Quoting: PatolaI started working with Linux around 1996/1997, and although I was a PC gamer at the time, the dedication to a "serious" OS made me lose contact with the gaming world, since I also removed windows from my own PC. I even bought some original Linux titles in 2001 or 2002 (who remembers Loki? I still have my Descent 3 Linux CD!), but that was more of a curiosity than real hope I'd have gaming on Linux. That's why at the time of Steam for Linux launch I was very skeptic and I took some time to be convinced by it, but oh boy, convinced I am, and nowadays I consider gaming to be the most important aspect of Linux to rise to mass public success. Since I have a gap of little less than 20 years of gaming, I routinely buy older games to enjoy and I marvel at some 2004 graphics like a little child. Thanks, Valve! You deeply transformed my life for the better.

Think I started around '98. Loki, yeah, still have Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns (which really wasn't bad) and above all, Alpha Centauri, which every few years I tinker around with and get working again because there's still nothing quite like it.
But Steam really changed everything; I basically hadn't been playing computer games for years except Starcraft on Wine. Now I have a whole new time waster, hurrah!

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Incidentally, a little known piece of context about the Terror: It didn't actually execute more people than were normally executed in France before the revolution. The pre-revolution French state killed a lot of people, usually in ways that were a whole lot more gruesome and painful than the guillotine. Basically torturing to death as judicial penalty. It's seen as such a huge deal because the people killed during the Terror were important people instead of being mostly peasants and the urban underclass, and because they were killed for political reasons instead of for, say, stealing a loaf of bread or not paying their taxes or annoying somebody higher status or whatever.

Which isn't to say the Terror wasn't real. There is a definite difference between something like the Terror and the state killing people as part of the normal operation of the machine, just sort of grinding off bits of humanity that grit the gears--people don't like that, but they know the score: If you're poor, and you're trying to make a living by whatever means necessary, you run certain risks. If you're a peasant, and your local noble is an asshole (as most of them were), you run certain risks. It was the game as they knew it. The thing about the Terror is it changed all the rules, and people who had previously assumed themselves to be safe, people who had previously assumed the state was more or less on their side, could suddenly be killed for things that had been perfectly OK, even the basis of respectability, a year ago. That's going to lead to some fear and paranoia. It's just that people tend to think of the Terror in terms of unprecedented numbers killed, and it totally wasn't that.

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Vive la revolution!

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Quoting: monnef

Quoting: LinuxwarperWe talked about Valve adressing anti cheat. Could the Trust match making be the answer?
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5966-WKLC-4172 [External Link]

One of Valve's plan for 2019

Steam Trust: The technology behind Trusted Matchmaking on CS:GO is getting an upgrade and will become a full Steam feature that will be available to all games. This means you'll have more information that you can use to help determine how likely a player is a cheater or not.

So if it's effective in stopping cheaters and devs use it, problem solved?

Well, until it is allowed to run outside Steam (which all Valve stuff related to Steam aren't IIRC), I don't think so. This locks game hard to one store, so I don't think devs/publishers will use it, unless they firmly decided they want to release only on Steam, so closing their options not only for release, but for the future as well.

Couldn't they use it on Steam and something else on other stores?
No, never mind, I guess if it's a matchmaking thing that wouldn't work.

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Quoting: Linas

Quoting: BrisseI don't know much about ChromeOS, but isn't it more like Android than a traditional GNU/Linux distribution?

Sort of. It is a minimal Linux system that boots directly into a modified Chrome browser.

While I guess that is true, I'd like to note that when you're using one it doesn't look like that. My wife has one. It looks like a minimal desktop, with wallpaper, a taskbar at the bottom and some of what look like applications on it (all of which happen to run on the browser--browser, mail, docs etc) and a couple of other options including searching for and adding in more apps. If Google wanted, they could add real applications and users wouldn't know the difference.

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Quoting: Brisse

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Brisse

Quoting: LinasI guess the point is that just being better is not enough. We also need to win their hearts. Somehow.

There is one thing that Apple has plenty of and Linux barely has any of, and that is marketing and advertising. Apple has somehow managed to create a cult that will follow Apple through ice and fire while also for some reason defending Apple's anti-consumer behaviour. To people in this cult, it doesn't matter if Apple puts out shitty products for insane prices and provide terrible support. The cult followers will still keep buying Apple.

