EDIT: I respond to the ‘EA wrote the PS3 Orange Box port’ comments here.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for awhile. It’s old news by now I’m sure, Phoronix first posted their story here on May 7th. But regardless…
I’m not sure what else I can add that the Phoronix article didn’t cover. However it seems some people are dismissing this as just a baseless rumor and no one seems optimistic about the possibility of it actually happening. So I’ll list the three main points here.
1. Valve puts up a job posting asking for a “Senior Software Engineer”, with one of the responsibilities being to “Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform”.
2. An upcoming game, Postal III is slated to have Windows, Mac and Linux ports. This game is designed using the Valve Source Engine. This is probably one of the strongest points, how are they going to make a Mac and Linux port without OpenGL? Clearly something is afoot. ;)
3. The Orange Box was released on the Playstation 3, a system that isn’t known to have any viable Direct3D/DirectX API implementations, on the contrary, it uses an OpenGL ES derivative and some other libraries standardized by the Khronos Group. It also uses Nvidia’s Cg shader language, which is also cross-platform (yes, works on ATI too). This means that either Valve already ported their game engine to OpenGL, or they are using an emulation layer such as Wine. Transgaming has been known to license their Cedega (Wine derivative) backend to console game developers, they did so for The Sims on the PS2 and some others too I believe. This by the way is not mentioned on the Phoronix article, and I’m not aware of any other site that has mentioned this (which is what makes my article unique I suppose).
Bonus! :)
4. Steam represents a unique opportunity for Valve, you see many who use Linux are often known to be more technically skilled than the average user, it is possible that game companies have known for a long time that there were many potential customers on Linux, but that they figured piracy would lower sales down too far, unlike on Windows where there is a huge majority of clueless users who may not even know how to pirate something, most Linux users are adept enough to do far more. This concern if it exists, is all but completely eliminated with Steam. Valve could also make a lot of money selling download statistics and usage data to other companies.
Phoronix also suggests that the UT3 Linux client delay could be related to this given that Epic has recently started offering their games through Steam. The implication seems to be that maybe Epic wishes to launch the Linux client through Steam, if this were the case, then Ryan Gordon would definitely be correct when he said “If I told you what the specific problem is, you wouldn’t believe me” during an interview at LinuxHardware.org. Can you imagine?:
“Yeah, it’s being delayed because of Steam”
“oh.. ok… .. wait.. — WHAT?”
In any case, we’ll have to wait patiently for more news. Personally I think the three first points are probably the strongest indications that this may happen. At the very least, it seems there is already, or will be an officially-maintained OpenGL backend for the Source Engine. Whether this translates into a Linux/Mac port remains to be seen. I mention the Mac too now because if they do a Linux port, it is doubtful they will not also release a Mac version, it is essentially as simple as a recompile to take a unix/posix/opengl/sdl application between Linux and Mac. Anyways, until next time. ;)
June 1st, 2008 at 2:50 am
Funny what trolls think of GNU/Linux.
