SteamOS is still alive with a new Beta, although it's a rather uninteresting one

I've been testing SteamOS since I built my jig two years ago. It was awful at first, very instable, crashy and even brickable. The public launch of these Steam Machines was a mistake, because it was simply way too early. Now I'm happy to admit that the OS is very stable and useful. These bugs that broke the OS have been solved and the OS can easily recover from a crashed client or OS, which is good. There still are bugs but the only bugs that I am experiencing are in the Steam client, not the OS. The OS has been performing very well since the last updates, so although I can agree that this changelog does not seem very exciting, I do think that the OS already performs very well for its purpose, so the only thing that needs maintaining is hardware support/kernel/security patches and that won't be exciting for a long time. And that's fine. I'd rather like to see Valve fix those silly stupid client bugs first.

Quoting: johndoe86xLinux needs three things to succeed as a competitive gaming platform.

It needs -something- over Windows, not necessarily any of the features you mentioned. But something. A unique selling point. And unfortunately, "freedom" won't cut it. People at large don't mind the NSA reading their email and them getting filmed by 1,000 different CCTV cameras a day. They don't care about Windows 10 being unfree and spyware, either. Sad, but true.

A better performance than Windows across the board would definitely help getting us some attention. But as long as most games are designed to run on Windows and ported to Linux as an afterthought, this will be not too easy to achieve.

Btw. Installing Windows is just as painful or easy as Linux. The point is that it doesn't matter, as nobody has to install Windows. It comes pre-installed on close to 100% of all PCs sold on Earth, after all. This is the exact reason why we need to achieve a -better-, not equal experience for gaming on Linux. Why else would a Windows user switch from something that they already have and works for them?

It's really the same with SteamOS vs Ubuntu. SteamOS doesn't offer anything tangible over Ubuntu (or any other major distro) at this point, so why would anyone switch? It's not a better gaming platform than Ubuntu by any stretch of imagination.

I don't think we necessarily need EA or Ubisoft on board, though. My personal indifference about them and their games aside, but for console users it is totally normal NOT to have access to games that are exclusives for other consoles. They accept that. We don't need to have 100% of all publishers on Linux, either. We DO need a reasonable amount of AAA games though, and we still have painfully little (although there has been some slow progress in the past two years).

I would like to have a report form Feral about the number of games they ported in 2016 and in 2017.

My feeling is (I may be wrong) that 2017 was a lot less productive than 2016, on the AAA front. Is it because of lower opportunity for Linux ports or is it because they had to put a lot of manpower to develop their Vulkan conversion layer?

No matter the reason, it gives us, Linux gamers, the feeling that Linux gaming is loosing momentum. If it's because of Vulkan development, there may be hope for 2018-2019.

I might just be too optimist...

"Time flies when you’re having fun. Excluding expansions, F1 2017 is our 20th Linux game in less than four years!
Penguins, thank you for all your support. There are still plenty more treats to come…"

-Feral post on Facebook


Last edited by Mohandevir on 10 November 2017 at 5:35 pm UTC

Quoting: MohandevirI would like to have a report form Feral about the number of games they ported in 2016 and in 2017.

Yeah, would love to know that too, plus some info about which titles where (financially) successful for Feral or not.

I don't know. I feel like trying to compete with console world isn't a good idea. Letting them use the software for free or for being mention on Valve's website is one thing but trying to directly compete by releasing a "better console"...? Not really. I'm still with: focus on standards, APIs, compatibility, Vulcan, and don't bother trying to sell the overpriced hardware - let others take care of that.


Last edited by cprn on 10 November 2017 at 7:17 pm UTC

Quoting: jens

Quoting: MohandevirI would like to have a report form Feral about the number of games they ported in 2016 and in 2017.

Yeah, would love to know that too, plus some info about which titles where (financially) successful for Feral or not.

Ask and you shall get stuff...this took me a while to compile...

About Feral...