GNU/Linux isn't big in the consumer space because it has no marketing or advertising. Those who use it are usually IT professionals, tech enthusiast or similar that seek it out on their own terms. Average Jane and John Doe usually doesn't do that. In a way it can be a blessing for us since it creates this sense of a tight community, but on the other hand we have this issue with being too small of a market-share for commercial software to care about us. :|

This is the main reason I follow ChromeOS with some interest. I'm not really a Google enthusiast, but it's the only desktop Linux being marketed.

I don't know much about ChromeOS, but isn't it more like Android than a traditional GNU/Linux distribution?

Not as far as I can tell. I mean, Android genuinely isn't Gnu/Linux in the literal sense that it doesn't use GNU. ChromeOS is more like a Linux distribution with a weird, deliberately limited Desktop Environment. It's not that hard to get it to run normal Linux software, and lately I seem to recall Google making it officially possible (not, like, easy or obvious, but possible) and starting to move away from the whole "browser is everything" schtick, at the same time as they are coming out with less-wimpy Chromebooks. I get the impression they are starting to quietly try to move ChromeOS up the price tiers from their little niche in "disposable laptops", which would mean they'd need to be a bit more general purpose.
I wouldn't be surprised at some point to see beefy Chromebooks set up so you could play games on them, presumably involving Steam and some behind the scenes compatibility with the Steam runtime, although they might instead start by putting their game streaming service on 'em. Whatever the case, as far as I can tell yeah, unlike Android, ChromeOS is pretty much genuine Linux and it's a space worth watching as Google slowly tries to grow Chromebooks past their modestly successful little niche.

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Quoting: ShmerlGreat soundtrack too (not joking): https://ryanike.bandcamp.com/album/west-of-loathing-original-game-soundtrack [External Link]

That is a great soundtrack. It has all the great cowboy-movie-type stuff, turned up to eleven or so but at the same time done very well. A ton of panache there. There's even a really quite good rag! I want to figure out how to put that in place of the Stellaris soundtrack. Not that there's anything wrong with the Stellaris soundtrack, exactly.
Wishlisted. Like WorMzy, I'm sure I meant to do that before.

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Quoting: Brisse

Quoting: LinasI guess the point is that just being better is not enough. We also need to win their hearts. Somehow.

There is one thing that Apple has plenty of and Linux barely has any of, and that is marketing and advertising. Apple has somehow managed to create a cult that will follow Apple through ice and fire while also for some reason defending Apple's anti-consumer behaviour. To people in this cult, it doesn't matter if Apple puts out shitty products for insane prices and provide terrible support. The cult followers will still keep buying Apple.

GNU/Linux isn't big in the consumer space because it has no marketing or advertising. Those who use it are usually IT professionals, tech enthusiast or similar that seek it out on their own terms. Average Jane and John Doe usually doesn't do that. In a way it can be a blessing for us since it creates this sense of a tight community, but on the other hand we have this issue with being too small of a market-share for commercial software to care about us. :|

This is the main reason I follow ChromeOS with some interest. I'm not really a Google enthusiast, but it's the only desktop Linux being marketed.

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Quoting: Corben

Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm happy to be able to tell you, yes it will. Buy something and play it on Proton and it shows as a Linux sale. Valve has been quite explicit about this.

Yep, I know it will show up as a Linux sale, when I buy it on Linux and play it with proton ;)
I was referring to the sales that are made, because I as a Linux gamer have bought and played a title and told other people about it because I like that game and thus they buy it, but they buy it on different platforms. This is hardly measurable, but kinda is caused because I had the possibility to play it on Linux. Maybe my wording wasn't clear enough to reflect what I meant, sorry about that.

Ahhh, I get what you were saying now. Sorry, totally got past me the first time.

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Quoting: CorbenI do my best to show devs respect and thank them for creating native Linux versions. Or, if their game works with proton, I let them know I'm playing it on Linux. So they see, there are Linux gamers who value their work. It's difficult to measure it, but I'm sure we help spreading the word about their games, when we play them on Linux. And that's an important thing, though it will not show up in numbers regarding Linux sales.

I'm happy to be able to tell you, yes it will. Buy something and play it on Proton and it shows as a Linux sale. Valve has been quite explicit about this.

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