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Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais announced on Twitter that they've hired Andrey Smirnov to help them get some SteamOS changes upstream into the main Linux Kernel.

Here's what he said:

Andrey is a kernel developer we're hired to help us upstream various SteamOS driver changes, as well as undertake other kernel projects. First stop: Xbox One S rumble support!

You can see the post they're talking about on the Linux Kernel Mailing List archive. It will have to go through the usual process of getting feedback and possibly going through revisions before being accepted for a future Linux Kernel release.

While there is also the xpadneo driver for the Xbox One S gamepad, having more work out of the box is obviously a good thing for everyone. This is probably also useful for Valve as well, since it's one less thing they will need to maintain themselves for SteamOS directly.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: SteamOS, Valve
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ElectricPrism Aug 11, 2018
QuoteThis is probably also useful for Valve as well, since it's one less thing they will need to maintain themselves for SteamOS directly.

My thoughts exactly, if they do the leg work and get it into mainline then they can refocus on other tasks and improvements and let the community tweak it was needed.

The whole Linux platform stack seems like it's in a pretty good place save little quirks or snags here or there.
PublicNuisance Aug 12, 2018
Every little bit helps.
drmoth Aug 12, 2018
All this Valve Linux work is so good. I love how they are upstreaming their changes as well.
Egonaut Aug 12, 2018
It's all nice, but I still prefer Xpadneo a lot over the Valve driver, since it's the much better one. The Valve driver doesn't even has Battery indicator support or DPAD Axes to buttons, pfff.
mylka Aug 12, 2018
Quoting: GuestI simply love it to see Valve so dedicated to Linux.

but why arent they make new games, or just be publisher for games.
slaapliedje Aug 12, 2018
Wasn't there also work to add Steam Controller support to the Linux Kernel?
Creak Aug 12, 2018
Quoting: mylka
Quoting: GuestI simply love it to see Valve so dedicated to Linux.

but why arent they make new games, or just be publisher for games.
They are actually ;)
Gaben said they are working on several games, two of which are already announced: In the Valley of Gods and Artifact. The other projects haven't been announced yet.


Last edited by Creak on 12 August 2018 at 4:00 pm UTC
Whitewolfe80 Aug 12, 2018
Quoting: mylka
Quoting: GuestI simply love it to see Valve so dedicated to Linux.

but why arent they make new games, or just be publisher for games.

Because that costs millions of dollars selling games makes them millions of dollars. Its profit versus potentional losses and valve hiring more linux staff is an outlay but its notwhere near the cost of developing a game.
Whitewolfe80 Aug 12, 2018
Quoting: Creak
Quoting: mylka
Quoting: GuestI simply love it to see Valve so dedicated to Linux.

but why arent they make new games, or just be publisher for games.
They are actually ;)
Gaben said they are working on several games, two of which are already announced: In the Valley of Gods and Artifact. The other projects haven't been announced yet.

Yeah but those are games that lets be honest very few care about, when you heard valve was back developying your mind went straight to Portal 3, Left 4 dead 3 or Team F 3 or maybe csgo 2 not crappy card game

The development they are doing sounds good I would love for Steam to actually be able to update to latest graphics drivers for amd/intel/nvidia with a tick of option in steam overlay. I know they tried it in windows but feature never worked properly. I know some want them to incorporate dxvk into steam client for windows games but that will not happen they would need permission from the games companies and more importantly licence fees for that.


Last edited by Whitewolfe80 on 12 August 2018 at 4:15 pm UTC
slaapliedje Aug 12, 2018
I am not sure they would need rights for that, since they would still be distributing the same stuff they already were, they would just slap a wrapper on top. The problem becomes though that they would have to be the ones who had to cover support costs. Let's face it, probably a large majority of the reason we don't get all the games is due to support issues at this point as opposed to actual technical limitations.
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