Valve's OS - SteamOS

[Dog Pants]

Today Gabe proclaimed at LinuxCon that they have been working hard on a Linux based operating system. That's not a huge surprise, but they really sound to be getting their shit together. When they mentioned it some months ago (I think they did, didn't they?) with the release of their Linux Steam it sounded like it was never going to be an ideal solution, something that was as easy to use as the Windows version. Which disappointed me, because I'm alarmed by the direction Microsoft have taken with.. well everything really. I don't want to buy another operating system off them. So I had to restrain the butterflies in my tummy when I read that Valve had been working hard on getting stuff working. That they've been using their considerable influence to goad Nvidia into releasing not only working drivers, an old bugbear for Linux, but faster ones than their Windows counterparts. It still has problems, but my god look at the progress they're making. This thing might actually work and that could be super exciting.

[buzzmong]

Hmmm.
*strokes chin*

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Yes please.

I might have to have a nose at the linux steam thing at some point, just because I can.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Thinking about it, I've been ranting about/hoping for heavily cut down/optimised OSes for gaming for years.

If valve make something with the bare minimum of bloat, it could be very special indeed.

[spoodie]

Steam on Linux is the same as Windows, just as easy to install and run. It's Linux in general that can be a challenge for the uninitiated. But if you use something like Linux Mint or Ubuntu it's pretty easy to get started and there's plenty of help available.

These days I generally only run Windows to play games, otherwise Linux Mint, so this is great news.

[Joose]

I don't know about "just as easy". I've got an old laptop that I've stuck Ubuntu on just to mess around, and one of the things I wanted to try was steam. Installed fine, flashed up some cryptic warning but seemed to be working. I shut the laptop down, came back to it and now steam won't open. Trying to find answers on why is bloody hard as all the forums seem to assume a decent familiarity with Linux already.

That's not to say I think this is a bad idea overall, but it will need to be a lot smoother and friendly if the general public is supposed to be using it.

[spoodie]

I meant that the install process, assuming it works, is as easy on Linux as it is on Windows. Not dicking around with software packages, dependencies, etc. But that is the norm for Linux these days, so much has improved over the years.

Although I tried playing Gone Home on Linux first and the mouse was a bit weird. It's way over-sensitive on either platform, but seemed odd in another way on Linux.

[FatherJack]

If they can deliver something like a TiVo or a Mac where the fact it's running a Unix-like OS is generally inconsequential to the end-user, that could have a wide appeal, but I'd be more interested if the OS was also made available to any sort of Intel hardware. Notwithstanding fucking around with drivers in the first place to get it running at all, you'd potentially have the same or perhaps an improved experience as on whatever - likely costly (compared to my existing rig or one built from bits) - device they are targeting for it.

[Joose]

I've just spent the evening buggering around with steam on Ubuntu, and have a few conclusions. At the moment, there is absolutely no advantage to using Steam on Linux if you already own windows. Apparently some people have got it working without problems. I am not one of those people. Ive been fiddling for a few evenings and only tonight have I actually managed to install any games.

Having got to this point, I then looked through the available games to see what is installable. This has shown something interesting. Of the 300+ games I own, only 75 of them are Linux compatible. Of these 75, literally all of them are either indy games or made by Valve. Well, all of them with the exception of Brutal Legend.

That's the real issue at the moment, I think. The Linux based steam box is never going to work without the big name games, and at the moment there are no Linux compatible big name games. None. At all. Difficulties with Linux from the user end are all things that I think Valve can fix. Its difficulties with the developers that will be the real issue.

[buzzmong]

I think it might be a case of "build it and they will come" to get big devs supporting linux.

One of the big advantages of Windows is it's a fairly fixed base system and things like DirectX handle the hardware abstration layer to a large extent. Windows itself offers quite a bit of abstraction and does the grunt work for you

Obviously OpenGL, OpenAL and a few others work great on Linux, but it's much harder to write when you've not got a stable core OS alongside having to deal with all the permutations of hardware and drivers that are available.

An OS by Valve is quite desireable when you now only have to make your game work on that one OS platform, as you'll spend less money on dev and QA.

I also think Valve aren't that silly as to say there's a requirement for games to have a dedicated Linux build to work via their OS, so I expect something like WINE directly attached to Steam with Valve/Developer vetted application profiles will be working away in the background to allow people access to most of their library.

[Dog Pants]

I think Buzz has it there. It will need to run Windows versions. More people might release Linux versions if Valve put out a stable gaming OS, but the big titles are going to take some convincing, especially the likes of EA and Ubi, who have their own digital distribution platforms. If Valve can emulate and/or imitate Windows functions so that Windows software - not just games - will install anyway then I think they'll find a market.

[FatherJack]

I think Buzz has it there. It will need to run Windows versions. More people might release Linux versions if Valve put out a stable gaming OS, but the big titles are going to take some convincing, especially the likes of EA and Ubi, who have their own digital distribution platforms. If Valve can emulate and/or imitate Windows functions so that Windows software - not just games - will install anyway then I think they'll find a market.

Most Steam apps are just Windows installers bundled via Steam as a delivery platform and that's not going to change any time soon.

Wine, initially WINdows Emulator, but now - crucially - Wine Is Not an Emulator aims to replace all standard Windows system calls (APIs, DirectX and the like) with ones written specifically for the target Unix-like OS. So the technology is there, but games are the most notoriously difficult things to run under it.

It certainly has to be that imitation rather than emulation for speed concerns, but Wine is far from a complete project, as they are always trying to hit a moving target. However, since most of the concerns about the way Windows is going are based on Windows 8 and beyond, they pretty much have the static target of Windows 5 (32 bit) and 6 (64 bit) - encompassing everything from Win2k to Win8 - which most all modern games will run on, as will EA and Ubi's oft-unwelcome delivery platforms.

[tandino]

I would love it if Half Life 3 was named as a launch title for the Steam box. That would basically guarantee a huge take up. Might also bring a load of fucking idiots across from consoles though. Danger.

[fabyak]

A load of consoletards suddenly having to battle Linux? I think I would actually pay money to watch that

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Coming soon: steam forums micro transactions, pay per view and custom hats!

[spoodie]

Having got to this point, I then looked through the available games to see what is installable. This has shown something interesting. Of the 300+ games I own, only 75 of them are Linux compatible. Of these 75, literally all of them are either indy games or made by Valve. Well, all of them with the exception of Brutal Legend.

That's a massive increase from a few short years ago, when the pinnacle of Linux gaming was guiding a penguin down a snowy mountain. I guess it's the cross-platform dev tools which have allowed indie games to start appearing, then Steam less than a year ago. I'm still impressed TF2 and Dota 2 run natively on anything other Windows.

It's still early days but if people like Valve can raise the profile of Linux, so more people start noticing, that'll help get others interested.

[Dog Pants]

So apparently SteamOS will primarily be used as the OS for a small terminal to be put under your TV, which can be used to stream games from your PC. Which is an interesting idea and solves a lot of the problems of getting games running on Unix, without really solving them at all because you still need a PC with Windows on it. I can't see it setting the world on fire, but if the hardware is cheap enough it might be a competitor for consoles among gamers who already have a gaming PC. Time will tell, I suppose. Also, they missed a trick not calling it GLaDOS.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/

Looks nifty.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamMachines/

[spoodie]

It's not really clear to me, but I'd like to know if this SteamOS will be a fully functional GNU Linux instance that you could use as your primary OS, if you wanted to. And presumably it'll be able to run Linux compatible games itself, not just stream everything from a Windows machine. Assuming the hardware running your SteamOS has the power to run the 3D and not just a small streaming device. Is this clear to anyone else?