Windows 10 S might alarm Valve into boosting SteamOS again

Quoting: qptain Nemo

Quoting: burningserenitySo with Win32 eventually phased out, will WINE be the easiest way to run legacy Windows programs?

It's already becoming that. I keep hearing reports of games not running well on latest versions of Windows which I have no trouble running in Wine at all.

I wouldn't be surprised if CodeWeavers had CrossOver for Windows on their back burner.


Last edited by pb on 7 February 2018 at 6:47 pm UTC

If you are looking for a proof that Microsoft is buying Valve... Not! :)

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Daniel-Joins-Valve-Driver

Quoting: qptain Nemo

Quoting: GrazenHere is a link discussing WCOS:

https://www.windowscentral.com/understanding-windows-core-os-and-polaris

Note that WCOS is not Windows S.

That is hilarious. They're literally selling... Linux. The Linux paradigm. All the best Linux features. (Closed platform bits aside) Brilliant.

That's exactly what I think!

Quoting: Grazen

Quoting: qptain Nemo

Quoting: GrazenHere is a link discussing WCOS:

https://www.windowscentral.com/understanding-windows-core-os-and-polaris

Note that WCOS is not Windows S.

That is hilarious. They're literally selling... Linux. The Linux paradigm. All the best Linux features. (Closed platform bits aside) Brilliant.

That's exactly what I think!

Agreed, To me it looks like MS are going to make a Win distro basically.

Quoting: pete910Agreed, To me it looks like MS are going to make a Win distro basically.

Drop the NT kernel, insert GNU/Linux kernel, drop the company that owns it (Microsoft), insert Linux Foundation as owners, replace the UI with XFCE, open source it and you got a new user!

Quoting: julespetrikov

Quoting: webcreatureI disagree! When the propriator of the one OS that is pre-installed on almost every sold gaming ready PC, decides to pre configure this OS to a default that makes Steam incompatible, and when the user has to change that configuration against warnings that tell him this step might be dangerous, then a big percentage of mostly new users will not do that. And that will shrink the user-base potential for Steam, not actual numbers of course.
OR.. people decide to use an alternate OS instead, which I'd like very much of course.. Do you believe in it?

"pre-installed on almost every sold gaming ready PC"

That's the case, they can't do that. That's bad business. That's exactly why Windows 10 S is not the choice for gaming or production, because it's not intended to run all the games and it's not commercialised as one. Same goes for ChromeOS, Android etc. It's much like how people were asking "How the hell SteamOS will replace Windows" in the early days and got the most obvious answer: It's not intended to do that. S Mode itself is not a profitable way of selling gaming ready PCs, since consumer is not always the idiot, but it's a good way of ripping off people.

There's absolutely no possible future in which Microsoft won the gaming industry by such a move. It's just plain dumb. You can't just force an incompatible OS in a market that demands a compatible OS. That won't force people to buy things from their Stores, it will force consumer away from Microsoft and Windows. To Mac and Linux, mainly.

I'm not trying to justify their point here. Just telling people: SteamOS and Windows 10 S or Windows 10 S Mode or whatever stupid thing they could put forward has no relevance at all.

Spoken like someone who knows business. Seriously though, they won't go that route, as they'd be shooting themselves in the foot. And Valve are still not pushing Steam OS, as they're likely waiting for the Wayland Conundrum to finally wear down and get to work.

Quoting: qptain Nemo

Quoting: appetrosyanWayland is not complete, we still need to do plenty of under-the-hood improvements, before the aggressive marketing will even have a chance. Right now, we'd only make the task even harder.

On one hand I certainly understand the risks you're talking about. I mean, look at Steam Machines. On the other hand, there is the risk of overpreparing and betting too much on one big reveal that is supposed to be perfect and coming way too late or not coming at all. I mean, look at Steam Machines, I bet Valve learned a lot of really useful things from their first attempt that would help them tremendously if they eventually follow up. The whole "release early" philosophy exists for goods reasons. But yeah, Wayland is even conceptually incomplete if you ask me (I consider the "you can't have a DE-agnostic screenshot / screen recording tool because security" approach a serious mistake). So I'd say it's a delicate question and I wouldn't insist on any one answer to it at the moment.

I understand what you mean by overpreparing, but in out particular case this isn't really a risk. Right now, Linux in the minds of the 75% of the Desktop market share is this obscure, hacker only OS, with little to accommodate anything beyond software development. Not advertising just leads to status quo, nothing lost nothing gained.

On the other hand, advertising it right now would be difficult: the average consumer would want to be able to do what they can do on pretty much any other device and right now all of those things are getting a facelift (getting, not got). Advertising now is like inviting people to a recital when you've just started playing an instrument.

