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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People running a FOSS exclusive system should be able to do so. Using non-FOSS software, like me using NVidia drivers and Steam, should also be "just OK" and accepted.
Extreme views "this and that should not be accepted" usually serves no one in the long term but only feeds useless religious discussions.
The discussion was not about what users are installing, but what is acceptable or not for developers to push on users. Something like CUDA from Nvidia should not be acceptable for example. Same goes for any other type of lock-in or exclusivity, which are simply anti-competitive practices. Trying to whitewash such kind of practice serves no good purpose.
It would be nice of you if you would state your personal opinion as such. I respect that you are highly offended by any kind of exclusivity.
Last edited by jens on 4 April 2018 at 10:08 pm UTC
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People need to stop viewing FOSS as alien to big money. It ain't. When it comes to platforms and middleware, FOSS is commercially dominant across most computing domains, from supercomputing to servers/cloud to embedded and the "internet of things". It's just, the money doesn't mostly get hoarded by some entity controlling the platform. Google would have been hobbled trying to build their empire on Windows servers."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.
People need to stop viewing Linux as FOSS-exclusive. It ain't, and it won't build the momentum required unless big-money gets behind it (as evidenced by Valve pushing it).
The desktop computer OS is actually a weird outlier where no big money entity or group of entities have yet seen a way to make dough replacing proprietary with FOSS, whether because there's something unusual about that particular market space or because MS is unusually good at ensuring nobody sees a chance to pull anything off. Doesn't mean it will never happen.
Although, one blind spot of our current age is that it tends not to occur to us that there are entities other than megacorporations which have a lot of money. States as significant economic actors in their own right have been out of fashion for a while now. But I would not be surprised if the era of the hyperglobalized economy is easing to a close and geopolitics is going to once more, for some countries at least, have a significant impact on their economic policies rather than it being all the other way around as it has tended to be. So like for instance, it seems clear that the US, no matter who is in government, is firmly committed to Cold War with Russia and, increasingly, China (and Iran and whoever they alienate next). Thus far this has had little impact on trade between the US and China, and until recently it seemed almost senseless that it could. And yet things seem to be drifting that way. My point is, there have been a number of false starts in the past, but it's not implausible that at some point some sizable countries may just say once and for all, for realz this time, they don't want to be sending their money to Redmond and they don't want the NSA's back doors and they will now be making a transition to Red Flag Linux or Great Bear Linux or whatever and the patriotic citizens will be welcoming this if they know what is good for them (and if things were tense enough with the US and it was sold right, the patriotic citizens might not actually mind). It would be a weird and somewhat uncomfortable way of having a major increase in desktop Linux, but it could happen at the rate things are going.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 5 April 2018 at 3:32 am UTC
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I think you made a good point on governments. It would be most important to replace M$ stuff with free software in primary/high schools.
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On the Steam Machines front, I expect them to eventually return. The timing within the existing console cycle, available hardware, costs and available games were not great for the venture at launch making ongoing sales/support harder, but there is a place for an eventual Linux based console in the general console market, especially if it makes general audience *NIX gaming support more likely to happen by maximizing the value to consumers through the strength of a *NIX backend. but that has little to no chance of success until we're closer to the end of the current cycle and even then unless Valve get the AAA studios on board or else the core AAA studios finally fall and get replaced by the middle tier and indie studios (the lootbox fiasco nearly did that, so it isn't impossible just highly implausible) who generally already do quite a lot more pushing onto cross platform releases.
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Personnaly, what I would like to see is
As for DRM... I don't know why you are talking about that. I have no opinion on the subject and I highly respect Valves' work for the Linux ecosystem.
God, I hate that TLA, but here it is good, it means Direct Rendering Manager.
Last edited by lucinos on 5 April 2018 at 7:05 am UTC
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I still believe in Linux gaming, but for a boost, we need a big exclusive title.
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And yet another discussion hijacked into a GNU/Linux, Free Software, purists vs pragmatists, DRM, GOG vs Steam flamewar...
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And yet another discussion hijacked into a GNU/Linux, Free Software, purists vs pragmatists, DRM, GOG vs Steam flamewar...
We should open a thread per topic in the forum (each of which can be derailed to any or all of the other ones), so we could keep the news section (more or less) free of it...
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Well, flamewars aside, Valve _do_ have some influence on GNU/Linux graphics, if for no other reason than financial support. So how that effects an open system is not entirely off topic. So long as it's kept civil.
And they do, by paying people to work on Mesa. But discussions about ethics of CUDA or Apple's walled garden are definitely off-topic in the context of "Valve's continued support for Linux gaming".
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Yup there's no need to participate in this vs that arguments. Their pointless.