I am a PC tech for a major retail and regularly install GNU/Linux for people. This is in one of the top 10 richest countries in America! We have no poor people! Even the few Mexicans are well off here as the unemployment is so low we don’t have enough workers. Nobody really uses GNU/Linux because it is cool. No. Allot of people play with it, but nobody uses it regularly that wants to be ‘cool’. It just isn’t a requirement to be ‘cool’. Microsoft Windows has as many incompatibilities as GNU/Linux. Have you tried Vista lately? Despite what the boxes claim GNU/Linux has better support for compatible hardware. It is true that many manufacturers simply don’t specify compatibility. Many low-end devices also are problematic. This is not exclusive to GNU/Linux though. These same devices don’t work properly on MS Windows. As far as standardization goes Microsoft is the worst offender here. Ever heard of Microsoft Office? Every time Microsoft comes out they release some new prosperity format. The thing is many computers if not most come with some low end components that often cause instability in Microsoft Windows. On the other hand if the system runs GNU/Linux with native drivers it runs better on GNU/Linux generally than the equivalent software on MS Windows. Why? Let us just look at the requirements of GNU/Linux. A comparable version of GNU/Linux to Vista utilizes no more than 512MB of ram where Vista utilizes about 3.1GB of ram on the typical retail system (more once you install applications, although possibly less if you don’t run virus, malware, and other shipped software). I can generally copy an entire CD to ram these days and still have plenty of ram for GNU/Linux. Talk about the fastest possible operating configuration. Then let us look at Microsoft Windows applications on GNU/Linux. They often run better than on Microsoft Windows! Lets look at why!! Less resources, better implementations of Microsoft’s own API! It is true that Wine (the GNU/Linux implimentation of the MS Windows API) isn’t fully implemented so many thing don’t work 100%. This doesn’t mean that you can’t run many of the most popular- scratch that, most common games & applications. These are in fact the ones that run best as they have had the most attention paid to them. If you want ease of use CodeWeavers Crossover Office makes installing Wine simple. It isn’t a requirement that you be a geek to use GNU/Linux. Most people are computer illiterate and need techs to fix, upgrade, repair the computer so in the end GNU/Linux often works best. I should know. I haven’t had any major concerns from people I’ve switched. I have been installing or switching two or three a week. Generally after they realize what crap Vista is, or during the sales talk when I’m selling a new computer I recommend it when they say they don’t want Vista. So, if you think GNU/Linux isn’t in the real world, used by non-techs, you are probably just hanging with the wrong crowd of people. Likely you are probably in with people whose prime interest is gaming. All else is second and it wouldn’t matter if they even had a good computer, they simply don’t care enough to learn computers enough to stop the lag from sucking so much, or improve the FPS. Yea, GNU/Linux will often get you better performance out of games!!! Not all the time- as some translation does go on with certain games that suck, and only use DirectX. In that case some overhead occurs with DirectX to OpenGL. If you have a crap graphics card that doesn’t do OpenGL better than DirectX you will loose performance instead of gain. That can also be reversed. The whole trick to getting the advantages out of GNU/Linux is to have decent hardware that does more than just work. It has to be designed, or friendly to GNU/Linux. That is, it should not require proprietary firmware, drivers, or do any other kind of offloading to the CPU. All these are signs of shitty hardware. If these factors are met then the MS Windows systems are almost certainly going to run stuff worse than the same system with GNU/Linux.
June 1st, 2008 at 3:43 am
I used to buy PC games regularly before switching to Linux 100% couple of years ago. Now I only buy games that work perfectly under Wine in Linux. But the ones I would like to get don’t seem to have native Linux port or work 100% under wine.
I bet many serious Linux users make good money to afford computer games, and many have family using Linux, and will not have second thoughts plunking down money to buy a good game that costs about the same as one evening at the movies for the whole family.
More mainstream games should be available for Linux.
June 1st, 2008 at 4:07 am
linux made me cum really hard, and when i say really i mean there wasnt a square inch of wall space left untouched, thank you ubuntu
June 1st, 2008 at 7:10 am
[quote]
Oh no. I’m not joking. Linux is a hobby OS built for people that lack the cash to back a real gaming system but still want to call themselves cool simply because they have to do everything the hard way. With horrible incompatibilites and a lack of any standardization within the Linux community I highly doubt that Source will come to Linux. It simply isn’t worth supporting all those lower-end PCs. And to be fair my copy of Vista was $300. Saved me money in the long run as I update systems quite regularly to keep up with the growing hardware industry.
[/quote]
Wow. No clue. Since when does a Hobby OS take 35% of the server market share from the largest software development company in the world. In general a copy of MS Windows Server can take $1000 bucks out of your pocket and Linux can do the same stuff for … $0. Most people back windows because they have given you some nifty tools so that you don’t actually need to learn technology to set stuff up. Problem is when it breaks you then have to pay someone else to fix it. Sounds like a great system to me since i’m the guy you would be paying to fix it
Sad thing is, most software on the Linux platform conform to ANSI standards and open formats. Microsoft likes to take accepted standards and tweak them to their own liking … Ex. IE (HTML), JavaScript, Java, XML, etc. Hell, they just lost out on OpenXML to the Open Document Standard … OpenOffice.Org uses and is installed on Linux Desktops on install. Open Office is a free office suite, costs zero, and does 99% of what your $500 per copy of MS Office does, including save/read all of MS document formats so its compatible.
