Gabe Talks More About Valve's Next-Gen Linux Console

[liamdawe]

Why is Phoronix so convinved it won't be locked down when all other websites including the original that spoke to him show Gabe clearly stating it will be locked down.

Liam of GamingOnLinux.com

[entropy]

Mine works great using both the inline kernel driver and the and the user-space one. Though I do vaguely remember reading about users having problems with the kernel driver, the user-space one is really great, I use it because it allows me to arbitrarily remap buttons on the controller.

I bought an XBox 360 controller (wired) recently and it works like charm.
Way better gamepad than the old Logitech crap I had before.

[Milyardo]

Well, dunno, when I connect my XBOX360 gamepad in Linux, it starts blinking and never stops. All 4 leds. Annoying as hell. If they can't fix even that, what would make me think that Linux is actually in a position to attract gamers.

Mine works great using both the inline kernel driver and the and the user-space one. Though I do vaguely remember reading about users having problems with the kernel driver, the user-space one is really great, I use it because it allows me to arbitrarily remap buttons on the controller.

[tomato]

Just like how OS X is now a super successful gaming platform after Steam was launched there, right?

I mean, sure, there are actually more games on OS X now. Steam had a positive impact. OS X is still nowhere close to dethroning Windows as the PC gaming platform of choice, but OS X users have a lot more options to have fun these days than they used to. Linux will likewise see a positive impact from Steam, but it will continue to be missing large swaths of the best games available, just like OS X.

Unlike OSX, Linux works with hardware that doesn't cost 4 digit numbers, is user-upgradable, etc.

Well, dunno, when I connect my XBOX360 gamepad in Linux, it starts blinking and never stops. All 4 leds. Annoying as hell. If they can't fix even that, what would make me think that Linux is actually in a position to attract gamers.

Maybe different gamepad? Or better download drivers from microsoft?

[89c51]

That Valve has a team of engineers right? At least one of those engineers has game controller experience. When Gabe said controlled ecosystem, perhaps he meant his engineers would Make The Needed Peripherals?

I hope that their venture will benefit the kernel in areas that not many people cared about ie. controllers. It would also be nice if you can use their console as a regular desktop PC. Boot in game mode >> play steam boot in PC mode >> do whatever.

[diriel]

You Do Realize...

That Valve has a team of engineers right? At least one of those engineers has game controller experience. When Gabe said controlled ecosystem, perhaps he meant his engineers would Make The Needed Peripherals?

[RealNC]

Well, dunno, when I connect my XBOX360 gamepad in Linux, it starts blinking and never stops. All 4 leds. Annoying as hell. If they can't fix even that, what would make me think that Linux is actually in a position to attract gamers.

[D0pamine]

Valve don't really need to fix every issue with every device. If Valve take a *nix distro, code to open standards, and upstream the drivers they do write, then we'll be in a better situation given they'll either have created , fixed, or validated the interfaces provided for these drivers. That puts you in a position where the rest of the stack is doing its job, then 3rd party vendors can look at valves work write their own drivers.

Does that mean creative is going to backtrack and fix their old hardware drivers? Probably not. But having a major player actually interested in both linux desktop, gaming and the related software stacks is probably actually a positive thing.

Absolutely - the more games and player that are using gnu/linux the more feedback will come. I would have thought the best way would be to use a completely open system though

[ownagefool]

As big and wonderful valve might be I cant see them fixing every issue with every device, for eg if you have an older audigy card that uses the emu10k driver then you wont need pulseaudio as everything just works with alsa as it should and i suppose the same goes for gpu drivers to some degree, I've no doubt this is the reasoning behind valve bringing their own games console/machine into the mix so they'll have specific bits of hardware to work with and be able to optimise to that hardware.


I've been using gnu/linux for a quite a while now so i tend to purchase hardware for my own personal use that i know works well but i do know the pain of setting up laptops with half arsed and half working devices - it is rather disheartening. I suppose thats why i stopped purchasing nvidia gpus ( and before you boo ) because if there is a problem only nvidia can deal with it , not the community or another company that has an interest in your hardware working right. That's the windows way of doing things and if you're going to do the windows way you may as well use windows

Valve don't really need to fix every issue with every device. If Valve take a *nix distro, code to open standards, and upstream the drivers they do write, then we'll be in a better situation given they'll either have created , fixed, or validated the interfaces provided for these drivers. That puts you in a position where the rest of the stack is doing its job, then 3rd party vendors can look at valves work write their own drivers.

Does that mean creative is going to backtrack and fix their old hardware drivers? Probably not. But having a major player actually interested in both linux desktop, gaming and the related software stacks is probably actually a positive thing.