"start urging Windows users to make the switch" "Proof of that comes from the screenshot you see above."
Really? This is at least slightly exaggerated. First thing I see is a big green button with a download link to the Windows installer. Then a invite to join a Beta program. That's not exactly urging anything. More like letting people now it's available.
While you are right, I do think it's fair to say that this is still a pretty prominent advert.
Usually Linux gets so sidelined that you have to hunt about for any details regarding compatibility/support, where as here Tux takes more screen real estate than the Windows download link. This is very unusual, so I can't blame a few Linux enthusiasts getting excited.
Also, the article does also raise a valid point about Valve's long term interest in Linux; their Steam Box is powered by it. So it's not a huge leap of faith to see this as the first of many gentle nudges away from Windows.
Though obviously there's also the chance that this might just end up as flat as the "year of the Linux desktop" predictions that happens every year.
I reinstalled Steam yesterday, and the about page is what you get when you click the "Install Steam" button on the homepage. So everybody visits it at least once.
Chiming in on the "get on Mono" train: it's true, you should get aboard ASAP.
I don't quite agree on the 'learn' part though, because it may sound frightening when for most purposes it is a direct C#+.Net port, so there's basically nothing to learn on the language/library front. It mostly revolves around the tooling (MonoDevelop is different from VS, mcs is different from the MS C# compiler, xbuild is different from msbuild, but source code is the same, assemblies are the same, sln/csproj files are the same). You will mostly lack WPF if you ever used it, and learn to use Path.Combine instead of hardcoded string concats and backslashes in paths (i.e write portable code), but you will benefit from having many Mono-only or Mono-bundled tools (csharp REPL[1}, ) and libs[0].
Miguel de Icaza regularly (re)tweets and promotes various community activities and achievements, so I recommend to follow him to get a feeling of what happens.
If you're daring enough, you can get on board and use emacs, which seems to be what the non-IDE Mono developer community revolves around, so emacs modes should be quite good (apparently, F# support is coming up nicely[2])
I worked on the backend team for a project at Aol which was written in C# and while most of my teammates used VS, I hated it and used vim on linux instead. I was able to successfully compile all of their code while sharing the same project files. Mono is really a great C# port, in running as well as building.
Mono is awesome. I haven't used linux in years, but I managed to install linuxmint and setup Mono + Nginx + ServiceStack over the weekend. It's a bit difficult at first, but when it works it's nice. You can even build in visual studio and copy the files over to your linux box.
If your BIOS supports booting from USB, you can try Ubuntu without the hassle of having to install it and all the partition troubles that come with installing any OS.
After that you just insert it before booting, go to your BIOS, pick boot from USB, wait for it to load and then pick "Try Ubuntu". You'll get the full blown experience of the Ubuntu operating system, and can snoop around and get a general idea of how it works. Should your interests not be met, you can just shut down the session and computer, remove the USB stick and it'll boot Windows like it always did. That's all there is to it.
Should you however want to get your feet wet, I'd say install it as a Dual Boot, or install it on an older machine you have lying around. You'll get to see it come to life after using it for a more lengthy period of time.
Don't worry about C#, Mono can suit you if that need must be met, and if you're proficient in C#, Java will be very easy to master. A year ago, I wrote my Master's thesis in C#, using a Microsoft Surface (tabletop). But I've shifted my attention to Ubuntu 12.10 and Android since, and that transition went very smoothly.
As a rule of thumb: A computer should make my work easier, at the first glance that there has been a sacrifice in workflow or efficiency, I'm out.
I've been using Win 8 for about 4-5 months now, and I love it.
We've started to roll it out to power users in various companies (i.e. people that ask for it), and I have yet to have anyone say anything negative about it.
You read a tech blog though and they act like it's the apocalypse.
I find that shutting it down and even putting it on standby requires too many actions.
Metro app's don't fit in with the desktop version, they should run as a desktop app. Running a metro app breaks the Windows key which instead of bouncing you between desktop and the start screen will bounce you between the metro app and start screen..
Multiple monitors. Windows 8 corners become iffy on the join between monitors. (Why not just remove these hover areas?) The start screen seems to randomly choose a monitor to appear in. For some reason my right monitor doesn't have the clock. On the desktop, both monitors have my application icons at the bottom yet the program opens on the last monitor it was opened on instead of the monitor in which you press the button.