I showed my Ubuntu laptop to a few people the other day, the first thing they asked me was .. “Is that a Mac?” and when I said no they then asked if it was Windows Vista. They were shocked that it was Linux.
The only area that Linux can not match Windows or Mac OSX (and Mac OSX under the hood is FreeBSD a sudo open source unix platform like linux) is games. And that is driven completely by marketshare. Marketshare can change, it will not take 100 million people using Linux to get game companies making games for the platform. It only takes 1 million and they start considering it. Shit, There is only 10 million Xbox 360s in the market, but there are over 100 million PC’s that all can run linux. Thats only 1% marketshare and there is a viable market.
(Writen from my Ubuntu Desktop, and PS, I have a Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, PS2, and a Windows XP PC built for gaming. My desktop of choice is Ubuntu, all the rest is for gaming so I choose Ubuntu over the others for all my non-gaming use by choice, not by $$ need.)
June 1st, 2008 at 8:53 am
Valve were not responsible for the PS3 port of the Orange Box, it was actually handled by an internal team at EA — if anything, a port to Mac/Linux using Cedega would be the only sensible option IMO…
June 1st, 2008 at 9:20 am
Holy Mother of God.
Windows is dead.
June 1st, 2008 at 4:30 pm
“how are they going to make a Mac and Linux port without OpenGL?”
You mean DirectX.
June 1st, 2008 at 4:42 pm
He means OpenGL. They would be converting the Source engine in such a way that it would be native on Linux AND Windows, meaning it would support DirectX and OpenGL.
June 1st, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Transonic:
Linux compatibility has come a long way, I installed Ubuntu on a dual boot with Windows XP (Vista was a big disappointment to me, not worth the price tag) on my brand new, gaming PC. (Core 2 Duo: 2.2ghz 2GB RAM, 320GB SATA drive, Nvidia 8600GT with silentpipe II… yeeaaah… because thats a lower end PC… riiiight.)
Everything but the graphics cards found their drivers and were instantly ready and usable, getting the nVidia driver was a breeze: I just double clicked the window showing the available driver and double clicked it to install, and bam, all of my hardware was ready and working perfectly in less than 5 minutes, as opposed to the hour+ it took me to get all the drivers set on XP.
Look past Microsoft’s anti-open source propaganda, Linux is far more widespread then you’d like to think…
Oh, and I am truly delighted that Valve will bring nice shiny mainstream titles to Linux, I have the orange box running using wine, but its still a bit of a drag getting it running properly. At work we sell the odd PC with Ubuntu on it, works brilliantly and even the most computer illiterate Luddite can figure out how to use it, zero maintenance, incredible built in security and very low system requirements, runs well even on an old Pentium 3 700mhz with a little RAM.
Lets see you run Vista on that! Vista is actually designed to take up more power than it actually needs to force you to keep buying new software and hardware, basically…
Why drive a huge gas sucking Hummer that will never be put into four wheel drive or even see mud or snow or have even a fraction of its power used when a nice old Toyota will do everything you need to do?
And here ends my really long post.
Share and enjoy!
June 1st, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Transonic – I use linux, I also run it on a £2000 computer. It’s perfect, better than any windows ridden computer will be.
Can’t wait till Valve finally release games on Linux, just hope that it doesn’t mean I’ll have to buy the games for a second time.
