Linux-Based Steam Console Reaffirmed For This Year

[Pawlerson]

Great!

Now, let's hope they don't use anything from Canonical.
But sure, this thing most likely will run Ubuntu. :/

Something wrong with it? It's the most popular distribution, so it's logical thing to use it. I prefer Kubuntu, but Ubuntu has better support.

[iniudan]

What I don't understand with this Steam Linux console what games will it run? Have they ported their 2500 games over using some proprietary wine solution?

No less then any new console I can ensure you. After all they will most likely all Valve Source title, so basically everything since Half-Life 2.

Now for third party, whatever already appear here :http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/

On top of other third party that actually have plan for Linux version of their game:

-Egosoft had X2: the Treat and X3: Reunion under through LGP, but didn't renew the publishing contract for they want to do it themselves, now that Valve going for that market. So will most likely see X3: Terran Conflict and X3: Albion Prelude, has there is already a Mac port, so port to Linux shouldn't be too hard, and will most likely influence the speed at which we will see X: Rebirth, yet to release title, come to Linux.

-ID will most likely be one of those to go with Valve plan, even through they started to lose hope with Linux, been one of the most experienced dev with OpenGL, which is also good chance for them to increase the sell of their graphic tool and engine. (Come ID make Doom 4 a Steam console release title, we know it would be the perfect maneuver and the greatest historical circle in PC gaming history, Gabe showing the world that you can game on Linux with the same title he did it on Windows 95)

-Unreal Engine 3 been successfully ported to Linux recently, has dev like Tripwire Interactive interested in doing port of their game (make Red Orchestra 2, on Linux come true please), most likely peeked the interest of other dev, considering how popular Unrest Engine 3 is.

-Double Fine Adventure, Project Eternity, Wasteland 2 are high profile kickstarter with Linux version already announced.

-Neverwinter Night has always run natively on Linux, even if was never officially release for it, due to the way it was programmed, actually you can just use your windows install disk to install on Linux with few modification.

-Unity engine game will most likely see port. Considering it mostly just additional compilation in their case.

-CD Projekt show interest in Linux in interview and they show will to go with multiplaform, has they started making Mac version available on GOG, Witcher 1, from their own dev been available for Mac, so will most likely see port of it to Linux. With some luck they will or already started porting RED Engine to be multiplaform, which would mean Witcher 2 and Cyberpunk.

-THQ seem interested in porting, but in their case it hard to know if just desperate or actual will to do so (but require more then will in their, due to their finance).

-EA will most likely have to at least plan for it, even if they are too big to move without Valve have many turn in advance, but they are also too big to permit themselves to ignore, just in case they are successful, so should see at least a few title where they test the water, to have some financial charts to show stock owners.

[iniudan]

The question is: Will someone be able to use it as a regular PC?

Most likely, they said they were willing to let people thinker with it (it Linux not like they can prevent people from doing it, anyway, so might has well accept it, else they will just find themselves with Sony and PS3 situation), will most likely just have root access blocked by default like on Android, which you simply unlock and there you go, you got a Linux box running Steam distro, instead of a Steam Console.

[blackout23]

Chances are you won't see anything of Linux anyway. That's not how gaming consoles work. It would be pointless to have a whole distro under the hood.

[leech]

Something wrong with it? It's the most popular distribution, so it's logical thing to use it. I prefer Kubuntu, but Ubuntu has better support.

There's a lot of things wrong with Ubuntu. Popular doesn't equal stable.

Oddly, I'd much prefer they develop it with CentOS/Red Hat. Or Maybe even do something like Mer. Where you have a nice solid base, and then slap the SteamUI on it. Ubuntu, with their 6 months release schedule is far too unstable as far as doing a hardware platform.

I'm mostly Debian guy, but I tend to think that Debian, as awesome as it is, doesn't have a good channel for technical support open. Whereas something like CentOS would.

Then there's always Arch Linux. But a rolling release wouldn't be all that great either, unless of course they set up their own repositories, which I think they should/would do anyhow, regardless of distribution.

In fact I'd say doing a custom release based on Arch Linux would be a fantastic idea. With systemd it boots scary fast on a normal SATA drive, I could only imagine if they put an internal SSD in it for launching the base OS or even having a decent chunk of space for installed games. Would kind of go back to the awesome days of cartridge based systems, where load times were negligible.

