Valve Reveals More Steam Linux Distribution Details

[randomizer]

Even if you did only have 2GB RAM, a 64bit OS allows to use the full register table. Double the general registers and also double the SSE registers as well. If the applications you need arent compute heavy then it probably wont matter, but it is still an advantage of 64bit over 32bit that applies even at smaller memory amounts.

None of this matters for people running Atom-based systems, which is probably the primary market for 32-bit distros if we ignore people who just select the "recommended" version of Ubuntu. They have little RAM, can't run anything compute-heavy and can't physically run a 64-bit OS anyway.

[duby229]

New users shun gnu/linux ecosystem because of people like you.

I'm using Linux since 2009 and tried many of the major distributions including Slackware, Debian, Mint and OpenSuse. Shortly after introduction of Unity I switched to Ubuntu. It has apt and it's beautifull. I'm not a programmer or admin, and I use Linux on my home desktop. Ubuntu will be primary choice for people, who want to switch from Windows, and you should respect them for trying and respect Canonical for helping them.

By the way, my PC has 2 GB of ram, my Ubuntu is 32-bit and I use Nouveau driver to play indie games on steam.

Of course I respect it. The best thing about Linux is that they are free to choose what they want. If people want to choose Ubuntu then they can feel free to do so, and the more the merrier. I' would love to see market share rise significantly. If people like you choose to shun linux because of its diversity then don't blame me... That is your opinion not mine.... The more people that choose to use Ubuntu or any distro the better it is for everyone.

I welcome diversity. I'd love to see more of it. Diversity comes in all forms... Retards and Geniuses. Biased and Unbiased. There is nothing you or I can do about it that is just the way it is.

It doesnt mean that the majority of Ubuntu users are retarded... Quite the contrary as a matter of fact... But it does mean the the majority of retarded users are Ubuntu users. If for no other reason than it is the easiest distro and most commonly available one. I say so be it, retarded or not they are perfectly welcome.

[honeybadger]

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not calling Ubuntu users retarded. Instead I'm saying that a certain percentage of any userbase is going to be retarded, and lets face it, most of that group will be using Ubuntu.

New users shun gnu/linux ecosystem because of people like you.

I'm using Linux since 2009 and tried many of the major distributions including Slackware, Debian, Mint and OpenSuse. Shortly after introduction of Unity I switched to Ubuntu. It has apt and it's beautifull. I'm not a programmer or admin, and I use Linux on my home desktop. Ubuntu will be primary choice for people, who want to switch from Windows, and you should respect them for trying and respect Canonical for helping them.

By the way, my PC has 2 GB of ram, my Ubuntu is 32-bit and I use Nouveau driver to play indie games on steam.

[ElderSnake]

I have a gifted laptop from circa 2005 with an AMD Sempron processor (32-bit, 1 core), 512MB RAM and a 4200rpm 75GB IDE hard drive. Needless to say, Windows 8 isn't much of an option here. However, I just installed the new OpenSUSE 12.3 on it and the machine is quite usable (so long as you don't want to run lots of programs or browser tabs at once). In fact, I can run XBMC on it and its ATI (yes, ATI, not AMD) 200M (X300) graphics. It can play back 720p video files too - granted with no video acceleration and just about 100% CPU usage, but it works! Web browsing, Marble, Google Earth, Eric5 IDE and python coding... I can even use WINE to run games up to circa '98/'99 like Dungeon Keeper II and Half Life.

I have to go on overnight trips every few months and having this old laptop in a functional state is a lot better than not having a laptop at all. Please don't start asking people to kill off support for 32bit just yet. Why, it was just last year Linux killed off 80386 support! :-) Besides, there's a bazillion embedded controllers, including x86 controllers, kiosks, ATMs, etc. that are 32 bit that Linux needs to run on.

I like stories like this, it shows the other side of Linux; the side that can help to revive old computers and still be running current software and really benefit someone, instead of it being thrown on the garbage heap.

[alcalde]

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not calling Ubuntu users retarded. Instead I'm saying that a certain percentage of any userbase is going to be retarded, and lets face it, most of that group will be using Ubuntu.