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:42 am
I actually got a TON of my favorite games to work in Linux, including steam and several games through steam
All of which worked better with the same settings (and even better) with at least 20 fps more speed. Not only that but this while Compiz-Fusion was running. If it wasn’t for very specific games (Dawn of war series) I wouldn’t have Windows XP partition on my system now. However I will only use Windows for gaming, and Literally everything else. As far as stability goes
Windows in the last year for me I had to reinstall, Clean for infection after a friend of mine “preferred” using IE on my system (without my knowledge), and SP3!!! Linux I have only needed to reinstall once but that’s because I totally shanked my hard drive with constant use. Other than that I have not only been happier doing everything non-game related in Linux, I am really looking forward to steam coming to Linux so I can ditch Microsoft for life.
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:03 am
Speaking as a triple boot user:
Stripped down gaming XP usage: 60%
ubuntu linux x64 usage: 30%
Vista x64 usage: 10%
I might state that, in terms of overall speed, and ease of use, and configuration without hassle from a company that lies for a living…..ubuntu Linux runs faster and was far easier to get everything working than Vista was…..epic fail
chime on sad fanboy, chime on
PS: M$ has their hand in your a$$, don’t look now
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:35 am
it´s great to have native support on the games, Valve Games are great, Half Life, Half Life 2 and portal run BETTER on Linux with wine, the only reason morons like transonic doesnt use linux it because they dont have the intelligence to install it. linux is not for losers. linux is for people who smart enough
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:39 am
also
Successfull troll is Successfull
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:22 am
@Transonic. You use beta software, you get beta response. Same went (worse) with Vista, XP and Mistake Edition (me).
My HP stuff is all far easier to use and requires far less farting around than XP.
Vista is a dog. I have it on my work laptop. I hate it – a computer with those specs shouldn’t run this slow. And the effects? Whoop-de-frickin-do, Old, outdated, etc.
Good on you, if your copy of Vista actually works without any problems. But read the computer media, and you sir are in the minority. I had a stable copy of ME, but that doesn’t make it a stable OS.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:43 am
A well-reasoned essay.
Valve always struck me as true hackers. I’ve heard that there are many linux zealots there.
I have Steam and a large number of games on it. I’d love to see them do some ports. I would be far, far more likely to buy games if they were available on linux.
Games and pshop are the only things preventing me from switching entirely. As it is, I run windows increasingly rarely and when I do it’s only as a stripped shell for a few apps. Microsoft has dropped the ball too many times, and while they’ve been successful for years at keeping linux down, it’s reached critical mass.
Death to the oppressors!
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I’m definitely waiting, as I didn’t buy any Valve games before. Can’t say my 8600gt is sitting about doing nothing either, etqw, savage 2, spring rts and others keep me very busy without even wine installed
June 2nd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
wow! I just tried Gentoo and everything worked perfectly. Runs like a dream.
now I know what I ahve been missing all these years and of course the price point is sweet.
EPIC WIN!!
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Sceptical at best because;
1)Valve did not make PS3 version of OrangeBox it was farmed out to another team at EA. Valve have stated they are not PS3 developers.
2)Valve have snubbed the Apple Mac in the past, if they have shown no interest in the Mac what chance is there they will show in Linux.
3)Valve are often seen as the indie and PC fanboys favourite but Valve was founded by Ex-Microsoft guys, there products, services & technology are all for Microsoft platforms (Windows, Xbox).
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Servers and supercomputers are whole different beasts.The truth of the matter is:
a) Linux on desktops sucks.
b) There’s virtually no one using Linux on the desktop, and so there’s no economic incentive for Valve to release games for Linux.
Truth hurts for Linux fanboys, I know, but it does not matter. Things are what they are, like them or not.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Well maybe you suck, because I’m not a fanboy, and I switched because
a) Compiz owns Aero
b) I don’t have to worry about the security, and don’t have to do manual work for security. The OS does it.
c) I get better performance.
Though, I understand that for Windows fans, it’s a hard thing to swallow. For people who just want their computer to work, it’s a great thing.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:41 pm
gordon, you’re a fucking idiot. I don’t know how else to describe you.
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:29 am
Insults will not make Linux better, and not will make it more attractive for developers.