I love the start screen. I think its so much better than the Windows 7 start button. I think Windows8 is alright in the same way Vista was alright. It was better than XP but had a bunch of annoyances. I can see why people like Windows 8 but I can't see why anyone would say they love it.
For the Start screen - it opens on the monitor you last did something in "metro" on. For example, if you opened the Charms bar (Win+C or hot corner), and open "Settings," Start will now open on that monitor. You can always force the Start screen to open on your monitor of choice by opening the Charms bar on that monitor and clicking on "Start" or by using the lower left hot corner. However, there's no way (to my knowledge) of doing this with the Windows key alone.
For the taskbar issue, you can change that. Right-click on the taskbar, choose "Properties." Under "Show taskbar buttons on:" select another option. I personally prefer "Main taskbar and taskbar where window is open." But to each his own.
> You can always force the Start screen to open on your monitor of choice by opening the Charms bar on that monitor and clicking on "Start" or by using the lower left hot corner.
I wouldn't call that "force". It's more like "constantly remind".
*Correction: As noted by another user, Win+Page Up and Page Down can be used to change the monitor on which the Start screen appears. Apologies for any confusion - I forgot about this hotkey.
That kind of defeats the purpose of having software controls. You can as well unplug the whole thing or remove the battery violently on a laptop and claim "it's still as straightforward as before!".
How do you interact with software? With keys/buttons. Think of power button as another key. Microsoft conditioned all of us to never ever touch that power button, but it is all right now. I promise.
The power button is a software control. It generates an interrupt, and the operating system shuts down the computer. For all purposes, the exact same deal as if you hit the software power button.
Not exactly. When you consider the legacy Desktop also as an app, the behavior is consistent. Windows key just swaps between the start screen and the current app.
Start screen appears on the last monitor you launched the modern app or charms.
For switching Start screen between multiple monitors, try Windows + PageUp (or Windows + PageDown).
You can change the taskbar settings. Right click on taskbar -> properties -> Taskbar where window is open (under show taskbar buttons on).
> I find that shutting it down and even putting it on standby requires too many actions.
Make sure no windows have focus (i.e., click on the background) and hit ALT+F4. This also works in vmconnect and remote desktop windows, where hitting the corners is near impossible.
Why not use Windows 7? It's so far my favorite version and from what I've seen, Windows 8 is complete trash (this is what happens when you try to force tablet interfaces onto desktop users). There's nothing wrong with going back a version.
Switching to linux is a great idea, but I suggest you make the switch gradually: use a VM (ie Virtualbox) and install a popular distro (Ubuntu seems good for newer linux users). Try it in fullscreen mode for a while and if you get stuck/frustrated, Windows is always there to welcome you back with open arms.
Then again, there's something to be said for just diving in and figuring it out...depends on what your goals are.
Also, as mentioned, check out Mono. It's a very good framework if you use C#.
I've used Win8 since the launch now (before I was using CentOS) and just yesterday I installed a Win7 VM because I needed to test a few things and Win7 felt like something from the last century. Everybody should upgrade to Win8. It's my favorite version.
So you see, we can play the i-like-this-so-should-you game until our Sun explodes. We won't have accomplished much though.
apparently, win8 has some performance improvements over win7 (this is like a tertiary source, so take it with a grain of salt), which might be attractive to some for upgrading
One way to break free of C# is to get familiar with the JVM by building a side project using Clojure or Scala. You'll be able to read Java just fine so that is an option too.
Another option is to learn how to develop mobile apps for iOS and/or Android. Those skills are in strong demand and your skills with an IDE and debugger will transfer easily.
I switched from C# 3 years ago and haven't touched Windows even for personal use in almost a year. If you need any other tips or guidance feel free to reach out to me (email is in my HN profile).
There is always a reason to stay with Windows. This one is new to me, but understandable. Other popular reasons: Tool XY is Windows/Mac only, no Games on Linux, Hardware XY won't work...
The best way to start is using a dual-boot configuration, you cannot do much wrong with Ubuntu 12.10. And then, slowly but surely you can switch to Linux. This process took me about 5 years. (It finished when XP didn't boot anymore because of a blue screen.)
