

Valve Linux Steam Client Beta Application - cskau
http://www.valvesoftware.com/linuxsurvey.php?

======
jiggy2011
Already filled this in.

2 Problems with it:

For some reason in chrome on ubuntu all of the text inside the select boxes is
white on white so you have to select options to read them.

They specify that they are looking for "experience linux users" so if you want
to game the survey you can answer the "how many years have you used linux?"
dishonestly.

~~~
rmk2
I experienced the same behaviour with Chromium 24 on openSUSE Tumbleweed
x86_64.

Looks like a good start for a more linux-centered experience, doesn't it? ;)

[edit] Put in a smiley at the end of the second sentence to convey my less-
than-serious take on the matter, which did not succeed to keep me from signing
up... [/edit]

~~~
drivebyacct2
Yeah, some CSS and GTK+ interactions is definitely useful data to make
conclusions about whether or not the Steam client or Source engine run well in
Linux... (Neither of which (are likely to) use GTK+ anyway at that).

~~~
sliverstorm
Clearly a polished GUI is not requisite for good compatibility/performance,
but it certainly is a canary-in-the-coal-mine indicator for other less visible
bits. Basically, if they haven't had time yet to fix things like unreadable
menus, that gives you an idea of how close to RTM quality the underpinnings
are.

~~~
jiggy2011
To be fair I imagine the client itself is much higher quality.

This just looks like a php form someone threw together in half an hour. Valve
has a "work on what you want" policy so I imagine most of their developers are
more interested in building the games and steam itself than survey websites.

------
secure
For the people without a steam account: They are asking about several hardware
details (CPU, GPU, resolution, amount of monitors, RAM) and will notify
"selected people" in a few days.

------
tjdetwiler
One issue I have with steam is you need the client to reset your password.

I no longer have a windows machine to do that from.

~~~
lvillani
Steam runs well enough with recent releases of Wine (I also had remarkably
good experiences running Source games on it, i.e.: Half Life 2).

~~~
ChrisClark
It must be great by now. I was regularly playing TF2 in Wine 4-5 years ago, it
was good enough for me then.

------
ensmotko
I don't really understand why they need to limit the number of beta testers -
I think it was said that only about 1000 users will get access to the beta
client.

~~~
jiggy2011
They are soliciting feedback and testing, they would rather have quality than
quantity.

What they don't want is thousands of forums full of posts saying "OMG it
crashez steam4Linux sux"

------
sirspazzolot
It only showed me a "submit response" button and no questions. So I clicked it
and now I can't redo it.

~~~
mintplant
Contact support?

~~~
sirspazzolot
I did, though there isn't really a spot for it. I doubt they'll do anything,
but oh well. No big deal.

------
jtchang
Downvote more...I'm greedy and want to be the first to use Steam on Linux.

On a more serious note this bodes really well for gaming and software
distribution on linux.

~~~
hollerith
Submissions cannot be downvoted. (They can be flagged, but that is supposed to
be reserved for spam and other egregious violations of norms.)

------
pdknsk
I can only guess this isn't being upvoted to not make other potential
applicants aware of it! :D

~~~
AYBABTME
It was already posted yesterday: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4701873>

I guess that's why it's not being upvoted.

~~~
optymizer
that post only mentioned the Linux Group. At that time, there was no news
about a Linux Survey. The group was empty and all you could do is join the
group, but there was no mention of a survey. So it seems unfair to me that
this would not get upvoted because of the post you mentioned.

~~~
AYBABTME
I don't know if it's unfair. I know I followed yesterday's link and completed
the survey there.

So in my perception, this is a duplicate and I think that's why it's not
upvoted. I don't see what fairness has to do with the success or failure of a
submission.

------
Inufu
Why do they assume that I'll be only testing on either laptop or desktop?

------
darkstalker
Being an Ubuntu user is required? or can be run on any other distro?

~~~
zanny
It gives an option on distro, and it seems to be anything that uses debs.

~~~
darkstalker
You can extract deb's with 'ar vx file.deb' and then manually install, but I
guess they want to test only on debian based compatible distros.

------
goggles99
Why should I install this when I sill still have to boot into windows to play
all the games that are worth playing (of the games I am not already tired of)?

This should not even be news IMO. So mamy people say WebOS and Windows 8/RT
will never gain prominence because they don't have the games of IOS/Android -
Yet Linux gets a steam client and all I hear is excitement. do yo think that
game devs want to create games for a 2% desktop market?

Nice double standard there - I understand it, but it is still an agenda/bias
that I wish to call out.

~~~
ergo14
humble indie bundle - there are plenty of good native games/ports for linux.

~~~
goggles99
Plenty for who??? not the Main Stream/Typical/Average PC gamer. The numbers
are not on your side so how can you back up your statement.

~~~
taybin
They have to start somewhere. Why are you so negative about this?

~~~
mercurial
It's a chicken and egg problem. At least we'll soon have the chicken.

More seriously, game developpers will be much more encouraged to develop for
Linux if they have a delivery system, especially given how Unity is becoming
more and more popular.

