

John Carmack, Kudos to Valve but Linux is Still Not a Viable Gaming Market - dartttt
http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/08/john-carmack-linux-is-still-not-viable.html

======
augustl
If Valve discovers that you can get more performance in general out of a Linux
rig, my guess is that it won't take long before the entire hardcore gaming
community runs Linux. That community community is crazy about performance.

In Valve's experiments so far, Linux gets better performance (higher FPS) than
Windows. We're talking 280 vs 315 FPS (or something like that), but that's
still better.

~~~
WalterGR
_We're talking 280 vs 315 FPS (or something like that)_

The difference is closer to 10 frames a second: 303.4 vs 315.

<http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/>

 _but that's still better._

True.

------
lawn
"Its great that people are enthusiastic about Linux as a gaming platform but
there are not many people who are interested in paying for a game and that
seems to be the reality."

I might add that in all humble indie bundles linux users have paid the
highest. To be fair, I don't think linux _right now_ is a prime target for
games but I do believe that it will be.

~~~
0x0
The effort Valve seems to be putting into bringing the platform up to speed,
including hiring a lot of Linux talent and cooperating with driver vendors,
seems to imply that there is a (hidden?) agenda here that goes beyond selling
a few game licenses to the set of today's Linux desktop users.

(Especially when you consider the recent gaben statements about win8 being a
"catastrophe", and the windows app store stepping on steam's toes)

I think Carmack's response misses the mark. Valve ain't targeting Linux as
just yet-another-platform.

~~~
forgottenpaswrd
Make no mistake: Steam and the App store are competitors for selling digital
applications over the Internet.

It tomorrow MS and Apple "force" people to pay using their App store, they
need some alternative.

MS was a great competitor destroyer. You will compete with them, for example
with compilers, like Borland or Lotus or Wordperfect or Netscape and they will
destroy you first going against your income generators and they will care
about the product later, when there is a monopoly.

MS could destroy steam just using their OS control to make steam perform
badly, they did it in the past with companies like DR-DOS, with media
encoders-decoders(making them use code that they slowed down on purpose so
their badly programmed software looked better) and so on.

~~~
0x0
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...

------
jasonwatkinspdx
Valve doesn't mind investing to prime the pump. Doubly so if Microsoft looks
threatening and they're working on their own hardware (which is likely linux
based).

Surprising that Carmack doesn't support their long view, considering his
history of technology advocacy.

------
drcube
One of these companies needs to put their weight into getting OEMs to pre-
install Linux.

Imagine if you had to install the OS onto a Playstation or Xbox before you
could play a game? No wonder nobody makes money on Linux.

Notice that nobody has a problem with Linux on their phone, because it comes
pre-installed. If Valve can strong arm a few OEMs to preinstall Linux on
desktops and laptops (against strong MS opposition), they stand to make a lot
of money and simultaneously establish the fabled "year of the Linux desktop".

That there are very few preinstalled Linux options is the reason it hasn't
taken off commercially. It's the reason Linux drivers are a huge problem. It
is why "grandma" can't use Linux. And it's why John Carmack can't make money.

~~~
w1ntermute
> One of these companies needs to put their weight into getting OEMs to pre-
> install Linux.

One option would be for Valve to buy an OEM. Many of them are not doing very
well and things are only going to get worse with Microsoft Surface.

This would give Valve hardware talent for designing the Steam Box as well. The
Steam Box could easily be just a set-top PC running Ubuntu. Game makers will
no doubt see the appeal of that, and start porting games to run on the Steam
Box, and therefore Linux.

~~~
mariuolo
I like this idea. Only they ought to market it as console and not as linux
box.

------
ahi
There is no such thing as a Linux gamer. There is no such thing as a Windows
gamer. Gamers will go to where the games are. Many (most?) pc gamers build
their own systems. Without free OEM Windows preinstalled, and no Office lock-
in, pc gamers are a perfect beachhead for Linux. Carmack, with a limited
portfolio, can't make it happen, but Valve has the library to bring gamers
with them.

------
pixie_
I still can't get past how bad package management is in linux. Yesterday I
installed the latest version of Ubuntu and for example I wanted to put on
MonoDevelop. Looks like only 2.8 is available for Ubuntu while 3.5 is the
latest. On the MonoDevelop download page there are installers for Windows,
Mac, and 4 different Linux varieties. And that was only the beginning of my
problems. Yesterday was not a good day.

~~~
ghshephard
Your issue isn't with package management which is much, much better than OS X.
Try the following three very common tasks on both platforms - list all
packages installed, upgrade a package, and determine which package a file
belongs to. This is trivial on both the dpkg and rpm based distributions - but
I don't believe there is any general way of doing this on OS X. If the App
Store takes off, that might change, but right now you are out of luck.

Your actual issue is that nobody has either (A) packaged the latest version
for you or (B) placed the package in your (likely conservative) repository.
You can always install a package without a repository, or, add additional
repositories to your system.

~~~
epistasis
I think the issue here is precisely the concept of package management, as well
as the currently used implementations on Linux. Package management is curated
by people not involved in the original source packages, and the maintainers of
the original open source projects do not do releases into the package
management repositories.

And due to the proliferation of package management systems, choosing the right
packages from a project's web page is quite confusing. In addition, rpm and
dpkg have absolutely horrid command line interfaces, and the documentation is
about as confusing as bash's man page. These are not trivial or easy to
understand tools, necessitating further layers of abstraction like yum and
apt. However, even these "simple" interfaces expose a huge amount of
unnecessary complexity. If you disagree, look at the number of command line
options in the rpm and dpkg utilities, and the strange and unexpected way that
these command line options interact. It's not a clean system at its core.
Suppose I want to do something extremely simple such as list all the packages
installed on my system, how many words of the man page do I have to read and
re-read before I can discover this interface? These tools share none of the
simplicity of original Unix utilities, and are large monolithic beasts rather
than composable units.

