SteamOS Has Its Own Graphics Compositor

[Guest]

Ubuntu is already "succeeding" in the desktop (KDE is not, by any measure, even close)

Do you have anything to backup your claim?

[mrugiero]

No, you're not "basing only on facts". "Any concerning way" is pure opinion and that -not the true fact that they are indeed diverging and going solo, exactly the same as Ubuntu- is as much assuming as you say I do. The importance of the concern is yet to be analyzed in depth. We are confronting just a beta. Let's talk when SteamOS reaches release status. And let's not forget that every single piece of code that makes SteamOS what it is -i.e. the Valve Steam client- is closed source. I'm eager to see how the "community" keeps bashing Canonical for releasing open source code and live peacefully with Valve's vendor lock-in through their Steam client... LOL

Alright, what is "concerning" might be subjective. Still, those concerns are based on facts. The facts are that APIs become incompatible with Mir, and they don't with just using a different X compositor or running a RT kernel. Also, SteamOS won't get any bashing that Steam itself doesn't have today. You specifically told the bashing would come because they chose to do their own, and I answered in that context. Will there be bashing for being closed source? Yes, and there is right now for Steam, so no difference their. But for doing their own, I doubt it, as it doesn't change compatibility in the least.

Of course we're discussing what will happen in the future and making assumptions (we still haven't got crystal balls do we?). All I'm saying is your "facts" and my "assumptions" are probably of the same nature: educated guesses. You have your reasons and I have mine. You think their diverging is non-critical and won't provoke Linux fanatics; I happen to think the opposite. You think my vision of Canonical's future is "a lot of assumptions" but I don't make them in a vacuum. There are lots of facts sustaining my assumptions. You just need to follow Canonical in the press everyday and you'll come to pretty much the same conclusions.

Alright, we are both making educated guesses. Still, you are assuming desktop users and mobile users want the same, and it might not be the case.
Also, when you say it succeeded on the desktop, and then say the opposite about KDE, you should remember that both are inside the statistical error, so please be consistent. Ubuntu is successful, for a Linux distribution. KDE, pretty much the same. But none of them are mainstream at all.

The fact that many parts of Ubuntu are maintained by the community doesn't mean a thing. Ubuntu's "community" has been basically dismantled long ago, by Canonical no less. The parts that the community maintains for Ubuntu aren't just for Ubuntu only. Once the leader shuts down, Ubuntu will probably break up in a myriad of hobby derivatives and factually disappear from the landscape in the real world (of course those myriad derivatives will show up in Distrowatch, and there'll be fans of each claiming that's the real successor, and blah, blah, blah...). In the meantime, non-basement ex-Ubuntu users will look for another company backed distro.

Of course lots will migrate. I'm not foolish enough to believe there aren't a lot of people who wouldn't consider a distro that isn't company backed. As to your comment on basement and non-basement, pretty much everyone who isn't in the enterprise sector are basement ones, either techie or non-techie. Specially the non-techie ones who feel part of something for using a different OS.
The community that has been dismantled by Canonical will probably return if Canonical goes down. That community isn't people that just disappeared, is people who disagree with Canonical. Probably some Ubuntu specific projects will go down with Canonical, if they go down (Mir is my safe bet, there doesn't seem to be any external programmer interested, but Upstart and Unity have, IMO, great chances of being taken by the community, as there are people on the Arch camp interested in Unity), but I doubt they all will.

[cynical]

Alright, what is "concerning" might be subjective. Still, those concerns are based on facts. The facts are that APIs become incompatible with Mir, and they don't with just using a different X compositor or running a RT kernel.

I'm curious about this 'fact'. What APIs are you talking about? Please correct my understanding if it is flawed but aren't application developers and game designers targeting toolkits and not display servers? The only legitimate complaints I see are from people writing drivers, window managers, and the toolkits themselves; Mostly because they see it as an unfair maintenance burden to support a solution that only one distro is interested in pursuing atm. I think that's a fair complaint, there's no reason for them to support it, but I have no idea why linux users on forums would care besides it being yet another club to bash Canonical with and label them an enemy to the community, in a bizarre and tribalistic way.