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Mohandevir Apr 5, 2018
"We also have other Linux initiatives in the pipe that we're not quite ready to talk about yet"
More on that at E3 2018?
*Fingers crossed* :)
Edit: E3 instead of GDC...
Last edited by Mohandevir on 5 April 2018 at 12:59 pm UTC
More on that at E3 2018?
*Fingers crossed* :)
Edit: E3 instead of GDC...
Last edited by Mohandevir on 5 April 2018 at 12:59 pm UTC
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Apple's walled garden, no, but what about Valve's? Many games do rely on Steam itself, which of course locks users into using Steam, and ultimately gives Valve control of gaming.
I don't mind Valve making it easy to use their system of control, and ultimately this is less about Valve, more about developers not locking themselves in.
My own view is that a game (at least a single player game) should not rely on Steam, even if it's one of the best for end user game management. I personally hope that Valve steer towards helping developers allowing games to be run without Steam, but more features are there if you do.
Many games distributed on Steam do not depend on Steam, i.e. you can shutdown Steam, navigate to a folder and run the executable directly. Sure, if you want to use Steam DRM, achievements, workshop or in-game social functions, then it creates a dependency on Steam. Sure, it's nice if a game simply disables these functions if Steam is unavailable (apart from DRM obviously), but is still usable.
You proposed that single player games should not depend on Steam and Valve is doing something completely different, yet similar: opensourcing their networking sockets library and removing Steam dependency (https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Valve-Network-Sockets-Lib, so you can use it without lock-in.
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And yet another discussion hijacked into a GNU/Linux, Free Software, purists vs pragmatists, DRM, GOG vs Steam flamewar.....also known as "a typical family gathering weekend in Gaming on Linux 'fan site'" :P. I love it people... except I'm notice this year becoming almost daily basis.
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And yet another discussion hijacked into a GNU/Linux, Free Software, purists vs pragmatists, DRM, GOG vs Steam flamewar.....also known as "a typical family gathering weekend in Gaming on Linux 'fan site'" :P. I love it people... except I'm notice this year becoming almost daily basis.
I'll take advise from a very wise user here recently and just get a beer :)
Last edited by jens on 5 April 2018 at 6:30 pm UTC
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The issue is how other sites reported it. I saw one such site say it was the "final nail in the coffin" and other such things.Sounds much like [users-only]ArseTechnica[/users-only].
Last edited by crt0mega on 5 April 2018 at 8:25 pm UTC
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I've had mine for the evening *thumbs up*And yet another discussion hijacked into a GNU/Linux, Free Software, purists vs pragmatists, DRM, GOG vs Steam flamewar.....also known as "a typical family gathering weekend in Gaming on Linux 'fan site'" :P. I love it people... except I'm notice this year becoming almost daily basis.
I'll take advise from a very wise user here recently and just get a beer :)
Can't really go on any Linux-related site, especially a gaming one, without something like it coming up. Just take it with a pinch of salt and gloss over the comments you don't really care about :)
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stretch611 Apr 6, 2018
Can't really go on any Linux-related site, especially a gaming one, without something like it coming up. Just take it with a pinch of salt and gloss over the comments you don't really care about :)
That is why I like Soylent News (which I previously mentioned.) It is a news aggregator for geeks. It is modeled after the Slashdot.org website of old. In fact many people there (including myself) used to frequent slashdot back in the day. However, many left after the much hated design changes, commercial takeover, and burying of stories. (Personally, I left slashdot after the Sourceforge controversy
Here are the links to the two relevant stories on SN:
Valve Removed the Steam Machine Section from Steam (which links back to the original GoL story.)
Valve Clears the Air on its Removal of the Steam Machine Section From its Store (which links back to the Steam Forum post.)
Soylent News is not a linux specific website, but a geek news website. It does have a few linux detractors but they are mostly ignored/modded down and the community as a whole has a respect for linux.
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Geek news site? 
Do we Linux users really want to be associated with geeks? :P
It'd turn into "Linux is an OS for geeks" which is more food for the Windows trolls. :D
Do we Linux users really want to be associated with geeks? :P
It'd turn into "Linux is an OS for geeks" which is more food for the Windows trolls. :D
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Do we Linux users really want to be associated with geeks? :PBetter face it, captain. That ship has sailed.
It'd turn into "Linux is an OS for geeks" which is more food for the Windows trolls. :DThe real troll food is attention. They're perfectly capable of thinking up silly insults without our help.
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A nice side effect of the whole story: Steam on Linux and Steam Universe/SteamOS forums on Steam are alive again. I have not seen so many posts there for quite a few months now. The removal of the Steam Machines link, reporting of it and the resulting announcement from Valve rekindled interest in SteamOS, Steam Machines and Valve involvement in Linux.
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