10 years ago Steam released for Linux

Steam ended pirating games for me, that was a big thing.

You too? 😄

As I read the comments, a few things make me feel weird:
1. Most of you are Linux users for a long time, while I use Linux since 2020 and play on it since 2022.
2. Despite only recently starting gaming, it was nowhere near an OOB Just Works experience. I dealt with forcing games to use Nvidia GPU, any Vulkan application freezing due to a driver bug, Apex Legends stuttering even with GPL and mod problems with HOI4. I even patched Proton (only a week ago!) so Paradox Launcher would well behave.
3. In 2 Steam accounts around only 5 games were purchased in total (and only 1 pirate game which I can't acquire in a different way) while everyone else here has hundreds if not thousands.

In general, I totally get you. Although for me, it's all OOB experience because anything that doesn't work I just shelve and play something else. Like Galactic Civilizations III, for a long time my only ever non-Linux-native game purchase. It didn't work, but I never tinkered with it, I would just try every year or two to see if Wine/Proton had started working (when it finally did, I was quite disappointed in the game and wished I hadn't bothered). Vampire Survivors doesn't work for me; maybe one day it will. But there are plenty of other games so I can't be bothered to tinker trying to get it going.

One tiny specific I-don't-get-it . . . you patched Proton to make the Paradox launcher work . . . why would you be using Proton with the Paradox launcher at all? Aren't all their games Linux native?

Galactic Civilizations

This is such a shame, because I remember when Stardock was a cool company, producing OS/2 games. Now they are just yet another boring Windows shop.

I ditched Windows long before Steam for Linux. I remember, my only concern back in 2005 was, if WoW would work. It did in wine just fine :D

When I heard the first rumors, that Steam might come to Linux (in a Phoronix article, IIRC) I was curious. Installed it as soon as I could get my hands on it. First game I bought just to support their effort with my wallet. It was Serious Sam 3 BFE, btw.

Amazing to see how much gaming on linux has grown since then.
I've used linux all my life that I remember; playing BZFlag as a kid blew my mind. Then got hugely into Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory which worked amazing on linux, and then got really into linux gaming with the Live Linux Gamers distro. It was a live distro that came with maybe 10-20 games preinstalled (still playing Urban Terror today!). Made a few other stops along the way before I finally joined steam in 2014.

So many hours spent troubleshooting games, getting them to work under linux or solving weird issues. It's mindblowing to me these days that you just click install on regular ol steam and then click play, and boom - it's working. It's the case with so, so many games that I'm used to it now. Never thought plug & play would become the norm but I'm so happy it has.

Thanks for 10 years steam!

I think I'm mental. Part of the fun to me is getting the actual game to work. Most of the games I start up, play for a few hours, then it scratches that 'itch' then I ignore the game until I get the itch again. Now though I have the problem of 'I'm in the mood to play a game, which one? An RPG... okay I have... a lot... meh, I'll just watch YouTube.'

Sad that the state of affairs is that now I have so many games to play on Linux, I can't pick one to actually play!

And to celebrate it:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/8076#issuecomment-1430641159

Thanks Pierre/Valve. I hope they really nailed that, was annoying me out of my pants to have daily shader downloads of 10gb+.


Last edited by STiAT on 15 February 2023 at 6:44 pm UTC

why would you be using Proton with the Paradox launcher at all?

A specific HOI4 mod (Europe in Flames: Agora) doesn't work with native HOI4 while it works on Windows, macOS and Proton. Also my PC is shared with a hardcore Linux hater (I may be exaggerating, but still) so even if I don't want to use the mod, Windows version of HOI4 will stay installed no matter what and I will have to either flip from Proton to native or have 2 copies of the game.
IIRC you asked this before.

And to celebrate it:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/8076#issuecomment-1430641159

YESSS! Do I need to opt in to beta for the fix?

And to celebrate it:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/8076#issuecomment-1430641159

YESSS! Do I need to opt in to beta for the fix?

No, that's a server side fix according to Pierre, I've verified that with BF5 (160kb download instead of 3gb).
You need to re-download the full shader caches once, after that you get increments. At least that's how it seems for me at the moment :-).

And hopefully only if increments happen, but we'll see that over the next days.


Last edited by STiAT on 15 February 2023 at 8:10 pm UTC

launch date driver bugs

Isn't this still a thing with AMD for GPU launches and both AMD and Nvidia for new games?

Yeah...

Perhaps next generation will have that sorted. Or the one after that. Surely the one after that will have games work the day they are released on standard hardware!

I started my fulltime linux journey 4 years ago and am still amazed at the progress made in such a short time.

so can you actually get that achievement? if on board for 10 years?

so can you actually get that achievement? if on board for 10 years?

