
SteamOS - kmfrk
http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/
======
rkalla
This is effectively the software-only equivalent of a console launch.

Is anyone else skeptical that they can motivate publishers to spend time/money
porting their games to the Linux platform?

Valve certainly has a better chance than most at pulling this off (and likely
enough user/market data to make this seem like a valid investment) I am still
super skeptical that these publishers are going to spend the time porting
their AAA releases to this platform.

A good chunk of the console games barely make it to PC/Windows as it is, let
alone a PC/Linux platform... seems like a tough sell.

If the goal is an entertainment OS with streaming and DVR capabilities in
addition to the few Linux compatible games on Steam, that's a bit different of
a story but not a huge commercial win I don't think (unless they having some
amazing partnerships planned with Netflix/Amazon/Vudu/Hulu for streaming that
I am not thinking of).

If the goal is to make Steam into an entertainment platform (not just games)
it is interesting to watch all these platforms converge on this "entertainment
delivery pipeline" solution.

~~~
matthew-wegner
Valve has three announcements this week: [http://kotaku.com/looks-like-well-
hear-about-valves-new-hard...](http://kotaku.com/looks-like-well-hear-about-
valves-new-hardware-on-mon-1356094018)

One of the announcements is widely believe to be the long-rumored Steam Box
hardware...

~~~
ketralnis
Why would they announce the software separately from its #1 use case?

~~~
sliverstorm
Valve likes to escalate announcements. It would be very "Valve" to announce
the OS, which can run anywhere, and then next announce the box they want you
to run it on.

~~~
Apocryphon
...and then announce the game that you'll be playing on the box?!?

~~~
sliverstorm
No, it's not half life 3. The logo for the 3rd announcement wouldn't make any
sense then.

------
theschwa
"In SteamOS, we have achieved significant performance increases in graphics
processing, and we’re now targeting audio performance and reductions in input
latency at the operating system level."

I'm really interested to see the trickle down effect that this will have on
other Linux flavors. Having a push for standardization from a big name company
like Valve should provide a better Linux experience for everyone.

~~~
mikevm
What performance increases in graphics processing are they talking about?

I'm with you thought, I do hope all of their work will be landed in mainline
kernel so everyone could enjoy the benefits, and we could play games (through
Steam or other methods) on most Linux distros, without much hassle.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Phoronix has several articles about the work that Valve has done with Linux
GPU drivers (open source and proprietary)

[http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=17823](http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=17823)

That one is about how valve themselves got value out of debugging on open
source GPU drivers.

------
RyanZAG
This is basically a similar approach Android took for phones. It leverages off
Linux while replacing user facing pieces to give the user a simplified and
consistent environment that they expect.

However as with Android, that isn't enough to get it to take off. Android had
huge traction problems to start with until they managed to get the big device
makers to train users and market the devices. SteamOS is going to have the
same rough and long launch period, but the ultimate payoff is very big as the
tech is all there and it's just a matter of getting the big game publishers to
join up.

As with mobiles and Google, if anybody can succeed in the gaming industry,
it's Steam. So I definitely wouldn't write this one off, I think it will take
off in a few years time if they can get the big players - both software and
hardware - to join up.

~~~
snotrockets
I suspect that like Android, they're going to leverage Linux-the-kernel, but
have a user space that is alien to the one common in current Linux servers and
desktops.

I can understand: I'd say good riddance to some parts of the userspace myself
_cough_ X windows system _cough_ , but having a few different userspaces is
like having the UNIX wars all over again.

PS "The UNIX wars" has a modern space opera ring to it, like something out of
an Orson Scott Card book (or JMS script. Or maybe your-favourite author. I
don't read enough Sci-Fi to know). And now I have an urge to write a comics^W
graphic novel adaptation of the UNIX wars. It'll be glorious!

~~~
fps
That seems really unlikely. Steam for Linux runs on Ubuntu as it's platform of
choice, and installs via apt-get. They're already running all their games
under X and the standard Ubuntu userspace tools, with BigPicture, it would be
very surprising for them to fork the platform at this point.

Android made sense because standard linux/X windows applications didn't work
on a multi-touch mobile device for a whole host of reasons. PC games work fine
on Linux and X.

~~~
snotrockets
X has a lot of baggage. And by lot, I mean a few metric tons. The protocol can
do things you wouldn't believe, and do that in the most cumbersome way (it was
all the range in the Eighties, or so I'm told).

Most of Steam and Steam games don't really use X as anything but a bootstrap
for GL, and run full screen, so they could be easily ported to FB+GL (consider
that there's already a GTK backend that renders to FB, no X involved).

------
programminggeek
Building their own linux is the right move to create the kind of end user
experience it will take for the living room PC to work.

Think about the XBox 360 and the XBox One. They are both basically a windows
kernel with a totally custom UI designed for the living room. It's about
creating the best possible experience for the end user.

You can already get steam client with big picture mode on Linux, what this
does is creates something analogous to ChromeOS, but purpose built for gaming
instead of web browsing.

If linux gaming is going to have a mass market chance, SteamOS or OUYA a
similar approach is going to be how it gets there.

------
xSwag
Oh my god. This provides a genuine chance for year of the linux desktop in
2014, for gamers at least.

