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PayPalHow about we start Monday off with an interesting little titbit? According to a former Valve staffer, Steam for Linux was started up by ex-Microsoft employees.
The information comes from Richard Geldreich, part of the Linux team who left Valve back in 2014. On Twitter, Geldreich interestingly said this:
What isn't commonly known is that the original Steam Linux effort was started and led by a number of ex-Microsoft employees who, for various reasons, believed that Windows was going in the wrong direction.
Definitely something I didn't know. It sort of makes sense though, with many in the gaming and tech industry showing concern on where Microsoft was taking Windows. Valve's Gabe Newell (who also worked at Microsoft) famously said Windows 8 was "a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space" and that getting their games and Steam onto Linux was "a hedging strategy". From the big touch orientated interface that tried dropping the traditional desktop, to the hinted plans at pushing people towards the Windows Store there was a lot of ire aimed at Windows 8.
Getting Steam on Linux, and the original Valve blog posts like the "Faster Zombies!" lit a fire under Microsoft, clearly feeling a little threatened (or perhaps just motivated to do something) as Geldreich actually wrote on his blog back in 2017 that Microsoft ended up paying Valve a visit.
Without Valve's initial push into Linux, and their continued support with various projects and contracts with developers to work on improving all manner of things like the Linux Kernel, Mesa drivers and more, Linux gaming would have gone nowhere. It's still a tiny niche now of course, but it's come a very long way in terms of usability and performance.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Valve delivered, Epic didn't.
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Imagine SteamOS being first released today with Proton, remote play and Arch based
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Quoting: GuestWhy arch based?
(no criticism, just curious why that over Debian)
In my point of view would be better for a "Gaming System" due to updated packages and easy to install third party software (AUR packages).
I remember most of the complaints were about outdated MESA/Pulseaudio packages because Valve had to backport then due to the outdated ones Debian use by default, and not having a "Netflix App", Both of the cases I think would be less of a burden for a Arch based system.
But again, just my opinion as a person who uses Linux to play some games.
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Unrelated to the conversation at hand, but I stumbled over the word “titbit” in the first sentence. Personally I hadn’t seen it written like this before, but only as “tidbit” i.e. with a “d” instead of a “t”. Believe it or not this was the reason for creating an account with GOL.
In any case if anyone is interested, apparently both forms exist, but according to Merriam-Webster, the notation with a “t” is less common:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/titbit
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tidbit
Thus ends my first contribution to this fabulous site...:D
In any case if anyone is interested, apparently both forms exist, but according to Merriam-Webster, the notation with a “t” is less common:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/titbit
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tidbit
Thus ends my first contribution to this fabulous site...:D
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Quoting: hammahUnrelated to the conversation at hand, but I stumbled over the word “titbit” in the first sentence. Personally I hadn’t seen it written like this before, but only as “tidbit” i.e. with a “d” instead of a “t”. Believe it or not this was the reason for creating an account with GOL.I'll be honest, it was and now is a somewhat amusing (tit) misspell on my part that just so happens to also exist and be the same thing so I lucked out :D
In any case if anyone is interested, apparently both forms exist, but according to Merriam-Webster, the notation with a “t” is less common:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/titbit
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tidbit
Thus ends my first contribution to this fabulous site...:D
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Quoting: HoriThere are two aspects to my dislike of Windows. One is that early Microsoft was a particularly virulent organization. Young Bill Gates was a very unethical, predatory, rapacious individual and he hired predatory, unethical people and they did a lot of really bad things.Quoting: PangaeaWindows IS still going in the wrong direction. Long may it continue.But why tho?
What is the reason we "hate" Windows? Is it just because, or is it because it's going in a wrong direction?
Wouldn't it be better for everyone if it just started to go in a good direction instead?
Of course this is not likely to happen, but it's a valid question.
I for one wouldn't care for Linux growth if Windows would be a decent, non-spyware OS. Tho that doesn't mean I'd switch, far from it.
The other is more general: Windows is a monopoly. Corporations want to make profits. Free market theory suggests that this means corporations would compete hard on an even playing field to create the best products and the most efficient processes for producing them. Some of that stuff does happen, but what free market theory ignores is that it is possible to cheat. Rather than all that competing on a level playing field jazz, corporations would prefer to have monopolies so they can simply set prices at a level where they make obscene profits. If they have one, they would prefer to keep it.