[iniudan]

I'm sure it will be Ubuntu based but not Ubuntu by any means. Most DEs, including Unity, are not gamepad friendly. The default Ubuntu desktop also comes with at least 1GB of packages irrelevant to Steam, media, or games in general. Ubuntu is also missing a lot of packages that many games require. It wouldn't surprise me if Valve uses their own DE, or, stictly uses Big Picture mode with no other option.

What I personally want to know is what they intend to use for hardware. I wouldn't want to spend $350+ on a system like this because it includes 8GB of RAM and an i7.

i7 would just make the thing expensive for no reason, it will most likely be a Pentium (don't need the extra feature added with i3 to 7 on a console) or AMD APU, along a disgrete graphic. Would say AMD has the advantage has a wholesome system with their APU along their DSG (Nvidia optimus equivalent) disgrete graphic, would let the APU simply run by itself when discrete not required, but can have discrete graphic that can crossfire with the APU when required.

Has for everything else will most likely have an ethernet port (maybe 2, if a model designed to act has some kind of gaming home server, which would be a way to go around the account limitation in household use, without permitting an account logged in from multiple location at the same time, would also be a feature interesting for internet/gaming cafe), wifi, bluetooth, at least one USB3 port, in the back, for external storage (maybe a second frontal one for mobile storage, that way you can load on game file into it and play from it, so basically you bring an USB key instead of your disk to friend's house =p), 6 frontal USB controller port (4 for wired controller, 1 for keyboard, 1 for mouse), maybe a SD card slot (could be useful for config and save storage, in case of hard drive and/or cloud save failure, along it been common storage for vidual hardware, like camera, so useful in a basic home computer use), HDMI, displayport (for those prefer to plug into computer display hardware), for audio the usual two frontal jack for microphone and headphone, along a multichannel I/O in the back (for those that use dedicated audio hardware), and whatever the Oculus Rift require.

That about my guess for it, for it to be an awesome console, that can still be use has a basic Linux computer.

[reznov]

What's with Ubuntu? It's a Linux distribution, not a stand alone ecosystem. - It will be a Linux-based console; means it will have Steam-for-Linux inside with a console hardware. That's it. They don't need any distribution's components. They just need Linux kernel to support and maintain the hardware.

Thanks for the news, I've been waiting for this. =)

[iniudan]

Chances are you won't see anything of Linux anyway. That's not how gaming consoles work. It would be pointless to have a whole distro under the hood.

They are using linux, so they have at least a basic distro under the hood, the question is mostly which shell and how to access root (has will most likely be locked by default on closed hardware, like it is on Android) and after that you mostly got free reign, now depending on what basic the software is there, will decide how hard that free reign is to mod. =p

[iniudan]

There's a lot of things wrong with Ubuntu. Popular doesn't equal stable.

Oddly, I'd much prefer they develop it with CentOS/Red Hat. Or Maybe even do something like Mer. Where you have a nice solid base, and then slap the SteamUI on it. Ubuntu, with their 6 months release schedule is far too unstable as far as doing a hardware platform.

I'm mostly Debian guy, but I tend to think that Debian, as awesome as it is, doesn't have a good channel for technical support open. Whereas something like CentOS would.

Then there's always Arch Linux. But a rolling release wouldn't be all that great either, unless of course they set up their own repositories, which I think they should/would do anyhow, regardless of distribution.

In fact I'd say doing a custom release based on Arch Linux would be a fantastic idea. With systemd it boots scary fast on a normal SATA drive, I could only imagine if they put an internal SSD in it for launching the base OS or even having a decent chunk of space for installed games. Would kind of go back to the awesome days of cartridge based systems, where load times were negligible.

They are developing on Ubuntu LTS 12.04 version, not regular version, so it 2 year release and 5 years support, so should be fine. But would also prefer they develop it on Red Hat (or any LBS certified distro really, which Ubuntu LTS version hasn't been since 8.04 and regular version since 9.04), just to ensure a minimum of standardization, and thus compatibility, even if LBS doesn't have that much strength currently.

[GreatEmerald]

Well, the Xbox 360 has been around for 7 years now, so if it is to stay for as long, it might need an even longer period of support, which RHEL/SLED would be able to cover.