We are just transitioning to Wayland: it's not feature complete, only one mainstream DE has workable support, almost no applications work under it and to top it all off, nVidia refuses to support it. And wayland would be huge for gaming. Making mainstream audiences switch now would create a bunch of myths about Linux that we can't easily shake off. It makes sense for Valve to wait until some of the dust has settled, and lay the groundwork in other areas.

Quoting: appetrosyanI understand what you mean by overpreparing, but in out particular case this isn't really a risk. Right now, Linux in the minds of the 75% of the Desktop market share is this obscure, hacker only OS, with little to accommodate anything beyond software development. Not advertising just leads to status quo, nothing lost nothing gained.

On the other hand, advertising it right now would be difficult: the average consumer would want to be able to do what they can do on pretty much any other device and right now all of those things are getting a facelift (getting, not got). Advertising now is like inviting people to a recital when you've just started playing an instrument.

We are just transitioning to Wayland: it's not feature complete, only one mainstream DE has workable support, almost no applications work under it and to top it all off, nVidia refuses to support it. And wayland would be huge for gaming. Making mainstream audiences switch now would create a bunch of myths about Linux that we can't easily shake off. It makes sense for Valve to wait until some of the dust has settled, and lay the groundwork in other areas.

I see your point and I appreciate the fact that there are times when you have to patiently prepare but at the same time I don't agree with the current state being quite so hopelessly unappealing and rough. You actually can do everything you can on other platforms and have a pretty good time doing it. But oh well. I do wonder at which point would you start advertising it heavily? Like what marks that moment when the dust settles in your opinion? Flawless adoption of Wayland in mainstream distros like Ubuntu?

Quoting: qptain NemoYou actually can do everything you can on other platforms and have a pretty good time doing it.

You and I clearly don't have the same needs :)

Quoting: appetrosyan

Quoting: julespetrikov

Quoting: webcreatureI disagree! When the propriator of the one OS that is pre-installed on almost every sold gaming ready PC, decides to pre configure this OS to a default that makes Steam incompatible, and when the user has to change that configuration against warnings that tell him this step might be dangerous, then a big percentage of mostly new users will not do that. And that will shrink the user-base potential for Steam, not actual numbers of course.
OR.. people decide to use an alternate OS instead, which I'd like very much of course.. Do you believe in it?

"pre-installed on almost every sold gaming ready PC"

That's the case, they can't do that. That's bad business. That's exactly why Windows 10 S is not the choice for gaming or production, because it's not intended to run all the games and it's not commercialised as one. Same goes for ChromeOS, Android etc. It's much like how people were asking "How the hell SteamOS will replace Windows" in the early days and got the most obvious answer: It's not intended to do that. S Mode itself is not a profitable way of selling gaming ready PCs, since consumer is not always the idiot, but it's a good way of ripping off people.

There's absolutely no possible future in which Microsoft won the gaming industry by such a move. It's just plain dumb. You can't just force an incompatible OS in a market that demands a compatible OS. That won't force people to buy things from their Stores, it will force consumer away from Microsoft and Windows. To Mac and Linux, mainly.

I'm not trying to justify their point here. Just telling people: SteamOS and Windows 10 S or Windows 10 S Mode or whatever stupid thing they could put forward has no relevance at all.

Spoken like someone who knows business. Seriously though, they won't go that route, as they'd be shooting themselves in the foot. And Valve are still not pushing Steam OS, as they're likely waiting for the Wayland Conundrum to finally wear down and get to work.

MS definitely made Windows S for a reason. I think it comes close to what MS would find ideal for their future, and what they might try to achieve with Windows CoreOS. MS can't control Win32, but they definitely want to control things on Windows more.
On the other side no gamer in his right mind would buy S for gaming, and no gamer in his right mind would switch to S-Mode for gaming. Non gamers, or "not yet gamers" on the other hand might never even try out Steam or GOG or certain open source software because they're in S Mode and they don't want to switch for "security reasons" or because they even had to pay for it.
Even if MS had not gaming specifically in mind when they developed S, Win32 gaming conflicts with their interests. For them it would be best if gaming would come to UWP and let the rest be lagacy. They made UWP for a reason...
Now, of course I'm not saying the will succeed with it, I just say if they could choose, it would be that way, or something similar. Fortunately MS has a history of "wanting to much at once and p!ssing people of with it", so all of this could make some more people switch to Linux. If they do not succeed with it, as you say, I'd say they do have to change plans... again..
If it is in fact untrue, that they try to influence OEMs to pre-configure S-Mode on certain game capable devices, then all of the said things are irrelevant of course. We'll see..


Last edited by on 10 February 2018 at 10:44 am UTC