[mrugiero]

I'm curious about this 'fact'. What APIs are you talking about? Please correct my understanding if it is flawed but aren't application developers and game designers targeting toolkits and not display servers?

Not always. In fact, I recall someone checked the ld output on Steam itself, and it is directly linked to X.org. I don't know about Valve's people, but if I don't call X specific code, I avoid linking directly to it.
AFAIK, SDL provides abstractions for all of the direct X.org use, so rewriting those pieces shouldn't be hard. But if I have to guess, they ARE there.

The only legitimate complaints I see are from people writing drivers, window managers, and the toolkits themselves; Mostly because they see it as an unfair maintenance burden to support a solution that only one distro is interested in pursuing atm. I think that's a fair complaint, there's no reason for them to support it, but I have no idea why linux users on forums would care besides it being yet another club to bash Canonical with and label them an enemy to the community, in a bizarre and tribalistic way.

I don't know about you, but I get concerned if targeting Ubuntu becomes different than targeting another distribution, as this makes the already slight chance of having support on Linux, even slighter to touch my distro of choice.

Having said this, I think all of those concerns are overblown. This doesn't make them invalid, so I can understand some people bashing Canonical for the choice of making Mir. Of course, there are ALSO zealots, and those will bash anything but their distro of choice. But I see them as pretty much negligible.

[Aleve Sicofante]

Do you have anything to backup your claim?

I'm sorry I can't bother looking for sources, but they're all around the internet. Just look for them. Ubuntu is by far the most used Linux desktop. It's not like it makes me happy or somehing. I'm one of those bastards who always goes with the most popular just because it gets the bigger support, so it's not like I'm a loyal Ubuntu fan or something. If openSUSE becomes the distro-to-go and Ubuntu implodes, I'll probably be happy using openSUSE (love their building services, for instance). As a UX person, I do love Unity and the convergence idea though. I'd miss that.

[Aleve Sicofante]

Still, you are assuming desktop users and mobile users want the same

For starters, a desktop user is usually a mobile user too (the opposite isn't necessarily true, even if most of the time it is anyway).

It's not exactly that I'm assuming that, though. I do, however, think that a convergent OS like the one Canonical proposes is a genius idea and people will "buy" it when they see it. If Canonical implements it well (we have yet to see it truly developed, but it looks good so far) they will offer something unique that I think will be easily appealing to consumers and some big hardware names too. (If Canonical's mysterious smartphone hardware partner does desktops as well, you'll see a huge promotion of the concept in a year's time, that's for sure.)

The only reason MS and Apple haven't made a convergent OS is about backwards compatibility. MS has gone as far as shoehorning their mobile paradigm onto the desktop, and mix it horribly with the older paradigm. That's a mess, but they'll keep taking advantage of their position in the desktop and pouring millions in mobile until people either fall for it or send MS to the history books. Apple is betting the house on mobile (mostly tablets), but people still need laptops and they are trying to fulfill the convergence somehow importing things from iOS to OS X. And finally Google, who doesn't give a damn about desktops, is making inroads in that territory with Chromebooks. If they ever get some significant numbers there, you bet Android and Chrome OS will somehow merge.

So yes, I do believe convergence is what people want, even if they don't know yet. I might be wrong, though.

Regarding Steam bashing, I hope you're right. I just see that going your own way in Linux is usually cause of bashing, and God knows Valve is REALLY going solo.

[dee.]

No, you're not "basing only on facts". "Any concerning way" is pure opinion and that -not the true fact that they are indeed diverging and going solo, exactly the same as Ubuntu- is as much assuming as you say I do. The importance of the concern is yet to be analyzed in depth. We are confronting just a beta. Let's talk when SteamOS reaches release status. And let's not forget that every single piece of code that makes SteamOS what it is -i.e. the Valve Steam client- is closed source. I'm eager to see how the "community" keeps bashing Canonical for releasing open source code and live peacefully with Valve's vendor lock-in through their Steam client... LOL

Of course we're discussing what will happen in the future and making assumptions (we still haven't got crystal balls do we?). All I'm saying is your "facts" and my "assumptions" are probably of the same nature: educated guesses. You have your reasons and I have mine. You think their diverging is non-critical and won't provoke Linux fanatics; I happen to think the opposite. You think my vision of Canonical's future is "a lot of assumptions" but I don't make them in a vacuum. There are lots of facts sustaining my assumptions. You just need to follow Canonical in the press everyday and you'll come to pretty much the same conclusions.