And it turns out most of the things you can do to keep a monopoly once you have it are bad for consumers, bad for technological development, and don't have much to do with mythical level playing fields. So even if Microsoft is now a more ordinary, business-as-usual sort of monopoly, having to a fair degree shed the unique rapacity of the early days, they remain a corporation busily maintaining a monopoly (a couple of monopolies, actually--there's Office too) and that is inevitably going to be a Bad Thing. Structurally, such things are incapable of "going in a good direction" for very long.
Of course if Linux took over it would not be a monopoly since Linux isn't a commercial firm any more than the C++ computer language is.
(For those who are unaware: No working definition of "monopoly" requires 100%; Windows has way more of its market than Standard Oil, the archetypal monopoly, had when they broke it up)
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 6 January 2020 at 7:52 pm UTC
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BrazilianGamer Jan 6, 2020
N O I C E
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Quoting: GuestI think updates aren't the problem so much as updates not breaking things. The situation is better than it was, and hindsight shows better ways than Valve initially tried, but it remains one aspect of GNU/Linux and gaming that is more troublesome than it should be.
Usually I would agree with you, but games usually require fresh updates (specially with graphic drivers),and while I think Debian is a great distro (since I use at work) they have the habit of not update anything that's not a security issue (even minor bugs/glitches) until a major release, and this is bad for our case as we may have some minor performance issue in some specific game with some specific card and drive version, that need a specific fix in the newest drivers release, etc.
Sure they can backport those packages if necessary, but I think mixing old packages with new packages can be more problematic than just downgrade a faulty package if needed.
Also they don't need to be bleeding edge like vanilla Arch, they could've used some approach like Manjaro, but with more time between those versions (maybe an new release every quarter?) where they could just check if those packages didn't break anything essential.
TL;DR: Debian is stable in general, but takes too long to fix minor problems and implement performance features.
Quoting: GuestIf that were solved, drivers in their current shape, and DXVK of course, and then SteamOS (and maybe the machines too) released....well, things might have turned out different.
You may not believe me now, but I did predicted the "fail" of steam machines since day 1 due to they not working the SteamOS before start to release then to the average public (the machines, not the system)
Back to my first comment, If Steam machines/OS was first released today, the results probably would be different, because of a now more mature Vulkan and the game changer DXVK.
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Quoting: BielFPsPretty much best comment. Personally, i chose Tumbleweed, due to mix of fresh packages and relative stability (on top with beeing one of "good" KDE distros). I would like to hear some more recommendations of similar distros- fresh, but not bleeding edge packages and preferably rolling release.Quoting: GuestI think updates aren't the problem so much as updates not breaking things. The situation is better than it was, and hindsight shows better ways than Valve initially tried, but it remains one aspect of GNU/Linux and gaming that is more troublesome than it should be.
Usually I would agree with you, but games usually require fresh updates (specially with graphic drivers),and while I think Debian is a great distro (since I use at work) they have the habit of not update anything that's not a security issue (even minor bugs/glitches) until a major release, and this is bad for our case as we may have some minor performance issue in some specific game with some specific card and drive version, that need a specific fix in the newest drivers release, etc.
Sure they can backport those packages if necessary, but I think mixing old packages with new packages can be more problematic than just downgrade a faulty package if needed.
Also they don't need to be bleeding edge like vanilla Arch, they could've used some approach like Manjaro, but with more time between those versions (maybe an new release every quarter?) where they could just check if those packages didn't break anything essential.
TL;DR: Debian is stable in general, but takes too long to fix minor problems and implement performance features.
Quoting: GuestIf that were solved, drivers in their current shape, and DXVK of course, and then SteamOS (and maybe the machines too) released....well, things might have turned out different.
You may not believe me now, but I did predicted the "fail" of steam machines since day 1 due to they not working the SteamOS before start to release then to the average public (the machines, not the system)
Back to my first comment, If Steam machines/OS was first released today, the results probably would be different, because of a now more mature Vulkan and the game changer DXVK.
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Quoting: GuestJust to say that yeah, I can see Debian being a bit slow for necessary driver updates, especially when it's driver, mesa, llvm, xorg, etc, all needing to be updated for that one fix!
(side note: actually I use wine when system libs are updated and a game no longer runs, but thankfully that's quite rare)
And apologies, reply limited because I'm on my phone's keyboard, but some good notes & thoughts, thank you!
Thank you for asking my opinion :)
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