Linux package management is _truly_ awesome, but that doesn't mean that it
doesn't have faults and that it can't be improved.

~~~
jlgreco
I sincerely cannot remember the last time I had to use 'rpm'. I can't imagine
Debian is any different.

~~~
epistasis
apt-* and yum are only minorly better than rpm and dpkg, and are still
ridiculously over-complicated. The proliferation of extra tools to deal with
package management are a testament to the number of people that are unhappy
with the current options.

~~~
jlgreco
I guess I really don't feel you. 'yum localinstall' is absurdly simple as far
as I am concerned, and the standard 'yum install' is obviously even simpler. I
am not even aware of any additional arguments localinstall takes. If there are
any, I have never used them.

Edit: I just checked the manpage, and it seems 'localinstall' is deprecated.
Simply using 'install' now does what it used to, though 'localinstall' still
works for backwards compatibility. It really could not become any simpler.

Complaining that 'rpm' is complicated is like using git without the porcelain
then complaining that it is complicated.

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mattbee
Valve aren't trying to make a business out of selling to Linux gamers. But
Linux gamers are free, enthusiastic beta testers and bug hunters for Valve's
console. I imagine most Linux using gamers already have some of Valve's games
on Windows, and that Valve will throw in Linux ports as they did for the Mac.
So there really cannot be many new sales there. But for beta testing, long
time Linux users will do great QA, and Valve's console is their big ticket out
of vendor dependence.

------
forgottenpaswrd
Kudos for this man to stand in front of an audience for 3 hours without
pauses.

I'd not like being there, give me a break, put different people on stage, add
more visual aids. Too tough to hear, even when I could stop the video and I'm
very interested in what he says.

He is right about Linux, Linux is not there and who knows when it will. If
tomorrow is, Carmack will support the platform fast. He follows the market.

------
SeppoErviala
The problem for Linux games by Id has been the distribution. How do I buy this
Quake 4/Wars that Id has ported to linux? Certainly not from Ubuntu software
center. Do they have distribution system or do I have to download some binary
and house it in my /home/? I don't know and couldn't find out with 1 minute of
googling.

I don't think that Valve will have this problem.

EDIT: Quake Live works really well but there is a lot of free competition with
Q3 type games on linux.

------
kappaloris
valve just needs to port source games on linux. hardcore gamers will love to
get better frame rates and possibly less idiotic crashes. casters will love
linux too if they can get a better encoding quality with their hardware.

once that's done part of the gaming community will follow and producers will
start to take linux in more serious consideration.

------
georgemcbay
I think his mea culpas for Rage were a far more interesting topic than the
Linux stuff.

------
foxhill
i think i'm missing something very significant here - steam already exists on
OS X (and the source engine games run fine on it).

doesn't this mean that the engine already has an OpenGL variant? why is
porting it to linux such a large task?

------
programminggeek
Steam on Ubuntu is a great idea and has outstanding potential. Linux gaming
has always been a chicken and egg problem. Steam solves the distribution
problem. It also has the added benefit of Windows gamers who already paid for
games, so making a Linux version makes it that much easier for them to ditch
Windows.

Steam is a great step forward. Next, get World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, and
Starcraft 2. Then, League of Legends, DOTA 2, etc. All of a sudden you have a
legit gaming platform.

~~~
Apocryphon
So basically, hopefully Valve's entrance into the Linux market will propel
Blizzard to join as well. Or more accurately, to leave Windows.

Perhaps it is forthcoming: [http://kotaku.com/5929569/blizzard-isnt-happy-
with-windows-8...](http://kotaku.com/5929569/blizzard-isnt-happy-with-
windows-8-either)

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lhnn
A little off-topic, but I was there at that speech. Notice the length of that
video... the man can talk.

------
huggyface
Carmack is a brilliant chap but almost everything he has said in the past
several years has been of the skating to where the puck was variety. Many,
many home computer gamers do two primary things on their PC: the web, and
gaming. With Microsoft trying to cargo cult off of Apple, Valve has the
potential to really make gaming on Linux a viable affair.

~~~
huggyface
Spurred on by a down vote, let me clarify: Carmack did some big loud exercise
about not developing on Android right as the Android ecosystem exploded. He
rallied around Direct right as OpenGL exploded in the mobile space. He rallies
against WebGL... Carmack is a developer hero of mine I have no respect for his
vision positions.

------
WalterSear
I am sure that there is room for an x86 linux distro, if steam got behind it.

~~~
jewbacca
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributions#Architecture_support)

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#Linux>

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#Events_leadin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#Events_leading_to_creation)

Linux was written in the first place for x86. Nearly every distribution
released since then, major or minor, has primarily targeted it. If a distro
doesn't support x86, it's probably for a very specific reason. I don't have
any numbers on this, but it's a safe bet that the number of Linux users not
running on x86 is pretty close to 0% (plus-or-minus Richard Stallman). Linux
runs on anything Windows does, and probably ran there first. There are
probably an infinite number of mildly interesting ways one could harp on this
general theme: It's not just a technicality to say that Linux already lives
happily on x86.

The fact that you're familiar with the word 'distro' suggests to me this is
just mild confusion. Benignly curious what your impression was. Were you
thinking of Android or old Mac OS?

