It's Been Four Years Since Revealing Many Early Steam Linux Details

[grenadecx]

It already does. But if Microsoft keeps boycotting Vulkan to promote DX12 as they always did with OpenGL, not much will change. I just don't believe Vulkan is going to be a revolution for Linux sale counts.

It doesn't have to. It just have to solve the problems that OpenGL can't. That's it.

[gerddie]

But since Valve is a company completely devoid of leadership, nothing gets done, and what should be obvious seems oblivious.

I don't think that lack of leadership is the problem: If you have a "leader", or say a little group of "leaders", who decide what to do, then the pool from which good idas may be born is just smaller. Also remember Gabe himself said some time ago that another Half-Life is not something that is currently on the radar, because Valve has moved away from a game developing company to a service provider.

Now Steam is Valves main product, and adding Linux support was the obvious move after the threat of Microsoft and Apple to close their platforms with app-stores and make Steam obsolete. Valve certainly didn't do this because they are passionate about free and open source software, their whole business model is based on selling closed source software that in most cases also carries their restriction management. Hence, I wouldn't expect them to do anything beyond keeping the Linux option good enough to show that they can move away from Windows if required.

[ElectricPrism]

I saw on Phoronix not too long ago a commenter comparing SteamOS to a fire exit. Just because there's not currently a fire, doesn't mean a fire exit isn't valuable.

SteamOS is a tool to apply pressure to Microsoft and Valve to "do the right thing" and not lock down all Apps to Windows Store or the Apple AppStore.

To me SteamOS and Linux are in pretty good shape, we have over 2,000 games to buy and are looking forward to AAA games like Tomb Raider, we have the Valve library and many ports coming from Ferel and others, and we recently got the Saints Row franchise.

This is really a situation where you can see it however you want to see it - as a glass half empty or a glass half full, with pessimism or optimism.

And lets be honest, the higher the hopes we individually have for something like Steam Machines and SteamOS the greater the potential for disappointment we open ourselves up to. So for Steam Machines to have not instantly trampled PS4 and Xbox One and crush Windows and Mac may be a bit grandiose to hope for in the short term near future.

We need to see all the good things with gratitude and continue to invest in the Steam Linux ecosystem, just this week I'm throwing down $1,000 on a new Steam Linux computer. Focus on what matters, buy games you love, play them, and continue asking developers for Linux versions, it's working, we're chipping away at the mountain and hacking away at the redwood with a axe, we'll be on the downhill slide soon, the days ahead are good.

[ElectricPrism]

I saw on Phoronix not too long ago a commenter comparing SteamOS to a fire exit. Just because there's not currently a fire, doesn't mean a fire exit isn't valuable.

SteamOS is a tool to apply pressure to Microsoft and Valve to "do the right thing" and not lock down all Apps to Windows Store or the Apple AppStore.

To me SteamOS and Linux are in pretty good shape, we have over 2,000 games to buy and are looking forward to AAA games like Tomb Raider, we have the Valve library and many ports coming from Ferel and others, and we recently got the Saints Row franchise.

This is really a situation where you can see it however you want to see it - as a glazz half empty or a glazz half full, with pessimism or optimism.

And lets be honest, the higher the hopes we individually have for something like Steam Machines and SteamOS the greater the potential for disappointment we open ourselves up to. So for Steam Machines to have not instantly trampled PS4 and Xbox One and crush Windows and Mac may be a bit grandiose to hope for in the short term near future.

We need to see all the good things with gratitude and continue to invest in the Steam Linux ecosystem, just this week I'm throwing down $1,000 on a new Steam Linux computer, compact, small, portable and Linux. Focus on what matters, buy games you love, play them, and continue asking developers for Linux versions, it's working, we're chipping away at the mountain and hacking away at the redwood with an axe, we'll be on the downhill slide soon, the days ahead are good.

[BangoMopar]

That's kinda... Surprising. I don't see what would prevent this. Isn't it just Steam running in big picture ontop of Debian, isn't it?
And there's another problem : All Wine users are counted as Windows users, aren't they? If they don't fix all of those issues, the surveys are useless to rely on.

Well here's an interesting tidbit that I did over the weekend: Installed Win 7 (Sorry I had to get my 7 Days To Die game fix in since their latest update temporarily broke the Mac / Linux versions). Now, I had always wondered why I was never asked to take part in the user survey since A) I have a decent amount of games in my library that I have purchased over the years and B) I have had the Steam Linux client installed since pretty much "day 1". Well, lo and behold, as soon as I fired up Steam on Windows and logged in, I was asked to take the survey. Well that's kind of odd I thought. I opted out, since Win was only going to be on here a day or two. But for kicks, I wiped the HD and did it all again. Again, I was asked on first run to take the survey!! I've since un-installed Win again and went back to Kubuntu 14.04 (Please hurry with the AMDGPU openGL drivers so I can upgrade!). Upon running Steam Linux again I've not been asked. So I ask you...how can ANYONE trust the Steam hardware survey? It's almost like their trying to sabotage Linux or something.