Regarding C#... Learn Mono, then you'll be at the spearhead of Cross-Platform C# usage. ;-) (Or add another language to your experience portfolio.) And checkout VMWare and VirtualBox...
Your opening sentence makes me wonder: why does it have to be an all-out switch?
When you need a car for getting places and a truck for moving things, and you can afford both, you don't need to choose between one or the other. You can have both, and use each for what you need it for. Operating systems are not a life-choice; they do not demand exclusive relationships.
Convenience and it's a time saver. I can only tell from my experience during a certain time:
* my cheap TV card only worked on Windows reliably
* most cool games did not work on WINE (and Unreal Tournament can become boring after some time)
* Webcam did not work on Linux (in fact until 2 or 3 years this was still a big issue)
* One word: MS Office
* many websites did only work on Windows
Yes and that's when you dual boot. So when listening to music and web surfing on Linux, I couldn't write a letter on Linux. Because StarOffice/OpenOffice had significantly lower quality than MS Office during that time. I couldn't play a video game and afterwards browse through my MP3 collection.
In such a situation you will almost naturally stay with the system that has most features for you, i.e. Windows here.
Today's "migrators" are lucky because emulator technology has evolved a lot and modern consumer (multi-core!) CPUs have some serious virtualization support. Moreover many applications moved to the Web. 10 years ago the only thing genuinly cross platform where some super ugly Java apps.
By the way, I am a Linux, OS X and Windows user. However the stuff I use works (luckily) on all 3 OSs. (Ok, I'm honest, not on Windows. ;)) Nowadays I enjoy switching computers and OSs, however this is only possible because I use Unix stuff and that just works almost everywhere.
Being poly-operating-system also gives you a unique viewpoint and can be an advantage in most things, provided you're using each OS for what they are best at and not just trying to emulate a different OS.
I do all my work in Linux and when I'm coding, spend about 90% of my time in Linux, but for my most recent setup, I elected to run my Linux install in VirtualBox on a Windows 7 host and this has worked very well for me so far. I use a tiling window manager and spend most of my time in terminals anyway (vim is my editor of choice), so its not like my install requires a lot of resources - its almost like running a terminal in a fancy window. I use windows for (non-documentation) related web browsing, for using Visio, Office (since my other team members use it, I find its less trouble if I do too) and Balsamiq and, most of all, for playing games.
I've been using Windows 8 on a gaming PC I built myself for the first time in 6 years (I've been using Macs for work since), so I completely missed all versions of Windows between XP and now.
While I love the initial Metro start screen experience, two things really drive me crazy:
1. Metro just seems tacked on. Why can't I stay within that experience all the time? Instead I'm ejected to the normal Windows desktop that is essentially what I was using on Windows XP years ago. It's like they didn't have the balls to go all the way, and coming from Apple that drives me crazy.
2. It's very easy to get lost in Metro once you start clicking around. There is generally never an obvious way to get back to where you were previously due to the absence of any depth, breadcrumbs, or even just a "back" button. Hell, you can't even right click and go back.
I wouldn't say Python would make you regret spending time with C#, in fact, his experience with a language like C# will be beneficial to his coding patterns.
Python is an awesome language, but don't mistake the fact that C# is also a very good language and often times a perfectly valid language to use.
Python's dynamicness is something you love and hate. Same goes for JavaScript (at least strict mode JS) in my experience. It's much nicer having the compiler tell you there's an undefined variable instead of the runtime.
I'm in a similar boat, but thankfully my experience in C# wasn't comprehensive. I'm now typing this from Ubuntu. Windows as many seem to indicate isn't bad.
Linux gets my work done, and Windows for designing & entertainment. Dual boot and you won't miss anything (Ubuntu can read/write to NTFS)
I actually know several languages, on my free time I mainly use C++ and while I've only played with it I like go and Clojure. I just don't have any professional experience with these languages yet (other then some MFC stuff using C++ though i'd prefer not putting that on my resume in fear someone might want me to actually use it haha)
Porting TF2 was a nice touch (and I have it installed on my Linux partition for a quick lunchtime game whilst working) but I need quite a few other games to be ported before I could consider using it more often.
