Yes, There Are Portal 2 Linux References

[pvtcupcakes]

$12 is far away form the prices Valve charge for their top tier games

The $4 paid by the average Windows user is even further from the prices Valve charge, so whats your point?

[pvtcupcakes]

Oh man, there have been some real doozies when it comes to SDL bugs such as wandering cursors that get stuck to the corner of the screen when using evdev devices, tonnes of audio issues (a lot of them tied to SDLMixer, even XBMC was forced to finally turf it because of unreliable audio), etc. In fact if you want to see SDL at its finest you should use it in windows (sad but true).

Umm okay? So SDL has bugs, I can list Windows bugs all day.
For instance, yesterday I couldn't get an application to run on Windows 7 because it couldn't find MSVCR71.dll even though I checked and Visual C++ Runtime 2005 was installed. So then I go ahead and download another vcrun installer, but it apparently didn't work on 64-bit Windows.

I could go on about how Windows 7 blue screens for no reason at all once every hour or two on my main PC.

[curaga]

$12 is far away form the prices Valve charge for their top tier games

Nobody buys their Valve games at 60$, they wait until it's 80% off sale at steam...

[Goodolandy]

But, as it's not his first time claiming Valve games/Steam are being ported to Linux ; we're simply suspicious. What's wrong about THIS ?

Being suspicious is fine but what I have seen in these forums is people actually bashing Michael. I don't like it when he says it is confirmed when Valve hasn't confirmed anything but I am not going to bash him and call him a lier like so many do. None of us actually know if he does or does not have a contact inside of Valve so all we can do is simply wait and see if it actually happens.

One question I do have to those bashing Michael (or any other author claiming Steam is coming) is, if/when Steam comes to Linux, are you guys going to apologise for the bashing or you guys just going to fade away, pretending it never happened?

Again, being suspicious is fine but people can state why they are suspicious without the bashing.

[pvtcupcakes]

Being suspicious is fine but what I have seen in these forums is people actually bashing Michael. I don't like it when he says it is confirmed when Valve hasn't confirmed anything but I am not going to bash him and call him a lier like so many do. None of us actually know if he does or does not have a contact inside of Valve so all we can do is simply wait and see if it actually happens.

One question I do have to those bashing Michael (or any other author claiming Steam is coming) is, if/when Steam comes to Linux, are you guys going to apologise for the bashing or you guys just going to fade away, pretending it never happened?

Again, being suspicious is fine but people can state why they are suspicious without the bashing.

At this point, I think Steam for Linux has a better chance of being released than Episode 3.

[deanjo]

Umm okay? So SDL has bugs, I can list Windows bugs all day.
For instance, yesterday I couldn't get an application to run on Windows 7 because it couldn't find MSVCR71.dll even though I checked and Visual C++ Runtime 2005 was installed. So then I go ahead and download another vcrun installer, but it apparently didn't work on 64-bit Windows.

Not saying windows is perfect, just saying that the SDL experience is far from perfect or as rosey as it was painted out to be. Some of those bugs have been on their bugzilla for years (IIRC the evdev bug went close to 3 years before even being assigned).

I could go on about how Windows 7 blue screens for no reason at all once every hour or two on my main PC.

And I could go on how I haven't had a bluescreen in windows since switching to WinXP 64 or Win 7 64 that was not directly related to a failed piece of hardware (that's going on 5 years now).

[pvtcupcakes]

Not saying windows is perfect, just saying that the SDL experience is far from perfect or as rosey as it was painted out to be. Some of those bugs have been on their bugzilla for years (IIRC the evdev bug went close to 3 years before even being assigned).

Yes, software has bugs. If we're talking about long standing issues, Vista SP1/SP2, and Win7 SP1 will not install if you have the GRUB (or any non-MS) bootloader installed. That's been around for at least 3 or 4 years.

And I could go on how I haven't had a bluescreen in windows since switching to WinXP 64 or Win 7 64 that was not directly related to a failed piece of hardware (that's going on 5 years now).

I'm certain my hardware isn't the problem since I run Linux on it every day with no problems whatsoever. The only 3rd party driver I had installed was the latest version of Catalyst. This even happened on a completely fresh install and literally as I was installing updates, and no none of the updates fixed it.

[dredhammer]

I wish he would just stop, i'm tired of the hints and "i cant really talk about it, but its coming" wink wink nudge nudge.
My Suspicion why this is not going to happen, Unreal Tournament 3 and that whole debacle,teases of screenshots of a linux based client, rumored promises of "its coming soon" (sound familiar?) ultimately never released and no reason given why just speculation.
That is why i dont believe the whole "Steam is coming to Linux", also i really hope it doesnt because as a gamer i really hate the form of drm they pad into steam whether its steam works or the third party Securom etc. I fell victim to it during the whole Half Life 2 craze before i discovered linux and never again.
I'm fine with typing in a serial number but i dont want things phoning home (another reason i dislike LGP's new drm) also the both the publishers and Valve believe you dont own any of the games purchased just a license and as such dont mind cutting you off from your games ,take a look at the steam support forums or the EA Dragon Age Origins/Dragon Age 2 debacle.
As a platform to sell games steam is great but i dont agree with their drm and TOS, if there is a client in the works i bet this is what is holding up a release. I'll stick with gog.com, indy devs who sell their games without drm, and the humble bundles, this third one was kind of a let down mainly because there is technically only one new linux game for sale.

[deanjo]

If we're talking about long standing issues, Vista SP1/SP2, and Win7 SP1 will not install if you have the GRUB (or any non-MS) bootloader installed. That's been around for at least 3 or 4 years.

It installs fine, you just have to reinstall Grub after doing so. I wouldn't say that is a "bug" either as Windows installs it's bootloader and if you install a typical linux distro, it will install its own bootloader. The fact that Windows bootloader does not conveniently detect and add other detected OS's to the bootloader is an etirely different matter.

I'm certain my hardware isn't the problem since I run Linux on it every day with no problems whatsoever. The only 3rd party driver I had installed was the latest version of Catalyst. This even happened on a completely fresh install and literally as I was installing updates, and no none of the updates fixed it.

It may not be the actual hardware but one device driver. Still it does not rule out bad hardware however, a bad sector on a hd can do some funky things. Because it is a physical bad location on the disk it is perfectly reasonable to expect it to seem fine in one OS and not on the other.

[V!NCENT]

There's a reason I don't like people speculating about Windows games being ported over to Linux, it's a bit like trying to port over a mindset. Games which have been created and developed for masses, for a platform where uniformity and (more or less) 'it just works' are the most important values, cannot be easily, if at all, ported to a platform which puts a huge amount of emphasis on individuality, free choice, standards, openness, and so on and so forth.

So in fact I'd really rather people not port Windows games to Linux, or think that companies which traditionally develop Windows games should start developing for Linux. And this journalism, which is already harmful in its speculativeness, is also harmful in trying to cause people believe in the illusion Linux is Windows. It's the same people who use Wine on Linux and try to turn it into something it is not.

I don't understand this pride issue. If you like playing games, then dualboot windows and play the games you love when you want to. If you don't, don't try to force something where it doesn't belong.

This is not to say I'm generally against games on Linux. Games made for Linux, with a FOSS mindset, are welcome.

I like your mindset, but the problem is that non commercials games are usualy of non commercial quality, and I don't mean the graphics. I don't realy care about graphics, but that's another story. It would be nice if some people would make some serious games, like PacMan, Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider, Air Combat 1, stuff like that, instead of Quake 12 or Dungeon Explorer 25.

It's not that hard, but people are simply not taking it seriously.