It's Official: Valve Releasing Steam, Source Engine For Linux!

[atmartens]

I were bit sceptic with the pronouncement but this shot me down finally. Too bad it takes time to transform games between platforms. But more important is that big wheel has started to roll But isnt that just normal.

Dunno if you have read but http://www.valvesoftware.com/job-SenSoftEngineer.html managed to find out that currently valve software is looking for software engineer. And one part of the jobs is to port windows based games to the linux platform.

Nice, I hope it means what it seems to mean.

[Setlec]

it could mean porting the server side to linux and nothing more.... Anyway patience until Valve says something!

[energyman]

it could mean porting the server side to linux and nothing more.... Anyway patience until Valve says something!

exactly. They have released server binaries for linux in the past. Nobody should get too excited.

[atmartens]

Well it does explicitly say "Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform." That sounds like more than just servers.

[tux9656]

HL1 and Source engine games run nearly flawlessly under Wine 1.3.0. If (and I emphasize "if"), Steam is getting ported to GNU/Linux, I would say it's a good bet that Steam will be available in the 32 bit x86 flavor only. This means people running GNU/Linux in the AMD64 flavor may have to compile and install some shared libraries for 32 bit. Also, different distros have different versions of shared libraries and install these libraries to different file names and different paths. I think we'll find that Steam on GNU/Linux will not support GNU/Linux in general, but support Ubuntu, or Fedora, or some other specific distro and only support it in the 32 bit x86 flavor. I perfer to run Debian testing AMD64 and I seriously doubt that Valve will support the GNU/Linux Steam client on Debian testing AMD64. Therefore, even if Steam comes GNU/Linux, I will most likely continue to run the Windows version under Wine.

Valve, if you read this, please don't bother with porting Steam to GNU/Linux. Just contribute some code to Wine and make Steam as compatible as possible with all distros.

[atmartens]

Valve, if you read this, please don't bother with porting Steam to GNU/Linux. Just contribute some code to Wine and make Steam as compatible as possible with all distros.

How about we get both?

[Setlec]

Obviously i will get a native steam if there will be one, wine is not a viable gaming "emulator"! yes i know wine is great and blabla! but i do prefer a 32 bit software than wine (i use mandriva 64)!

[V!NCENT]

Valve could also improve Wine to the point of perfection for Steam and then compile Steam with Wine for Linux and Mac.

[monraaf]

Dunno if you have read but http://www.valvesoftware.com/job-SenSoftEngineer.html managed to find out that currently valve software is looking for software engineer. And one part of the jobs is to port windows based games to the linux platform.

Old news. That has been there for years. Just like phoronix has been reporting for years that steam is coming to Linux. Don't get your hopes up, and do NOT expect anything. There's no evidence that Steam is coming to Linux any time soon.

[Dehir]

Well back to basics then. Not a big deal.