From what I gathered, I think it's something they want to use.
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More games should be mac-compatible first before they put linux support. Don't get your hopes up, sure steam will add linux support, but whats the point if not many developers will make linux version of their games?
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The idea is that, porting the Source engine, MANY games can be easily ported to Linux; and after Gabe said that Win8 will hinder the gaming industry on PCs, I strongly believe we'll see a good number of ports made.
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Source engine isn't really used by many games. (its just valve games and less than ten games that aren't from valve) Do you think big publishers would even bother make their games linux compatible? Its just extra work for them.
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Windows 8 is still using DirectX, if a game works on Windows 7, there's a good chance the game is going to work on 8. There may be a few rare instances where something doesn't work and a compatibility mode will probably be needed. Spending time, money, and effort on an old game to do an entire port to OpenGL isn't something publishers/developers will probably be willing to do.
I do hope that this will drive some publishers/devs to think about developing an OpenGL version alongside their standard DirectX version of the game now that Valve will be pushing this. Even if they don't I'm just glad it's coming to Linux because I mainly just use Steam has a messenger now and having a native version of Steam instead of using WINE is fantastic.
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I wouldn't hold my breath. I've constantly been hearing how Linux will be replacing Windows as the number one operating system really really soon for over 12 years now, and by now, the market share is just above 1 measly percent*.
I doubt many big developers will stop developing for Windows to cater for such a relatively small audience.
* Inb4 'Netmarketshare-is-a-lie': Wikimedia usage statistics shows 6,26% (it's right below Iphone). That's still a small niche.
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No, my logic is that not many big developers will stop developing for Windows to cater for such a relatively small audience (be it Linux, iPhone, whatever).
"Of course nobody is going to stop developing for Windows, but if just one out of ten titles will have a Linux port this is already a huge win over the status quo."
Well, yes, it would - but I doubt it will be one out of ten titles anytime soon, either. Porting does cost money, and the market share still is small.
Don't get me wrong, it's a great thing Valve is porting L4D2 to Ubuntu, but I still don't think that Linux is the (forseeable) future of PC gaming.
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I'm sorry, but that's a bit too much conspiracy theory for my taste.
So Microsoft is trying to drive Steam out of business by using the Windows store as a cover up ?! The devious bastards. o_O
As for your second point, that 'feature' is planned for Windows RT, not Windows 8. You can run non-store programs on Windows 8.
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Except, EVERY SINGLE iPhone will run the same game the same way. Linux? Change distro/recomple kernel/add package and the scene becomes so fragmented in addition to 0.5% of the market that any developer of big game is going to have a million issues. Small indie games are ported because they can get away with measly portion of modern graphic cards Linus can utilize. Wake me up when Nvidia/Ati drivers on Linus are half as good as they are on Win, even driver makers don't bother with Linux.
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Half-Life 2: Episode Three? ^^
There is a chance that it's only Half life 3 and also uses a new engine, but I want this game so much :(
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6 out of the 10 most played Steam games were made/endorsed by Valve(just checked the stats page); when you put that together with Steam itself you have a huge influence on how/where PC gaming is going.
Add to that: Windows development has the problem of compatibility with older/newer versions of Windows itself; Linux has a better use of hardware than Windows, and it being free to use would cut the price of a gaming rig for it to be more competitive with consoles.
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You missed one detail here - games played on Steam. Contrary to what you think, Steam isn't all games played on PC, it isn't even majority.
And don't even make me laugh about Linux compatibily where the SAME kernel versions in different distros can't agree how to run stuff and if at all.
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I tell you to shut your mouth, you don't know what you are saying do you? Steam has a given amount of at least 2M users every day. No other online game service has this much of users online every day, and I'm not even considering the number of offline users here. And Linux is made by many different people, that's why your second part is not relevant here.
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Valve will make the first step...2nd step wasteland 2...something started and thats the most important.
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Your point being? Why don't we see more ports then?
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Most (but not all) OS X ports of moderately big games (titles from the big publishers like EA, Ubisoft, etc.) are the PC binaries running inside an emulation wrapper.
So they're not really "ports" any more than getting Windows 98 running in WINE is a "port" of Win98 to Linux.
Besides, OS X isn't a Linux kernel, it's a derivative of the UNIX family of kernels.
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What is an emulator but a wrapper around code that was not intended to be run on the host environment it is being run on, enabling it to be run on that host?
I mean, okay, you could get into the fine details and define an emulator as a virtual machine implementing the expected environment as a fully-contained system inside a host environment, which WINE is not. But my point is, many games that get ported to OS X are unmodified PC binaries with compatibility wrappers on top of them. However you choose to describe that in words doesn't change the fact that they're not running OS X-native binaries.
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You're (mostly) correct. OS X is a hybrid UNIX under the hood. Steve Jobs built NeXTSTEP on top of the foundations of UNIX before coming back to Apple and rescuing it from near-bankruptcy. OS X is a derivation of the Mach kernel and has its heritage in OPENSTEP, which integrates portion of both NetBSD and FreeBSD.