~~~
saraid216
Gaming is one of the last legitimate refuges of Windows dominance. There are a
_lot_ of us who wouldn't care about (read: would be willing to switch) their
OS if not for PC gaming.

~~~
mikevm
Also MS Office, Adobe Photoshop and a bunch of other Windows-only or Mac-only
tools.

~~~
andyhmltn
Libreoffice replaces MS office easily for me

------
StevenXC
The rumors of a Steam Box based on Linux have been circulating for a while
now, but earlier Valve came out to say they had no plans to enter the hardware
business.

I love this solution. Those of us comfortable with building our own Steam Box
can do so easily, and manufacturers can also build their own models. In every
case, the Steam store will certainly be sewn into the very fabric of the box,
and Valve emerges a big winner.

This is what I've been waiting for to build an HTPC/PC gaming battlestation...
I've (personally) always preferred gaming with a controller while sitting on a
couch.

~~~
bluepnume
Valve, at one point, came out to say they had no plans to support linux.

Now they don't just support linux, they're using it to stage a mini coup
against microsoft.

------
Sukotto
Since I spend most of my time in front of a computer screen and not a tv, I
hope they also roll out some improvements to the steam client as well.

Things like the ability to tag my games with multiple categories; To see
trailers and descriptions of the games I "bought and forgot"; Pause the game
and read the user manual; and the ability to actually PLAY a game _right now_
instead of being forced to wait for hours while it downloads and applies
updates to itself and the game I _already have downloaded, installed, and
partly played_.

~~~
bigdubs
I'd settle for < 4 second load times on the pages within their shitty web
based interface.

The old steam was snappy and fast, new steam is a bloated pile of garbage by
comparison.

~~~
sliverstorm
That's very possibly the _least_ important thing about Steam to me. When I
want to browse the store, I just launch Firefox...

------
msy
Add in Netflix (or a competitor) integration and you've got the potential to
put all 3 major consoles on the ropes in a few years. Given Halflife 2
launched steam my bet is HL3 will be used to launch this.

~~~
josh2600
Please... No more HL3 fake launch announcements. Please.

If HL3 comes out as a SteamOS exclusive; well that would be quite the coup.

~~~
nemo1618
Kind of crazy to think that Valve has the power to make 2014 the fabled "Year
of the Linux Desktop" simply by making HL3 a Linux exclusive.

~~~
1qaz2wsx3edc
In Gaben we trust.

------
xentronium
I'm somewhat disappointed. While perfectly logical for Valve, it might end up
being not very beneficial for other distributions. In worst case scenario,
hardware manufacturers cherry pick specific devices ("steambox") and software
ecosystem to support (SteamOS) while totally neglecting all other linux
distributions.

~~~
venomsnake
Doubt it - most of the benefits - like sane drivers, optimizations and so on
will trickle down.

And I think steam box will be set of requirements.

~~~
xentronium
I hope you're right and we won't end up with even more incoherent binary blob
dumps than we have now.

------
alisnic
The biggest benefit as I see it, is that the users won't have the hassle of
setting something up: just install the OS and login. No drivers ppa, no
recovery console, no xorg.conf patches. If this is true, Valve will do
something very big for the gaming community.

~~~
dzddd
I don't believe that they'll even focus on users installing the OS, just like
99% of Windows users don't install their own OS. Valve will provide the
reference SteamBox and encourage other manufacturers to release their own
SteamOS-preinstalled boxes, giving users hardware options.

~~~
Mikeb85
This is the end goal - but for the time being, it does seem aimed at tinkerers
- the kind of people who already have a PC hooked up as an HTPC...

~~~
shardling
Keep in mind that this is the first of three announcements that they've, err,
announced:
[http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/](http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/)

The second is in 48hrs, and almost definitely something related to the
SteamBox. So it's too soon to speak of their intentions "for the time being".

------
th0br0
As someone who's had a lot of fun writing game hacks for ET:QW and QuakeLive
back in the days and while I greatly enjoy seeing this move to Linux, I'm
quite worried about game hacks on SteamOS. There are so many attack vectors on
Linux and, currently, VALVE's Anti Cheat (VAC v3) does not, as far as I know,
cover any of those. You can still inject your hack via LD_PRELOAD + detouring
dlsym/dlopen. Even were that not possible, you could have fun with, e.g.,
ptrace.

I'm looking forward to seeing what VALVE's done to fight this, especially as I
expect SteamOS to eventually be repackaged to run on any distribution...

~~~
viraptor
Is there even an expectation that anti-cheat utilities can work? They're worse
than DRM - unless the anti-cheat software is certified and your system can do
hardware trusted execution, it's going to be worked around. (it's most likely
also possible in case of trusted execution...)

~~~
th0br0
They do have some limited success at deterring "script kiddies" and similar,
however I think that this is far more difficult to do on Linux than Windows.
Back when there were a few games around on Linux that used PunkBuster
(America's Army, Enemy Territory), PB offered almost no real protection and,
e.g., ET's mod developers decided to build in some anti cheat protection of
their own into the mods which was superior to PB's. (Which, of course, also
got bypassed eventually)

~~~
asdasf
>however I think that this is far more difficult to do on Linux than Windows

You are mistaken.

