After the recent upset caused by Canonical's plan to drop 32bit support in Ubuntu, then to turn around and change their plan due to the uproar caused by it, Valve now have a full statement out about their future support of Linux gaming.
Firstly, to get it out of the way, there's nothing to worry about here. Valve said they "remain committed to supporting Linux as a gaming platform", they're also "continuing to drive numerous driver and feature development efforts that we expect will help improve the gaming and desktop experience across all distributions" which they plan to talk more about later.
On the subject of Canonical's newer plan for Ubuntu 19.10 and onwards in regards to 32bit support, Valve said they're "not particularly excited about the removal of any existing functionality, but such a change to the plan is extremely welcome" and that it "seems likely that we will be able to continue to officially support Steam on Ubuntu".
However Arch Linux, Manjaro, Pop!_OS and Fedora all got direct mentions in this statement, when talking about how the Linux gaming landscape has changed and how there's a lot more options to have a good gaming experience. Valve said they will be working "closer" with more distributions but they have nothing to announce just yet on what exact distributions they will be officially supporting in future.
Also, if you're working on a distribution and you need a direct line with Valve, they suggested using this link.
You can see the full statement from Valve here.
Fantastic news, I will be completely honest, there was that little worry in the back of my mind that Valve would start pulling back but why would they? They've put a ridiculous amount of resources into our smaller platform, things have improved an astonishing amount since Steam arrived on Linux back in 2013 and it sounds like things will continue getting better.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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It's also quite clear from this announcement that what they where planning to do before Ubuntu backed was just to remove the text that said that Ubuntu was a recommended system. Going by some earlier comments on the Internet during this few hectic days one could almost get the impression that Valve was going to make sure that Steam could not be installed on Ubuntu at all :-)
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Valve is great. The word "support" mean something for them.
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gradyvuckovic Jun 26, 2019
Perfectly worded response, Valve's position is in my opinion completely justified. What Canonical pulled was crazy and unreasonable, as was said countless times, if there was a solution then Valve couldn't have been expected to work it out in 3 months. You HAVE to give more warning than that when doing something like dropping all 32bit libraries.
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I use Fedora on my lappy (and am considering switching to Fedora on my desktop) so I'm happy to hear about Valve working closer with other distros than Ubuntu.
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Great to hear about Valve working closely with more distros! And especially backing efforts to improve desktop experience. I suppose the recent KDE/KWin work announcement is related to that.
Last edited by Shmerl on 27 June 2019 at 12:06 am UTC
Last edited by Shmerl on 27 June 2019 at 12:06 am UTC
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Interestingly, if you read the announcement carefully, they write that they'll be able to continue to support Ubuntu officially, but they didn't say they'll continue recommending it as the first choice for their users. So would be interesting to see what they'll recommend.
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was there ever someone who said valve stops linux support because of ubuntu?
a few month afer investing a lot of money in proton, wine, dxvk, vulkan, mesa, etc
actually i hope valve releases its own stadia in the near future. also with linux and vulkan
not to replace "offline gaming", but to get steam on every TV, without a NOISY box beside it and for games you just wanna play now and then, but you dont have the space for them.... like xcom, TF2, some warhammer games, etc
a few month afer investing a lot of money in proton, wine, dxvk, vulkan, mesa, etc
actually i hope valve releases its own stadia in the near future. also with linux and vulkan
not to replace "offline gaming", but to get steam on every TV, without a NOISY box beside it and for games you just wanna play now and then, but you dont have the space for them.... like xcom, TF2, some warhammer games, etc
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doomiebaby Jun 27, 2019
Quoting: GuestYup, I'm on board with Steam, it's funny cause at one time I was really against them, amazing what supporting linux did for their image :3
thing is i hate DRM so, and started out a huge steam-hater... but the amount of love they give linux...sigh =w= sometimes it hurts to realize someone's gotten under your skin, i guess ...and they DO have some drm-free games .w. the handsome bastards. wouuoooo
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Very happy to see this. This most recent decision/confusion by Ubuntu is what made me finally switch to Fedora. First the whole Unity 8 fiasco. Then the GNOME themeing arguments. Now the 32 Bit decision. It's clear Ubuntu is being geared toward server and cloud and away from the desktop. That is fine and probably a good financial decision for Ubuntu. But for me, a desktop user, I have switched to Fedora. Steam works well on Fedora when downloaded from RPM Fusion. There is also a flatpak, but I need access to external drives when using steam. I am looking forward to seeing how they enhance their Fedora support.
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My interpretation is, Valve is sending message to outside Linux Gaming community. We Linux gamers knows Valve will always committed to supporting Linux as a gaming platform. It's ironcladed and/or gold standard.
For me, Valve is kinda sending message to those who 'concern' that:
"We are ready with our weaponary and we are prepared to defends anytime if we being attack. Our 'act of defence' will be destruction to others. Be civil, be sincere and don't tempt us to act".