Give it a few years though; I think there'll be a slow trickle of games for a while, but it'll start to ramp up as some of the bigger studios realise there's a market there.
It's not quite as stable yet. First time I played it ran flawlessly (and at the same speed as it does under Windows). Since then I've had a few issues like excessive screen tearing and missing audio, but they're not too bad for what is still considered a beta.
Just for rough specs; both my Windows 7 64-bit & Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit installs have their own SSD (Samsung 830), on an i5 2500k/8GB RAM/nVidia 560TI machine. TF2 is installed on both the SSDs.
Interesting, thanks! I use Windows mostly, but I dabble in Ubuntu every now and then as well, and I might have a spare computer soon, so I though I'd give it a try. Didn't want to bother with it if it wasn't ready for prime time though.
Sadly, there still are a few dealbreaker apps that prevent me to switching to Linux.
There's also the massive back catalogue Windows has, my girlfriend loves playing random PopCap games and other casual-friendly stuff that are not yet click-and-play in Linux - was going to say "not available" but Google has an installation guide for Wine, but not yet available to mainstream users.
62 games isn't impressive at all. Most of the games I bought (indie, mostly) have Linux versions that work fine in Ubuntu, but they aren't on Steam!
I expect they'll probably arrive soon, since all the Humble Bundles have been Linux-friendly for ages, but they don't have the games available now. They're probably trying to get the client more stable, I guess.
I really don't follow the Linux news, I'm comparing to 2007 which was the last time I had a Linux desktop (SuSE with KDE), where the only available games were Frozen Bubbles and some half-baked sim game clones.
Seeing mainstream support (Steam and others), and 62 titles shows Linux has gone a long way, and of course the rise of web gaming is a huge boon.
Oh, things are much better now. All the games I buy nowadays (mostly indie, as I said) run on Linux, which is where I play them (or don't, as I don't have time). Steam on Linux is fantastic, since we'll probably see adoption from authors who otherwise wouldn't consider it, but there are fantastic games available for Linux nowadays.
I don't like First Person Shooters (even the original Wolfenstein gave me motion sickness, and I don't have great motor skills), that's why I forgot about those.
I've always liked turn-based strategy games, or real time strategy games (at medium or slow speeds, I get destroyed on online matches), puzzle games, point-and-click graphic adventure games, etc... and I distinctly remember searching for those and not finding much back then.
I definitely need to give Linux another try, but I don't manage to convince myself to set aside the time (it might be a good investment, though :) )
The steam client has two different counts for the games: 62 and 43. When you click the number 62 you get a search result with 43 entires. My guess is that this is due to DLCs being excluded and Crusader Kings having like 15 DLCs.
Oh God, I pray they don't make DOTA2 available on Linux. The only thing stopping me from wasting my life there is that I have to reboot to Windows to play.
Any idea what would be the ratio of games available if you considered the Mac platform instead of Linux Steam ? This may give us an indication of how much "conversions" we can expect in a couple of years.
Just looked through the list. A quarter of the listed games are Crusader Kings II and all it's DLC. It's a good game, but...
As a mac user, I don't see a good reason to get a Linux box for steam as most the Linux games are also for OSX. This is important to me as I am completely open to the next generation of consoles. Nintendo is automatically out but I have been considering going back to windows if the next generation of playstation and Xbox do not excite me. If the Linux steam catalog was at least in the ball park of the windows catalog I would consider it.
It's still in beta and they are probably restricting the number of entries for now. My guess is that when the client if officially stable you will see much more games made available.
Do the updates need to happen in the games themselves (with the original developer involved) or is this something that Valve can fix with virtualization? If it's the former (and I suspect it is) then I'm sure they'll have a tough time getting older games moved over.
I don't think this is urging users to switch to Linux, but at least the huge penguin is the most obvious thing on the page: it's the biggest, it's visually distinctive, and it's smack in the middle of the page. So they are definitely trying to raise awareness of Steam for Linux to the larger audience.
I just rebuilt my desktop yesterday, and downloaded Steam for it. The above is what you get when you click the "Install Steam" button on their homepage, and it definitely caught my eye.