------
davexunit
I don't like that Valve says that SteamOS is "freely licensable". They must
know by now that the word "free" often means "libre" in the GNU/Linux
community, but they've made no indication of what the license terms will
actually be.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Presumably the GNU/Linux core is libre and Steam is freeware. Why would it be
anything else?

~~~
davexunit
The point is that Valve is using confusing language to claim that they are
"open", instead of saying what they are really doing: writing proprietary
software that sits on top of a free software operating system.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
The word "open" (well, the derivative "openness") is only used once on the
page, and the context is clear: It's not locked to any hardware (like Windows)
but is freeware (like Android).

~~~
warfangle
Free as in beer; not speech.

------
Glyptodon
The streaming of other OS games from your other OS systems seems like a pretty
compelling and surprising feature. I wonder if it will work with all games.

~~~
redthrowaway
I can't see how they'd manage to get twitch games like online FPSes to be
playable with the addition of another layer of latency between the player and
the game. A 100ms delay between input and response is death for games like
that.

~~~
stormbrew
If you have 100ms latency on your LAN you have some serious problems.

~~~
lnanek2
There's latency for pings and latency for sending moves to a multiplayer
server, those are going to be low on the LAN. Then there's user experienced
latency for sending high frame rate HD graphics to another machine every frame
and the input back from that other machine. That is not going to be without
hiccups, even on a LAN.

In reality, most consoles are hooked up by WiFi nowadays which will make
things even worse. Android manufacturers have struggled with smooth display
mirroring over WiFi for a long time and the only time I've seen it work good
enough for gaming is WiFi Direct connections via Miracast or wired connections
via MHL.

~~~
asdasf
Latency is a measure of the time it takes for a packet to travel to its
destination. No part of ethernet networks cares what the payload in those
packets are. You don't magically get more latency because the data in them can
be interpreted as frames of video.

~~~
clarry
You can look up latency and it has a more general meaning. We're talking about
a time delay. In this context we're not concerned about the time it takes to
tranfer a single TCP packet, we're concerned about the time it takes to
transfer a complete frame of video (under the assumption that a complete frame
is required before the receiving end can display it). So bandwidth plays a
role, and if you're sending larger frames then the delay from source output to
destination display will be larger. This is latency.

~~~
asdasf
>So bandwidth plays a role

Of course it does, but we're not talking 10Mb/s networks here. People stream
1080p content all the time, gigE can handle that no problem. The only latency
concern would be the encoding step, not transferring the data.

------
siphr
The success and effectiveness of the console, I believe, is dictated by the
following statement:

"Watch for announcements in the coming weeks about all the AAA titles coming
natively to SteamOS in 2014. Access the full Steam catalog of over nearly 3000
games and desktop software titles via in-home streaming."

To me this suggests that they are actively trying to get developers to port
and they have had some success. Also I believe that a lot of developers will
not port and to handle those cases they've introduced the home streaming
functionality so that you could stream your windows game to the steam box via
a windows steam client running somewhere.

------
JonSkeptic
How long till we see the "SteamOS on Raspberry Pi" threads?

~~~
jimmcslim
Or SteamOS inside a Docker container!

;-)

~~~
frio
This actually isn't a terrible idea. It's been a _long_ time since I've gamed
on Linux, but I remember playing Tribes 2 in aeons past, and had to patch a
decent chunk of the libraries in my distro to get it working. Using something
like Docker/LXC to define the runtime environment of a game would probably
help to make life a lot easier.

~~~
jimmcslim
As long as the use of containers didn't impact on performance too much, which
ideally they don't compared to virtualisation. (I say having not personally
had any significant experience of the different performance characteristics).

------
mrinterweb
I wonder if they will white-list any games are not natively ported to linux
that have good wine compatibility. SteamOS could manage the wine
configurations for those games. With enough platform adoption, this should
help game companies to start targeting linux natively.

------
xSwag
So what is the chance that Gaben will make everything proprietary? Releasing
games for the SteamOS with license restrictions to make them unplayable on
other Linux distros? What if he makes a deal with AMD/NVidia to make drivers
only for SteamOS which won't be available to normal Linux users? I don't want
linux to go towards that direction.

~~~
marcosdumay
That would turn their most vocal supporters into enemies, destroy their plans
to make Linux a viable gamming plataform (and Valve needs Linux to be viable,
for keeping MS from destrying them), assure that nobody ever uses their new
SteamOS (people that don't care are already doing similar stuff with Windows),
and alienate everybody that is selling specialized Steam hardware.

Unless they get a MS-like world domination, the chances of that happening are
near enough 0 that you'd better care about other problems.

~~~
ihsw
Don't be ridiculous -- Canonical has taken control of Ubuntu development and
now they have a reputation for being authoritarian and secretive. There are
fewer ways to alienate the open-source community than that and yet Ubuntu's
popularity soars.

The more critical people are of Canonical, the more fervent Ubuntu supporters
become. "How will they make money" will be parroted just as loudly, if not
more-so.

