Steam on linux mentioned by Steam moderator

[conholster]

I was reading the day of defeat source forums yesterday, theres a big patch comming for the game and one of the admins "fuzzdad" (who claims to know ppl "on the inside") posted an update on the patch which also included the following I know they are working on the linux port and in the past that was always one of the last items to complete. I still don't have a release date but I can smell more haiku's are in the wind.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7649835&postcount=1554

[edit]sorry my english is so messy have to go work and dont have time to polish the grammar

[niniendowarrior]

Sounds good. But what are they going to distribute on Steam? *chuckles*

[marakaid]

Maybe they start with the games that have been ported already, i.e Quake and Doom series, Unreal Tournament and UT 2004...
Maybe he is only referring to Linux dedicated server.

[Thetargos]

Well, Half-Life and all of the Orage Box games already have an OpenGL renderer courtesy of the PS3 port, so those could also be good candidates to be available.

[Vadi]

Wow, thanks for the news. Didn't they ban people before for mentioning linux? (not entirely their fault, I've seen some people be extremely annoying).

[niniendowarrior]

Let's just hope this isn't just hot steam blowing at us. I'd really like a digital medium of distribution on Linux. It's just that... well, you have some other development house who promised a Linux port and hasn't delivered yet. :D

[Thetargos]

It's just that... well, you have some other development house who promised a Linux port and hasn't delivered yet. :D

Well, their game is available on Steam as well ;)

At any rate, I think despite how much enthusiastic we all are, I think it is safe to say that many (if not all) of us are taking this with a big grain of salt. And though enthusiastic, are in no way as vocal as with other titles in the past.

[d2kx]

The post in the Steam forums reads as he means DoD: S being ported, not Steam directly. So I'll guess the Valve games will be avaible from launch.

[conholster]

The post in the Steam forums reads as he means DoD: S being ported, not Steam directly. So I'll guess the Valve games will be avaible from launch.

Thats what I'm hoping...no more booting into Windows. OTOH someone on the same forum mentioned the server being ported but they got that already, dont they?

And yes, a big grain of salt is recommended when linux is mentioned on non-linux forums IMHO. But I still got my hopes up high though....

[d2kx]

I think it's more a "when?" than a "will?" question.

[Aradreth]

The post in the Steam forums reads as he means DoD: S being ported, not Steam directly. So I'll guess the Valve games will be avaible from launch.
I doubt Valve would want to launch their distribution method with none of there games there to cash in on the new market.

[alex-weej]

I'd be much more interested in them delivering games via APT, secure authenticated over TLS if they're worried about people stealing their games.

We already have excellent package management on our OS's, just because Windows is crap doesn't mean we should need a whole platform for content delivery just to play and keep up-to-date their games.

Granted, the rest of the platform has /some/ value, even if I despise walled-garden networking. If Steam Friends became a Telepathy interface, so we could use our existing messaging systems in-game, now that would be phenomenal. Never gonna happen though, not many companies "get" us, yet.

Will be interesting to see how this pans out anyway.

[Extreme Coder]

I'd be much more interested in them delivering games via APT, secure authenticated over TLS if they're worried about people stealing their games.

We already have excellent package management on our OS's, just because Windows is crap doesn't mean we should need a whole platform for content delivery just to play and keep up-to-date their games.

Granted, the rest of the platform has /some/ value, even if I despise walled-garden networking. If Steam Friends became a Telepathy interface, so we could use our existing messaging systems in-game, now that would be phenomenal. Never gonna happen though, not many companies "get" us, yet.

Will be interesting to see how this pans out anyway.

Not all people use distros with APT.

[alex-weej]

Not all people use Linux. What's your point? :)

[Extreme Coder]

Not all people use Linux. What's your point? :)

What I meant is, if Valve brings Steam to Linux, they shouldn't use APT as not all distros use APT ;)

[ivanovic]

Personally I would prefer them having some closed downloads area on some site where you can download stuff with your account and then have "fetch restrictions" in the package manager, so that you got to fetch the files by hand if they don't want to allow "downloads for everyone".

This way every distribution could handle the files they want to handle them, eg Gentoo can create an ebuild for it, Debian some adaption to apt and the RPM based distris one working for them.

IMO steam in general does not have this much benefits for a Linux user since we already do have package managers. And providing a package manager with updates capabilities is the major benefit for Windows users. (Strange OS not to offer a decent package manager... ;) )

But even if it is a plain port of steam (the package manager, "webshop"/game distribution and drm system known from Windows) to Linux and OSX, it will still be a benefit for many Linux users, since it allows publishers to see that there are users who buy (native) Linux software. Somehow I would not be suprised if the numbers of Linux users reported in the system survey after it is out would indicated that a percentage close to the numbers of vista users is using Linux...

Short version:
Yes, it would be great if the *content* normally offered by steam could just be handled by all the package managers directly and not just via steam. Though this is probably unlikely to happen :(.

