Steam Client For Linux Confirmed

[Kano]

Well those open ati driver are a joke for gaming, even when you compare a game which you can set to use no GLSL like nexuiz, the speed diff is really extreme. Up to 3x faster is fglrx there - with the same low settings. You can archive higher quality with same speed too.

[oblivious_maximus]

What I also find amusing is that when I play a windows game using wine, I can switch to my desktop by using ALT and TAB, but when I play a native game in fullscreen mode, say XMoto, I neither can switch to the desktop nor switch workplaces.

Run games on a second Xserver. Then you can VT-switch to your desktop if you like, and if your game locks up, you can hit CTRL+ALT+Backspace.
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This article is total bunk. I definitely appreciate the effort, but when the headline reads "Steam Client For Linux Confirmed," I expect to read some quotes from somebody at Valve actually confirming a Steam Client for Linux. Nothing has been confirmed at all. The headline should read "Steam Client For Linux - Vague Theories With Zero Confirmation."

[Extreme Coder]

...Unless, Michael's 'confirmed' this from someone and that someone was under NDA or something?

[Yfrwlf]

Run games on a second Xserver. Then you can VT-switch to your desktop if you like, and if your game locks up, you can hit CTRL+ALT+Backspace.

That doesn't always do it, several games disable or block or whatever those keys. That's why there needs to be some keys that always override application settings, like supposedly I think the SysRq function key does, but that's for shutting down and not killing a desktop app.

As far as the second X server, yeah, try explaining that to a "normal" Ubuntu GUI user. That can't be the solution for them, the solution can't involve the command line at all.

[Jimmy]

Well, technically it can't end like UT3 since they haven't announced anything yet.

UT3 is over. Anyone that was hyped about it has moved on and doesn't care anymore. Sure they very well some day come out with a Linux version of the game. Way too late to save any face. If Epic came out tomorrow and said "we canned the whole thing," the responses would be more like "at least they are finally being honest with us" than anything else.

UT3 is over regardless of what gets announced.

/ut3-rant

I hope steam comes to Linux, but until I can run the binaries it doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned. I'll be rooting for Wine in the mean time. I can at least see Wine's progress and know that its not being held back by some unseen political or corporate bullshit.

[KohlyKohl]

But that's backwards. That is definitely a Windows-like failure that Linux should not implement. You should design things to be safe by default, not rely on code being "done correctly" in order to make your OS functional. You can't bank on every app a user wants to run as functioning 100% correctly all the time and never crashing, that's just dumb. X is great because for the most part, when an app crashes it doesn't lock up all of X, and you can simply end the program's process.

So in this case, X really needs to implement some kind of bailout safety keys that will always let you out of a program that has itself full-screened. The user and X should always be in control, not at the mercy of whether or not some game wants to implement easy full-screen switcharoosie features or not.

Well your view on this is the minority and really does not even make much sense. The whole point of alt-tab is so that one can run other applications, such as teamspeak, or check something on the web quick. I feel entrapped by the game, and left with zero options, if I need to do something quick outside of the game.

The ability to Alt-Tab out of a game was one of the top user requested features for Cedega. They made a script that allowed for this (Even though one could just set up keys for different desktops already ).

[Forge]

Source is not steam.

We all know that, thanks. Postal 3 is using BOTH Steam and Source.

Care to correct anything else we already have right?

[BlueKoala]

I called a Linux steam client at the beginning of this year. I won't believe it until I see it though. If it happens, I'm buying left4dead that's for damn sure. I'm getting a Radeon HD4850 for christmas. The new year sounds promising to me

[Kano]

Basically there are only 2 engines for the steam games, I see no reason to buy that game, just when the Linux dedicated server files are on the Win install too - only if you really like to play the game.

[Forge]

Basically there are only 2 engines for the steam games, I see no reason to buy that game, just when the Linux dedicated server files are on the Win install too - only if you really like to play the game.

Thus his qualifier 'if it happens'.