It seems my recent article about Valve removing the link to the Steam Machines page caused quite a stir, so Valve have now confirmed their continued support for Linux gaming.
Truthfully, I wasn't expecting my article to do anything, however I seem to have vastly underestimated just how many eyes there are on us now. Many larger tech and gaming sites picked it up from us like PC Gamer, Ars Technica (who amusingly called us a "fan site"), VG247 and so on. Many more sites then picked up the news from them (some claiming it was originally reported by others—oh well, can't win them all) and so it ended up as a much bigger story.
We've had quite a lot of emails and notifications about this, including a Valve rep emailing us directly to link us to this post by Pierre-Loup Griffais, where they state that the removal of the Steam Machines link was part of a "routine cleanup" where it was removed based on "user traffic".
They go on to state rather clearly, that their plans haven't really changed. They're still committed to making Linux a great place for games and applications, including those not using Steam. The most important part of their post, to me at least, is this:
At the same time, we're continuing to invest significant resources in supporting the Vulkan ecosystem, tooling and driver efforts. We also have other Linux initiatives in the pipe that we're not quite ready to talk about yet; SteamOS will continue to be our medium to deliver these improvements to our customers, and we think they will ultimately benefit the Linux ecosystem at large.
It's going to be very interesting to find out what these initiatives are that they're not currently ready to talk about, quite exciting.
It's really good to see a public comment from Valve on this, as I said constantly in the past that SteamOS and Steam Machines would never be an overnight success. Valve is clearly in it for the long game and so are we.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Meeh...
Anyone that lurks a bit on the right IRC channels knows Valve is heavily involved in linux. Especially VR.
Having the steam machine promotion display did hurt steamos more than removing it. Because non of the partners were actually selling them, with the exception for alienware and zotac. In that respect: the zotac >> alienware in specs, so I now have a zotac for 1.5 years. No new steam branded machines have been "designed" since.
I think valve should make the branding more like "steamos compatible" instead of steam machine.
And with steamos compatible, I mean it should run at least a decent amount of the linux ports. That might be tough since all games seems to be made for nvidia.
Anyone that lurks a bit on the right IRC channels knows Valve is heavily involved in linux. Especially VR.
Having the steam machine promotion display did hurt steamos more than removing it. Because non of the partners were actually selling them, with the exception for alienware and zotac. In that respect: the zotac >> alienware in specs, so I now have a zotac for 1.5 years. No new steam branded machines have been "designed" since.
I think valve should make the branding more like "steamos compatible" instead of steam machine.
And with steamos compatible, I mean it should run at least a decent amount of the linux ports. That might be tough since all games seems to be made for nvidia.
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It may be that I didn't observe the Driver development too closely lately, but judging the lack of updates recently by valve on our mesa buglist I thought they're taking a different direction / Approach.AFAIK the heavy involvement of Valve in mesa and especially DRM (as the DRM patches are still coming along) are primarily for VR. If you didn't notice: Valve introduced a whole new infrastructure of borrowing the display/DRM from whichever applications is the master of DRM, which usually is the X11 server.
The push is clear: Vulkan. The issue is smaller Studios working with their own engines. The big Players (Crytek, Id, Epic, Croteam, Unity3D) will all head for Vulkan for the Linux Export target, that seems pretty clear by now.
So an application can now borrow the display (read VR headset) from X11, and have 0 copy communications with the GPU to update that display. With X11 or wayland or whatever out of the way, any VR application actually has the equivalent of direct access to the display buffer and refresh timing.
But this way, you can start your X11 server, borrow the drm and start wayland or another X11 server. Or start a master X11 server, and start a slave X11 per display for single-card-multi-seat setups.
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Valve need to put pressure on developers like Adobe to get them supporting Linux.
For Valve, productivity is not really the focus. I'm not sure if they are aware of how many people use the one device for working and gaming. We've a bit of a hen/egg issue here, without those applications people can't switch. Without the userbase, organizations like Adobe won't port their software - why would they? People just keep using MacOS/Windows if they use their applications. Why would Adobe do the invest for a merely percent of the userbase? They wouldn't.
It's an old approach. The software development trend certainly went into the cross platform direction for years now, but those big companies as Adobe always have been slow to adopt.