You know, those "concern" (which consists of many entities) are trying to destroy PC gaming in general. Open system aren't good you know. At least it must be semi-closed like mobile devices / smartphones as currently right now.
Well you see, look how many game clients on Windows right now? At least on my Linux PC, I got 2 clients (itch and Steam).
For me, Valve is kinda sending message to those who 'concern' that:
"We are ready with our weaponary and we are prepared to defends anytime if we being attack. Our 'act of defence' will be destruction to others. Be civil, be sincere and don't tempt us to act".
You know, those "concern" (which consists of many entities) are trying to destroy PC gaming in general. Open system aren't good you know. At least it must be semi-closed like mobile devices / smartphones as currently right now.
Well you see, look how many game clients on Windows right now? At least on my Linux PC, I got 2 clients (itch and Steam).
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Mohandevir Jun 27, 2019
"We remain committed to supporting Linux as a gaming platform, and are continuing to drive numerous driver and feature development efforts that we expect will help improve the gaming and desktop experience across all distributions; we'll talk more about some examples of that soon."
-Pierre-Loup Griffais
That kind of ending sentence makes my day. :)
-Pierre-Loup Griffais
That kind of ending sentence makes my day. :)
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Quoting: gradyvuckovicWhat Canonical pulled was crazy and unreasonable, as was said countless times, if there was a solution then Valve couldn't have been expected to work it out in 3 months. You HAVE to give more warning than that when doing something like dropping all 32bit libraries.Well, that exaggeration is a little unfair. No one needs to get off Ubuntu 18.04 until 2023. Ubuntu obviously isn't my first choice, but this wasn't a situation that required immediate action. There definitely would have been plenty of time to change plans.
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Quotedevelopment efforts that we expect will help improve the gaming and desktop experience across all distributionsSo Valve is officially working on making linux in the desktop a better place, not just for gaming but as a whole. Thats so great
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Mountain Man Jun 27, 2019
At this point, what is the best Ubuntu alternative?
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I'm not sure there was much doubt of that--now I'd like to hear it from Canonical.
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Quoting: Mountain ManAt this point, what is the best Ubuntu alternative?Depends on what you're after. I left Ubuntu after they forced too many UI decisions I didn't like, so Mint was a natural choice for me. Similar look and feel to good old Ubuntu + Gnome.
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Well, I did hope some positive things came from this mess.
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Quoting: SalvatosDebian Testing is also a good choice. It's basically the same system under the hood, so it's not even that much of a change. And Debian Testing is a rolling distribution with packages that are fairly up-to-date. And if you need bleeding edge, there is Debian Unstable. And even Experimental if you are really adventurous. :)Quoting: Mountain ManAt this point, what is the best Ubuntu alternative?Depends on what you're after. I left Ubuntu after they forced too many UI decisions I didn't like, so Mint was a natural choice for me. Similar look and feel to good old Ubuntu + Gnome.
The biggest difference is that Debian is much less opinionated than Ubuntu, Mint, and other derivatives. They don't have the Debian desktop experience, but rather ship upstream packages. So you get vanilla GNOME, vanilla KDE, etc. with minimal branding from Debian.
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Arehandoro Jun 27, 2019
Quoting: LinasQuoting: SalvatosDebian Testing is also a good choice. It's basically the same system under the hood, so it's not even that much of a change. And Debian Testing is a rolling distribution with packages that are fairly up-to-date. And if you need bleeding edge, there is Debian Unstable. And even Experimental if you are really adventurous. :)Quoting: Mountain ManAt this point, what is the best Ubuntu alternative?Depends on what you're after. I left Ubuntu after they forced too many UI decisions I didn't like, so Mint was a natural choice for me. Similar look and feel to good old Ubuntu + Gnome.
The biggest difference is that Debian is much less opinionated than Ubuntu, Mint, and other derivatives. They don't have the Debian desktop experience, but rather ship upstream packages. So you get vanilla GNOME, vanilla KDE, etc. with minimal branding from Debian.
I’m actually surprised Valve have not mentioned at all Debian on their last post. I always considered, and still do, Debian the most appropriate distro. Although newer Mesa/Kernels, in an apt repo, would be ideal for sid to have the perfect combination whilst gaming.
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Quoting: LinasRolling distributions are a rather big red flag for some distros.Quoting: SalvatosAnd Debian Testing is a rolling distribution with packages that are fairly up-to-date.Quoting: Mountain ManAt this point, what is the best Ubuntu alternative?Depends on what you're after. I left Ubuntu after they forced too many UI decisions I didn't like, so Mint was a natural choice for me. Similar look and feel to good old Ubuntu + Gnome.
Like, I'd always recommend Manjaro stable over Arch for most users, as it has a more thorough process of making sure things remain stable before updates roll out - or rather, an additional round of checking on top of what Arch does.
Nonetheless, if Steam would officially support Arch, that would (if I'm not mistaken) include Manjaro, so...
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