It's still somewhat of an offensive phrase. I prefer to put it this way: "Ubuntu is the AOL of Linux". Or as the joke goes: "What's the difference between an Ubuntu user and an AOL user? Ten years. "

[alcalde]

Dont have fits over 32 bits

It's somewhat annoying to me that the major distros even keep making 32-bit x86 releases... Still, I can't imagine a sizable portion of users are upgrading to the latest Fedora/Ubuntu or Windows on ancient hardware; I'm sure it happens (someone here will claim they do it, surely), but happens enough to be worth caring about?

I have a gifted laptop from circa 2005 with an AMD Sempron processor (32-bit, 1 core), 512MB RAM and a 4200rpm 75GB IDE hard drive. Needless to say, Windows 8 isn't much of an option here. However, I just installed the new OpenSUSE 12.3 on it and the machine is quite usable (so long as you don't want to run lots of programs or browser tabs at once). In fact, I can run XBMC on it and its ATI (yes, ATI, not AMD) 200M (X300) graphics. It can play back 720p video files too - granted with no video acceleration and just about 100% CPU usage, but it works! Web browsing, Marble, Google Earth, Eric5 IDE and python coding... I can even use WINE to run games up to circa '98/'99 like Dungeon Keeper II and Half Life.

I have to go on overnight trips every few months and having this old laptop in a functional state is a lot better than not having a laptop at all. Please don't start asking people to kill off support for 32bit just yet. Why, it was just last year Linux killed off 80386 support! :-) Besides, there's a bazillion embedded controllers, including x86 controllers, kiosks, ATMs, etc. that are 32 bit that Linux needs to run on.

[spiritofreason]

Until Steam actually officially supports a larger number of mainstream distributions such as Debian, Fedora, OpenSuse and Arch, these numbers won't mean much. As others have pointed out, it doesn't help matters that Ubuntu has been supported by Steam from day 1 so people might have chosen Ubuntu when they normally would not have.

Steam has a bug in it that would make it difficult to support Fedora outright. Some of the libraries they used request both write and execute permissions on the same heap memory mapping. This compromises the system's security, and the default SELinux setup will have none of it.

FYI, the bug report seems to indicate the problem is actually a bug in WebKit.

[intellivision]

I don't like where Ubuntu is going, and a sizeable part of linux users with it.

It still uses the Linux kernel and GNU userland, it's still a GNU/Linux distribution.
I don't really see the problem to be honest.

[boltronics]

Many people such as myself have Steam detected as being run on Ubuntu, when in fact it's just a Ubuntu chroot. Some might even have configured a dual-boot setup just for Steam to minimise problems.

About 2-3 weeks ago I switched to running natively on Debian, but I've had a few issues in doing so. Occasionally, Steam updates break my setup and I manually need to fix things (such as updating my Steam launcher wrapper script to include additional environment variables, changing from running the beta release - which I didn't even know I was still using - to reinstalling as stable, etc.).

Until Steam actually officially supports a larger number of mainstream distributions such as Debian, Fedora, OpenSuse and Arch, these numbers won't mean much. As others have pointed out, it doesn't help matters that Ubuntu has been supported by Steam from day 1 so people might have chosen Ubuntu when they normally would not have.

[Sidicas]

Netbooks...

Also, there are still a fair few Pentium M laptops (and some P4 desktops, although I haven't seen many recently) in existence - mostly with XP*, and not really suited to Vista or Win7 but quite happy with some XFCE/LXDE distro. Quite a lot of those are owned by students etc, who are much more likely to be using Linux than your average PC owner*.

*NB: Such statements are based on what I see as a permanent resident of a university town in the UK, and might not properly represent global trends. I don't see why they shouldn't, though.

My Pentium-M laptop does a fantastic job at running KDE 4.8 . You don't need a stripped down distro, you just need to throw in an SSD and now it boots to desktop faster than my quad-core i7 ivy bridge laptop with a 5400RPM HDD that's 7 years newer... Waiitng for the new Intel SSDs to come out later this year to buy for my Ivy Bridge laptop...