Would the (many, many) games I've already purchased on Steam work on Linux? Will Steam for Linux ship with WINE or something similar? If not, I don't see the real value for someone like me.
The games will work if there is a Linux port on Steam and you've already bought for Windows/Mac. You don't have to buy twice. However there seems to be a few games with working Linux ports that aren't available in Steam under Linux yet, bastion being one example.
I believe most of the Steam Linux games available are native ports and don't use Wine.
Maybe there are some that do use Wine, but I don't imagine that they will make them available through Steam unless they are confident that they will actually work.
So the real question here is, "what is the real value of this assuming you already have a dedicated Windows PC or a dual boot for gaming?"
For myself it is nice to have a few good quality indie games available to play if I fancy a short break from coding on my Linux box without having to power cycle my PC. For serious gaming sessions Windows is still king for now.
The real question is about future games. There seems to be increasing interest in cross platform toolkits for game development, this is probably most because people want to target iOS and Android rather than Linux however.
However if it gets to the point where Linux just becomes another output format for a cross platform game engine (like unity3d) then perhaps you can expect future game titles to become available on Linux simply because the friction to launch on the platform is so low.
How do you know ports will be free? It removes most of the incentive that developers would have to make a good port: money (unless Valve pays for the ports, which would be very expensive).
The ports are currently free on the beta, assuming you have bought the original. Seems unlikely that they will change that as "buy once, run anywhere" seems to be a big selling point of Steam.
I guess in terms of incentives to do ports, if Valve plans to launch a Linux based Steam box they can tempt developers with more prominent placing of games with Linux ports, a larger audience (assuming Steambox has good sales) or even flat out make it a requirement to get onto Steam.
There are also current Linux users like myself who are just more tempted to buy a game if it has a Linux port.
Valve doesn't have any business muscling developers into this or that platform. It's wrong if Microsoft does it, and it's wrong if Valve does it. Let the better platform win, in an open and competitive way. (I'm confident Linux would win out in such a contest, btw.)
FWIW, that's not a hard rule. There is at least one recent game (Call of Duty: Black Ops) that you have to buy separately if you want to play on both Mac and PC.
Currently on the Steam client I have installed on my laptop that runs Mint, I can install roughly 20 games from my existing Steam library. Some of these games were available the moment I installed the client, others gained working Linux ports and became available in the Linux client with no action on my part.
Beside the Call of Duty port for Mac mentioned below, I know of no other game that has required multiple purchases for multiple platforms.
The incentive to game developers to port to Linux is that they expand their market by allowing people who only run Linux to play and they also make their product more attractive to people like myself who dual-boot Windows and Linux, but would prefer not to have to reboot into Windows to play a game.
> I believe most of the Steam Linux games available are native ports and don't use Wine.
Games ported using Wine are native ports. Wine's design goal was as a library that developers would use it to port their applications to run natively on any platform Wine supported. Remember, wine is not an emulator.
> However if it gets to the point where Linux just becomes another output format for a cross platform game engine (like unity3d) then perhaps you can expect future game titles to become available on Linux simply because the friction to launch on the platform is so low.
That's probably why Valve wants to push Linux through a specific Steam Box hardware: that will drive a larger user base running Linux to play games. Not sure if that strategy will work, however, since it will rely heavily on third party publishers to support the platform.
I've read (but can't confirm) that many Mac games run through Wine. Wine's bad reputation mostly comes from the one-size fits all approach normally used. If the developers of each game individually configured, and packaged, their game with Wine, they would all run quite well. This is probably the path many games will take, if at all, due to the cost of trying to redevelop a Windows-only game for Linux.
only a small percentage of them would work. You will need to double boot or run some VM of windows in the background to play the rest. That is why Steam on Linux will fail. Look at Steam for Mac. OS X has far more desktop penetration, than Linux yet the good games are just not there thus no one uses it. Big games today have millions of dollar budgets. I really do not think they will have a Linux port for an additional <1% increase in sales. Indie games trying to compete on a near empty playing field is all you are likely to see for some time on Linux.
For some reason I don't want to install Steam on my Ubuntu partition. I use it to get work done. If I feel like playing a game I just boot into my Windows 7 partition.
Having a "work boot" has done wonders for my productivity.