Anyone talking about Compiz(buggy as hell, btw) does not have a clue about what it takes for an OS to be successful on the desktop. Fancy effects are just the last fad on Linux fantasy land.
As I said, truth hurts.
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:20 am
Haven’t ever seen one effect of a compiz bug, unless you decided to go out and compile the latest version off git yourself. Only complaints I’ve seen are it failing to start due to horrid drivers, but then, it’s a tricky issue – Compiz works on my Radeon 7500 card.
gordon seems to be very keen in protecting the windows market share. Do you own stock in Microsoft?
I fail to understand why do some people even care. It’s like cars. I’m driving a better one. You’re sticking to your own. Why do you care what car am I driving?
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Well, I fail to see why everyone who’s not enthusiastic about Linux on the desktop should have investments in Microsoft. It’s a typical personal attack Linux fanboys use to make.
The thing is I don’t particularly care. What I’m saying is it’s very unlikely to happen because nobody’s using Linux, and that is so because Linux is not nearly good enough. That’s stating an opinion (a fact, I might dare say), and it’s not protecting anything.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
That’s the attitude! If it doesn’t concern you, quit poking your nose in. Especially with the ‘facts’ like it’s your business.
I, for one, switched though, and recommended it to many others who did too. I still have my windows license that I paid for that I can reactivate anytime I choose to install windows back, and my laptop does cost $2k US, so my choices aren’t exactly limited. You claiming that my choice was wrong (ie, ‘Linux on desktops sucks.’, ‘There’s virtually no one using Linux on the desktop’, ‘because nobody’s using Linux’) is absolutely hilarious!
I’m defending my personal choice here, keep that in mind. I’m using what’s best for me, as is, probably every other Linux user (I mean, there’s no economic incentive to it – even the $100 laptop has xp now!).
So why are you again saying that I’m virtually nonexistent?
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I really enjoy how the so-called supporters of freedom tell others what they can speak and what they can’t.
I did not claim your choice was wrong. Works for you… fine. I still think Linux (on the desktop, mind you) sucks badly, and that’s the main reason why it has not succeeded.
Oh, and that’s what “virtually” means. Of course there are people using Linux in the desktop. They are not nearly enough to make Linux a reality for ISVs though. Linux fans seems to have have a hard time digesting reality.
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Cheers for your effort, I hope you make windows a better place for me to come back to
June 4th, 2008 at 3:21 am
Guys, don’t bother arguing with the trolls. Simply ignore them. They are TRYING to cause dissension to get attention off of the good going on here. The 29 or so Million Linux users do not need to defend themselves.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Hey nice to read. Feel like its still fantasy for now. I for one will make the change when Steam goes over – I’m happy to run Dwarf Fortress in WINE
I’ve tried and failed with Linux several times now – but its because I’ve only tried it on my 5 year old laptop, getting the sound to work is cagey, and now I’ve figured out the video card isn’t supported (the laptops released -before- and -after- mine – are fine god damnit). And no, I’m not “smart enough” for Linux, I’m your typical an end user. I’m not too poor or running a crap computer either – just upgraded a few weeks ago from awesome to even awesomer, and I actually own 2 copies of XP (one was a present lol).
My 74 year old grandmother is learning how to use a computer atm, I feel it would be a lot easier with a linux distro, sometimes I wish she was.
June 10th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Hey, that’s great. I bought Half-Life 2 when it came out, but then I moved to Linux and I even didn’t really bother to play it anymore. But now, I think I’m gonna buy some games.
June 10th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
@Gordon
Of course that is truly the reason that the EEE 700 pc with linux installed as the only OS available just sat on the shelves and gathered dust…, oh wait, they couldn’t keep them in stock!
This idea that Linux on the desktop sucks is really ill informed. The only reason it isn’t used is that Microsoft had all the OEM’s tied up in exclusive contracts. Some are breaking away from this, which is why you start to see GNU/Linux distros being available from various vendors, rather than just Windows.