Positively I have to say, if the software would run on Linux, that the adobe bundles / monthly fees got pretty much affordable. I'm not into graphics and movie making, but if I were the 30 $/Month wouldn't hurt me much.
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I'm not into graphics and movie making, but if I were the 30 $/Month wouldn't hurt me much.
I'm into graphics and only use Linux for my work (as well as for gaming). With DisplayCal, Krita, the GIMP, Inkscape and Scribus you can actually work in a professional graphic environment with Linux even if the workflow is less "integrated" than what you can get with Adobe "creative suits" (and it's not that bad as it force user to understand what he is doing, which is not always the case with some professionals I'm encountering from time to time... like using US printing standards ICC profiles that are "default" on Adobe creative suits even if they are working with EU printing standards which are not the same). ;)
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Without the userbase, organizations like Adobe won't port their software - why would they?
A common problem with professional software is that they have existed for a very long time and have had a very long history on certain platforms. Adobe is probably one of the few that had to make a switch at some point to move away from their MacOS focus. I personally use software at work that has a history of Unix since the 1970s. These programs grew big on SunOS/Solaris/IRIX and when Linux came around it was quickly supported as well. With the effective demise of SGI and Sun, Linux and Windows are still the main platforms with Linux being the definite choice for the calculation clusters. In this part of the software corner, Linux support was the logical choice.
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ProfessorKaos64 Apr 4, 2018
Flatpak is also more likely going to be a key integral piece in the next major release. I know I will be switching what I can for packages.libregeek.oeg / SteamOS-Tools to be a flatpak. Who knows if it will be the ultimate Mena to an end, but the support is there from Valve.
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Through the Steam Machine initiative, we've learned quite a bit about the state of the Linux ecosystem for real-world game developers out there. We've taken a lot of feedback and have been heads-down on addressing the shortcomings we observed. We think an important part of that effort is our ongoing investment in making Vulkan a competitive and well-supported graphics API, as well as making sure it has first-class support on Linux platforms.
This is what I exactly wanted to hear.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/1696043806550421224/
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Micromegas Apr 4, 2018
Wait. This is NOT a fan site for fans of Liam? Damn. Speaking of... I just realized that we really need more info regarding Liam's next concert.
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Unless they're going to announce a new vendor deal, I'd say that the original report of Steam Machines being dead is correct. What I glean from the article is that they learned a lot regarding Linux and Vulkan support through the Steam Machine initiative, and will take what they learned to other initiatives (among them, continuing Linux support). So yeah, looks like Steam Machines are dead. I hope I am wrong.
Last edited by jay on 4 April 2018 at 12:12 pm UTC
Last edited by jay on 4 April 2018 at 12:12 pm UTC
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Unless they're going to announce a new vendor deal, I'd say that the original report of Steam Machines being dead is correct. What I glean from the article is that they learned a lot regarding Linux and Vulkan support through the Steam Machine initiative, and will take what they learned to other initiatives (among them, continuing Linux support). So yeah, looks like Steam Machines are dead. I hope I am wrong.
In fact Valve announcement says while there's no new vendors and current lineup doesn't sell like hot cakes, it still goes on and they learn quite a lot of work with vendors and game developers.
So calling them dead is not correct. Stagnant - sure. But not dead.
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Mohandevir Apr 4, 2018
Happy to hear that. Didn't ask for more. I'll keep using my SteamOS machine whenever it's possible.
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I have to admit that it took me a while to understand why being called a "fan site" was bad. After all this is a site mostly for fans(?) of Linux gaming. Then the connotation came to me via a flashback from 1998: Comic Sans, frames with scrollbars on all sides, animated "under construction" GIFs and borderline psychedelic color schemes. Ah Internet, you were so pure and full of promise once.
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Because non of the partners were actually selling them, with the exception for alienware and zotac. In that respect: the zotac >> alienware in specs, so I now have a zotac for 1.5 years. No new steam branded machines have been "designed" since.
I think valve should make the branding more like "steamos compatible" instead of steam machine.
I really like my ZOTAC NEN. At €900 it was hardly a "PC console", but I got what I wanted: a capable machine in a teeny-tiny box.