~~~
throwaway2048
Ubuntus popularity is anything but soaring these days, mint has more or less
taken over its former crown.

~~~
Mikeb85
Hah. I'd wager that in real world installs Ubuntu has at least 20x-50x the
installs (Wikimedia statistics support this assertion), never mind Ubuntu
server installs.

How many people ever visit Distrowatch (the only statistic on the web that
supports the idea that Mint > Ubuntu) once they settle on a distro?

------
toblender
I wonder if history will repeat itself, will Valve be the next Apple?

Apple took FreeBSD and makes it into OSX. > Valve takes Linux and makes it
into SteamOS.

Apple makes iTunes for music, unifying digital music download > Valve makes
Steam for games, unifying digital game download

Apple make IPOD for digital music playing > Valve make (SteamBox?) for game
playing

Damn I wish I could own some Valve stock...

~~~
Symmetry
The differences in licensing between the BSD license and GPL are designed to
prevent them from doing all of what Apple did with FreeBSD.

~~~
GalacticDomin8r
> what Apple did with FreeBSD

Please tell us what Apple did with FreeBSD.

------
consider_this
I think this is Valve's answer to the chicken/egg problem of new platform/app
availability.

Build it and they will come.

~~~
venomsnake
I would say that a lot of people are there already. A lot of developers are
switching to linux as desktop os. Except the games everything in the toolchain
works better there and windows tools work fine.

And the IT guys have long been the core of the PC gaming scene.

So ... it was not a chicken and egg problem but a demand that needed
answering.

------
ijk
Even if this never gets majority traction compared to consoles, I suspect it
will be worth it for Valve. Ever since Microsoft tried to cut them off with
the Windows Store, Valve has been working to have an independent platform.
Having alternative platforms gives Valve room to maneuver.

------
lesbaker
Some responses say SteamOS is not open source, in the press release, it says
"Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want."
So I'm guessing if not open-source, the user would download a disk image, then
go in and change the configuration, install media-center front-end software,
etc, after the fact?

Regardless, I'm very interested, but just curious how easy and flexible it
will be.

------
minimaxir
So the Streaming functionality will be in both SteamOS _and_ the normal Steam
client? For both PC and Mac?

There might be a few interesting ways to utilize that. :)

~~~
errnoh
Yeah, I see the streaming functionality as almost bigger announcement than the
OS.

It's quite possible that one could stream into any other machine including
tablets, laptops and even phones. This would enable playing your full Steam
library from anywhere with decent enough connection (on both sides),
especially games where input lag is not that big issue.

------
sixdimensional
Open ecosystem (Linux, hardware) + gaming = well done Valve, sounds good, I
like it!

~~~
antsar
Not open source, however. Not a dealbreaker, but an important distinction to
keep in mind.

~~~
NotOscarWilde
Personally, I'm fine with Steam remaining closed-source, as this is both
inevitable because of it being both a store and a DRM provider.

The key question here is whether Valve's future extensions to the graphics
subsystems (which seem to be advertised, to some extent) will be released as
open-source and be admitted to the (free software) kernel and libraries that
exist today.

~~~
bloaf
It'd be cool if Valve incentivized contributions to open source parts of their
OS through Steam. E.g. if you fix a bug you get some sort of achievement, and
if you fix several bugs you get something valuable like game coupons.

~~~
wtracy
At the very least they should have some TF2 hats for code contributors!

------
bfigares
This is easily the most groundbreaking news I've heard as a gamer (and from
the point of view of an engineer/business geek) in the past four years or so.
This will be a really tough blow for the windows platform since the gamer
demographic drives a lot of spending. Also it points to a very deep strategic
move by valve, vertically integrating the distribution channel and controlling
a la Apple which and how games are experienced. I wouldn't be surprised if
valve built strong partnerships with hardware providers to provide a fully
vertically integrated, key-in-hand gaming platform experience. It is worth
mentioning that valve also sells other types of programs through steam... and
that it seems this will eventually mutate into it's application store,
centralizing the money management for steamOS in general and fully capturing
the platform value.

A new apple but instead of "think different", the idea will be "play
different"

------
jknt1164
I'm not a software dev, so this might be a really dumb question, but how hard
is it to port/co-develop Windows/Mac games to Linux?

From what I can find out, PS3 is based on FreeBSD and WiiU is a heavily
modified version of Linux, possibly Android. XBOX obviously Windows. Would it
be that much harder to also have a SteamOS version in the mix too.

~~~
venomsnake
According to John Carmack its a few weeks worth to port, and maybe even less
to extend wine.

