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

[korpenkraxar]

Nooooo! It is the good ol' Year of the Linux Desktop curse - shut up about it or it will never happen!!

Oh, I can't wait to hear what Stallman and the FSF has to say about Steam, if/when it comes to Linux :-D

[EarthMind]

And regarding Steam on Linux being so called official: I'm not getting my hopes up until I hear (or read) something from them personally. It's easy for others to say that it's coming or that it's official... Phoronix has been doing it a lot time now :P.

Yeah, there is proof that it's under development but it's still no 100% guarantee that it will be released.

[PsynoKhi0]

The released Linux client should be available by the end of summer.

Then Linux users will miss Portal for free.

[whizse]

Then Linux users will miss Portal for free.

Grab it with Wine and hope it will turn into a Linux version later?

[susikala]

Suppose Phoronix's sources are right (i.e. Valve themselves or people related to Valve), and given this is one of the larger, if not the largest site dedicated to Linux hardware and/or gaming, -and- knowing Phoronix's, hm, 'sensentional advertising' (not always bad, just a fact you can't dispute, I mean we've had like ten posts in the last days about Steam and every small advancement with running it on Linux) record, why wouldn't Valve be announcing it officially themselves?

In other words, it's not 100% confirmed, but probably around 75%.

[tkmorris]

Then Linux users will miss Portal for free.

Maybe Portal 2 will be better

[grantek]

Grab it with Wine and hope it will turn into a Linux version later?

One of the reasons I like Steam is that Valve, through their hardware surveys etc., have an accurate picture of who's running wine, and I believe this was pivotal in giving them the evidence they needed to develop Mac and Linux clients.

Just create an account and add Portal to it using a Linux browser that reports OS in the user-agent string. Firefox on a default Ubuntu install will do just that, and show support for Source on Linux

[elanthis]

The only thing that is being used to claim this as "official" is a one liner in an article on the Mac client by a completely irrelevant site, and for all we know the only reason that journalist thinks Steam is coming to Linux is because Google showed him a few dozen Phoronix articles claiming such. If Phoronix can claim something is official because some unofficial source said it is then it's only logic to assume that another site can claim something is official because the unofficial reporting of Phoronix says it is. Vicious cycle of stupidity.

Steam on Linux has not been officially announced by anyone who is actually official. That a binary which barely runs at all exists proves nothing in terms of actual commitment and plan by way of Valve. It could be an employee tinkering on his own time. It could a plan to release a stripped down Steam solely for the purpose of point-and-click dedicated server installation. It could be a real company plan that will get canceled in the upcoming months due to technical, legal, or political issues.

Porting Steam and Source to the Mac certainly makes it easier to do a Linux port, but it does not at all mean that a Linux port is going to be braindead easy or financially viable. Getting an OpenGL renderer in Source is just one tiny little piece of the puzzle of a port. We can assume that Steam and Source now have enough abstractions that adding a third port will be easier than adding the second, but it could still be a LOT of work. What audio system is being used, for example? What 2D GUI rendering framework is being used in Steam? How is the Steam DRM implemented? These and more could all be very difficult, time consuming, and expensive problems to solve.

Just the basic Steam UI itself is likely going to require a massive amount of work given that basic text rendering is totally different on every platform. I doubt Cairo was used for Steam so even getting the basic 2D rendering is likely going to require a whole new backend implementation for Steam. Voice chat is going to require a whole new backend. The Steam Webkit glue is going to need another rewrite unless Steam uses Gtk+ or Qt. The in-game overlays may or may not be trivial to support; they require a hack using the assistive technologies in OS X to work on that platform, after all. Given the "samples" we've seen of Steam on Linux so far it's pretty obvious that only a tiny bit of the basic 2D GUI stuff has been solved so far, with no indication that Valve is actually committed to carrying through with all that work.

Until Valve themselves actually says anything, Phoronix's reporting on Steam is just a ton of sensationalist noise on an otherwise high-signal site. I get that Michael is excited about Steam and Source on Linux. I am, too. But it's a complete lie to claim this is official when it very obviously is not.

[Yfrwlf]

"Official" does not mean a third-party site. Steam using the stupid "PC or Mac" duopoly slogan everywhere also does not seem very friendly.



So what, when the Linux version comes out it will be PC, Mac, and Linux? Ugh. Just say Windows already and drop the silly "PC" crap. Computers are still personal regardless of OS. Windows is Windows.

[Adriano ML]

Read it again. An the news sites which Phoronix linked to, it says:


"Valve has also confirmed that it will make Steam available to Linux users in the coming months."


So, unless I can't read anymore, VALVe is the one to blame for announcing Steam for Linux. NOT PHORONIX.


Now, quit whining. We already ran the Steam binary natively on Linux. This is just like Macs going to Intel. Apple had for years been testing intel macs. Nobody really believed in the rumors and some pretty concrete evidences. But it happened.

Wait until the announcemente and we will all fell good!