Seems Valve do intend to go back to SteamOS at some point

Quoting: WorMzy

Quoting: rustybroomhandleI think Arch-based would be the sensible option here. Arch-derived distros just seem way more stable and upgrade-fubar-proof than debian-derived ones.

Really? Debian is the gold standard for stability. The problem is that people want a stable OS with a "bleeding edge" graphics stack, and that's where the house of cards falls over.

Arch can provide the bleeding edge, but it requires that YOU (the end user) know what you're doing.

Which in turn doesn't sound too practical for something I've always assumed was supposed to be a pretty turnkey affair--hit a button and be ready to play games, kind of thing.

mmm be interesting to see a arch based distro making use of the AUR to push out updates without any configuration as its already been done for you at package level. However if arch breaks it breaks spectacularily, that said I dont think i need to worry as I need to get back to my lottery winning plan which is about as likely as valve going back to steam os at this point. They are already partners with codeweavers i know previously they were closely working with cononical until the 32 bit kernel stuff a parnership with manjaro wuth a custom spin.

Quoting: Hori

Quoting: AllocHaving a full-featured open source "console" desktop from Steam would be cool imo. So not only Steam's BPM but something that resembles consoles more. Supporting streaming services in the interface (Amazon, Netflix, Spotify etc ...), playing videos from the local network, maybe support for Plex. So that you could really use that thing as a TV box and not have to hop around different interfaces for everything but games. Maybe they'll get there ...

Either way I wouldn't care about the underlying distribution ... the SteamOS thing (for me) should just work as-is, I wouldn't use that for desktops anyway.

I never understand why people want Netflix and other apps like that in Steam / consoles... don't their TVs already have those apps? Why would you fire up your pc/console just to watch a movie when you can do it straight from the TV, using the TV remote instead of a gamepad?

The thing is, many Smart-TVs are highly insecure with far and few between security updates, if ever. For this reason, I avoid using them, as much as possible, and replace the "smart" part by a TV-Box that gets maintained regularly.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 25 March 2020 at 7:03 pm UTC

Quoting: WorMzyReally? Debian is the gold standard for stability. The problem is that people want a stable OS with a "bleeding edge" graphics stack, and that's where the house of cards falls over.

Arch can provide the bleeding edge, but it requires that YOU (the end user) know what you're doing.

Considering "bleeding edge" is a 16xx series nVidia which is around the $350AUD price range or needing to compile mesa (for newer AMD gfx) to have working on debian based distros is a pain in the you know where compared with Arch there is already an AUR ready to use.

Remember in order to appeal to current gamers you need to support newer hardware to those that are getting sick to death dealing with Win10 issues. Debian based distros unfortunately fall too short of that mark.

Look don't get me wrong, I have a laptop that has a GTX 960m and it more or less works out of the box with any deb based distro. But anything new in the last ~ two years debian considers "bleeding edge".

Quoting: dubigrasuThey also said about future SteamOS being possibly image-based (not apt/etc) for better control and consistency, so whatever distro will be based on won't likely be a plain Arch/Debian/whatever with an "SteamOS" sticker slapped on it.

Good. With all the world to homed, there is no reason that the entire OS can't or shouldn't be mounted as "read-only".

As for the Debian gang being butthurt about their Valve previously noting Arch as an investigative option -- lol. That's what happens when Canonical/Ubuntu decides to kill 32-bit support. I mean you guys don't EVERY game developer on Steam still has the source code or funding to port to 64-bit like the FOSS community which doesn't run on funds but passion.

Checkout which OS is #2
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics

Quoting: Spanner_Man

Quoting: WorMzyReally? Debian is the gold standard for stability. The problem is that people want a stable OS with a "bleeding edge" graphics stack, and that's where the house of cards falls over.

Arch can provide the bleeding edge, but it requires that YOU (the end user) know what you're doing.

Considering "bleeding edge" is a 16xx series nVidia which is around the $350AUD price range or needing to compile mesa (for newer AMD gfx) to have working on debian based distros is a pain in the you know where compared with Arch there is already an AUR ready to use.

Remember in order to appeal to current gamers you need to support newer hardware to those that are getting sick to death dealing with Win10 issues. Debian based distros unfortunately fall too short of that mark.

Look don't get me wrong, I have a laptop that has a GTX 960m and it more or less works out of the box with any deb based distro. But anything new in the last ~ two years debian considers "bleeding edge".

