You make your assumptions on the same claim that "everyone uses Ubuntu". So depending on how much you believe this to be true, you can estimate further what Valve is going to base their system on. I don't consider this claim to be valid, or at least proven. And even if it is, that's not what system design should be based on - it should be based on technological advantages. Wayland is clearly better looking from each angle now. Can Mir suddenly become so good that everyone will start using it? May be, anything can happen. But so far it looks like it will remain Canonical's internal tool only. It doesn't look like you can see a big picture here, if you claim that it makes sense for Valve to use Mir. No one who commented on the matter, so far bought Canonical's claim that it made any sense for them (Canonical) to ditch Wayland for Mir. Let alone for anyone else to do the same thing. Valve didn't voice their opinion on that yet.

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Distrowatch is not reliable for any estimations, they write so explicitly. All that you mentioned above aren't comprehensive statistics. It works by the method "if you talk about it enough, people will start accepting it as such". That's how I see the claim that Ubuntu is most used, and until some solid numbers can demonstrate it, I'll keep it as unproven in my view.

Console OS by definition needs to be optimized to the maximum like crazy, that's what all PlayStations and Xboxes do, so actually Gentoo which is bent on optimization makes all the sense for Valve (I'm not using Gentoo, just showing an argument).

Ubuntu won't remain (and isn't, the way I see it) a fattest target, thanks to their shortsighted Mir decision, which will essentially severely isolate them from everyone else. So, from system design perspective, betting on Ubuntu is simply bad. Canonical can of course come back to their senses and drop this Mir obsession, but why should Valve wait for that to happen? Even downstream users of Ubuntu, like Kubuntu and etc. were pretty concerned with it, and contemplated how they are going to maintain Wayland integration on their own. So, why should Valve get involved with this headache to begin with? Just thinking out loud, we of course don't know what Valve actually plans to do. This touches their long term plans, since neither Wayland nor Mir are ready for gaming desktop usage (drivers wise).

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Quoting: Quote from intokSure they did, Ubuntu has been by far and away the most popular desktop distro for nearly a decade.

Did you read the thread above? For nearly a decade Canonical hyped it as such. I never saw them showing any numbers which could demonstrate it, I doubt they even can. I don't buy hype talk.

Valve shouldn't care about arguments of what distros users prefer. They care about how to develop a system that will serve their goal (to be a good console gaming OS). They can as well make a distro from scratch, but it all boils down to cost and efficiency. You are looking at this from users perspective, but that's wrong, Valve looks at it from system designers perspective and they have their own priorities. Using Wayland based metaditros in the future has all the advantages, using Mir based Ubuntu has none, since Ubuntu own reasons are not logical, or at least not technically reasonable. Valve doesn't even benefit from any Ubuntu specific bits - they aren't going to use Unity or anything the like. So what does Ubuntu give Valve as a base, that Debian or Gentoo don't for example? If you say Valve can follow the same reasoning as Canonical did to think that Mir is so great that it's worth to split themselves from the majority of the Linux world, then we'll just have to wait and see if it's so or not.

Their choice of Ubuntu as a primary support target for Steam was done before all this Mir story came out. If they'd to decide knowing all this, they could chose differently. My point is, nothing prevents them from doing that now, for the future of their Steam OS development. It's not even out yet. Things change and old plan can fall short of expectations.

For example Google based their ChromeOS on Ubuntu originally as well, but later switched to Gentoo. It's not about popularity, it's what works for them.

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Quoting: Quote from intok

Quoting: Quote from ShmerlAbout why Valve could drop Ubuntu - it doesn't make any sense from practical point. When Ubuntu can remain the only isolated distro using Mr, why should Valve risk making it their primary base?

Simple, if 80% of the Linux gamers/Valve Linux customers are using Ubuntu and therefore will be using Mir then not supporting it is shooting yourself in the foot.

First of all, Valve didn't have any numbers before they rolled out Linux support (it didn't exist for them) and afterwards numbers were always skewed because they said Ubuntu only is officially supported distro, so that 80% don't mean much to estimate what users could otherwise use.