In reality, I'd think the real numbers are closer to what projects like the Hubmle Bundle report in their sales figures. At least I trust them more than any results from Steam.

[AnonymousCoward]

Ok lets assume that steam survey is biased against Linux. Now why is that? There are two possibilities:
a) Error in the code which cause that Linux is under sampled.
b) Deliberate move from Valve to cover real numbers.
If it is deliberate then what is motive from Valve?

[jo-erlend]

It has taken a while, but Steam on Linux is still fairly new. I'm primarily interested in racing games, and just the other day, I found that GRID Autosport has been made available to us and it took about half a year before I learned about it. I'm just not used to having this stuff available and I forget that they're adding new games all the time and nobody is reminding me. I don't think it's because we're uninterested, but that we just need to change some habits. The technology and the easy access is there, but word of mouth is not yet. But with all the social media stuff, that could change very quickly.

[dbpalan]

The road of SteamOS and Steam Machine is a dead end.

The Problem: The hardware is expensive, the system is dumb. If I wish cheap, I get a PS4 or XBox. If I wish powerful, I get Windows PC.
The Right Way: SteamOS makes real differences to a PS4/XBox and a Windows PC.
The Solution: Virtual Machine!

Hypervisor: Start few VM and show a simple GUI / hotkey to choose which VM to show on screen.
VM1: Steam OS for gaming
VM2: Android OS for Smart TV / Netflix / ...
VM3: Another Android OS for kids
VM4: Windows OS for Microsoft Office / VPN
VM5: Ubuntu OS for daily web browsing
...

This fundamentally let Steam OS from "changing an expensive PC into an expensive dumb game box" to "changing an expensive PC into a multiple secured system".

Advantage:
1. Different system serve different purposes. No more driver / library mess up.
2. VM can be re-deploy / update by replacing the entire image. Stable performance and no more driver / library version errors. This let Steam OS works like PS4/XBox!
3. VM can be backup by snapshot.
4. Switching between SteamOS to Android for NetFlix by a hot-key within 1 second!

The challenge:
1. Bleeding edge technologies including Vulken / virt-gpu driver.
2. Hypervisor supports various network / audio / display driver.
3. Some nice integration.

[rosco]

I think they really need to put money in the steam machines(and port games themselves or make huge steamos only sales etc). But if they dont want to give people great hardware for a low price then there wont be an uptake.

There is still too much to tinker when it comes to steam on linux. I've lost count of the libraries to remove if you want a flawless steam experience on linux. Do you use the packaged steam from your distro or do you use the auto-updating binary from Valve? We need a definitive distro for gaming AND desktop, meaning a SteamOS but desktop ready, not just for your TV. The devs shouldn't have to deal with the fact that some package are not installed on fedora for example, they need to target steamos and that's it.

[Taupi]

As a steam user under Lubuntu (native steam and wine-steam) and Windows 10, I think that if Steam should introduce the possibility to vote for a linux port on each game page and even, as in a kickstater-like kind, pledge for it, more ports would be achieved. It may help developer to fund Feral or Aspyr port, or even integrate the need to think linux dev also.

About the survey, my personal experience: I had no survey along the 2 years I spend daily on native-Lubuntu steam, 2 surveys under wine-steam (it reports at the end that I was on windows xp ... LoL) and 5 under windows7/10 while I should spend only 5% to 10% of my gamer time on windows.

About AAA games on native Steam: I play Civilization V & Beyond earth, Shadow of Mordor, Borderlands 2, Portal series, The Witcher II, Halflife series, L4D2, ARK, Medieval chivalry, CS:GO, Torchlight 2, Xcom:ennemi unknow, Xcom2, Total War, Mount&Blade series, Bioshock series, Pillar of eternity, Wasteland2, Divinity:OS, Trine series, Paper please, Sublevel zero, Baldur enhanced edition, X3:reunion, Shadowruns, Race the sun, SpaceHulk... plus non-Steam games like Unreal Tournament 4 or Minecraft! ----------------> So we have the choice of AAA games (those ones are in the top appreciated on Steam). The real problem would be that we have an easy possibility to ask for port and even fund it! .

I would love to see native Steam linux port of Mordheim: city of the damned (excellent game! I play it on wine but since last upgrade I have video bugs on the map view), Fallout series (new vegas above all), some "old" games like Skyrim and other elder scroll, Dishonnored, Orcs must die series, Vermintide (to test), BloodBall series, Trackmania series, Grim Dawn, The Witcher III, GTA V