I'd understand the headline if it was a pop-up for those using the Steam Client on Windows.
As it is, it looks like they're just using their website to advertise. Not really targeting Windows users specifically.
I would love to switch to Ubuntu at home, games is one of the reasons I don't; Unity being the other.
This may be isolated to my experience, but the PCs that I've installed Ubuntu on suffer huge performance drops when using Unity. Most of these PCs were running XP, one them is running Win 7. I even had one machine running like a dream on Ubuntu 11.04 then upgraded to 11.10, now it's nearly unusable.
I've drank the Ubuntu kool-aid in the past, but now it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
*edit for clarification, I'm referring to Ubuntu's new default UI: Unity.
I'm not saying you need to leave Windows 7, I don't care what you use. Use what you're happy with. I was just trying to help out the guy who had trouble with Unity.
The graphical effects in Unity can be quite taxing on lower-end computers (i tried running 12.04 on my 3 year old netbook, not very pleasant). If, however, you still enjoy the stability and ease-of-use of Ubuntu, you can always install the classic gnome interface (sudo apt-get install gnome-panel) and use that instead for a significant performance boost.
I only used it for a few minutes, but I installed it on my sister's netbook and she uses it exclusively. From what I saw, all applications looked exactly the same, save for the window manager chrome. Lubuntu is closer to Windows with a Start-like menu and the applications there, so if you're more familiar with Windows, you will probably find it easier.
I haven't delved deep into it, so I couldn't tell you how easily you can find the settings or whatnot, or if there are issues that aren't in another window manager. Given that you can install it with just an "apt-get install lubuntu", though, it'll probably be faster if you tried it yourself!
It's not isolated.. Recently I quickly needed some linux distro in a VM to test some things out and since I just found a premade VirtualBox image of the latest Ubuntu I tried that. Could hardly believe how slow it felt. I know a VM is not the real thing, but given that anything else I run in it flies it's at least an indication something is wrong.
I have found recently out that VmWare Player works better with Ubuntu 12.10 than VirtualBox. Difference is "you can work with it" and "I will suffer because I need it".
Constantly confused by that as well. Try to find information about running Unity3D (the game engine) on Linux via virtualbox/vmware is nearly impossible because every result describes running the 3d effects of Unity (the UI thing) inside a Linux VM.
I don't know about VMWare, but last I checked VirtualBox couldn't do GPU passthrough, so 3D effects and games would only be able to chug along on the CPU.
My biggest issue with Steam on Linux is the load times. They seem ridiculous for no discernible reason. Based on my watch opening simply loading a game must read through 20 Gigabytes of files. Oh, wait. The game is only 14 G on disk. Maybe it's 14 gigs of ridiculously compressed data?
Connecting to servers in TF2 takes an eternity, too.
Does this mean that Ubuntu supports GPU Hardware acceleration drivers?
I am not an expert on the matter, but it seems that most Linux distributions used to lack this, unless you had a specific Card that had drivers for it under yer distro ..
Please feel free to correct me. This is one of the issues which prevents me from 'jumping' completely onto Ubuntu.
The official proprietary drivers for nvidia and amd gpus tend to work pretty well, and Ubuntu will prompt you to install them. The open source ones are generally not suitable for games yet.
If you run the first command but have an Optimus card, the program will still run, but it will use the weak Intel GPU instead of the powerful nvidia GPU -- which is plenty powerful enough for "normal" desktop usage like web browsing, email, word processing, or video players, but a recent 3D game will likely turn into a slideshow.
Hopefully the Steam client will make it easy for people to use Bumblebee by giving a GUI to install the PPA and automatically invoking 3D games with optirun.
Accelerated GPU drivers have existed for linux for ages. I was playing Counter Strike and Quake on linux in 2000 or so. I speak mostly about nvidia cards as I've only owned those. Maybe others can chime in about ATI/AMD but even those have had accelerated support for a good long while. The nvidia driver quality is on par or better with the windows one: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTE1M... & http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidi...
Blatant sensationalism; its on their About page and appears to users of all OS's, not just Windows. Just had a look on a Mac and Linux and the page is static.
If you're already using Linux as your day-to-day OS, there's no reason for you not to install Steam already, as there's no "switch" for you to make.