[deanjo]

I'd be much more interested in them delivering games via APT, secure authenticated over TLS if they're worried about people stealing their games.

As a content delivery system, apt would be a poor choice for large files. Apt does not download files in chunks like steam does. Steam downloads large files much like bittorrent does, the large file is treated like a bunch of individual identically sized pieces and upon delivery of each individual piece it's checksum is checked using SHA1.

There is nothing stopping steam from determining the packaging system utilized by a distro. Steam could easily detect the OS and choose the appropriate package type much like it detects if the version of windows is requesting the game and it downloads the appropriate build for that system (ie 32-bit or 64-bit).

[Thetargos]

Here's a wild suggestion. But what IF the Steam "protocol" (a la BitTorrent) could be added to "package kit"? Many distributions have shown interest in it as a unified "frontend" to different package managers. What if Steam could be handled just as another repo, with its own "protocol" (added to Package Kit, through a small package (.deb, .rpm, .tgz or ebuild) and using Steam accounts to download the content. This very same "steam" package could also include a library to identify Steam signed packages at run time to authenticate it (preferably off-line). But there is no telling how are they going to implement it.

[Svartalf]

Yes, it would be great if the *content* normally offered by steam could just be handled by all the package managers directly and not just via steam. Though this is probably unlikely to happen :(.

Yes, it's very unlikely to happen.

Guys, it's a fact of reality that you've got a dozen or so packaging systems, all different- and we won't get into the deltas between RPM and DEB distributions. What all of you are asking for is a support nightmare. It'd be one thing if we had only ONE packaging system. As it stands, they have a unified means for installing and uninstalling titles from LGP, Runesoft, etc. so I suspect that you're going to find Steam no different. What's important is being able to consistently install and uninstall it over a wide range of systems. Making it do this via your disparate packaging systems, since this stuff ISN'T developed specifically for Fedora, SuSE, Ubuntu, or others, doesn't make as much sense, save for you having a one-stop shop to do EVERYTHING from. Nice, but not practical.

Keep wishing, but don't expect it anytime soon.

[xav1r]

Here's a wild suggestion. But what IF the Steam "protocol" (a la BitTorrent) could be added to "package kit"? Many distributions have shown interest in it as a unified "frontend" to different package managers. What if Steam could be handled just as another repo, with its own "protocol" (added to Package Kit, through a small package (.deb, .rpm, .tgz or ebuild) and using Steam accounts to download the content. This very same "steam" package could also include a library to identify Steam signed packages at run time to authenticate it (preferably off-line). But there is no telling how are they going to implement it.

Great idea, but i dont think valve would allow it. Having people write their own 10000 different open source steam frontends written in gtk+ wouldnt sound good to them.

[Aradreth]

Great idea, but i dont think valve would allow it. Having people write their own 10000 different open source steam frontends written in gtk+ wouldnt sound good to them.
Don't forget the 5 in QT, 3 in ncurses, and 1 in tk.

[alex-weej]

And one in WinForms.NET just for the hell of it.

[Svartalf]

Don't forget the 5 in QT, 3 in ncurses, and 1 in tk.

And the one in Fltk... >:-D ;)

[Thetargos]

But still all would be using the same backend which in the end I would think is a good thing... Still, probably too much hassle for them to bother.

[xav1r]

But still all would be using the same backend which in the end I would think is a good thing... Still, probably too much hassle for them to bother.

Yea, I know. I agree with your idea, i think it'd be awesome, turning steam into some sort of downloading technology, (BT like), and having people write custom frontends for it, but i think valve likes to have centralized control of their steam clients.

[xav1r]

...and damn, that's right, i forgot about those. Didnt Trolltech got bought out by another company btw? So tcl and tk are from one company now, i think.

[alex-weej]

Except Tcl and Tk have nothing to do with Trolltech. Trolltech develop Qt, and Nokia own Trolltech now. :)

[Aradreth]

And one in WinForms.NET just for the hell of it.
And the one in Fltk... >:-D
... I knew I was opening a can of worms with that one. Oh can't forget Swing...

Personally I would hope someone would write a frontend completely in spl, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_%28programming_language%29) that would warrant a read through.

[Thetargos]

...And, there's always WxWidges :D, you know, for portability :rolleyes:

[Svartalf]

...And, there's always WxWidges :D, you know, for portability :rolleyes:

Heh... You're forgetting SWT, now... ;) :D

[Thetargos]

Hehe... And Athena and what not... LOL :D

[Vadi]

WxWidgets "portativity" is over-hyped. Gtk and Qt work on all three major platforms quite as well, and manage to actually look better, whereas wxwidgets doesn't fit anywhere with it's own odd style.

[marakaid]

Please don't fill the thread with alternative widgets kits or how to make the best frontend, I prefer to read news about Steam on Linux.