But that is like saying that according to Superman going to the moon is a few
minutes of flight.

~~~
munchor
And while Superman might be a hell of a Super Hero, what he said doesn't mean
much. Its heavily dependent on libraries/frameworks/engines and technologies
used to make the game.

If you use something like C++ and SDL it shouldn't be too hard (if not
automatic), but if you use something like C#/XNA it could be harder (if not
impossible?), but anyway I think (hope) most C# game developers and ex-XNA
users use MonoGame these days.

------
jmomo
How is "Windows 8" NOT found on this discussion???

It is very unlikely, had Microsoft not decided to go nuts and release a dead-
end train wreck of an OS that thew it's passengers/users into the ravine in
the name of chasing MacOS and touchscreens that everyone wanted with the same
enthusiasm as to 3DTV, that Valve would be so scared of the future on Windows
that they would need their own Linux-based platform. Not to mention Mac
support.

I am a huge Linux advocate, but this is much more about Valve being scared and
running away from Microsoft Windows than it was the greatness of GNU/Linux.

I wonder how Steve Ballmer being fired will change the direction of Microsoft
and it's products. What will be the future of Windows?

If they keep trying to actively throw their users off the train with wildly
backwards-incompatible user experiences, you can expect even Microsoft Office
to start supporting GNU/Linux for fear of the future of Windows.

~~~
kinnth
So long as this box will play hl2 engine games, most notably DOTA2 it's going
to be fine. DOTA2 in 2014 is going to skyrocket it's going to be the next WOW
and it will secure valves revenue. This box is really just gabe saying fuck
you to Microsoft and Sony - let me keep my TV open!

------
vitd
I have to say - after trying to simply play a 2-player game of Portal 2 with a
friend over the Internet and having so much go wrong, I don't have a lot of
faith that they'll be able to maintain an operating system.

We see constant problems just trying to download the same map. Sometimes the
game just shoves us over to a screen with no options and the game has to be
force-quit to exit it. Other times it crashes during loading. It won't
download to both of our computers at the same time, so it downloads to one
first, then, only after the first one has finished, to the other. On those
rare occasions that we actually get into the game, there are lots of glitches.
I mean, when it works it's really fun, but the number of problems that occur
along the way is just phenomenal. It's like using software from the 80s again.
It's terrible.

------
siphr
The idea itself is not novel as such. Just like every other company the
difficulty is having to disassociate yourself from Windows. As it stands the
store relies heavily on Windows titles. The real feat would be if they managed
to get the whole catalog across to SteamOS by under the hood cross
compatibility layer.

~~~
rocky1138
It would be an amazing boon to Linux and gaming on Linux if Valve bought (or
heavily funded + added resources to) Crossover/WINE.

~~~
siphr
Exactly what is going through my mind :)

------
BuckRogers
The way for Valve (if you're reading this) to make SteamOS/Linux the top
gaming platform overnight?

Make HL3 Linux-only.

Don't do a Windows/Mac port for 2 years. Watch all of us gamers scramble to
dual boot at minimum, if not see the writing on the wall and do a wholesale
swapout on our Windows gaming boxes.

~~~
johnward
As evil as this sounds, exclusivity works for the other consoles.

------
alexmat
Speculation from over a year ago:
[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/08/16/heres-a-
thought-w...](http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/08/16/heres-a-thought-what-
if-valve-were-making-steamos/)

------
evanmoran
As someone mentioned this is just the first announcement of three:
[http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/](http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/)

Announcement 1, SteamOS: is just a fancy way to say you can create custom
Steam consoles by just installing some software. Make the box as good or a
cheap as you want and everything will just workPretty awesome, but definitely
this will be dwarfed by...

Announcement 2, people are guessing is a Valve distributed "SteamBox": a
console that is presumably very cheap and linux based. This would give Xbox
One and PS4 a run for their money and with the social aspects of Steam built-
in, this could be a break out hit with a price of 50% all the other consoles.

Announcement 3, is the large unknown here. We don't know what it is, but if it
is bigger (or equal to) SteamBox this could be a huge deal. Nothing really
makes sense here. We know:

* SteamBox will support streaming from your windows/mac machine so it will be able to run every game at launch.

* SteamBox will likely have lots of publishers signed on. Probably as many or more then on xbox one / ps4. If they are already using an engine that targets multiple platforms (Unreal or Unity) they are definitely going to try to support it.

* SteamBox will likely support all the features of steam with friend lists, chat, voice, purchasing over the cloud, etc. So the + might mean sharing, but a new kind?

* SteamBox supports game sharing at a friends or family level. I see this as a kind of Netflix-like persona idea: an account gains separate personas that each have different friends lists and achievements. Very powerful and necessary once Steam hits the living room and multiple people are using the same box / account.

What it could be:

* LAN play for SteamBoxs on the same network (announced in Dota, this could explain the circle + circle graphic). Maybe you share the game between friends, and stream to the other boxes? That would be pretty awesome.

* Game streaming from other people's SteamBoxs? This would be an awesome way to share a game. It is like onlive but for distributed for everyone (seems unlikely. That kind of streaming would stop your friends from being able to play).

* A launch title like Half-life 3 (seems unlikely with the circle + circle logo implying you need multiple SteamOS instances).

* A new kind of social experience, maybe a built in way to be a part of the game creation process or improved social network experiences on Steam (seems unlikely to be big enough to be the final announcement)

* A new kind of hardware like a VR headset(seems unlikely, as cheap will be a big feature of this box)

This is marketing at its best. They hooked us good.

