Valve haven't been sitting on their hands, as they have pushed out a fresh update for SteamOS that's currently in Beta. It's been a while and it's a good one.
They have rebased it against Kernel 4.11 and they have also updated the graphics drivers. The big thing here is that Valve have officially dropped AMDGPU-PRO in favour of Mesa. This goes to show how far Mesa has come, for Valve to be using it directly.
It also pulls in changes from the Debian 8.8 release, so it comes with everything there including the usual security updates too.
From the release notes:
Now they have this big update done and in Beta, I am keen to see what they do with SteamOS.
Find the release notes here.
Thanks for the info dubigrasu! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
They have rebased it against Kernel 4.11 and they have also updated the graphics drivers. The big thing here is that Valve have officially dropped AMDGPU-PRO in favour of Mesa. This goes to show how far Mesa has come, for Valve to be using it directly.
It also pulls in changes from the Debian 8.8 release, so it comes with everything there including the usual security updates too.
From the release notes:
QuoteIt has been a long time since the last update. We have not been idle. This update is huge. First, we have rebased our kernel changes on top of the latest 4.11 Linux kernel. We have updated all the graphics drivers. This update also switches SteamOS from the proprietary AMDGPU-PRO driver to the open source mesa driver. Our friends at Debian have released Debian 8.8[www.debian.org] so we picked up those updates as well. And of course it wouldn't be an update without the usual security patching.
Please be on the lookout for any regressions around game controller support, WiFi, or graphics.
This is easily the biggest SteamOS update we have ever done. Sorry it took so long but we hope this will give us a good base for quite a while.
Now they have this big update done and in Beta, I am keen to see what they do with SteamOS.
Find the release notes here.
Thanks for the info dubigrasu! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: no_information_hereQuoting: m0nt3It is not just ArsTechnica. Some of the other tech forums I check out have a strong bias against it and always have the same silly arguments of market share, poor performance, blah blah (I usually get this when bring up the merits of vulkan and how it will help with porting games to linux).The gaming world is very fickle. Gamers are easily offended and extremely tribal (Sony vs MS, Console vs PC, Android vs iPhone, etc.). Some people will be negative toward Linux because it is just another "opponent" in their narrow world view. I have learned not to worry too much about such people.
However, Ars Technica should know better - they strive to be a cut above other tech media. As an example of tribalism, reading Mark Walton's articles about Ryzen are embarrassing since they headline single-threaded gaming performance. I have run Intel chips for a number of years, but it does no-one any service to review things unfairly.
For any review, an author can decide to focus on something that they don't like. If that becomes the central to the review, everything else gets clouded over (eg. Ron Amadeo and plastic phone backs). For linux gaming, framerate is the nitpick that derails every review. Yes, it is a factor, but not really as important as everyone makes it out to be.
I read Ars years ago, but have honestly forgot about them. They used to have very detailed articles, going to great detail describing the CPU and GPU architectures worked. Sure, framerates aren't up to windows level. But I am currently playing through Deus Ex Mankind Divided and it is perfectly playable on high settings, for me, the benefit of not running Windows is greater than higher framerate. I am in the 1% of the 1% for being a linux gamer who runs a complete AMD system. I usually get attacked for that too.
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Finally some big updates including graphics drivers! Was about time.
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Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoI wonder if someday We gonna have a final SteamOS release, so porters and developers of steam-only games will do their job focused on that final SteamOS release and not generic Linux distros...
Even the PS4 has updates, I don't see how that change anything, Valve already released the Steam runtime (the libraries on which to base your games so that it runs on everything that runs Steam) and it hasn't updated for years, so what you are talking about has essentially been fixed years ago.
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I don't know how to feel about that, I certainly have a feeling that Valve really only looks for their interest. Steam OS was terrible for quite a while and people owning the "consoles" with SteamOS couldn't do much with them, even play newest games because of outdated drivers.
It is strange how they rolled Steam OS update soon after MS has announced Win 10S and even more changes coming to Win10 that will further lock it down.
Firstly they thought MS has retreated back with pushing their store after the Win10 release, but now when they're massively pushing it again and furthermore this time their store is of bigger quality than it was before they're starting to get worried again...
Hopefully Valve will win, at least they are fighting for their freedom and consequently for user freedoms as well, only thing I can say so far.
It is strange how they rolled Steam OS update soon after MS has announced Win 10S and even more changes coming to Win10 that will further lock it down.
Firstly they thought MS has retreated back with pushing their store after the Win10 release, but now when they're massively pushing it again and furthermore this time their store is of bigger quality than it was before they're starting to get worried again...
Hopefully Valve will win, at least they are fighting for their freedom and consequently for user freedoms as well, only thing I can say so far.
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natewardawg May 23, 2017
Very cool news indeed! :) I'm more and more confident that my next video card will be an AMD one :)
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Quoting: MaCroX95Hopefully Valve will win, at least they are fighting for their freedom and consequently for user freedoms as well, only thing I can say so far.
Well, fighting for their money. They are hardly doing it for our freedom :)
Last edited by bingus on 23 May 2017 at 12:41 pm UTC
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Quoting: MaCrox95It is strange how they rolled Steam OS update soon after MS has announced Win 10S and even more changes coming to Win10 that will further lock it down.
If it takes Microsoft being, well, Microsoft to get Valve off the pot and back to work on SteamOS in earnest, then hooray Microsoft! Thanks for being the predictably greedy monstrosity we all know and loathe.
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Joeyboots80 May 23, 2017
Great news. I am glad Valve haven't given up on SteamOS. Looks like I'll have to install this new version when I get off of work tonight and check it out.
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Quoting: MaCroX95I don't know how to feel about that, I certainly have a feeling that Valve really only looks for their interest. Steam OS was terrible for quite a while and people owning the "consoles" with SteamOS couldn't do much with them, even play newest games because of outdated drivers.
It is strange how they rolled Steam OS update soon after MS has announced Win 10S and even more changes coming to Win10 that will further lock it down.
Firstly they thought MS has retreated back with pushing their store after the Win10 release, but now when they're massively pushing it again and furthermore this time their store is of bigger quality than it was before they're starting to get worried again...
Hopefully Valve will win, at least they are fighting for their freedom and consequently for user freedoms as well, only thing I can say so far.
Actually , timing is a bit odd but they were working on Mesa drivers for a long time. Louis from Valve was asking about broken games on Mesa for months ago.
Someone at the top said ; they're not doing it for freedom too. That's not right. Steam is on Windows , Linux and Mac. It is platform agnostic. But let's face that truth too ; they're doing it for protecting their business. Not for the sake of Linux.
Even Ms didn't come out with Uwp, Ms Store i'm suspicious that if we can see a Linux movement from Valve.Probably not.
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Quoting: bingusWell, fighting for their money. They are hardly doing it for our freedom :)
That is an ally: simply in this case Valve's goals are aligned with those of the Linux community. Let us use it and don't expect more than that.
The best that could happen to Linux is MS shutting off Steam on Windows. Boom, and a new platform is born.
That said, it would be nice if Valve made it easier to install non-Steam games on SteamOS from within the BPM, for starters by removing the limitation that .desktop files should have no spaces in exec lines, but also by providing a limited graphical sudo interface in the BPM.
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