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."
It begins..... (Score:1, Interesting)
Let the games begin!
Re:Good for Linux. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good for Linux. (Score:5, Interesting)
I never felt Windows was bad enough to cut out for gaming, until I tried Windows 8. I use Linux for a lot of things, even bought all the Loki games when they were around, but never had too much of an issue with Windows Gaming to say I would drop it if Linux caught up.
I changed my mind. Windows 8 has been horrid on the desktop for gaming. I've had several crashes due to DirectX driver incompatibility.. Most of them due to having the XBOX 360 Controller plugged in. I have older hardware no longer supported - and no word if it will be. Metro isn't really that intuitive for launching games (although it is for buying them I guess). My AMD Radeon card has been overheating lately because their drivers aren't up to snuff on Windows 8, go figure... It's been overclocking itself. Which I know isn't all Microsoft's fault - but it does seem like PC Gaming is an afterthought over tablet gaming with the newest release. Seriously, bejeweled type games are at the forefront of the metro store.
Gabe got a lot of flack for looking at linux as a platform that steam will run on, but I'm all for it. A game distributor gets all access to the OS that they will be delivering on? I'd be hard pressed to think of real reasons that game producers won't want to jump at it. Definitely like the idea of a SteamBox too... I can play the same game on my laptop, desktop and console? and have all my save games with me to jump right in at the same point I left off on? Sounds damn good to me.
Steam also gets some flack for pricing - but I always wait for the deals. Trine 2 cost me $4, a game I would've never tried unless it was on the Linux Beta, and loving it... so is my son.
I'm not overjoyed.. maybe 8 years ago I would've been... When enlightment kicked Windows XP out of the water... When Linux Desktop was promising some hope... But, I would definitely replace Windows with Linux as my desktop if gaming went that way... Gaming sucks on tablets for me... and tablet OS's suck for gaming.. So maybe it is finally the year of the linux desktop.
Re:Segmentation fault, core dumped (Score:2, Interesting)
12.04 LTS is the supported version.
Re:Good for Linux. (Score:0, Interesting)
Obviously you only read what you wanted to read. Even the client has problems and lacks Steam support.
I'll also add that even some native Valve games run less-than-ideal on OS X. It's pretty obvious that a lot of effort wasn't put into it and if this is the best that Valve can produce do you really expect a better Linux product? Come on now.
Re:Good for Linux. (Score:5, Interesting)
My understanding was that SteamBox (or whatever it gets called) will be linux based, so I imagine linux support may actually surpass OSX support in time
Re:Surprisingly works on Linux Mint 10 64-bit (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:crazy idea.. buy AMD/ATI (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Segmentation fault, core dumped (Score:2, Interesting)
Blame Google and blame all the buggy software that gets released. Lots of games I'm played and other software I've used should have still been in beta. From my experience there is little difference between beta and released software in the consumer market, mostly just the version label. How is the general consumer supposed to know the difference when they can't see one?
Where do run Steam? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't take my writing too serious but what hardware is Steam4Linux supposed to run on?
My P3-Dualcore@1,33Ghz doesn't offer PAE so Ubuntu doesn't run.
My P4@3,2Ghz offers PAE but its Geforce 6800 - although technically within specs - fails starting TF2 because of some GL-extension missing. As the 6800 is the best native AGP solution available this is a dead end. At least it runs Penumbra although every level change will reduce FPS by 90%.
My Core-Q9550@3,4Ghz with its Geforce 260 is technically speaking just fine but officially I may only use Ubuntu 32bit and waste half of my memory (yeah, easy to work around) but still I need the uttmost updated bleeding edge drivers just to move the steam window around. Ayeah, 3D-unity and Steam hate each other. And every 3D game hates 3D-unity and Steam at once. So better disable 3D unity and close steam before launching the game or you will have 5fps.
My i7-3770K and also its Geforce 670 are too new for Unity. Couldn't get both running useful.
The only system running out of the box (mostly - WLAN runs better with hand compiled driver) is my netbook EEE 901 from 2008. Oh but I might mention that Steam needs between 10 and 25% of CPU even with all windows closed and doing nothing at all. So better learn to use cpulimit or your battery will be empty in no time.
Still its an interesting experience.
they've got a console to get out the door... (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as bug reporting goes, I doubt they'll prioritize stuff that's not relevant to their expected console architecture. Issues like, "Hey, I have dual monitors and steam blacks one out and it never comes back" are going to be pretty well ignored because the console is unlikely to support dual monitors. This is more about testing out scaling issues for the servers and verifying that updates are working as expected. A more exciting bug report for them would be along the lines of, "XYZ game released an update, but it requires my Steam client to by version 123, and I upgraded Steam to 123, but the game refuses to update."
Oh, and the other thing that's important about this Linux release is that it be valid for the developers to test their ports on prior to the console being finalized. Those limited-run developer hardware kits are way more expensive to issue than just giving studios a Linux install CD and some basic hardware requirements. This beta is probably about making sure the Steam client on Linux isn't too buggy for the devs to work with. This way, when the console is released there will be a healthy selection of titles available right away.
Seth
Re:It begins..... (Score:1, Interesting)
Well, the fact that I got a woman to install Linux because her game had a lot more fps on Linux than on Windows (she was actually a damn good gamer), and it was easier to modify the game on Linux (she wanted a pink gun), should tell you something about how easy it actually is, to fix that.
Also, another woman only didn't stay with Linux, because there was no proper webcam chat and animated emoticon support for the protocols she needed because of her friends and family using that.
They both liked Linux's look and feel a lot more because pretty much the first thing they did, is select their widget kit, colors, background, etc, and adapt everything to their style. Something that wasn't possible to that extent under Windows or OS X. And Compiz played a large role. So large that a third woman I knew wanted to change solely because of that!
They all were disappointed, that their other games didn't work on Linux. And one of them *hated* GIMP, and wished you could install Photoshop. (Yes, there is Wine. But you know yourself that that is not at all a clear-cut thing, and while it may install, you may have to do some trickery here and there, that was too much for her.)
They were all the girly type of woman. Not geeks. So yeah. Fix those problems, and you'd practically be overrun with people who want to use Linux instead.
The only bigger problem are professionals who e.g. need very specific software. Like musicians, designers, etc. Because there, there is no option to just use another program. They need *those* programs. Those dozens of exact programs... that happen to run just on Windows and OS X. :/
At least Maya is available for Linux... (IMHO, the developers of Maya are among the best in the world. The whole application is a piece of elegance and beauty. So no surprise they chose to support Linux too.)
Let's hope it's better than the MacOS X client. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It begins..... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the goal here is to fix that, but credit where credit's due, I laughed.
I think the goal is for Linux users to act as guinea pigs for Valve's console / cloud gaming service in whatever form it takes. I doubt the number of Linux users / games would justify the existence of the service for any other reason.