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Steam OS, are you excited, beacuse I'm excited!
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Lord Gragert
Mercury Metal Mining
#1 - 2013-09-25 18:40:36 UTC
http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/

With this, I'm hoping for a resurgence of PC gaming and games written for Linux.
Also, I hope CCP picks up development for Linux again.
Kismeteer
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#2 - 2013-09-25 19:28:05 UTC
Lord Gragert wrote:
http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/

With this, I'm hoping for a resurgence of PC gaming and games written for Linux.
Also, I hope CCP picks up development for Linux again.


Yeah, the success of the Unity game building system made this possible. Nobody was going to do the mass port of games, and I doubt that CCP is going to change their mind based on this, sadly. The steambox is still designed for a controller rather than mouse, keyboard, and 20 google spreadsheets.

When the steamOS comes out, I'll make sure to get something up and going on how to run EVE on it. If I'm lucky, they'll use a debian-based system and then my post should just work.
Danny Aishai
Perkone
Caldari State
#3 - 2013-09-25 20:55:32 UTC
Kismeteer wrote:
Lord Gragert wrote:
http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/

With this, I'm hoping for a resurgence of PC gaming and games written for Linux.
Also, I hope CCP picks up development for Linux again.


Yeah, the success of the Unity game building system made this possible. Nobody was going to do the mass port of games, and I doubt that CCP is going to change their mind based on this, sadly. The steambox is still designed for a controller rather than mouse, keyboard, and 20 google spreadsheets.

When the steamOS comes out, I'll make sure to get something up and going on how to run EVE on it. If I'm lucky, they'll use a debian-based system and then my post should just work.


Its moddable, so the worst case scenario is that I'll have to partition off the hard drive for eve and windows.
Though I reckon if we shout loud enough CCP will listen :P

Also can confirm, am excited.
Elmore Jones
New Eden Mining Organisation
The Craftsmen
#4 - 2013-09-25 22:20:44 UTC
Also excited; and I don't think Valve is going to be relying soley on linux ports do base its business on, that wouldn't really make sense. Supporting wine to be 100% compatible with more games however would. Go Valve! Go Wine! Go the next M$ ceo smelling the coffee and supporting Wine too? M$ have supported Linux in the past,and this would be a sound move for them to port directx in house and charge for support on both platforms... (ok I'm dreaming on the last part :P)

+++ Reality Error 404 - Reboot Cosmos +++
M1AU
Zappenduster Inc.
#5 - 2013-09-26 11:37:51 UTC
I'm also very excited about this!
Valve is a real big player nowadays and the new SteamOS looks very promising. Though I don't see CCP jumping on it right after the release of the first SteamBox, how could they after spending the last decade of developing the client on and around the Windows platform?
Though I remember reading a few years ago that Linux is not out of sight and they'll probably address that in the future.
Valve's SteamOS will of course be a Linux based OS optimized for gaming, that changes quite a lot IMO and could bring EVE back in a few years.
Only time will tell, I at least would love to play it on SteamOS!
Kismeteer
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#6 - 2013-09-26 16:07:32 UTC
Elmore Jones wrote:
Also excited; and I don't think Valve is going to be relying soley on linux ports do base its business on, that wouldn't really make sense.


Actually, thanks to Unity's Linux support, it does make sense. Steam is huge. In this case, it's encouraging developers to build for linux, because that's what they can have full control over to deploy to everyone. Imagine if your entire library suddenly worked on a console as well as your PC.

I don't think this development really does well for CCP though, since you can't easily play eve from your couch. (Unless you buy $8 USB extender cables for a mouse and keyboard from monoprice.)
Elmore Jones
New Eden Mining Organisation
The Craftsmen
#7 - 2013-09-27 15:20:04 UTC
Well granted on the sofa part (insert clear skies joke about sofa here), my take on this is the impact for linux based PCs and another step to ditching dual boot altogether. Whichever way it goes, I'll be a happy chap if I can :)

+++ Reality Error 404 - Reboot Cosmos +++
jo4
Spectral Technology
#8 - 2013-09-28 02:51:03 UTC
Elmore Jones wrote:
[..] my take on this is the impact for linux based PCs and another step to ditching dual boot altogether. [..[

I thought VMs had already killed that off :P

I'm giddy all over because of this. It's a bit scary if Steamworks really takes over, but Newell at Valve says the machines will be open and that they're negotiating deals with major developers for future releases. The streaming thing is also .. well, interesting.

