Valve's Source Engine Coming To Linux

[Svartalf]

I do hope they'll get about the problem of the multitude of distributions

Heh... THAT is easy, believe it or not. LGP's done it all the time. The only gotcha would be a major ABI change that breaks the linkage rules for binaries. Loki Games stuff got busted on that- the devs didn't care because they're presuming that you'll have the vendor or distribution fix it for you.

Right now, as long as you're not trying to install for system-wide use, there's several differing ways to produce runtimes and install that just simply work for all distributions.

[HavarN]

Great news! Hope they'll release it soon. Personally, I wish most for a port of Steam to Linux.

I would buy the Orange Box, and probably most other games that get ported to Linux and distributed on Steam.

[StringCheesian]

that is, even if, say, Egosoft ports X3 to Linux, I'm not going to buy it because I already have a Windows copy.

This is why a Dualbooter's Special Edition is a much better idea (from a marketing standpoint) than just a regular Linux release of a Windows game.

[BlueKoala]

Hah! I seen steam coming to Linux in my imaginary crystal ball. Next is MS losing significant OS market share in 2009 (4.5%??). I'm doing my bit by installing Ubuntu on computers I sell a provide free support for it. So far I haven't had to support anything after initial setup =]

[Forge]

I'm all for it. I'm dual booting now, as are many (most?) Linux gamers, but I'd be thrilled to let my XP64 install gather more dust than it does. TF2 and Guild Wars are all I'm really playing ATM, and I have a pretty gnarly list of stuff purchased in Steam (thanks to the Epic/Id packs). Even if only Source gets ported so far, I'm certain that the sharp increase in reported Linux users (Steam does that) would help get some of the other stuff in Steam's catalog ported. Heck, just having Source ported opens up a whole REAM of mods and third party products. LOTS of games are built on Source, and when you add in Id (already have native versions, so Steaming is trivial) and Epic (likewise), that's a pretty large catalog.

[Forge]

Another thing that just occured to me:

WHEN?? This is all well and good, but are we hours, days, weeks, months, years, or 'when it's done' away from this getting into general users' hands??

I personally feel it would be nothing but a good thing, and I'd go so far as to advocate paying Valve a one-time 'transfer to Linux and pressure all Steam publishers to develop Linux ports' fee, but I'd like to know how soon this is expected.

[deanjo]

WHEN?? This is all well and good, but are we hours, days, weeks, months, years, or 'when it's done' away from this getting into general users' hands??.

Time for a new poll.....

Which will come first? Steam or DukeNukem Forever?

[Compxpert]

Time for a new poll.....

Which will come first? Steam of DukeNukem Forever?

Probably Steam since DNF as the title infers will be forever unreleased.

[deanjo]

Wow! Finally! Some mainstream coverage.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37354/144/

Hmmm, good news makes the mainstream Tech media but anything bad against Epic is suppressed.

[Michael]

Penguin Lovers Plaza... Nice. The INQ calls it Penguin's Place and there are also some other terms out there.