That's just a graphic Liam's put together, I don't think Valve are doing anything to mark the occasion (but then we all know Valve don't mark the passage of time like most other people do... ).


Last edited by WorMzy on 16 February 2023 at 1:52 pm UTC

why would you be using Proton with the Paradox launcher at all?

A specific HOI4 mod (Europe in Flames: Agora) doesn't work with native HOI4 while it works on Windows, macOS and Proton. Also my PC is shared with a hardcore Linux hater (I may be exaggerating, but still) so even if I don't want to use the mod, Windows version of HOI4 will stay installed no matter what and I will have to either flip from Proton to native or have 2 copies of the game.
IIRC you asked this before.

Weird, is the mod installing some case sensitive files that are causing it to not work on Linux?

Also why would you share anything with a Linux hater, sounds like you need to ditch people. :p (kidding of course, educating people on why Linux is awesome is always a better way than to just kick them from your presence.)

Interestingly, I sort of just barely missed the event. I was still using Windows a few years out of college in 2013, but I'd just started a job that year where I used Linux at work…now fast-forward to July 2014 when I built my first desktop and put Linux Mint on it, mostly as a result of that experience at work (and a good Linux guru friend there). When I started first seriously thinking about doing such a thing sometime mid-to-late 2013, I kinda just took it for granted that Steam was available on Linux (even if a lot fewer games were at the time), and didn't realize that if I'd been able to build a computer a year earlier it wouldn't have been available.

Luckily for me, I'd only really discovered Steam a few years earlier in 2011* when Portal 2 came out, so I hadn't had much time to build up a large Windows-only library and a lot of my games were already cross-platform and available natively due to my tastes (plus some conscious buying decisions for a year or so in preparation). So for me the timing really worked out well to be able to make the switch from Windows, and I only had to give up a relatively small number of games at the time (all of which I can now play again anyway ).

*I was vaguely aware of it before that, but my family had dial-up internet right up until I moved away to college, so Steam was never an option that I'd seriously checked out.

The good big Linux catastrophes in earth: steam 2013, DXVK 2018 and steamOS 2022! Good work Valve, keep it going!!!

so can you actually get that achievement? if on board for 10 years?

That's just a graphic Liam's put together, I don't think Valve are doing anything to mark the occasion (but then we all know Valve don't mark the passage of time like most other people do... ).

ohh ok got it

Whom here remembers happypenguin.org ?
That was awesome some 15 years ago...

I loved happypenguin.org. It covered a lot more of the open source engine / free games. Kind of wish Liam would cover more of these gems. Seeing another 'AAA game works with Proton' is getting a little boring. We get it, Proton is awesome and for the most part just plays anything.'

I'm loving the 'retro computer build' series! I have a stack of Retro systems that would have a hard time running most kernels, though I could likely get a 10 year old kernel on there... I should find a copy of Mandrake...

TBF, he covers most relevant FOSS games, there just aren't that many that can compare to commercial releases. If you still want your dailyweekly digest of updates for smaller projects, I can recommend Holarse's (Wochenen)drückblick, where I constantly find interesting projects I haven't heard of before and considering there is not much in the way of news included, the few German words should not distract all too much.

Ha, used to digging through foreign languages for releases for Atari homebrew releases too.

Also why would you share anything with a Linux hater, sounds like you need to ditch people.

Sharing is not my choice.
The good thing is I set up things nicely: Windows and Linux dual boot, all of the games and data are on the Windows partition but I can mount NTFS with 2 clicks on Linux so everything is accessible on both operating systems. No, having Steam library on NTFS doesn't cause odd issues, for me at least.
The bad side is no one cares about the FOSS philosophy but instead whether Linux works or not. More often than not Linux doesn't work OOB, I can fix the problems but the moment the failure occurs, the choice is made.

Weird, is the mod installing some case sensitive files that are causing it to not work on Linux?

IIRC all files are lowercase but I will take another look. A regular HOI4 mod doesn't include platform specific files like .exe or .so so it should therotically work everywhere but it doesn't. I tried asking for help in mod community's Discord but I didn't get useful advice. (files may be conflicting, switch to DX9 which ofc doesn't exist)


Last edited by mr-victory on 18 February 2023 at 2:31 pm UTC

No, having Steam library on NTFS doesn't cause odd issues, for me at least.

My understanding of this is that it is an issue with specific games. So it is quite possible you will never run into it.

Favorite moment: playing TF2 and LFD2 on Linux for the first time. Doesn't seem like a big deal now but in 2013 it was huge deal. Triple AAA games had finally arrived Linux.