Being Debian based by itself wasn't a problem for SteamOS (well, before they gave up on it), they periodically provided new kernels and drivers.

Quoting: Guestbut it is better than freezing the whole software base for 2 years just to make sure lazy devs can write their code and work without them having to modify it in the future.

i think you didnt understand the issue here.

its not about being an lazy developer, but having to chose between add an new feature and rewrite your program to fix issues caused by thirdy party code.

i dont give a fuck what python version my distro is using, if none of the programs that i run are running the lastest version of python, they dont need the new features to do what they do, they should not upgrade.

but i do give a fuck when i try to run an effect on gimp, and it simply dont work, breaking my workflow from:
"now, i need to aply the effect x, then y, they z, to make the photo montage i need to do for my work"
to: now i need to waste 3 hours figuring out why the effect X dont work anymore, 2 hours fixing it, 3 hours fixing the z effect that broke after i fixed the x effect, and... what are the steps i was going to follow to make my work anyway? i cant even remember it anymore!

that is why we need to keep things working for 2 years, imagine rewrite the entire blender every 2 years, do you REALLY want to put that work upon yourselft?
i'm not saying you gonna need rewrite everything, but good luck figuring out what broke (testing everything to make sure nothing broke) and why it broke (when its not even your fault, but the fault of some thirdy partie)

not to mention games, windows has at least 10 years of backward compatibility and 90% of the marketshare.
imagine convincing developers to port every library that an game rely on to linux, then port the game itself, only to break stuff 2 years later, with our current marketshare?
or imagine convincing players to game on linux, increassing our marketshare, only to then they figure out that they cant play anymore any game that launched 2 years ago, because those game developers didnt bother to update it?

no one will spend 200 millions of dolars to make an game, than rewrite it every 2 years to make sure its still working, they dont do that on windows, years later most of the profit was already made and any unexpected maintaince may not pay itself.
if developers had to rewrite the games every few years to make sure its still working, they wouldnt make games as amibitous as they do, they would have to scale down their games budget to deal with maintaince cost, the entire industry would evolve slower.
and why? so we can play on linux? if windows were like this, or linux where the most used on desktop and worked like this, those games would be console exclusives already, we would lost completely the most open platform to play games (pc) just because we want an open operating system to run on that platform.

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: Guestbut it is better than freezing the whole software base for 2 years just to make sure lazy devs can write their code and work without them having to modify it in the future.

i think you didnt understand the issue here.

its not about being an lazy developer, but having to chose between add an new feature and rewrite your program to fix issues caused by thirdy party code.

i dont give a fuck what python version my distro is using, if none of the programs that i run are running the lastest version of python, they dont need the new features to do what they do, they should not upgrade.

but i do give a fuck when i try to run an effect on gimp, and it simply dont work, breaking my workflow from:
"now, i need to aply the effect x, then y, they z, to make the photo montage i need to do for my work"
to: now i need to waste 3 hours figuring out why the effect X dont work anymore, 2 hours fixing it, 3 hours fixing the z effect that broke after i fixed the x effect, and... what are the steps i was going to follow to make my work anyway? i cant even remember it anymore!

that is why we need to keep things working for 2 years, imagine rewrite the entire blender every 2 years, do you REALLY want to put that work upon yourselft?
i'm not saying you gonna need rewrite everything, but good luck figuring out what broke (testing everything to make sure nothing broke) and why it broke (when its not even your fault, but the fault of some thirdy partie)

not to mention games, windows has at least 10 years of backward compatibility and 90% of the marketshare.
imagine convincing developers to port every library that an game rely on to linux, then port the game itself, only to break stuff 2 years later, with our current marketshare?
or imagine convincing players to game on linux, increassing our marketshare, only to then they figure out that they cant play anymore any game that launched 2 years ago, because those game developers didnt bother to update it?

no one will spend 200 millions of dolars to make an game, than rewrite it every 2 years to make sure its still working, they dont do that on windows, years later most of the profit was already made and any unexpected maintaince may not pay itself.
if developers had to rewrite the games every few years to make sure its still working, they wouldnt make games as amibitous as they do, they would have to scale down their games budget to deal with maintaince cost, the entire industry would evolve slower.
and why? so we can play on linux? if windows were like this, or linux where the most used on desktop and worked like this, those games would be console exclusives already, we would lost completely the most open platform to play games (pc) just because we want an open operating system to run on that platform.