If you are using Windows and aren't looking to switch otherwise, there's no reason to do it, since all games work fine there. This is for people who've wanted to switch (or have already switched) to Linux and miss Steam, or dual-boot (like me).
So, basically, you're not the target market, and nobody cares what you do!
>If you are using Windows and aren't looking to switch otherwise, there's no reason to do it.
Depends on what you mean by 'not looking to switch'. Permanent, set in stone decision? Then sure, no point in proving that 1 == 1. But decisions drift and change (which is nice), and so does software (which in some cases is excellent). So I wouldn't be that categorical.
I'd agree that for some folks Steam not running on Linux may be the only reason to stay with Windows (though I don't think they miss Steam, as you put that; I think what they miss are their games - owned ones and not yet released - and venomsnake says just that, actually), but I'm pretty sure there's quite a large number of people who consider many different general-purpose sides of switching platforms (gaming, music, video, paper/docs work, some development), and for them Linux version of Steam as a provider of games may be an important signal.
Of course it is an important signal, but they don't say "I'll switch when all my games work, to the very last (even the ones I have no intention of ever playing again), and not a moment earlier". That's just an unreasonable position, which I'm sure not even venomsnake really believes.
Now that I typed that, it's obvious that we're feeding the troll.
It was not attempted trolling. The problem comes from the fact that even if there cannot be "some" games working under linux. And i will try to argument myself. My steam and gog library is about 200 games. For the majority of them - i will never touch them again. But there are maybe 20 games that I play regularly. The problem comes from the fact that they are scattered trough time and technology.
Giving up on the most of the games will be easy, not so much on vampire the masquerade, deus ex, painkiller, icewind dale, jedi outcast,skyrim, psychonauts or heroes 3. These are games I tend to play a lot.
But you don't have much chance with compatibility - if you make any of these games work, there is strong chance you will be able to make most of the games of this generation also playable. And then comes the thing that everyone has some games that are dearly loved but they are different for each person.
So yeah - all is not what I meant. So if Gabe wants the linux users to play from now on - that is amazing. If they want to get people to switch the comparability is important. And for old games too - because for some they are beloved classics that have stood the test of time.
We both know that's not going to happen. First of all, how would Valve go about porting thousands of games _made by other developers_?
The main point is that Valve is trying to push for something different from Windows for gaming, and they're progressing nicely, which i think is commendable. Next time i get tired of waiting for my Windows 7 desktop to boot, I'll probably install some Linux distribution instead; Steam for linux can now satisfy most, if not all, of my gaming needs.
But sure, it'd be nice to have _all_ of my steam games working natively on linux, but why stop there? I demand that someone makes _every game ever developed_ natively compatible with linux.
Why port - the games use very little of the windows API. They shouldn't go very deep into COM. An emulator layer could do the trick, and moore's law will take care of the performance penalty in a year or two.
If my 7970 makes sure bioshock runs as well it did on GTX 7900 6 years back that is fine for me.
And the truth is I want to switch. But my 200 games are holding me back. If Gabe is serious about the platform - he has smart people, they can produce something.
The issue is so much more complex than providing an "emulator layer".
There's no practical way to provide a software layer except for what Wine does, and it too is riddled with issues here and there and some are fatal while others simply make usability a pain. And it's been under development for years.
Valve is getting Steam for Linux ready for the day when you may have to choose between keeping your Steam library on your existing PC or throwing it away to use some Windows 8 descendent. They are hoping you'll be able to switch to Linux instead of just losing everything (or never upgrading your computer).
The games I'm interested in will probably never be ported. Valve needs to get in on the Wine project, specifically with an eye toward improving the gaming experience, and then integrate that into Steam/Linux.
While I'd love to get rid of Windows as my gaming OS, I can't see this happening while game developers still use (and enjoy) Direct X and D3D over Open GL.
Why has not a single person pointed out that the number of Linux games is very obviously artificially low? All of the Source engine based games are effectively ported via the TF2 port.
And no mention of the momentum that will be caused by the Steam box?
Really? This is at least slightly exaggerated. First thing I see is a big green button with a download link to the Windows installer. Then a invite to join a Beta program. That's not exactly urging anything. More like letting people now it's available.