Steam For Linux Is Now an Open Beta 353
New submitter jotaass writes "In news that is guaranteed to make the Linux gaming community (in particular, but not exclusively) excited, Valve has just announced that the Steam for Linux client Beta is now open to the public. A .deb package is available here. Interesting as well, they are using an empty GitHub repository solely as an issue tracker, open for anyone to submit, edit and track bugs, with no actual code in the repo."
Good for Linux. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good for Linux. (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't count on it. Just go and look at the number of titles that aren't available for OSX via Steam even though the publishers have OSX clients and you'll see that either Steam doesn't take "3rd party" platforms seriously or publishers aren't as warm and cozy to supporting non-Windows sales as one would be lead to believe. And while Steam's support of the OSX client has increased in the past couple of months there is still a large and noticeable gap between Windows and OS X support from Steam.
Don't expect Linux to be much better.
Re:Good for Linux. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's okay, a huge percentage of games are crap.
We just need a number of really good ones.
Re:Segmentation fault, core dumped (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It begins..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh boy! (Score:4, Insightful)
The terms of service have updated once in 7 years
And it was a doozy. And an irony, since it was just a few days before that that I finally said "I've been holding out for years, and they haven't done anything like it yet. Maybe I'm being paranoid" and bought my first few Steam games.
Two days later, I don't own the games anymore. Just like when Facebook/Instagram says "We don't intend to sell your photos, even if the TOS says we can," Valve (and its knights) says "We won't fuck you over with more unacceptable terms, even though we know the contract says we can, and we know you'll bend over for it so you can keep your library."
Rule #0 applies to Valve just as much as to Facebook.
Re:Good for Linux. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a huge and important difference between OSX and Linux though. Gamers want to have more control over their systems, and they demand the ability to assemble their own machines. In a practical sense, Mac offers neither but Linux offers both. Gamers hate pre-built systems because they are either gutted of any respectable performance, or they are outrageously marked up. Many gamers would prefer to move towards open software, but the DirectX ecosystem has them by the balls. If Valve can build momentum on the Linux side of things, there will be a greater shift towards Linux than there ever will be towards Mac. It will probably be slow at first, but it does have potential down the road. So I would not judge the motions of one by the other, at least not yet.
Re:Oh boy! (Score:5, Insightful)
You either have absolutely no concept of what a rootkit is, or absolutely no concept of how to accurately present information. Pick one.
I'd be willing to respect your opinion if you said that using Steam to access software you purchased is an unacceptably large amount of DRM, or somesuch argument. I'd be willing to respect your opinion if you said that it was too much power to put in any company's hands, or even Valve's in particular. But when you start calling Steam a rootkit, you veer off into pure bullshit land. It's just ridiculous.
Re:Oh boy! (Score:5, Insightful)
malware
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Seriously, stop that bullshit. There are legitimate arguments to be made against the use or acceptance of Steam. I personally feel it is worth the drawbacks and/or risks, but I have no problem with those who feel otherwise. But slinging about terms like "malware" is complete bullshit, and does the community a great disservice.
Re:In a hurry, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It begins..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well judging by the Humble Bundle sales data, linux gamers are roughly as many as mac gamers, so yes, they're a significant market.
Re:In a hurry, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called trolling. Ask for it by name.
Or it someone philosophically opposed to the idea of closed source software running on an open source OS?
People with that view do exist, and dismissing their point of view as a troll is a nice easy way of ignoring it without taking the time to think about it.
There is also the fact that the console they produce is going to be a legal mind field as it will invariably involve lots of closed source software running on top of an open source OS. Surely this is going to have the same issues around it that Tivo had as the people who produce the games are going to demand that the steam layer remains closed source, including its limited DRM that prevents people selling games second hand after the bought them?
Personally I have no trouble with closed source software be it running on linux or not. I also think Steam is great and would never sell games on to someone else after I finished with it even if I could so I think it is great that Steam is coming to linux.
I bet if you went and asked RMS he would strongly disagree though and would have very valid and heartfelt reasons why he though this was a step in the wrong direction.
Some people object to the mere idea of intellectual property existing at all so they would only be happy with Steam coming to linux if it was entirely open source and the only games available were also open source only. These people often frequent slashdot in case you hadn't noticed :)
Re:they've got a console to get out the door... (Score:2, Insightful)
Finally, the ONE thing tying most Linx users to gaming is here. And all you can do is bitch and whine about how bad it's going to be. Seriously, if you can't get excited for this, what CAN you get excited for? "Hey sexy, how's it going?" 'Eh, she's probably got a disease or something. And she probably sucks in bed. And can't cook. Better not talk to her."
Knowing Valve, bet they try their best to fix all the issues, Console related or not. They are, in general, a good company.
Re:In a hurry, eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
That he can't do anything about it, and the NVIDIA drivers, and the many other things he objects to in linux distributions truly demonstrates that it is not and never was gnu/linux.
"Debian gnu/linux" is of course a different story because Debian can call their distro whatever they like because unlike RMS they've actually put one together, and they can also keep out things they don't want in there.