But it is not, in any way, a Linux kernel.
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The big problem that is holding back Linux is games. People don’t realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality."
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If he makes it so all games get released native to linux eventually I will never touch windows.
Seriously...such a better OS.
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Well, gaming is the only reason I'm using windows
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Open Source provides quite a lot of advantages that a closed-source OS like Windows or OS X lacks. For example, these days, security holes are found in Windows on practically a daily basis. These exploits are (hopefully) reported responsibly to Microsoft by the security researchers who discover them.
And theeeeeen we wait for Microsoft to issue a fix. This wait is especially bad if a zero-day exploit is being used in the wild for malicious things. And then finally Microsoft gets a patch together and releases it.
Ooooor... someone notices a security hole in Linux, breaks down how it's happening, writes a patch to fix it, and then submits it upstream to the codebase. Assuming it's been properly made, it gets released to repositories as an update. Or, if it's something that needs to be applied immediately, you can download the patch and run it yourself. And the fact that everyone can read open-source code means that you can look at it directly instead of having to reverse-engineer proprietary binaries.
It's also frequently snappier and less bloated than Windows on identical hardware, although this will vary (depending on the machine and driver support).
Linux is for power users. Windows is for everyone. Macs are for people who don't want to put up with Windows' shit.
The right tool for the job.
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"Linux is for power users. Windows is for everyone. Macs are for people who don't want to put up with Windows' shit."
Can't agree with that. There's nothing you can do with linux but not with windows. The difference is, linux can do it faster but needs a shitload of memorised and counterintuitive shell commands and coding skills. This doesn't mean it's only for power users but for people that feel pain by wasting performance and like to work a bit more because of that. Windows is for the rest that accept a little loss in performance as a tradeoff for a much better usability, and mac users trade in a bit more freedom to receive an even better usability
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I bet most people don't know that you can replace the Windows shell -- Object Desktop and the rest of the suite do it. But it sure as hell isn't as easy as just installing KDE and selecting which environment I want on log-in.
I greatly oversimplified the comparison, and I'll admit that. Linux is not inherently more powerful than Windows, but you'd better be prepared to use a) Google, b) forums, and c) your brain in order to resolve a problem. You're also moving away from the vastly-dominant OS, so things are going to be very different in terms of software availability, vendor support, and audience consideration. Ubuntu has made great strides towards making a Linux distro that you can install on your machine without needing to know the exact make and model of your chipset and so on, but it's still not where Windows is.
And if I could ditch Windows and manage to do everything I need (gaming) and want (more important stuff than gaming; mostly covered already) on Linux, I'd jump and never look back. Not there yet.
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And this is why i don't see a reason in using Linux at home, including power users. The amount of benefits is not worth the additional work you have to spend on Google and in forums, not mentioning the Linux community traditionally beeing elitist and hating everyone that has questions or needs help. Linux just doesn't have any advantages that you need if you don't administrate server/pc clusters or develop embedded systems
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I've never encountered anyone being elitist and "hating" people who needed help. I've seen people not being helpful to dicks who refuse to understand and want a magic-wand-poof solution from volunteer forum users because that's how Microsoft's support does it, but I've never seen anyone mistreat a user who's looking for help and behaving decently.
That being said, you're certainly going to find fanboys who are going to insist that their preferred distro is the one holy distro, but those are fanboys.
I disagree that there's no reason to use Linux unless you're dealing with server racks or building embedded systems. It's not necessarily ready for Grandma yet (and arguably Windows isn't, either, but anyway), but it's a valuable alternative.
Especially with Windows 8 coming. I hope you like tablet interfaces on your desktop. Of course, anyone who doesn't like Windows 8 on PC should stay on Windows 7 if they don't want to migrate to something else, but then Microsoft is essentially in the position of selling an OS that people won't want.
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I have to work with Windows and with Linux, and since i'm no god and don't know everything i have to google regularly for both OS. I can't remember when i searched the last time in the official Microsoft forums because most answers are given by volunteers in unofficial forums. Same for Linux. In Windows forums, it almost never happens that someone is beeing unfriendly although the quota of dumb questions like "bluescreen - help!!!!!" is high. I can't say that for Linux forums where many answers consist of links to Google or flames. But that's just my impression (that get's confirmed regularly). It might be true that all those people are just fanboys but that would mean that an unhealthy amount of Linux users are fanboys
I agree with you that Linux is an alternative to Windows but in general you don't have significant advantages using it instead of Windows but some disadvantages. I'm speaking of the general case since some individuals may have further reasons in doing so (like educational purposes)
Windows 8 is in almost every case superior to Windows 7, except Metro which makes it inferior. But Metro is just a single "feature" of it and can probably be deactivated in future like it could in an early beta. I guess it's like Ubuntu Unity which a lot of people don't like but i don't think that's a reason to call Ubuntu a bad OS
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Microsoft, at the moment, is charging, guns-drawn, for all Metro, all the time, on Windows 8. They want developers to write apps for Metro. The Win32 API is officially only there for backwards compatibility. They want everyone writing apps for WinRT. The "classic" Win7-style desktop is there, but Microsoft wants you to only use that for apps that haven't been ported forward to the Metro interface.
