Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

Exitium · 2010-05-12 18:07:40

Well, it seems no-one has made a topic about this (or at least I didn't find any), so...

Valve's popular gaming tool Steam, which has been available for Windows for ages and was published for Mac OSX today is also coming to Linux. There have been rumours for ages and some people even found Linux-specific things on Mac OSX beta-client. And, it seems it's really coming to Linux. Besides Steam client, Source engine will be ported to Linux so there will be native Linux versions of Counter Strike, Half Life, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress etc. soon.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a … ment&num=1

Is GNU/Linux getting a serious gaming platform?

Cheers Valve.

n0dix · 2010-05-12 18:48:50

Is a terrific news for the community. I have time without playing Counter Strike Source because i have to change to Windows XP .

SoleSoul · 2010-05-12 19:18:54

Wait a minute.
I thought that steam is just a kind of a market where you can buy games.
Is porting steam to Linux going to cause "steam powered" games to work on Linux or at least make it easier to port them?

drcouzelis · 2010-05-12 19:32:45

SoleSoul wrote:

Is porting steam to Linux going to cause "steam powered" games to work on Linux or at least make it easier to port them?

According to the article, they also ported the Source Engine, which many games made by Valve and others are based on. So, games based on the Source Engine should be easy to port to Linux.

Busata · 2010-05-12 20:18:53

Steam does already work decent with wine, but this is awesome news indeed. Let's hope this stimulates developers to include more native linux support

n0dix · 2010-05-12 20:28:11

Busata wrote:

Steam does already work decent with wine, but this is awesome news indeed. Let's hope this stimulates developers to include more native linux support

not for me with Counter Strike Source and Zombie mod. Always crash

dcc24 · 2010-05-12 21:48:09

Michael Larabel of Phoronix has written A LOT (some, including me, would consider it spamming) of articles about Steam linux client in the past few months. See phoronix.com for details.

Diaz · 2010-05-13 00:05:24

In particular read the forum comments to the article. At this moment there is NO official annoucement from Valve.

Milena · 2010-05-13 00:09:02

I think valve has little to no interest to support linux at all, its pointless because none of the games available on steam will work (native, without wine) except maybe the old half-life series IF they port their source engine. Apple on the other side has enough money to pay valve for their osx client, linux community has not.

Pse · 2010-05-13 02:00:46

Although there is no official statement from Valve on the matter, the fact that there is a client in the works is almost undisputed at this point. I mean, there actually are binaries out there that draw parts of the main Steam client UI on Linux. You can get them from Valve themselves (although you'll need to patch them to get the interface to show up). There is a chance that this might be just a test or something like that, so we still need to wait for an official announcement, but I guess there are good chances it might happen

txus · 2010-05-13 09:03:50

Milena wrote:

... its pointless because none of the games available on steam will work (native, without wine) ...

There are games on Steam that work on OSX. Right NOW. I would assume that the problem is getting rid of DirectX and switching to OpenGL + (some other Unix things), but once that's done, porting from OSX to linux should not be that much of a hassle.
I said that without any specific knowledge on the topic, so please correct me if I'm wrong!

SoleSoul · 2010-05-13 09:23:44

A quote from phoronix: "It's Official: Valve Releasing Steam, Source Engine For Linux!"
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a … t&num=1%22

Last edited by SoleSoul (2010-05-13 09:24:14)

ijanos · 2010-05-13 09:30:57

Easy on that one guys. Valve ported its Source engine to OpenGL in order to run their games on Mac. Since OpenGL can ben used on linux and valve left some linux-specific files in some of its servers, phoronix started to praise that they are releasing steam for linux. No official announcment from Valve yet!

Im sure Valve is experimenting with native linux steam clients and games and internal linux builds exists but that does not mean they will release it soon (or ever).

I hope i am wrong and valve is preparing its announcement, but till we see that announcment I am highly doubtful.

sva_h4cky0 · 2010-05-13 10:35:02

Just waiting for official announcement from valve, then start PLAYING hehehe

ijanos · 2010-05-13 10:58:02

sva_h4cky0 wrote:

Just waiting for official announcement from valve, then start PLAYING hehehe

Even after the announcement, Valve time will be annoying

fresh24 · 2010-05-13 19:58:21

that would be one of the best news this year

Duologic · 2010-05-13 20:11:36

dcc24 wrote:

Michael Larabel of Phoronix has written A LOT (some, including me, would consider it spamming) of articles about Steam linux client in the past few months. See phoronix.com for details.

