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Valve Has Announced The SteamOS Built On Linux UPDATED

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As we’ve been working on bringing Steam to the living room, we’ve come to the conclusion that the
environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself.
SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen.
It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines.

This is very interesting a true gaming orientated version of Linux for the living room, the OS is completely free and freely licensable for manufacturers enabling anyone to make a SteamBox (they already said they would do that previously).

What is interesting is that it notes it can stream games from your PC to your SteamOS box:
QuoteYou can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!

Note Linux isn't listed, the question is does Linux need this option? I don't think so since anything that works directly on the SteamOS should I hope work on desktop Linux.

The problem is though, this still doesn't give an incentive for bigger developers to publish for Linux/SteamOS since they will now say, "just stream it to a SteamBox", it just lines up another reason not to do a Linux version. Unless they really care about SteamOS+SteamBox itself, if it's popular and people start using it as an actual console, then they will need to start porting, so it remains to be seen how it will pan out for us all!

The next announcements will probably be:
  • 2) The first SteamBox from them directly
  • 3) A controller for SteamOS, possibly even with dedicated buttons for things like friends lists


I think for a SteamBox direct from them it would need to be partnered up with a big manufacturer to ensure it meets demand.

The big question for us is how well will they support the stand-alone Linux client after all this? They have put in a lot of work so far, will it continue? I really hope so they have done some great work so far, they do have different teams working on different things after-all so I hope it continues.

The next announcement is scheduled for two days time, so stay tuned on Wednesday to see if we're right on what they next two will be!

What are your thoughts? Could this be dangerous for the desktop Linux client?

UPDATE: So games targetting SteamOS will work on desktop Linux, looks like my fears for now can be laid to rest, AAA games here we come!
QuoteGot a response from Valve about games and the normal Linux distros:
My question:
I was wondering about the SteamOS and if games that work on it will also work on normal Linux distros (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc)?
And the response:
Yes.

Source Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial, Steam
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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69 comments
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Miljenko Sep 24, 2013
They should work on ATI drivers for linux, otherwise, ATI cards are not any good
adolson Sep 24, 2013
Quoting: abelthorneIt smells like really really fake (4chan!) but just in case:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/112821983391728132338/posts/3PhmTjU8jkX
Well, it's certainly interesting reading. I guess all we do now is wait.
Sabun Sep 25, 2013
QuoteThey should work on ATI drivers for linux, otherwise, ATI cards are not any good
ATI or now known as AMD have said that they are working on Linux support, they announced this at AMD GPU14 Tech Day Event (which was on the 24th of Sept, so it's a current statement). It's likely they will reveal more of their plans for Linux in the coming days.

I think they might be feeling the heat after hearing Nvidia's plans to open more of their documentation and Valve's close working with Nvidia since the Steam for Linux beginning.

How long till us consumers actually enjoy that Linux support? Depends on how serious they are. Just thought I'd share that news with you :)
berarma Sep 25, 2013
The SteamOS scares me, it reminds me about the Ubuntu meltdown and the Steam-PITA client. Wait, that's what it'll be made of.

There may be some positive things about it, better graphic drivers and probably more non-Steam games but we'll have to stand the negatives. It's worth reminding how Android hasn't helped GNU/Linux at all, has it?
Miljenko Sep 25, 2013
Quoting: Sabun
Quoting: QuoteThey should work on ATI drivers for linux, otherwise, ATI cards are not any good
ATI or now known as AMD have said that they are working on Linux support, they announced this at AMD GPU14 Tech Day Event (which was on the 24th of Sept, so it's a current statement). It's likely they will reveal more of their plans for Linux in the coming days.

I think they might be feeling the heat after hearing Nvidia's plans to open more of their documentation and Valve's close working with Nvidia since the Steam for Linux beginning.

How long till us consumers actually enjoy that Linux support? Depends on how serious they are. Just thought I'd share that news with you :)
Wow, that is good news, can you provide some link or something where I can read more about it?
Sabun Sep 25, 2013
QuoteWow, that is good news, can you provide some link or something where I can read more about it?
While I am still waiting on Toms Hardware for a full write up on the information from AMD, this link is where I got the news that Linux support is being worked on. It's a live blog stream kind of thing, so you'll need to scroll down. It's not yet an article, but just a sentence at this point. Hopefully in the coming days we'll see more about this being released :)

LINK: http://new.livestream.com/toms-live/amd-hawaii-day-1
Anonymous Sep 25, 2013
Quoting: berarmaThere may be some positive things about it, better graphic drivers and probably more non-Steam games but we'll have to stand the negatives. It's worth reminding how Android hasn't helped GNU/Linux at all, has it?
Well, at least some of the stuff that makes Android run has made it back into the Linux kernel. Google made an effort to do that, so they didn't have to carry all their new code upstream. So I would say it has helped GNU/Linux, but not necessarily desktop Linux (but that's not counting other positive things, like a raised awareness for what Linux can do, which can be hard to measure).

I think the potential for such positive things for general Linux distribution is much greater with SteamOS, since it's actually not as different from other distributions. (Android for instance uses SurfaceFlinger instead of X. I doubt that SteamOS would run anything other than X, albeit maybe a customized version.)
Sslaxx Sep 28, 2013
Quoting: Quote from berarmaThe SteamOS scares me, it reminds me about the Ubuntu meltdown and the Steam-PITA client. Wait, that's what it'll be made of.

There may be some positive things about it, better graphic drivers and probably more non-Steam games but we'll have to stand the negatives. It's worth reminding how Android hasn't helped GNU/Linux at all, has it?
Here is a recent article to back the anon comment on the 25th: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/google-and-samsung-soar-into-list-of-top-10-linux-contributors/
berarma Sep 28, 2013
Quoting: Quote from Sslaxx
Quoting: Quote from berarmaThe SteamOS scares me, it reminds me about the Ubuntu meltdown and the Steam-PITA client. Wait, that's what it'll be made of.

There may be some positive things about it, better graphic drivers and probably more non-Steam games but we'll have to stand the negatives. It's worth reminding how Android hasn't helped GNU/Linux at all, has it?
Here is a recent article to back the anon comment on the 25th: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/google-and-samsung-soar-into-list-of-top-10-linux-contributors/


That article just reasserts what I said. Some excerpts:

Quote"Google contributions were not Android-related, given there really wasn't much Android code in the first place (7,000 lines of code, much smaller than your serial port driver), and it was all merged a while ago," Greg Kroah-Hartman, who co-authored the report and is the maintainer of the Linux kernel's stable branch, told Ars. "Google's been doing work all over the kernel (networking, security, scheduler, cgroups), all good stuff."


QuoteMore good news is that the "longstanding squabble over Android-specific kernel features has faded completely into the background," the report said. "The much discussed 'wakelocks' [power management] feature has been quietly replaced by a different mainline solution which is used in the latest Android devices."

Most Google contributions come from their data center server's software. Indeed, most Android kernel code customizations were refused because they weren't good enough for general use.
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