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Steam For Linux Beta Adds Experimental Namespaces/Containers Support

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  • Steam For Linux Beta Adds Experimental Namespaces/Containers Support

    Phoronix: Steam For Linux Beta Adds Experimental Namespaces/Containers Support

    Longtime Linux game developer Timothee Besset has outlined the support introduced by Valve this week in their latest Steam Linux client beta for supporting Linux namespaces / containers. This experimental functionality may in the end provide better support for 32-bit compatibility as more Linux distributions focus solely on x86_64 packages, reducing some of the fragmentation/library conflicts between some Linux distributions and Steam, and other headaches currently plaguing the Steam Linux space...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    As mentioned in the article, I think this is yet another NIH syndrome. Value really does not need to reinvent flatpak/snap/AppImage again.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by zxy_thf View Post
      As mentioned in the article, I think this is yet another NIH syndrome. Value really does not need to reinvent flatpak/snap/AppImage again.
      They aren't:

      The flatpak solution wraps the entire Steam client, whereas Valve's approach is to wrap individual games first. Both approaches rely on the same technologies and we are looking into improving compatibility in the future.
      That's from the linked Valve statement (emphasis mine). All they are doing is working on compatibility issues with the needed approach to containerize individual games and not have layers of containers which the unofficial Steam flatpak would require. Right now it's a container for each game nested inside the Steam container. That's an awkward and unworkable solution both in the near and long term.

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      • #4
        Valve kinda shot themselves in the foot when they made Steam a 32-bit application. But, the idea of containers isn't a bad one.

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        • #5
          schmidtbag I think there's a difference between Steam in 32-bit and the games launched by it. The games architecture isn't related to Steam's architecture IMHO.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by stormcrow View Post

            They aren't:

            That's from the linked Valve statement (emphasis mine). All they are doing is working on compatibility issues with the needed approach to containerize individual games and not have layers of containers which the unofficial Steam flatpak would require. Right now it's a container for each game nested inside the Steam container. That's an awkward and unworkable solution both in the near and long term.
            I'm Okay with a containerized steam with nested containerized games.
            The native steam causes lots of troubles on my system and the flatpak one works flawlessly, and to containerize individual games also makes sense to me because there are likely fewer compatibility issues (just think of how much effort MS put in order to maintain backward compatibility).

            My real concern is it seems Value created yet another containerization solution, and we already have (at least) three.
            Last edited by zxy_thf; 11 November 2019, 12:33 AM.

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            • #7
              I see only positives in this. (And have been advocating it for a long time.)

              For those worried about a multitude of "container solutions", I will insist that this is not a problem, but rather exactly the intent of platform support for various and diverse container-ish features in Linux. One size does not fit all, and it's absolutely fine and good for Valve to create the best possible custom delivery system for games, with great user experience as the goal. What you want in gaming is not want you want in phone apps and not what you want in desktop applications (drag and drop!) and not want you want in system daemons and not want you want in Kubernetes pods and not what you want for Cloud-Native Network Functions (CNF). Open source will allow us to share technologies between these various containerized environments where relevant and appropriate.

              Container-like tech is a great way to deliver complete software or software components in many contexts. There are trade-offs, though. Duh. And so you want to weigh pros and cons and choose the best set of solutions for the particular experience you deliver.

              If Valve had to wait for the hobby community to solve the game delivery challenges we would all still be playing SuperTuxKart (no offense intended, great game!) and fiddling with WINE settings to almost get a few Windows games to run. Thank you, Valve, for charging ahead.

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              • #8
                For anyone who's wondering who "Timothee Besset" is, he's better known as TTimo and he was basically the Linux dev at id since around the late 90s. (IDK when he left there, but I'm assuming not too long after JohnC did). He's a great guy, and while the whole Flatpak vs Snap vs etc clusterfuck is something I'm already sick of, I have a lot of faith that whatever Valve's doing with it will be better off for him being involved.

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                • #9
                  I wish steam supported system-wide installation with no game data or executables in user-writable directory. I'd like to have my home partition mounted with noexec.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
                    Valve kinda shot themselves in the foot when they made Steam a 32-bit application. But, the idea of containers isn't a bad one.
                    They migrated most of the stuff either to webapp or to 64bit years ago. Keeping it 32bit is more of a political decision than a technical one, and even then it's mostly on Windows.

                    For example on Linux they don't even bother to ship the 32bit webkit rendering backend that runs most of the "webapp" components, resulting in Store, Community, or User Profile tabs in the Steam Client not working at all. So you basically cannot use Steam Client much on a 32bit Linux.
                    https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...4090-RTKZ-4347

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