~~~
mwilcox
O+O

OS + Oculus?

~~~
deletes
That is a nice idea, however Oculus is not consumer ready yet.

------
pippy
The first circle is SteamOS, the second will likely to be the Steambox:
[http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/](http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/)

There's also a third circle there...

~~~
galaktor
I'm surprised yours is the only comment I saw pointing out the incremental
approach to this "living room" goal Valve has been using.

The steam box will obviously require some OS to run, and it seems perfectly
reasonable to ship the OS, get feedback for it and it's features (i.e.
streaming), and have it production-tested once the inevitable steam box is
ready. Why take the risk of shipping all-new-everything when you can do it in
smaller steps?

------
emehrkay
I've been asking for years why someone just doesn't make a XBMC-like os for
gaming on commodity PC hardware. Glad to see it finally happening. I'm very
excited for this. My son who is 11 will be too

------
Mikeb85
This is the best thing to happen to Linux since Steam came (which itself was
the best thing ever).

This gives developers even more incentive to use cross platform tools, to
develop on OpenGL, and to make things work with Linux.

------
ChikkaChiChi
GTA:V Bundled Editions sold quite nicely over the past week. Seems like
bundling your own console with your own game just became a reality.

Valve just got every major publisher to take a serious look at what they are
doing.

------
Cyranix
Here's hoping that this effort is where they've been concentrating some of
their non-game devs. There have been longstanding issues with Valve-produced
UX once you look beyond the in-game aspects. TF2 server list couldn't sort
properly on the first update for years, the Steam browser is often dog slow,
etc. -- things that are front-and-center pain points for me. A perfect initial
release isn't a reasonable goal, but I do hope that they'll be able to polish
the out-of-game experience better than they have in the past.

------
rlu
What I'm curious of is most of Steam's users are probably avid PC gaming fans
that _prefer PC gaming over console gaming_

At least that's true for me and various of my 'internet friends'

~~~
NoPiece
I am with you, but I am a PC gaming fan, not necessarily a Windows gaming fan.
WHat I like about this is not the ability to put a Steambox into my living
room, but to replace windows with SteamOS on my PC.

------
bryanh
Let's hope they don't got the route of Android, which is perhaps the most
successful consumerization of Linux to date, wherein they allow hardware
vendors bog it down with crapware...

------
mikevm
Given the current high-end game engines that seem to support all the popular
platforms out of the box (Windows, Mac, consoles), how difficult is it really
to ship a game with Linux support?

------
xpose2000
"In SteamOS, we have achieved significant performance increases in graphics
processing".

I assume they mean in comparison to other Linux OSs. Beating windows drivers
seems a bit far fetched?

~~~
Simucal
Valve has reported better performance in Linux than in Windows 7 for at least
one of their titles [1].

[1] [http://www.zdnet.com/valve-linux-runs-our-games-faster-
than-...](http://www.zdnet.com/valve-linux-runs-our-games-faster-than-
windows-7-7000002060/)

~~~
pekk
Depending greatly on your hardware. And there's the rub. And there's the
reason it could be really nice to have Steam boxes and certification of
hardware for SteamOS

------
sandGorgon
Lovely - this is what I had discussed more than a year back [1] This same OS
can be repackaged for the desktop. I would think superb hardware
compatibility, driver support and fundamental media library innovations would
make it a compelling base on which to layer on a desktop UI.

I wonder what packaging format will they use for their games ?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3888472](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3888472)

------
jason_slack
So, this means I could build a PC with SteamOS, hook it to my TV, XBox
controllers and play all the same games in our living room. Am I thinking
about this right?

~~~
matt_r
If you want to play any non-linux games, you have to have a capable-enough PC
to stream the games from, it sounds like. But other than that, yeah.

------
JVIDEL
If valve couples this to a reasonably priced htpc and sell it they could get
nearly every game available on steam ruining on it using wine.

That's easy because like with consoles you have only one hardware
configuration so getting a game to run properly on wine or even better than on
windows would be a walk in the park compared to porting it.

Of course this trick won't work with the millions of hardware combinations in
today's PCs.

------
BigChiefSmokem
This needs to be marketed to consumers the same way Windows was in the 90s and
iOS/Android is today or else it has no chance of gaining any real... Steam.

The Linux or tech community alone will not make this happen. They need to do a
Windows/iOS/Android and push this out on marketable hardware for the masses or
else it will just be another niche tech product.

No cool commercials, no chance.

~~~
Fuzzwah
Exclusive period for HL3 on SteamOS. Done.

------
jdc
Valve doesn't need all the AAA titles initially. What if SteamOS were released
to a group of perspective and current gaming hardware manufacturers à la
Android? Despite the DirectX platform being incumbent on the mid to high-end
x86 PCs, if Valve were to target the Wii/smartphone gaming demographic they'd
stand a decent chance at commoditizing consoles.