Exactly! And even on Windows with their "10 years of backward compatibility" enterprises still spend months of testing their applications on new releases of Windows 10 before they decide to support that new release or not (which e.g is why so many enterprises where still on Windows 7 for so many years).

Yep that was me with the reply. I've always been pretty gung-ho about this idea of Valve's so it was nice to have some sort of update.

I find the constant Debian bashing quite curious. None of the "linux" distros are in a position like windows, where they essentially can do whatever and tell devs to adapt or GTFO. Devs have to adapt to it no matter what. On the other hand, the vocal linux users usually prefer the "bleeding edge" distros, and while that's perfectly okay, it is also probable they don't really need that version of every package, but rahter a handful of packages.

On the side of the enterprises, it's understandable that they want something that just works (since these programs are not open, they can't get fixes "for free" even for the trivial bugs), and for that goal i think debian or ubuntu works most similarly to windows (updates). That's why most games target these distros.

I fully agree with the commenters that say the linux compatibility is up to the companies too. I too have many games from 2010-2015 that run just fine almost 10 years later, needing no library downgrades (or manual compilation). I think most people here know that which devs or porters make those games by now.

More to the topic of SteamOS i think this just means they will roll out a new release sometime. The work on the VR stuff and their usual work on the drivers probably merit that too.


Last edited by dvd on 26 March 2020 at 8:41 am UTC

Quoting: Hori

Quoting: Mohandevir

Quoting: Hori

Quoting: AllocHaving a full-featured open source "console" desktop from Steam would be cool imo. So not only Steam's BPM but something that resembles consoles more. Supporting streaming services in the interface (Amazon, Netflix, Spotify etc ...), playing videos from the local network, maybe support for Plex. So that you could really use that thing as a TV box and not have to hop around different interfaces for everything but games. Maybe they'll get there ...

Either way I wouldn't care about the underlying distribution ... the SteamOS thing (for me) should just work as-is, I wouldn't use that for desktops anyway.

I never understand why people want Netflix and other apps like that in Steam / consoles... don't their TVs already have those apps? Why would you fire up your pc/console just to watch a movie when you can do it straight from the TV, using the TV remote instead of a gamepad?

The thing is, many Smart-TVs are highly insecure with far and few between security updates, if ever. For this reason, I avoid using them, as much as possible, and replace the "smart" part by a TV-Box that gets maintained regularly.

I don't expect there to be too many people that do that. People would prefer using 1 TV remote instead of two, or instead of a gamepad. It's also that most people don't even know about TV boxes.

IDK personally I think TV boxes are very useful in the context of non-smart TVs, or TVs that are very outdated (e.g. early smart TVs from a few years ago that have very old Android versions).
On the other hand, I kind of dislike TV Boxes because they use Android, and I find it to be a terrible and very buggy TV OS. (However they do have a lot more apps than others)

___

Also, for example, if you use the TV's YouTube, you don't have to worry about the game not supporting "alt-tabbing", as your game never really looses focus from your PC's perspective. But I don't expect this to be a real problem, since the majority of people don't play old games, and modern ones, and even many old ones, alt-tab just fine.

You don't need to convince me of the conviviality of using a SmartTV or the popularity of my idea. You wanted to know why people are asking for such features on SteamOS, I provided you with one exemple. It would probably be a lot more secure on SteamOS than any unmaintained SmartTV, like it or not. There are many other reasons to ask for these features too. Why flat out deny them when you may get the same features out of an Xbox one or PS4?

We have to keep in mind that SteamOS is not a desktop OS, it's targeted for consoles devices/uses. For my part, it should be minimally on par, feature wise, to any other consoles on the market which it strives to compete with.

Edit: Really amusing that this news gets out today...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2020/03/26/plasma-bigscreen-is-a-new-smart-tv-experience-powered-by-raspberry-pi-4-and-kde/#27fc39433465

Personnally I would be willing to try this on my computer, along with Steam.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 26 March 2020 at 3:21 pm UTC

Debian is the market standard. All applications target primarily Ubuntu or any other Debian based distros. It would be like going against the normal industry flow if Valve used any arch or Red hat(Cent OS) based distributions. Let's see. Well, Canonical has given some reasons for them to ditch Ubuntu in favor of other distros I have to admit. Time will tell

Besides the issue of no security updates on SmartTVs it's also simply an issue of not getting new apps either. Our Panasonic will probably never support Disney+ as an example (actually I think it never received *any* updates for any part of it since we got it like 5 years ago ...).