2016
Total War WARHAMMER
Total War: WARHAMMER - Realm of the Wood Elves DLC
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Mad Max
Warhammer 40,000®: Dawn of War II®, Chaos Rising and Retribution
Life Is Strange
XCOM 2 - Shen’s Last Gift DLC
XCOM 2 - Alien Hunters DLC
XCOM 2 - Anarchy’s Children DLC
F1 2015
Tomb Raider
Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces DLC & Ardennes Assault DLC
Company of Heroes 2 - the Mac vs Linux multiplayer update
Medieval II: Total War Collection

2017
HITMAN GOTY Update
HITMAN
F1 2017
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen DLC
Dawn of War III
Total War: SHOGUN 2 and Fall of the Samurai
DiRT Rally
Total War WARHAMMER - Norsca DLC
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - A Criminal Past DLC
Mad Max - Vulkan
+ One still on their radar for Linux

I think that's about right.

So yeah, they had more overall last year, even when removing DLC. However, for this year I imagine moving their pipeline to Vulkan took quite a bit of time, but we have to remember that is laying the groundwork for future ports as well. It went from a Mad Max beta, to Dawn of War III (both OpenGL & Vulkan) to F1 2017 (just Vulkan) and maybe their current teaser will be Vulkan only too.

On top of that, I have no doubts that Feral have Linux ports lined up for 2018. I don't have any confirmation from them (speculating here), but considering how things are going something incredibly drastic would have to happen for 2018 not to be another good year for Feral's Linux port.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 10 November 2017 at 7:29 pm UTC

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: jens

Quoting: MohandevirI would like to have a report form Feral about the number of games they ported in 2016 and in 2017.

Yeah, would love to know that too, plus some info about which titles where (financially) successful for Feral or not.

Ask and you shall get stuff...this took me a while to compile...

About Feral...

2016
Total War WARHAMMER
Total War: WARHAMMER - Realm of the Wood Elves DLC
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Mad Max
Warhammer 40,000®: Dawn of War II®, Chaos Rising and Retribution
Life Is Strange
XCOM 2 - Shen’s Last Gift DLC
XCOM 2 - Alien Hunters DLC
XCOM 2 - Anarchy’s Children DLC
F1 2015
Tomb Raider
Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces DLC & Ardennes Assault DLC
Company of Heroes 2 - the Mac vs Linux multiplayer update
Medieval II: Total War Collection

2017
HITMAN GOTY Update
HITMAN
F1 2017
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen DLC
Dawn of War III
Total War: SHOGUN 2 and Fall of the Samurai
DiRT Rally
Total War WARHAMMER - Norsca DLC
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - A Criminal Past DLC
Mad Max - Vulkan
+ One still on their radar for Linux

I think that's about right.

So yeah, they had more overall last year, even when removing DLC. However, for this year I imagine moving their pipeline to Vulkan took quite a bit of time, but we have to remember that is laying the groundwork for future ports as well. It went from a Mad Max beta, to Dawn of War III (both OpenGL & Vulkan) to F1 2017 (just Vulkan) and maybe their current teaser will be Vulkan only too.

On top of that, I have no doubts that Feral have Linux ports lined up for 2018. I don't have any confirmation from them (speculating here), but considering how things are going something incredibly drastic would have to happen for 2018 not to be another good year for Feral's Linux port.

Thanks Liam,

Awesome as always!

This is what I was meaning. 2017 might just be a transition year where less ports have been done. To us it feels like a slowdown but it might just be a temporary setback. If Feral is in this situation what about other porting houses? I'm not asking you, Liam, to dig for the info, I suppose it's the same for others.

Well I think it's also that each game will take a different amount of time to port. Anyone remember the delays with Mordor? That's on top of the extra time to get their Vulkan support ready. Even so, the titles Feral have ported this year have been pretty incredible for us.

Quoting: liamdaweEven so, the titles Feral have ported this year have been pretty incredible for us.

Yeah, this goes without saying. I'm very grateful that Feral is still on board with Linux, considering how difficult Linux can be as platform and community.

Though I'm curious what their current mission statement is. I guess Mac, their roots, got some momentum this year due to Metal, next to that they are experimenting with iOS and Android. I hope they succeed everywhere. Having them strong as a company is good for us ;)


Last edited by jens on 10 November 2017 at 8:01 pm UTC

Quoting: Kimyrielle

Quoting: johndoe86xLinux needs three things to succeed as a competitive gaming platform.

It needs -something- over Windows

The main point I was trying to make is that the switch from Windows to Linux can't be a side-grade. It has to be a significant upgrade. I don't think Linux needs a killer "feature" to differentiate it (although installing a console-like OS on any hardware is actually a really cool feature), I just think that it needs to do everything that Windows does... except better.