Windows on the desktop without the polish added by OEM’s tends to have as many if not more problems than Linux. People need to stop assuming its the OS that is the problem and realise that the OEM’s spend time sorting out driver issues for the OS that they offer on their hardware. End result is, it is very likely that other offerings or vanilla installs will suffer problems.
June 11th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Just an ignorant troll. But I’ll take the bait simply so I can brag about my Linux system and use the customary “Windows sucks.” statement.
First off, I’d like to address Transonic (Rhymes with idiotic.) about his concerns that Linux is non-standard, incompatible, and used by very little people. First, lets start with the fact that Linux adheres well to standards. In fact, most Linux distributions could potentially become POSIX certified if they really wanted to be.
We CANNOT say the same thing for Windows. Microsoft, in most, if not all, their products, they have broken standards and done their own thing: Windows is an unstable mess that falls very short of ANSI/ISO standards, including UNIX/POSIX. OOXML, as of this writing, was approved by ISO, but is getting questioned and torn asunder by member nations of the ISO. Visual C/C++ follows neither ANSI or ISO standards whatsoever.
Compatibility. You are also way *way* off on this one, its almost embarrassing… for you. It just makes those in the know (Not just Linux users) laugh at your stupidity. Out of the box, I had all my hardware working without lifting a finger, except my nVidia drivers, which I just had to double-click a notifier icon and restart to get. Like an earlier poster here, it took me all of 5 minutes, at MOST.
Windows XP? I had to actually go back into Linux to get my nForce drivers so I could even connect to the internet from XP! Then I had to hunt down my display driver, TWO drivers for my sound, and download Service Pack 2. Between all this, I had to restart XP 8 times! I only had to restart Ubuntu ONCE. If anything, WINDOWS is the one not ready for the desktop and Linux is performing nicely.
As for “underpowered machines” you are right… sort of. Linux *can* run on older machines, but not only those machines. I am writing this post on a modern machine right now. My sister is running Ubuntu on a dual core with 4 GiB of RAM starting off.
Linux is not as obscure as you think. It’s estimated there’s at LEAST 30 million users worldwide. That may not sound like a lot to you, but it is. Consider also the fact that Linux usage is GROWING like a weed and Windows usage is actually SHRINKING, and soon you’ll be saying “only 5-6 people use Windows” in your quest to piss people off. Add on to this the fact that the likes of DELL, Asus, and Lenovo are all offering Ubuntu machines now
Now for you, Gordon. Compiz works fine. I’ve never had problems with it except when I had scant little memory. And that’s related to a bug in the NVIDIA DRIVER, not Compiz. Compiz pwns Aero. Does the hell of a lot more flashy practical effects than Aero with less memory. I could run Compiz on 512 MiB. I wouldn’t run Aero without AT LEAST 2-3GiB in this machine. As for compatibility with WINE, bullshit. Never had problems running WINE and Compiz at the same time.
I welcome the Source engine and Steam. Though WINE runs the Orange Box stuff near flawlessly (Minor problems like Steam acting downright evil and maybe an odd water rendering effect or two.) and faster than Windows.
Frankly, I thing Gordon and Transonic have swallowed too much of Microsoft’s anti-Linux/anti-FOSS FUD. If anything, Linux would be a BETTER platform for gaming, since it takes WAY less resources than Windows, thus allowing for more powerful games to run. Example: A 2 GiB 3 GHz dual core AMD64 machine running Linux can easily run more demanding games than a duplicate machine running Windows XP or Vista because Linux takes less to run, leaving more available resources for the games to use.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I have actually been using ubuntu linux as my main os for a bit over 2 years now and having worked in IT supporting public access windows pc’s in librarys I can definately tell you that Ubuntu has far fewer issues than XP. Preparing a new XP immage for deployment required at least 1/2 – 3/4 of a day if everything run smoothly – but there were quite oftem more problems. This mind you was with HP pc’s so I didn’t have to worry about finding drivers etc, on my home pc I need multiple driver cd’s with multiple restarts per cd. Also with windows you have to spend half your time installing other necessary applications.