True, I see a lot of spamming on this matter in my RSS feed.
I hope they might port it soon and certainly for the older games that I used to play on Windows.

Cr0k · 2010-05-14 18:42:56

Uuuh... If Steam games (CS, etc...) will run on Linux like on my Windows, I will partying

demian · 2010-05-14 19:44:56

Cr0k wrote:

Uuuh... If Steam games (CS, etc...) will run on Linux like on my Windows, I will partying

I have a partition with windows for playing CS. I gave it up because with my platform (Intel Clarkdale, i3-530) i had connection delays and bad performance (often below 20-30 fps), i guess because of bad drivers.
A couple of weeks ago i installed wine just to try steam and CS runs with 70+ fps and much more smoothly than in windows.
I was totally surprised because i always thought of the intel linux drivers as totally incapable of performing well in 3D.
Yay Linux.
Sorry for Off-Topic.

Last edited by demian (2010-05-14 21:05:22)

Sakura · 2010-05-15 21:53:13

I think it's worth mentioning that only Valve games would end up working on the Linux client.

Milena · 2010-05-15 22:39:46

Sakura wrote:

only Valve games would end up working on the Linux client.

Only

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl9C4S4PRnA

I was trying to play the Half-Life 2 mod with wine but it needs a 64 bit windows version and lags horrible in 32 bit wine (but playable ), I hope the native Linux Source Engine/HL2 series can be used with the Cinematic Mods, kinda beats any new game graphic wise.

kalasmannen · 2010-05-15 23:04:13

This is great! Im really looking forward to seeing where this is going.

Giselher · 2010-05-16 07:40:31

For anyone interested, here is a video to the alpha a few members from phoronix hacked together from the nonworking binarys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTgqdlA_jE8

And here is a script to get it running. (Needs compiz and bsdiff install)
http://pastebin.com/AmuW10Uh

Last edited by Giselher (2010-05-16 07:43:55)

Exitium · 2010-05-16 15:35:07

Milena wrote:

I think valve has little to no interest to support linux at all, its pointless because none of the games available on steam will work (native, without wine) except maybe the old half-life series IF they port their source engine. Apple on the other side has enough money to pay valve for their osx client, linux community has not.

Just to clarify: As I said, Source engine will be ported alongside Steam.

Sakura wrote:

I think it's worth mentioning that only Valve games would end up working on the Linux client.

Well... I'm sure Valve that will sell other native Linux games via Steam, not just Valve's own games. For example, there are many games on Steam available right now which have native Linux games (but obviously they sell them just for Windows via Steam), but I'm sure Valve will sell those games for Linux when Linux client is published. Of course, all the games will not be ported to Linux.

geniuz · 2010-05-16 15:47:37

Great news, I hope this won't take too long to realize...Steam and CSS already run fine under wine, but native linux support, never even dreamed of it !

Arch Linux

#1 2010-05-12 18:07:40

Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#2 2010-05-12 18:48:50

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#3 2010-05-12 19:18:54

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#4 2010-05-12 19:32:45

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#5 2010-05-12 20:18:53

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#6 2010-05-12 20:28:11

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#7 2010-05-12 21:48:09

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#8 2010-05-13 00:05:24

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#9 2010-05-13 00:09:02

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#10 2010-05-13 02:00:46

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#11 2010-05-13 09:03:50

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#12 2010-05-13 09:23:44

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#13 2010-05-13 09:30:57

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#14 2010-05-13 10:35:02

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#15 2010-05-13 10:58:02

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#16 2010-05-13 19:58:21

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#17 2010-05-13 20:11:36

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#18 2010-05-14 18:42:56

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#19 2010-05-14 19:44:56

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#20 2010-05-15 21:53:13

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#21 2010-05-15 22:39:46

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#22 2010-05-15 23:04:13

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#23 2010-05-16 07:40:31

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#24 2010-05-16 15:35:07

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

#25 2010-05-16 15:47:37

Re: Steam (+ Source engine) coming to Linux

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