ZOTAC seems to be the only maker of small form factor gaming PCs that is actually doing fine. Perhaps instead of "steamos compatible", Valve could actually work directly with ZOTAC like they work with HTC on Vive? And changing the vision of Steam Machines from "$400 box that plays last year indies" to "a powerful, unobtrusive PC in your living room"? Perhaps even today ZOTAC could re-brand some of their Magnus line mini PCs as Steam Machines, pre-install SteamOS, throw in a Steam Controller? The challenge is that few of Magnuses are below $1100 these days...
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Nevertheless Apr 4, 2018
They helped test it I think, and also help to fund various areas and initiatives (including LunarG). I suspect that money was used to make MoltenVK open source.
Valve are actually quite active in the Vulkan department - so much so that I don't doubt they have continued GNU/Linux plans.
In a nutshell P.L.G. says: We continue to support Linux, because we believe in open platforms. We did this and this and Molten VK for Linux... Only that Molten VK is in no way directly aimed at Linux. It's a conversion tool from Vulkan to Metal. So if we want to understand what Valves strategy really is, this detail has to fit in.
In my opinion the best explanation is: It's meant to be a pro-Vulkan-multi-platform / anti-DX12-domination tool, and it's aimed to help Linux in the long run. The fact that Khronos announced, that a DX12 / Vulkan conversion tool is to follow just supports that.
Last edited by Nevertheless on 4 April 2018 at 1:51 pm UTC
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I have to admit that it took me a while to understand why being called a "fan site" was bad. After all this is a site mostly for fans(?) of Linux gaming. Then the connotation came to me via a flashback from 1998: Comic Sans, frames with scrollbars on all sides, animated "under construction" GIFs and borderline psychedelic color schemes. Ah Internet, you were so pure and full of promise once.It made me laugh more than anything, as in, what do you have to do to be taken seriously? I'm not sure how they intended it, hopefully not in the snobbery way.
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Mohandevir Apr 4, 2018
I have to admit that it took me a while to understand why being called a "fan site" was bad. After all this is a site mostly for fans(?) of Linux gaming. Then the connotation came to me via a flashback from 1998: Comic Sans, frames with scrollbars on all sides, animated "under construction" GIFs and borderline psychedelic color schemes. Ah Internet, you were so pure and full of promise once.It made me laugh more than anything, as in, what do you have to do to be taken seriously? I'm not sure how they intended it, hopefully not in the snobbery way.
Still, you got the news out before them... Not bad for a "fan site". Lol!
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Eurogamer picked up the story as well.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-04-04-its-true-steam-machines-arent-exactly-flying-off-the-shelves
You might want to not look in the comment section of the article if you find yourself easily triggered. Gotta say, I find a lot of the comments there extremely disturbing/disgusting/ignorant.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-04-04-its-true-steam-machines-arent-exactly-flying-off-the-shelves
You might want to not look in the comment section of the article if you find yourself easily triggered. Gotta say, I find a lot of the comments there extremely disturbing/disgusting/ignorant.
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elbuglione Apr 4, 2018
Ars picked up that story from here? Wow, call me shocked. Ars pretty much ignores linux... except for a few small server related articles once every six months or so.
They don't usually write about Linux, but they did report about Steam Machines in the past, so it's not unexpected to see a follow up. However amount of anti-Linux comments for that article is really weird, as well as some trying to justify exclusives and lock-in as a valid methodology.
"some trying to justify exclusives and lock-in as a valid methodology"
Sadly... is valid, because is working!
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"some trying to justify exclusives and lock-in as a valid methodology"
Sadly... is valid, because is working!
It has no place in FOSS-philosophy, even when there's a proprietary store front in middle. We have to be better than that. Only a greedy "triple AAA" video games executive could propose something like that. I sometimes see consumers of consoles applauding exclusives and it's turning me completely insane. Why would a consumer ever think it benefits them? I want gaming on Linux to be successful too, but copying the market strategy of popular consoles is the worst way to go. Instead, we need to make people aware of the benefits of FOSS and why they should be afraid of the big corporations shoving proprietary software down their throats, locking them in their ecosystem and turning the consumer into products. People who are aware starts looking for alternatives and those alternatives already exist but the awareness does not.
Last edited by Brisse on 4 April 2018 at 4:17 pm UTC
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