Steam Linux Plans

Steam’d Penguins on the Valve Website has new details on Valve's progress in adding Linux support to Steam and their games. Here's word on their progress on a Linux Steam client and a Linux edition of Left 4 Dead 2:
The goal of the Steam client project is a fully-featured Steam client running on Ubuntu 12.04. We’ve made good progress this year and now have the Steam client running on Ubuntu with all major features available. We’re still giving attention and effort to minor features but it’s a good experience at the moment. In the near future, we will be setting up an internal beta focusing on the auto-update experience and compatibility testing.

Since the Steam client isn’t much without a game, we’re also porting L4D2 to Ubuntu. This tests the game-related features of the Steam client, in addition to L4D2 gameplay on Ubuntu. Over the last few months, excellent progress has been made on several fronts and it now runs natively on Ubuntu 12.04. We’re working hard to improve the performance and have made good progress (more on that in a future post). Our goal is to have L4D2 performing under Linux as well as it performs under Windows.
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Trashy wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 08:27:
First off, Linux is just the OS kernel.. it doesn't look like anything it just boots up the Operating system whether it's a GNU/FOSS distribution or Android.
You know very well what I meant, so let's not play the "act dumb" routine. I was referring to Linux distributions.

Trashy wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 08:27:
It can look like anything you want there are plenty of nice looking Windows managers.
And it's the same with Windows, as there are a variety of skinning applications and alternative shells. But I haven't found any that compare to Windows 7 / 8 or Explorer. Ubuntu has improved a lot over the years and I like the concept of the side app bar but the UI still looks nowhere near as clean or elegant as Windows.

Trashy wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 08:27:
Also Linux for me is more of a office work and programming platform which if you need to get shit done you do it in Linux.
It doesn't support most productivity applications - from Adobe's Creative Suite to DAW software like Cubase or Protools. It supports office apps and programming but those are achievable via web browsers anyway and the Windows alternatives - like Office - are better than the Linux offerings.

Verno wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 08:44:
It actually has pretty wide and varied driver support these days
Yes, but still inferior to Windows by a large margin.

Verno wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 08:44:
It doesn't have a "poor user experience" either, you can build a completely idiot proof Linux box and there are several distros to do just that with a simple flash drive install.
Yet despite all the improvements that have been made it is still far from as simple and easy to use as Windows.

Verno wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 08:44:
It doesn't have poor support for applications, it has poor support for commercial Windows applications which is kind of a DUH thing to say.
No, as even Macs have decent application support - from Adobe Creative Suite to DAWs, etc. Linux simply doesn't have close to the same application ecosystem.

Verno wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 08:44:
It has an objectively superior permission environment to Windows.
Yes, but that alone does not make it a good operating system, let alone a superior one.

Windows - despite all its problems - offers a considerably better experience than Linux. I could not switch to any Linux distro and still do most of the things I do with my PC. Sure I could browse the internet or create word documents but my sound card isn't supported, I can't record and mix audio projects, I can't do gaming worth a damn, etc.

Agrajag wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 09:20:
Case in point: my technophobe grandmother's last 2 computers have been Linux netbooks... (First a EeePC, then a Dell, both pre-installed with Linux...) She manages to use them just fine... (Of course, pretty much the only 2 apps she ever uses are Firefox and OpenOffice, but that's all she has any need for, too...)
As I said, if all you need is a web browser and a basic word processor then Linux is fine. But if that's the case then you might as well just use Chrome OS and do away with the rest of the operating system altogether - just have the web browser.

nin wrote on Jul 17, 2012, 09:01:
Linux looks like ass, is more difficult to use, barely supports games, has limited application support, has poor driver support, has a poor user experience, etc.

Wow...thank goodness none of that is based in fact.
So most hardware manufacturers ship and maintain drivers and utilities that match their Windows counterparts now? So I can run Max Payne 3 on Linux? So there's now a credible alternative to Cubase / Protools on Linux? So there's now a Linux version of the bus routing and drivers for my Saffire Pro 40 soundcard? For me OSX is just as bad for my needs because it doesn't support most games but it at least handles all the rest of my needs. Linux doesn't.

I don't hate Linux or even dislike it. It just offers me nothing but disadvantages over Windows. I mean, this post is talking about porting a three year old game so that it might approach performance similar to that of Windows. It's a step in the right direction but in the grand scheme of things it's pretty pointless in and of itself. I'm glad that Valve is trying to improve gaming on Linux and Mac but they've got a LONG way to go.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
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