The fact that many parts of Ubuntu are maintained by the community doesn't mean a thing. Ubuntu's "community" has been basically dismantled long ago, by Canonical no less. The parts that the community maintains for Ubuntu aren't just for Ubuntu only. Once the leader shuts down, Ubuntu will probably break up in a myriad of hobby derivatives and factually disappear from the landscape in the real world (of course those myriad derivatives will show up in Distrowatch, and there'll be fans of each claiming that's the real successor, and blah, blah, blah...). In the meantime, non-basement ex-Ubuntu users will look for another company backed distro.

Steam client is closed source, and who cares? It's an userland application. It'll stay closed source, whether it's on windows, mac, or linux. The good part is that the OS that the steam client now runs on (steamOS) is an open source OS, and even better, it's based on Linux.

Anyway, you're comparing apples and oranges here. SteamOS is meant as a console OS. It's only purpose is gaming. It's miles away from Ubuntu, which markets itself as a full-fledged desktop OS with all the features thereof. They shouldn't and aren't compared directly, there are different expectations on a desktop OS meant for general-purpose computing, and an OS that is only meant for gaming.

Canonical attempted to forcefully direct the development of desktop Linux to a direction that would suit their purposes. They introduced Mir, which was the stupidest, most nonsensical move ever made. It was an attempted powergrab, but it failed, because they failed to get anyone else's support for the project. So if they're smart, they'll probably just fold and go with Wayland in the future. If not, they're just isolating themselves into an island, and wither away due to increasing incompatibility with the rest of the Linux ecosystem. Valve basing on Debian, and using an X-based display server, and possibly in the future Wayland - this means that probably in the future, the Steam client will not run natively on Ubuntu. All the other, interesting developments on the Linux world are moving towards a different direction than Ubuntu. They can keep struggling, trying to do their own thing, but in the end it'll end badly for them - someone like Google can get away with doing their own thing, they're big enough to bruteforce their way through, but the same strategy will not work for a bit player like Canonical. A small company needs to play nice with the community in order to maximize their limited resources.

Ubuntu's forays to the mobile world don't seem very convincing either. Vaporware, big announcements, failed crowdsourcing campaigns... Will there ever be a Ubuntu phone, well, I'll believe it when I see it, but so far it looks like eternal vaporware that will never materialize. Meanwhile, Jolla has already brought a phone running Wayland on the market, a phone that is being shipped right now, Firefox OS is also shipping already, and Tizen is right around the corner. Ubuntu had a chance to make it on mobile but they missed their mark, it seems (no pun intended).

[smorovic]

One thing to suggest to Valve is to start blogging about what they are changing, and why, in their kernel and OS. It can also help with eventual upstreaming of their patches (that makes life easier for them in the long term).
Obviously that stuff can be useful beyond SteamOS as it fixes Linux problems related to gaming (and Linux still predominantly isn't a gaming OS).

[V10lator]

but they're all around the internet.

Where? We already know that all these statistics are wrong (Ubuntu derivatives like Kubuntu report themself as Ubuntu. These website don't show all users but the ones visiting their website only. What if one user visits such a page daily with a new IP (24h disconnect) while another user visits it once in a few months only, ...).

Ubuntu is by far the most used Linux desktop.

Ubuntu is a Distribution, KDE a DE used by distributions, so you are comparing apples to oranges anyway. If you want to compare than compare the use of Unity vs. the use of KDE. Good luck finding non-biased sources for this.

[res0r9lm]

Wow, You just made the dumbest ever list....

yea that guy is so dumb his head whistles in a cross wind.