By comparrison with my Ubuntu install on my home pc it takes approximately 1 hour, with the only extra effort over the base install (which is itself easier than installing windows) is selecting a couple of things in the package manager (synaptic) and waiting for them to install. The only hardware that doesn’t work straight away is my tv tuner card which is simply fixed. By comparrison with my XP install which I barely use (indeed I didn’t miss anything on it for 6 months and only really installed it under the false ussumption that my University degree would require the use of it) the tv tuner card must be removed before installing XP because the faulty drivers installed for it can never be completly removed without re-installing XP. I have spent more time fixing this XP install than I did my last 2 linux installs and it still doesn’t work properly – for example my sata DVD-RW drive isn’t recognised.
Granted some things just don’t have drivers in linux but it is about the same level as that with XP and vista definately has more completly unsupported hardware than linux. In linux if your hardware is supported it mostly works straight away where as with XP you spend hours installing it. If it is completly unsupported in linux there is a good chance someone is working on developing a driver and you will see an alpha or beta version sometime soonish, with windows you’re just flat out of luck.
Oh by the way my “budget linux system” has an Opturon 175 CPU (server chip), factory overclocked 8800 GTX, 2 gigs of ram, 1.9TB hdd space, dual digital tv tuner card and a 1920×1200 resolution monitor which also hooks up to my XBOX 360 – yes I use this computer for serious gaming!
June 21st, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Well I’ll say this everything that was built and coded within the linux community works really well. Without any flaws. Honestly since wine has reached its new version and compiz became a standard in ubuntu none of those have given me any trouble in any of my systems. The incompatibilities that people speak of are from trying to run proprietary hardware or software on linux when its for other systems. I ran into this problem with vaio laptops and lots of different windows apps in wine. For example sony would not let me use any of my hardware to its full extent unless I ran vista home premium and not any other copy. They would deny me the drivers and the original manufactures wouldn’t provide the drivers unless it was through sony. So the time consuming thing that some of you speak of is trying to find a work around to these issues which a times are just mediocre at best because of proprietary issues. Linux would be phenomenal if more companies would support it instead of just letting the community figure out how to port and do the work for them. i’m talking to you adobe quit being so fucking lazy and actually do the work yourself.
June 27th, 2008 at 3:20 am
I am not the savviest computer user, but I am no dolt. I realize that linux is an amazing idea, and an amazing operating system. Though there are some problems. While there is support from connical,the maker of ubuntu, most other linux systems that have support require you to buy a already essentially free product then pay for support *cough* red hat *cough* *cough*. Admitedly that is a very minor problem and ubuntu is amazing any, so there is no reason not to use it. The more pressing issue, that may be solvable or not, is that companies who use custom hardware such as Apple (can’t really think of anyone else) have an operating system designed for the hardware, but the hardware is made so “different” that it many mac machines, such as my own, require fiddling about to run it and that is not even a sure thing. (By the way, I am never getting a mac machine again, I will just use hackintosh or linux, on a home built box next time.) But I would like to emphasize that I am not the norm, most Mac OS X users stick to Mac OS X. But even so, I was able to find a huge online community dedicated just for mac ubuntu. If linux is a operating system only five people use then the mac section would be a single person, that being me. I also saw that somebody said that Mac was made inherently slow, I am no mac fanboy, but I would like to say, shut it, you don’t know what you are talking about. Anyway getting back on topic lets take a look at UNIX verses MS-dos. Unix is what is linux is based on, MS dos is what windows is based on (not sure about vista) UNIX was born in the late 1960′s whereas MS-dos was born in late 1980′s the funny thing is, that instead of basing there system on a OS that had 20 years of prior experience Billy decided to write his OS from the ground up take very few elements from Unix.
