Phoronix Confirms GNU/Linux Steam and Source Engine Clients [Slashdot]

[DP ServBot]

http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/-YGd_2eHYNs6QuwutNOH0yfTIXY/0/di (http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/-YGd_2eHYNs6QuwutNOH0yfTIXY/0/da)
http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/-YGd_2eHYNs6QuwutNOH0yfTIXY/1/di (http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/-YGd_2eHYNs6QuwutNOH0yfTIXY/1/da)
nukem996 writes "After initially reporting in 2010 that Valve was working on a native GNU/Linux client, one has finally been confirmed. Michael Larabel recently visited Valve's Bellvue, WA based office and has been able to see it himself. Included in the article are screenshots of the client running and speculation of a release."Valve has yet to officially comment, but you'd hope they wouldn't invite someone up to their offices and send them home to spew lies.http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png (http://twitter.com/home?status=Phoronix+Confirms+GNU%2FLinux+Steam+an d+Source+Engine+Clients%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FI 90g9w)http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgames.slashdot.org%2Fsto ry%2F12%2F04%2F25%2F1241241%2Fphoronix-confirms-gnulinux-steam-and-source-engine-clients%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfac ebook)http://www.gstatic.com/images/icons/gplus-16.png (http://plus.google.com/share?url=http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/04/25/1241241/phoronix-confirms-gnulinux-steam-and-source-engine-clients?utm_source=slashdot&utm_medium=googleplus)

Read more of this story (http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/04/25/1241241/phoronix-confirms-gnulinux-steam-and-source-engine-clients?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed) at Slashdot.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotGames/~4/tQP0eQlZMV4

[Nz17]

Let me be the first here to say, "Woo!"

When this Linux Steam client is released to the public, I will hardly ever be booting back into Windows again. Most of my PC game purchases these past few years have been through Steam and while I realize that it is not like all Windows games sold through Steam will magically be running natively on Linux, Valve's games alone will be enough to keep me entertained - particularly Team Fortress 2. It's not that I don't have a lot of Linux-based games already, both open source and commercial, but most of them are single-player games that I have finished or multi-player games of which I've grown bored. And a lot of the third-party games which I've purchased through Steam have Linux versions already so I expect them to be available through Steam Play either at launch or shortly thereafter.

Besides for most games, there really isn't many of my computer tasks which are "Windows exclusive" these days. All my e-mail, Web browsing, video watching, and more can be completed under Linux, often with faster, better software. And WINE and SCUMMVM will let me run most of my older games just fine... and some newer ones too. So with the last piece of the puzzle "solved," I'll probably stay booted into Linux much more often now. :)

[Kitsune Sniper]

Keep in mind these were the same guys that said this... in 2008.

So, I'm still taking this with a huge grain of salt.

[Berserker]

Hopefully it's better than the Mac client. While initially I found it to be functional if a bit alien, inevitably every fresh install would reach a point where it'd wig out and download the latest version of the client, over and over again, forever. Steam support was of little help, as all they seemed to be familiar with was the Windows version, so eventually I just gave up trying to make it work and stuck to using it in Windows.

[Nz17]

Keep in mind these were the same guys that said this... in 2008. So, I'm still taking this with a huge grain of salt.

They originally broke this story in 2010, not 2008. And in this 2012 follow-up story, the author was actually invited to Valve headquarters in Seattle, told all this information in person by Gabe Newell, and then spent the next few days playing with the Steam client and Linux versions of the games while there. Read the article for photos of the Valve staff, the games, and their work environment. The company even hired at least one guy that the author of the article recommended to them last month and asked him for more recommendations this time.


I just gave up trying to make it [the Mac version] work and stuck to using it in Windows.

I wonder if it improved any from the last time you used the Mac Steam client... If you find out, would you let us know?

[Berserker]

I wonder if it improved any from the last time you used the Mac Steam client... If you find out, would you let us know?

Sure. After I gave up on Mac Steam, I finally got around to splitting my primary partition 50/50 OS X and Windows 7, so that's where I do pretty much all of my gaming right now. But if I do end up trying it again later and find the experience not-terrible, I'll put the word in here.

I think the main source of wonkiness with the Mac client though is the fact that it was made in Adobe AIR, an app environment that was apparently discontinued on Linux almost a year ago. So if they're making a Linux client now, perhaps they're cobbling it together from scratch, which would greatly decrease the odds of similar awfulness, I would think.

[Kitsune Sniper]

They originally broke this story in 2010, not 2008.

Nope. 2008. (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=steam_confirmation&num=1)

So while it may exist, I don't think it'll be released any time soon.

My guess is that they decided to do this after someone beat them to it, and quite hard. (http://www.desura.com/)

[Nz17]

@Kitsune Sniper: Oops, thanks for correcting me on that. I thought it was earlier than 2010 originally, but the new article cites a prior article from 2010.

@Berserker: I actually think that the modern Steam client uses QT for its GUI toolkit, not Adobe AIR.