~~~
pdxnative
I would disagree here. Nobody likes fragmentation. If Valve can't deliver AAA
on linux right away, then this will likely go the way of Ouya. The most
interesting thing here is the streaming which could act as a bridge until we
see native Linux AAA games.

Lastly, DirectX is so widely used in game engines. I haven't seen any hard
evidence (not coming from Valve) that OpenGL can meet or exceed DirectX
capabilities. I'd love to see real data on this.

------
philjackson
How open will this be? Will game developers have to licence the right to
develop for SteamOS? If not, it'll potentially be huge!

------
kgp7
They never seem to define what a Living room machine is ? I wouldn't consider
a desktop be a living room machine.

~~~
portmanteaufu
If only Valve would provide us with an exemplary device!

------
jdc
What if SteamOS were released to a group of perspective and current gaming
hardware manufacturers à la Android? The DirectX platform may be incumbent on
the mid to high-end x86 PCs, but if Valve were to target the Wii/smartphone
gaming demographic they'd stand a decent chance at commoditizing consoles.

------
Jaecen
Having a machine boot into Steam will have an interesting effect on other
similar services like Origin and Desura. It will no longer be sufficient to
request customers install yet another download manager/DRM platform; instead
customers would have to boot in to a different OS to play their Origin games.

~~~
pekk
So much the worse for Origin, which was a stupid idea anyway.

Desura runs on Linux.

~~~
Jaecen
Desura runs on Linux, but assuming SteamOS is akin to "boot to Stream Big
Screen," users won't have a Gnome or KDE desktop to install it to. In such a
case, Desura's existence on SteamOS depends on either inclusion in Valve's
marketplace or users' willingness to venture off the map.

------
ffog
If you want to see that third announcement icon a little more clearly, the lit
version is already up.

[http://cdn3.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livin...](http://cdn3.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/glyph_03_b.png)

------
Mikeb85
By the way, anyone who's sceptical of Linux gaming needs to get on Steam, and
see what's available for Linux - right now. There are plenty of AAA quality
titles already, with many more to come.

Or, for anyone with an Nvidia card and the Nvidia drivers, just download a
Unigine demo...

------
mladenkovacevic
This effectively gives traditional desktop OEMs a relatively cheap and easy
entry into the living room, and a new category of product to sell effectively
and compete against Xbox, PS4, and the mobile OSs who will be trying to gain
entry into the living room soon.

------
phren0logy
Is it based on an existing distro?

~~~
L8D
It's either OpenSUSE or Ubuntu based.

~~~
jjcm
Most likely ubuntu as that seems to be their defacto test platform. If you
download steam from their site it comes packaged in a .deb format. They have
pretty significant investments in that stack, and even list it as their
favorite flavor:

"Not running Linux yet? Ubuntu is our favorite version of Linux."

(at the bottom of this page:
[http://store.steampowered.com/about/](http://store.steampowered.com/about/))

~~~
fmoralesc
I hope not. Going Ubuntu will mean (long term) Mir instead of Wayland, which
will suck for other distributions and projects.

------
speeder
wOOOOOOOOOO!!!

If that works on normal machines (like, my laptop), I will kick Windows for
good finally!

~~~
toblender
Yeah I hear you, I thought that this announcement would hurt M$oft stock, but
I guess Valve isn't on the radar at all in the mind of investors.

------
mmanfrin
I really, sincerely hope they will get rid of the block that allows only one
computer to be signed in at a time. I don't like the idea of having to relogin
every time I switch computers (as is the case now).

~~~
TomNomNom
Given the streaming feature they've mentioned I think it would be safe to
assume that you'll at the very least be able to have two machines signed in.

------
edu
Looks great! I'm really looking forward to see the fist SteamOS device.

~~~
rodedwards
"SteamOS will be available soon as a free download for users" \- you can build
your own device!

~~~
pekk
You can run Steam on Ubuntu today, if that's what it comes down to. This is
for manufacturers.

------
fredsanford
I find it ironically funny that, after all of these years of having a near
monopoly Microsoft is losing out to the open source it tried so hard to
sabotage in the late '90s and early 2000s.

Then, while the MS boat is leaking and sailing haphazardly across the
computing landscape, along comes Valve to put a stake in the heart of the MS
gaming division...

Could this truly be the beginning of the end of this giant leech on the
computer industry?

The combination of this "story" and this one from slate
([http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/23/microsoft...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/23/microsoft_surface_2_surface_pro_2_tablets_for_people_who_hate_fun.html))
makes me wonder...

~~~
fredsanford
I see the drive by spineless downvoters are showing up here too...

------
bjorg
That's one hell of a smart idea if they can pull it off. As an OS, it can run
on a VM or dedicated hardware, which gives us users the greatest flexibility.
Well played!

------
otikik
To me the big thing is "Music, TV and Movies". If they are able to get rid of
the "This Show is not Available in Your Country" thing, that would be huge.

------
antsar
If only it were open source... This is great nonetheless, though. It'll be
interesting to see what directions this takes off in, both in terms of
hardware and software.

------
leokun
Will this be a game only platform or can I do work on it too?