Right now it looks like i might be ditching Windows for good in a year or two..
Elmore Jones
New Eden Mining Organisation
The Craftsmen
#9 - 2013-09-28 18:24:14 UTC
VMs are quite good for non graphically intensive stuff, but no real good for gaming :(

+++ Reality Error 404 - Reboot Cosmos +++
jo4
Spectral Technology
#10 - 2013-09-29 08:12:18 UTC
Elmore Jones wrote:
VMs are quite good for non graphically intensive stuff, but no real good for gaming :(


Yeah, i just mean like what games do you have to boot linux for? :p
Nebu Retski
Lead Farmers
#11 - 2013-09-29 13:15:41 UTC
jo4 wrote:
Yeah, i just mean like what games do you have to boot linux for? :p

What kind of software aside games do you have to boot windows for? P

Not everyone only limits his use of software to what is only available on windows. Also not everyone is satisfied with the performance of a virtual machine. Granted for the majority of work that most people do a VM solution might be more than adequate, but definitely not for me.

Personally I think that Steam on Linux and Steam OS are nice initiatives from Valve, but I don't expect them to rapidly change the OS support landscape. Windows simply has too much momentum in terms of software written specifically for windows (C#, .net, ... bullshit). Too many people have simply locked themselves into using particular software packages (MS office, photoshop, ...) which do not have Linux support. On top of that the majority of those people are too lazy to learn how to use other software. Combine that with the lack of a simple and brainless clickety click style installation and configuration on *nix systems that always works flawlessly, opposed to the regular tapety tap needed to make it work, make it really difficult for *nix to really break through and as long as an OS isn't really breaking through it will not be widely supported.

Canonical has done a great job with Ubuntu, but even though they helped Linux gain quite a bit in user base, it didn't manage to make Linux truly break through yet. The same for Android, it helped Linux gain in user base, but that was simply limited to phones and most people still stick to their Windows/Mac thus not really helping Linux gain support by developers. As for Steam OS, I foresee it being an Ubuntu 2, where it will give another boost to the Linux user base, but I don't believe it will be able to provide critical mass. Sure the number of games being supported has gone up since the Steam client was released for Linux, but how many of those were AAA games?

Anyway what I believe at minimum is necessary to break the windows momentum is:

  1. It should be mandatory to offer every pre-built computer (laptops, tablets, phones, ...) with an alternative OS option and have them actually be cheaper or more expensive according to the OS (basically a free or no OS should be cheaper).
  2. Companies need to gradually phase out their reliance on MS only software and work towards open source (not necessarily free!).
  3. Educational institutions should switch to free and open source software when teaching people computer skills and focus on teaching what can be done with computers instead of teaching how to use office software or browse the web.


jo4 wrote:
It's a bit scary if Steamworks really takes over, but Newell at Valve says the machines will be open

Why so paranoid? Steam OS is most likely some customized Ubuntu, because Valve aimed first at getting the Steam client properly supported on Ubuntu and they aren't going to throw away their work for that, let alone develop an entire OS from scratch (in just a couple of years?). In any case Steam OS is based on Linux so the majority of the OS needs to be open anyway.

Now Steam OS and the future of EvE Linux support, well go and take a read at the Linux Client thread. It simply isn't going to happen for a long time. CCP has too much technical debt that they can not spend any resources on overhauling their code to be OS independent.
Karak Terrel
Foundation for CODE and THE NEW ORDER
#12 - 2013-09-30 23:12:00 UTC
One of the more important points that somehow never gets mentioned is that valve simply killed the diversity problem Linux had for the game developers. There is now a reference platform for game developers to build and test against. And there is also a reference platform for other distributions to stay compatible. They no longer have to care about Gentoo, OpenSuse, Fedora, Ubuntu, Hello Kitty Linux,... only SteamOS.

And meanwhile this is no big deal for the other distributions because they just have to make sure they package the stuff needed for Steam. It will be interesting how the support will handle this, but only the future will tell.