Secondly, that's not the point anyway, since we were talking about Seam OS, not about what distros users install Steam on. Steam OS is Valve's creation and whatever users use now is irrelevant to what they will decide to base it on. What's important is common middleware, efficient development and future compatibility. Mir is not a common middleware (and I doubt it will ever be, time will tell). The bulk of development in the graphics stack happens in Wayland, not in Mir. So, Valve's decision is pretty obvious here, unless they want to shoot themselves in the foot and say - we are going to ignore all that, and use Canonical's Ubuntu only solution.

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Quoting: Quote from liamdaweShow me hard facts to prove otherwise than Ubuntu being the most popular distro and I may believe it.

No, you claimed (like Canonical usually does), that Ubuntu is the most popular distro. So it's up to you to prove it if you want your claim to be more than just a guess. If it's just a guess - then we can guess anything. Valve's numbers aren't useful, since they chose Ubuntu as their sole supported target.

Quoting: Quote from liamdaweFor me I feel it was needed, most newbies who hear of Linux will probably think of Ubuntu anyway. Every single person I have ever asked in "real life" has only heard of Ubuntu and I talk to people about Linux quite regularly.

I know a lot of people who use Ubuntu. I know a lot of people who use openSUSE as well, or Debian for example. That doesn't however indicate global popularity and I won't use that as a metric to evaluate any market share. Statistics can be very misleading when the numbers are extrapolated way beyond what they are useful for.

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Quoting: Quote from scaineSo you shoot down one guess, Shmerl, that Ubuntu is the most popular distro, then fire off two wild guesses of your own, that Steam will drop Ubuntu as a base, and that no one else will ever use Mir.
Since we're speculating wildly, here's my wild guesses. Valve will continue to back Ubuntu for the simple reason that they're the only Linux distro which is both focused on the consumer space AND has a company/resources behind it.

That's another myth which Canonical likes to PR. Firstly, Canonical is not profitable lately, so I'd question their resources in the long run. Secondly, there are several other distros which are focused on consumers and work with partnerships (with Dell and others). So, let's stop tossing myths around.

About why Valve could drop Ubuntu - it doesn't make any sense from practical point. When Ubuntu can remain the only isolated distro using Mr, why should Valve risk making it their primary base?

Quoting: Quote from scaineAlso, Mir. Yeah, now that's a super-heated topic, but really it's too early to tell. If I were wearing my cynical hat though, I'd suggest that Canonical's earlier backing of Wayland, only to drop it for Mir was suspiciously close to the point that Valve got involved with Linux after seeing how Windows 8 was turning out. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that Mir was born so that Canonical can work more closely with Valve's vision of SteamOS in a way that they couldn't with a community run display protocol such as Wayland.

Canonical never hid the fact what was driving it - their Ubuntu Touch and mobile push. For some really weird reason, unlike Jolla they found that using Wayland didn't fit their mobile plans. Those reasons were surely non technical. Valve has nothing to do with Ubuntu Touch and doesn't benefit from it in any way. It would be utterly stupid for them to back up Canonical's homemade display server making them supporting the majority of the Linux distros harder. Anyway, regarding actual SteamOS we'll have to wait and see. For now they are surely going to use X.org anyway, so the point above isn't critically important (yet). This will become an issue when EGL drivers from Nvidia (and/or AMD) for Wayland (and Mir) will be available.

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QuoteUbuntu is the single most popular distro around

No matter how many times I asked, no one was able to produce any substantial numbers, or explain methodology which demonstrates that Ubuntu is the most used Linux distro. Surely Canonical likes to hype it in most arrogant fashion, but hype does not equal to a fact. So until this is actually demonstrated, I don't buy this argument.

QuoteIt is the only distro Steam officially supports for a reason.

I'm not sure what their reasons were - Valve didn't really explain it clearly. And in the future, I'd expect them to drop Ubuntu as a base, if they want to stay in touch with the majority of the Linux world which said strong no to Mir, and will use Wayland.

On the matter of "PC" being used to describe Windows - that's very annoying indeed. Complain to developers who do it, and point out the weirdness of such usage. It's an unfortunate artifact left by the years of insane domination of Windows. It will get better, and people will stop using it this way. But it will take time.

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Did you try asking HB about it?

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stan: Check out this list: http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Humble_Store
If you buy anything through the widget with your e-mail you used for HB account, then those games get added to your HB library.

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It's available on sale on GOG, and you can get the Linux version DRM free using the code provided there. See http://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/458?page=1 for details.

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