Microsoft has been going through Windows 8's code with axes and hacking out code that corresponds to features that aren't there anymore--for example, the Start button. Gone. Microsoft doesn't want people to be able to write a small registry tweak, or hack a DLL, and re-enable it. In Windows 8, the Start button officially does not exist.
The only way Microsoft's going to reverse course is by major overhaul, in the way that Windows 7 is basically Windows Vista, Service Pack 3, only you have to pay for it and the upgrade is not nearly as refined.
I've never encountered such behaviour on the official Ubuntu forums or a number of forums I've had to visit (no idea what their names are, it all becomes a blur). However, there is kind of the expectation that you will have already tried Googling your error code or symptoms first. And after seven years of providing tech support on everything from Windows 98 to Windows 7, I have first-hand experience that the typical Windows user response to a problem is to first ignore it and click on whatever dialog buttons make it go away, and then when it finally gets to the point where the problem is interfering with what they want to do, they seek out someone to fix it for them as fast as possible so they can get on with their own work.
Microsoft tries to make it so you don't need to know fuck-all about computers if you can navigate the Explorer shell. OS X makes it so everything you want and need to do is as simple as possible -- as long as what you're trying to do is blessed by Apple, and if you're trying to do something unsupported, you're on your own (with the Internet). Linux, so far, requires you to actually take a mild interest in the box of magical components on your desk that makes the Facebook appear on your screen.
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Well, if they don't improve Metro or disable it, which i think they will do since a lot of customers don't like Metro and they already did it with Vista, i will have no problem switching to another OS that fits my needs. But for this to happen Metro needs to be really bad and Ubuntu has to make huge steps forward
I respect your opinion regarding the treatment of users in Windows or Linux forums. However, it differs from mine and since all of this is based on personal experiences i don't think we'll come to a single conclusion here and discussing it any further would have any effect
I agree with your last statement because it supports my opinion regarding why Windows is in general better for average and power users and Linux only for those that have some extraordinal needs
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This is certainly not the Year of Linux on the Desktop. We're basically arguing over the little niggly details but agreeing on the same broad issues, lol.
Metro isn't so much BAD as different, and jarringly so. I'm reserving final judgement until Microsoft actually releases it, because a lot of the complaints I've heard so far about Windows 8 being so infuriating to use would be solved by a simple tutorial pointing out where and how Win8 does things differently than what we've grown to expect over the last decade and a half. The previews Microsoft has released so far are not aimed at Joe Q. User, and so they don't come with those tutorials. However, there are already several things that are putting me off of the idea, so we'll see.
Now, this is all in terms of a desktop environment. As a tablet OS, it looks like it's great. The problem is that Microsoft isn't splitting the two apart and is hoping users won't mind.
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I tested the developer preview and yeah, the biggest problem for me was the difference to the previous versions. But people complain about every new OS, like they did about XP and that's the most popular Windows atm. We'll see how things work out
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Except thats not quite the proper analogy to the current situation... its more like saying Microsoft is making you switch from Windows 95 to windows 98 or windows 2000 or windows ME or windows XP because they are removing support for windows 95. (oh and you dont actually have to move, you just wont get anymore updates)
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i play steamplay games on my mac, i also play games from hib and some other indie bundle, i play games from gamersgate and also other sources, all of them on my mac. it is my last phase in these 30+ years playing video games.
there's plenty of games on mac now compared to what was gaming on mac during the ppc era. since intel macs there are many games available on the platform: some are native ports, some are official wrappers, some are "unofficial" cider ports only available by torrent (that was how i played hl2 on my mac well before valve ported it), some are steamplay games. besides you can use virtual machines and dual boot options.
on linux the situation is and will be similar: some native ports (basically form indies and valve), wrappers (cider, cedega), virtual machines, dual boot. if steam comes, it will be a huge milestone (as with mac steam) and will make more companies take into account a steamplay port. the main difference to mac will be the game center, which imho will never appear in linux because of fragmentation; only if something similar would appear on android, it could then go back to linux (as with ios), on the contrary only fragmented solutions such as openfeint would be possible.
that said, windows gaming will keep being the mainstream gaming on computer, if m-soft does not screw it too badly. IMHO.
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which reminds me since the early 00's we were about to be flooded with games on linux... still waiting...
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and the reason have always been this: http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=9&qpcustomb=0
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Should be old news for many people, but I searched and the oldest topic about it was a couple months old :P
Anyway, here's their official announcement: LINKY
They mentioned the port of L4D2 is already done, only needing some performance-related fixes to be stable; and I believe most indie games will come soon with Linux versions when it releases.
I must say my only reason of using Windows is gaming, and that I'd change in a second to Linux if I knew my games could run there flawlessly (I'm not looking at you, Wine). So, what do you think of this?
EDIT: Some more info was posted here: LINK
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