I consider SmartTVs to be similar to iMacs. While it's nice in the beginning to have a good working combination (and thus integration of both parts) of the content provider and the display unit after some time you got an outdated content provider but the display unit will be just fine for years. So screens are one thing where I don't want anything else to be integrated. Just give me proper interfaces to the outside (A/V) and that's it.


Last edited by Alloc on 26 March 2020 at 3:51 pm UTC

Quoting: BrazilianGamerDebian is the market standard.

What market are you talking about? Red Hat is the industry standard and has been for a long time. IBM didn't buy them for no good reason. :P

Quoting: miroI hope they don't intend to switch away from linux at all, when referring to away from `Debian-based Brewmaster`

That would not make sense at all, considering the efforts. I moved away from steamOS myself, but the only reason for this was because it is stuck with old software and the lack of e.g. Kodi

Debian doesn't have a lack of Kodi, you just need to add the deb-multimedia.org repo. And they keep it up to date as well.

https://www.deb-multimedia.org/

Quoting: WorMzy

Quoting: BrazilianGamerDebian is the market standard.

What market are you talking about? Red Hat is the industry standard and has been for a long time. IBM didn't buy them for no good reason. :P

Red Hat is indeed the industry standard... for enterprise level stuff. It's crap for home users. But that's not what it's intention is by a long shot!

It is even a decent workstation, but I still prefer Debian and it's derivatives as they package just about everything under the sun, and software is just an 'apt install' away.

Quoting: AllocBesides the issue of no security updates on SmartTVs it's also simply an issue of not getting new apps either. Our Panasonic will probably never support Disney+ as an example (actually I think it never received *any* updates for any part of it since we got it like 5 years ago ...).

I consider SmartTVs to be similar to iMacs. While it's nice in the beginning to have a good working combination (and thus integration of both parts) of the content provider and the display unit after some time you got an outdated content provider but the display unit will be just fine for years. So screens are one thing where I don't want anything else to be integrated. Just give me proper interfaces to the outside (A/V) and that's it.

So far as I've seen with my LG WebOS TV, it's actually pretty decent in getting updates, and did get the Disney+ app. Thanks for reminding me, I need to cancel that... haha

Quoting: WorMzy

Quoting: BrazilianGamerDebian is the market standard.

What market are you talking about? Red Hat is the industry standard and has been for a long time. IBM didn't buy them for no good reason. :P

Welllll . . . certainly I get the impression that if someone in industry is going to pay for something Linux, it will be Red Hat. It's the Enterprise Linux Solution; suits buy it and its support contracts. But I also get the impression that if someone in industry is just going to get a server or something up and running to do a task which is not a big formal rollout with a ton of money involved, it is more likely to be Debian.

Quoting: WorMzy

Quoting: BrazilianGamerDebian is the market standard.

What market are you talking about? Red Hat is the industry standard and has been for a long time. IBM didn't buy them for no good reason. :P

If you read my comment again, you'll see I was talking about applications. Not hegemony in servers. In servers there's no doubt Red hat wins by a landslide. But still, when companies or individuals think about creating any application, the first distro they know they have to support is Ubuntu or any other debian based distros in general. Simply because they are the most used therefore, popular and of course, there's a bigger chance of revenue if it is a paid software or just to have a bigger userbase.


Last edited by BrazilianGamer on 27 March 2020 at 3:15 am UTC

Quoting: BrazilianGamer

Quoting: WorMzy

Quoting: BrazilianGamerDebian is the market standard.

What market are you talking about? Red Hat is the industry standard and has been for a long time. IBM didn't buy them for no good reason. :P

If you read my comment again, you'll see I was talking about applications. Not hegemony in servers. In servers there's no doubt Red hat wins in a landslide. But still, when companies or individuals think about creating any application, the first distro they know they have to support is Ubuntu or any other debian based distros in general. Simply because they are the most used therefore, popular and of course, there's a bigger chance of revenue if it is a paid software or just to have a bigger userbase.

The crap thing about that is Ubuntu trying to move away from Debian packages, and instead to adopt their own Snap package management. I get that Ubuntu wants to try to make themselves special, but all that does is make them less stable, and less wanted. So many developers in the past have made excuses not to support Linux because of all the variations, but for years it has basically been Debian+RPM based systems. Any of the other distributions have people smart enough to convert packages from deb/rpm. But then Red Hat comes out with Flatpak, that everyone adopts... except Ubuntu, who decides to push snap...

Sorry, rant over. We will see how much the next few Ubuntu releases screw the pooch.