The Steam Linux Beta Begins...

[Kano]

Even without a Steam beta account you can try 3 demos to see why Steam would work best with 32 bit dynamically link games only (when you want to be able to use the steam overlay and not only start the game):

a) 32 bit apps, dynamically linked
b) 64 bit apps, dynamically linked
c) 32 bit apps, statically linked

There are the examples:

a) World of Goo, Amnesia via linux32 wrapper
b) Amnesia on 64 bit
c) Unity of Command (use as option: sdl-fullscreen for better fullscreen mode with kde)

Only for a) the overlay which is done via a LD_PRELOAD lib works, you would need to have steam+app from the same architecture to let this work always, but not all 3rd party apps are 64 bit. So it is logical that Steam is 32 bit. But compared to a real package management system Steam has a huge fault: it does not install required depends. Also when you have to work around libc6 bugs via an extracted ubuntu libc6 package in the ~/Steam/ubuntu12_32 directory this only works for type a) games. If you want to play c) on Debian you have to extract the package again in the bin dir of the game itself (~/Steam/SteamApps/common/Unity of Command Demo/bin). mc can do that very easyly.

[Larian]

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.

You're one big sugary ball of fluffy goodness. Could it be that the legacy 32 bit stuff isn't quite as dead as you wish it were? Instead of blowing your capillaries over this, why don't we try and figure the reason Valve went with a 32 bit beta client. I think this might be more useful.

Firstly, I note that you keep saying things which don't make a lot of sense such as "thing-on-itself". I'm not researching that because I don't believe it's germane to the discussion, but rather a poor analogy at best (and a red herring at worst). But I am glad you brought up the Windows situation. If I recall correctly, Windows doesn't lose it's mind when asked to run a 32 bit app in a 64 bit environment. You've got a long row to hoe if you're going to convince me that backwards compatibility is a bad thing. And I maintain that a Linux distro should probably have that too. At the very least, I want MY computer to have that capability. This isn't necromancing old technology for the sake of doing so, but rather not forcing us to set fire to everything written before a certain date. Arbitrarily killing off old software, I believe, is the logical consequence of your position (and I still want your old 32 bit games since they're so shitty that you obviously feel ashamed to own them).

As to the Unix "Millennium Bug", I don't think your argument represents reality. No matter what register width my computing devices use in the year 2038, gaming apps as we know them today aren't going to be affected. To be honest, I don't see how a whole lot of any of my current apps are going to be affected in general. If my computer thinks it's 2033 or 1992, I just betcha that I will still be able to romp through Half-Life 2 and edit images without the least inconvenience. Also, full disclosure time - I DO run a 64 bit Linux OS. Steam for Linux works just fine on my machine ... and the OS in question is not Ubuntu. I would humbly suggest that maybe you should fix your computer instead of screaming at people because it's not working.

Ignoring the nerd rage there for a minute, why do you believe Valve is only planning to release a 32 bit version of Steam? As I explained above, this is not an issue in Windows because of relatively robust backwards compatibility. Compiling a 64 bit version would seem well within the realm of possibility if they wanted to do so, but it has never been necessary in their history (also, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that Steam for Linux isn't released yet). Maybe they will release such a thing if they can get 32 and 64 bit clients talking to one another (which would have to be done over a 32 bit protocol).

So why would Valve want to beta a 32 bit client? First, it's what they've already got established. When you undertake a new venture, you often don't try and reinvent the wheel. You start simple and work out from there as needed. I think we should all be ecstatic that Valve is bringing its tech to Linux at all. Rome wasn't built in a day.

[Kano]

Maybe you did not read my post, you can certainly start 64 bit apps from a 32 bit client - therefore you do need to not change it, but you dont get the community features that steam provides. Maybe it could be done with a 64 bit overlay that the app itself preloads in that case. Install World of Goo and Amnesia and see yourself what i mean. I highly doubt that there is one game out here that runs faster when using 64 bit but some games have got sound issues. With direct pulse audio support this should be easy to fix however.

[Larian]

Hear it from the master:



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!

Much as I do with religious nutjobs, I don't care what your prophet says or what desktop environment he runs. If you must run to a quote by someone else because they say a thing you don't know how to, you don't have much of an argument.

And I do still play and enjoy both Daggerfall and the original DOOM.

[deanjo]

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?

*rolls eyes* FYI, taking a 32-bit application code and trying to make 64-bit binaries is not as easy as "all you have to do is run the compiler again". It would be nice, but it just doesn't work that way.

[JS987]

*rolls eyes* FYI, taking a 32-bit application code and trying to make 64-bit binaries is not as easy as "all you have to do is run the compiler again". It would be nice, but it just doesn't work that way.

it isn't easy in 2 cases:
you are
1. using assembler / JIT compiler / virtual machine
2. lame developer creating poor code

[deanjo]

it isn't easy in 2 cases:
you are
1. using assembler / JIT compiler / virtual machine
2. lame developer creating poor code

When you are dealing with older code it is still not as simple as that. You also have to look for pointers to ints and vice versa, dumps of structures to disk/network, printf specifiers, the use of long, etc.

[Larian]

it isn't easy in 2 cases:
you are
1. using assembler / JIT compiler / virtual machine
2. lame developer creating poor code

I'm leery of simple fixes and solutions because I often find them to be fundamentally flawed in some way. The thing about just re-running the compiler seems to fit into the "too easy" category. The "poor code" thing strikes me as boilerplate as well.

[deanjo]

I'm leery of simple fixes and solutions because I often find them to be fundamentally flawed in some way. The thing about just re-running the compiler seems to fit into the "too easy" category. The "poor code" thing strikes me as boilerplate as well.

You should be leery. Besides some of the above mentioned hurdles in my previous post, if you are going to port to 64-bit you might as well add some 64-bit specific instructions and optimizations or else there is little reason to compile a 64-bit binary other then the fact of having to have 32-bit compatibility libs on the system.

[Kamikaze]

Maybe you did not read my post, you can certainly start 64 bit apps from a 32 bit client - therefore you do need to not change it, but you dont get the community features that steam provides. Maybe it could be done with a 64 bit overlay that the app itself preloads in that case. Install World of Goo and Amnesia and see yourself what i mean. I highly doubt that there is one game out here that runs faster when using 64 bit but some games have got sound issues. With direct pulse audio support this should be easy to fix however.

You've raised a very good point there with the community features/overlay. Just spelling it out again: If _any_ game sold through steam has a 32 bit version, and they want overlay support, steam would need to bring in a whole bunch of 32-bit libs that the overlay library links to so that it can be used. The same goes with 64 bit games ran from a 32-bit client. The only case where Valve won't need to deal with multilib systems is if they make it a requirement that all game devs provide 64-bit and 32-bit versions of their games, while valve provide both 64 bit and 32 bit steam clients.

And those saying that 32-bit is dead, there's still plenty of 32-bit CPUs out there. Why don't you tell Intel it's dead:
http://ark.intel.com/products/70105