linux which would in effect just assimilate it into being a closed
platform.

OTOH that seems unlikely, hopefully it will be more like OSX with a healthy
commercial ecosystem and an open source system living side by side on the same
OS.

~~~
shmerl
The problem is, that if it aspires to be a generic channel for distributing
software besides games, the DRM side if it is bad enough to be concerned, even
if it won't replace other open channels.

~~~
jiggy2011
I'm not sure if it is bad in and of itself. As long as you are free to not
install it and stick with your normal apt repos to get your DRM free open
source stuff.

I guess it could become a disadvantage if an influx of good commercial
software means that effort on open source stuff is diminished because there is
less perceived need.

------
ParadisoShlee
I really hope this breaks the horrible Linux feedback loop.

We don't have games because we don't support games. We don't have hardware
support becuase we don't have anything that requires hardware support.

------
rogerbinns
I'm hoping they will provide access to the Humble Bundles as they do on
Windows. It is a pain keeping up to date with them manually.

~~~
azernik
I just got the latest Humble Bundle (6) and I've been able to install all of
the games through the Ubuntu Software Center (sweet!) with native Linux
versions.

Seems that game developers have an incentive to do this since, according to my
latest glance at the Humble Bundle website, Linux purchasers give much more
than average ($10.13, as compared to $5.48 for Windows and $7.27 for Mac).

~~~
rogerbinns
Developers are going to care more about total revenue and support loads.
Ubuntu SC only covers the most recent HB or two - I paid for 8 different ones
all of which are available via Steam on Windows. Also I don't trust Canonical
much these days.

------
trotsky
Such a small set of testers especially considering how many of them will go to
friends/industry probably means they are expecting to get buried under a shit
storm of bugs.

~~~
bennysaurus
With such a wide range of kernel versions, OS differences and various flavours
of drivers from open, proprietary and closed sources, yep it's going to take
some work.

~~~
keeperofdakeys
From the post, it looks like they are only supporting Ubuntu. Not that that
will stop it being repackaged for other distributions when it's released. From
the collaboration with Intel, it will be interesting to see how much attention
they pay to the other drivers.

~~~
stusmall
Even just supporting 1 version of Ubuntu, you will have to support a wide
range of kernels and configurations. I'd say that using a custom kernel isn't
too far out of the norm.

~~~
keeperofdakeys
The kernel won't matter. The hardest part with compatibility is library
versions (for matching API and ABI), and the opengl rendering of the graphics
driver (which Valve is working with Intel on).

------
driverdan
While it's great they're putting support behind Linux I'm not getting my hopes
up. Just look at the poor selection of Mac games available on Steam. There are
plenty of great indy titles but very few big budget games. Linux support will
be even worse.

------
syaz1
Is the 3 at the end of the URL a subtle jab?

~~~
mappu
My vote is for almost-certainly yes. At the very least, it's a conscious
marketing move.

Even after all this time (it's been longer now since HL2:E2 than the gap
between HL1 and HL2 itself), the hype is so strong that if they released HL3
for Linux so much as a few hours earlier than the Windows version, it would
cause a significant spike in Ubuntu downloads.

~~~
bennysaurus
Seconding this. If you remove the '-3' at the end, it redirects back to the
URL above. Cheeky, I like it.

~~~
waiwai933
Doesn't actually seem to be an intentional redirect, though—if you truncate
everything past the "b" in the URL, it still works (and similarly for other
blog posts). I have a feeling it's just doing a "best match" based on the URL.

------
mrschwabe
Can't wait! Here's hoping Steam Linux - in combination with the Microsoft's
terrible decisions on Windows 8 - can be the catalyst for a mass exodus of
gamers from Windows to Ubuntu/Linux and end an era of Windows PC gaming
dominance that has long been overdue.

------
jebblue
>> We will be using a sign up page for the external beta. Information about
the sign up will be announced in a future post.

Now I need to bookmark that blog. :-)

~~~
joshschreuder
Or RSS ;)

<http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/feed/?cat=7>

------
rms
Hurray! This is my year of Linux on the desktop.

------
ekianjo
The ''one game'' in the private beta is left 4dead 2, or is there any
indication it might be something else?

~~~
jcitme
Heh. Judging from the URL of this post, it might be Half Life 3.

------
batgaijin
Hopefully they add basic RPM bundling as well; as much as I like Ubuntu I
think if you are distributing binaries we should be able to expect support for
the latest Fedora as well.

~~~
zainny
Personally, I'm hoping they don't. Or rather, that if they do, they find a way
to do it while expending zero time and energy on it...

Fragmentation in the Linux world is one of the major things that is stopping
developers from jumping on board. Valve should focus on supporting one distro
and supporting it well.

~~~
batgaijin
I agree to a degree, but at the same time simply choosing one distro to
succeed is also not beneficial in the end either.

------
grkovalev
oh, steam on linux? really? it's will possible if Valve will do create the
distribution of Linux and will support and further developed its.

------
kript
This is a great thing, next year will be the year of linux... definitely...

~~~
biomechanica
Well, the year of linux has been around for a long time. The list of devices
that use Linux is staggering.

Now, Linux as a desktop... Maybe. We'll see.

~~~
DrStalker
I was first told the Year Of Linux On The Sesktop would be 1997, when it would
overtake Windows 95 by being better/prettier/more functional. Just as soon as
they fixed the issues with sound support...

I'm sure someone here heard it before then.

~~~
MartinCron
I too remember 97 as the first year of Linux on the desktop, when people
gleefully predicted that Microsoft would collapse under their own weight.

Feels kind of cute, in retrospect.

