"Steam is coming to Linux" @michaellarabel

[prowler]

Michael Larabel founder of some Linux site Phoronix had a tour and talk at Valve, here's what he has to say:

[21:34:25] i'm interested to hear about the stuff besides just source/steam client
[21:35:23] birch: I think I'll resist commenting on that for now
[21:35:48] how was your tour of valve?
[21:35:57] no problem, still interesting to hears other things are on the horizon, seems like rumors might actually be true
[21:36:06] tour? The tour took 5 minutes.... the Linux stuff took 6 hours.
[21:36:27] the 'rumors' for Linux on Valve are so tame compared to their grand plans
[21:37:03] that is wonderful that they are really taking linux seriously
[21:37:23] it was amazing....
[21:37:44] Gabe was bashing Windows harder than I even do normally..... hell I'm trying out Windows 8 soon as I get back to my office as I want to see if it's as bad as he says
[21:38:38] wow
[21:38:50] that is pretty amazing
[21:38:56] Raff [[email protected]] has quit IRC: Quit: Ex-Chat
[21:40:20] will more information be coming later this week?
[21:42:33] so did you read the employee handbook beforehand?
[21:46:05] I'm writing an article right now
[21:46:15] oh ok
[21:54:08] it was really terrific, argh. having problems writing.
[21:54:36] have some more beer!
[22:00:53] haha
[22:01:05] I had a lot of fun running the Linux client binaries, felt so refreshing.
[22:01:24] They let me run free on a developers' workstation as I was doing some driver testing and setting up some debugging stuff, etc.
[22:02:52] so did you get to wheel a desk around?
[22:03:38] no, it was already setup
[22:06:04] sounds great
[22:10:15] I might actually have to wait until tomorrow morning to finish writing..... this was just so surprising with listening to Gabe about Linux.
[22:10:55] he's a former Microsoft employee though right?
[22:11:01] yes
[22:11:06] even funnier to hear then.
[22:11:45] A quote from my upcoming article already, " Listening to Gabe Newell talk about Linux for hours made me wonder whether he was a former ex-Microsoft employee (where he actually did work in his pre-Valve days...) or the director of the Linux Foundation. "
[22:11:54] take your time with the article, a well thought out article is always better than a rushed one

here's his article http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_linux_dampfnudeln&num=1

via

 

[Gahars]

I guess Gabe Newell wanted his piece of the Linux Market pie.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

Uh yeah, I saw the development screens of L4D2 being ported to Linux. Isn't this old news?

 

[Costello]

so when Steam becomes compatible with Linux, I believe that doesnt necessarily mean that all existing games on the library will be linux compatible too ?
will it be limited to a specific range of games?

 

[Clarky]

so when Steam becomes compatible with Linux, I believe that doesnt necessarily mean that all existing games on the library will be linux compatible too ?
will it be limited to a specific range of games?

i would imagine so going by the way they do things with macs, but on the plus side if you bought a windows version of a game they would usually give you the mac version free

 

[FAST6191]

Interesting. I suppose that they have a mac version means it was mainly some logistics and build stuff going into making a linux version (I say some but if that quote above is anything to go by this is probably a hell of a lot of effort which is commendable).

@ Costello yeah I can not imagine they beat wine into shape (although I guess DX9 over there is looking half decent these days) or otherwise provided an emulation layer or even something for developers to do a quick recompile with but they have pushed the openGL stuff harder for games than it had been in years previous. My main question though is if they approached the big two about some drivers or some such as I can see some stuff happening there which would be interesting.

 

[koji2009]

The day Valve releases a working steam client for Linux with L4D2, and TF2 will be the day I can finally give true serious thought to dropping windows. I've been trying to give up windows for years, but with windows 8 on the horizon it's looking more and more like the switch will be in the next couple years.

I do have one of my two laptops as a full time Mint box, but it's a non-gaming system so the switch was easy. Being able to play some of my favorite games (with hopes of many more since Linux ports shouldn't be any more difficult than Mac) and AMD's linux drivers FINALLY starting to be half-way decent can push me over the edge for that easily.

 

[FAST6191]

Well koji2009 there are ports of those two for the mac that allow crossplay (well I know l4d2 does) so you might well be getting your wish.

What I am probably banking on more though is some of the more interesting things happening in virtualisation- if we are stuck with the current consoles or equivalents and those as lead platforms for another couple of years and things carry on as is the overhead reductions and underlying hardware might well make 3d games possible.