The Steam Linux Beta Begins...

[droste]

probably because they lied when filling in the beta tester form :-D Just look at http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410...4057641974752/ nearly everybody has 64bit and I wouldn't say Ubuntu is mentioned in > 60% of the posts.

[blackout23]

probably because they lied when filling in the beta tester form :-D Just look at http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410...4057641974752/ nearly everybody has 64bit and I wouldn't say Ubuntu is mentioned in > 60% of the posts.

I lied because selecting "Other" felt like putting myself in the "special" corner. I hope at least everyone was frank when they said they run 64 bit.
They'll see that it is silly to just provide just a 32 bit client. This isn't Windows where people have no clue and don't care if something is 32 bit until their new game starts lagging on their new PC because the game can't allocate enough memory and gets bottlenecked.

[Larian]

I lied because selecting "Other" felt like putting myself in the "special" corner. I hope at least everyone was frank when they said they run 64 bit.
They'll see that it is silly to just provide just a 32 bit client. This isn't Windows where people have no clue and don't care if something is 32 bit until their new game starts lagging on their new PC because the game can't allocate enough memory and gets bottlenecked.

We've been over this. Why on Earth would the Steam client need to be a 64 bit program? As I understand it, all it does is act as an authenticator and then calls various game executables. THOSE might benefit from a 64 bit client, but for Steam? You might as well be complaining about not being able to play a 64 bit version of Pac-Man.

[blackout23]

We've been over this. Why on Earth would the Steam client need to be a 64 bit program? As I understand it, all it does is act as an authenticator and then calls various game executables. THOSE might benefit from a 64 bit client, but for Steam? You might as well be complaining about not being able to play a 64 bit version of Pac-Man.

Why on Earth would the Steam client not be a 64 bit program? It makes it a pain in the ass to install on 64 bit linux. I even had to gcc-multilib compile
some retarded lib32 stuff on Arch just to get it to work. That is downright retarded no matter how much you love 32 bit. Ohh and guess why I can't view any game trailers in the steam client? Because it looks for the fucking 32 bit flashplayer. It doesn't make things easier no matter how you look at it.

[Larian]

If it is just a matter of packaging then there should be no good reason to make it distro specific at all in the first place. If they wanted to make individual packages for the distros that is fine as well but it is not hard at all for them to for many platforms at once. Hell there are even live distros that will setup a multipackage multi distro multi version automated package build if they really wanted to have specific packages. Then there is the option of even doing a generic installer like sooooo many other binary distributed software packages out there do. Loki did it, ID did it, Epic did it, Ryan G can do it, Nvidia can do it, ATI can do it, VMware can do it etc etc etc. There is absolutely no reason for them to single out one distribution. The LSB is there for a reason..... use the damn thing.

I love how people are cherry-picking what I say. Valve said they are going to support Steam on Ubuntu 12.04 first, and then add a few other popular distros a little later (which I believe you can vote on). To my understanding, that's not the same thing as just building a package installer. If we're going to be charitable, I'd say that Valve is just starting with desktop linux and they want to ease into the pool. And I totally get that. If, for example, someone has trouble with their desktop and they're running KDE or XFCE and look to me for help, I won't help them because I don't know how. If they're running Arch or Gentoo, ... or god forbid, Slackware ... They're simply asking the wrong guy. It's possible that I'm reading Valve's position wrong, but such a move in this light makes sense to me.

So long story short, you're going to have to wait. They'll get to you. But until that happens, you can man up and tinker it into working on your machine. And what you mean by "There is absolutely no reason for them to single out one distribution" is "I don't understand why they did it this way, therefore it's absolutely unacceptable" Of course there's a reason, you silly goose - that's why they did it.

tl;dr: You missed the point. "Support" means you can reasonably expect help from Valve if you need it. If you go off-plan, don't come crying to them if you can't figure something out.

[Larian]

Why on Earth would the Steam client not be a 64 bit program? It makes it a pain in the ass to install on 64 bit linux. I even had to gcc-multilib compile
some retarded lib32 stuff on Arch just to get it to work. That is downright retarded no matter how much you love 32 bit. Ohh and guess why I can't view any game trailers in the steam client? Because it looks for the fucking 32 bit flashplayer. It doesn't make things easier no matter how you look at it.

Because if it were a 64 bit program, it wouldn't be a pain in the ass to run on 32 bit machines, it would be impossible. It strikes me that your computer can't handle 32 bit programs by your own design (you did say you ran Arch).

And if it makes you feel any better, I haven't been able to view any trailers either. Not sure why.

[nightmarex]

probably because they lied when filling in the beta tester form :-D Just look at http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410...4057641974752/ nearly everybody has 64bit and I wouldn't say Ubuntu is mentioned in > 60% of the posts.

I wish people told the truth just so they had a accurate representation of the landscape. I was referring to that discussion earlier when the Ubuntu people told me that wasn't indicative. I still think Ubuntu is loosing it's lead in droves (no citation needed it's my opinion). Oh and valve 32 bit sucks, stop it , that's Windows thinking. Linux had 64 bit support in 2001 IIRC.

[blackout23]

Because if it were a 64 bit program, it wouldn't be a pain in the ass to run on 32 bit machines, it would be impossible. It strikes me that your computer can't handle 32 bit programs by your own design (you did say you ran Arch).

And if it makes you feel any better, I haven't been able to view any trailers either. Not sure why.

Dude I don't know for how long you're using Linux but every fucking programm is available for every architecture. Even nano is 64 bit!
It just doesn't make any sense to make Steam 32 bit only. Maybe you're used to this Windows on Windows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_on_Windows) bullshit which almost sounds like some Geek Porn. Even the name should make you scretch your head and now you suggest something like Linux on Linux.

Have fun in the year 2038 when your beloved 32 bit stuff get's the Unix Millenium bug because it is to shitty.

[blackout23]

Hear it from the master:

[...]And dammit, in this age and date when almost everybody has a gigabyte of RAM in any new machine, anybody who still thinks that “not that many people need 64-bits” is simply not aware of what he’s speaking of.

Go back and play with HIGHMEM.SYS on a 286, and stop blathering crap. When you’ve spent the last ten years of your life working with HIGHMEM.SYS, then you can come back and tell me that we still don’t need 64 bits. Until that is the case, anybody who still doesn’t get why 64 bits is a requirement should just shut up rather than make a total fool of himself.[...]

https://cl4ssic4l.wordpress.com/2011...lds-about-pae/

Linus just nails it sometimes.

Still think it is a good idea to release 32 bit only software on linux when all you have to do is run the compiler again to get some 64 bit binaries?
Ever wondered why Linux supported 64 bit software from day one and everything is available for 64 bit. Because it is god damn easy!

[Desti]

Because if it were a 64 bit program, it wouldn't be a pain in the ass to run on 32 bit machines, it would be impossible. It strikes me that your computer can't handle 32 bit programs by your own design (you did say you ran Arch).

And if it makes you feel any better, I haven't been able to view any trailers either. Not sure why.

If you still have a 32 bit processor, it will be anyway too slow for 90% of the games. If you run 32 bit OS on 64 bit processor, it would be the right occasion to upgrade now.