~~~
matt_r
According to The Verge, SteamOS will boot straight into Steam with Big Picture
mode, and you wont see linux at all "unless you want to" [1]. So... for
whatever that's worth.

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/6/3958162/valve-steam-box-
cak...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/6/3958162/valve-steam-box-
cake/in/3514777)

------
programminggeek
The other thing SteamOS will end up doing that is super interesting is get
good controller support on Linux/PC games, which can many times be real
lacking.

------
CmonDev
So they are using an open OS foundation to build an OS that will allow them to
effectively lock users into their store/environment? And geeks are happy?

~~~
olalonde
Still an improvement over the other consoles which are completely proprietary
and locked down. I think it's great that Linux is gaining a wider audience
regardless of whether it's due to commercial, technical or ideological
reasons. Some people will never be happy...

------
rufugee
I sincerely hope the release the streaming client for use on other Linux dists
as well. This would mean a welcome end to my current dual-boot setup.

------
jebblue
Is it just me or does Valve still rock? These guys really keep powering along,
steady pace, good going guys, best wishes with your new platform!

------
Yuioup
I'm guessing that o+o means split-screen gaming on the t.v., streaming from
two separate Windows machines.

------
mathgladiator
Now, if Halflife 3 becomes a SteamOS exclusive, then we might have a shot of a
linux gaming environment.

------
topbanana
Most Steam games require keyboard and mouse. I don't see how that can work in
the living room

~~~
dragonwriter
> Most Steam games require keyboard and mouse. I don't see how that can work
> in the living room

If the issue is "how do you get control devices that work for that use case",
wireless keyboards and mice with suitable range for living room use exist
(I've seen them mostly used in large conference rooms, but the requirements
aren't very different.)

If the issue is "how do you use control devices in that environment since they
call for surfaces", lapdesks, coffee tables, etc., are frequently found in
living rooms. If people want to play their existing keyboard-and-mouse
focussed Steam games in their living rooms, its not hard to see how they can.

But I think that -- as with other consoles -- the games that are playable with
more traditional "gaming controllers" will be more popular for the livingroom
role than keyboard-and-mouse driven games. But plenty of PC games have, for
years, been very similar to console games and support game controllers (even
though they usually had KB/mouse support since that's what you could count on
users having on the PC platform), so I don't think this is going to be much of
an issue.

------
daemonk
Are they looking to sell their own hardware? How good are graphics card driver
support in linux?

------
bobbles
Does mac bootcamp only work with windows, or is it any OS?

Id love to have a macmini as a 'steambox'

------
z3phyr
It would be good for valve to project Rustlang as their programming language
of choice :)

------
scottmcleod
Will we see a USB device for Smart TV's later this week?

------
Eyes2design
The end is near! windows should shake in its tiny boots

~~~
leoc
I'm not sure if you're serious or not, but I am. Steam has already started to
offer non-game applications. If SteamOS gets a large enough installed base and
provides a good-enough platform for desktop/couch-side apps other than games
then things could get interesting.

EDIT: Of course, it would help if Valve had someone in charge with a record of
success in desktop app platforms. Well
[http://www.computerandvideogames.com/172835/interviews/creat...](http://www.computerandvideogames.com/172835/interviews/creative-
minds-gabe-newell/) fancy that.

------
david_otoole
Can you sideload games that aren't on Steam?

~~~
rocky1138
Current Steam lets you add non-Steam games. No word yet (AFAIK) on whether or
not that will continue when it becomes its own OS.

~~~
david_otoole
I sort of worry about that. As a userspace client Steam could never have hoped
to lock out non-approved games, but as an OS it probably could. The HN
commentariat probably skew pro-curation, but I for one think it would be bad
for the future of Indie games if Steambox did not support side loading.

~~~
officemonkey
OTOH, I can totally see Steam allowing me to stream Minecraft (not available
on Steam) to my TV simply to encourage me to use Steam for gaming.

------
samograd
Yay, the 80s UNIX wars all over again:

[http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/wars.html](http://www.bell-
labs.com/history/unix/wars.html)

------
charonn0
I told you so
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5186806](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5186806)

------
skizm
Can I still browse the internet?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Yes. Steam's Big Picture mode has its own web browser, as does Steam itself.

~~~
skizm
Sweet. I wonder how it will compare to XBMC. I'm looking to buy/build a media
center PC within the month and been checking out operating systems for it.
This is now a contender.

------
webwielder
At last, all the unresponsiveness, bugginess, and ugliness of Steam in OS
form!

------
wnevets
the 3rd circle will be HL3

------
goggles99
What qualifies as a "New" operating system? This is slightly modified Linux,
with a slightly modified UI. Is that really considered new? How about calling
it a new Linux variant rather than a new Operating System.

~~~
lotyrin
Because most of their target audience isn't pedantic existing users of Desktop
Linux, it's people that are using Steam on Windows.

Furthermore, for most people an "OS" is not a collection of general purpose
kernel and userspsace as components, it's a vertically integrated and holistic
product + experience.

------
leccine
Since when did we start to call Ubuntu skins operating systems?