(not to diss Bill Gates, he is a great guy who made a stupid OS, Steve Jobs is a asshole, who built a wonderful Operating system, and Linus Torvald (is that his name?) was a arogant ass who started a revolution in software)
A certain logic can tell us well that the more time you spend on a any system, the more the kinks get worked out, another system of logic could tell us that building something knowing that it can be done, you could take out fundamental problems. But all in all time will tell, you look at it know despite Window’s popularity, any one who knows alot about programing and computers in general, will tell you that Unix based systems are far more elegant than the clunky windows systems. The problem is very few people are master programmers but far more are amature programmers, who like the shortcuts in programming for windows (Direct X is an example) over the Control one recives when programing for linux or Unix (Open GL is another example). Once more people lose sight of the old saying that; a designer knows when he has attained perfection not when he has nothing left to add, but nothing left to take away. Now those of you who are about to say wait, this unix based system comes with this program and that, well that isn’t exactly what I am talking about, I am talking about the fundamentals for a system to run. Many Linux distros come stocked up with a whole bunch software and some that windows users may not even recognize as software. Linux is by itself modular, each module is much like applications, many of them you can take, but something that Windows users don’t understand right off the bat is that some of them, stilling being Applications, you can’t take away. Many modules, much like a application is not dependent for running the OS. This allows isolated corruption of files, so unlike windows, only one very specific part of the OS may fail, making it far easier to repair, but almost never to you have a catastrophic failure like in windows, where everything is jumbled a house of cards, if you remove one thing it all comes crashing done. I love linux and I love mac OS X, but I do realize that in a world where one corporation dominates 80% of the market share, it is hard, for some to move away, unfortunatly not everyone knows this information, which means it becomes an advertising battle, and whoever wins gets takes all. This means that programmers begin to write code exclusivly for Windows and then you lose the compatibillity with the many other Unix and linux systems, since the two are really easily ported form one to another.
Theres my rant, anyone who knows this stuff correct me about my facts. By the way me saying Unix/Linux is better than MS-Dos is not a fact, it is an opinion, so don’t be a douche a say your wrong, actually give reason. Oh and Transonic Shut Up
July 17th, 2008 at 4:43 am
Ok, let’s get out our derailed comment thread checklists.
Obvious trolls / Ignorant fools whining about how Linux is shit? Check.
Linux lovers jerking each other off? Check.
Pointlessly long comments about nothing in particular except pointing out the obvious fact that the user is either trolling or completely ignorant? Checkaroo.
I like Linux too, but every comment thread on any post relating to linux in any way ever always turns into a massive circlejerk / bitchfest. I call it Linus’ law(l).
How about talking about the source engine being ported to Linux like you’re supposed to be?
On topic, I’m really looking forward to the possibility of playing popular games that don’t have to be run through WINE / Cedega! A royal pain in the ass, it is.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:02 am
Have fun with all your bullshit DRM, your SONY rootkits
, your VIRUSES, your SPYWARE, AND YOUR F****ing BLUE SCREENS 
I OC’d a linux server to handle in HLDS CS:S 300+ FPS registration SERVER SIDE. 1.6 ran over 3000fps
October 6th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
It is an excitng prospect. It would make linux gaming a lot easier(not that it is difficult) and open up a huge market for valve. Also a big step forward for linux and open source in general.
This will help fuel faster/better development for such things like graphics drives under linux.
January 24th, 2009 at 5:11 am
I would really like to see this happen. The halflife games are the only FPS games really I like. Linux guys, ms has affiliate programs in India that compensate ms trolls so don’t feed them or repeat anything they write. When ms trolls get started stop and ask yourself, would I try to argue/explain that Two Girls One Cup is gross? Just leave them be. Open source is winning on it’s merit not from sweaty teenage evangelization. When someone asks you for help switching to Linux are you ready with useful info?
June 14th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
I really hope this happens. It will break down one of the biggest barriers for linux. Yeah, it still has it’s weak spots that need to be fixed, but so does windows. The difference? The flaws in Windows aren’t getting better. Worse if anything. One only needs to try out each new Ubuntu release to see how rapidly it is improving. Valve holds a lot of power here. If they do this and it has a lot of success it could very well trigger a tidal wave of linux gaming support.
July 13th, 2009 at 6:41 am
I have a steam account and would love to play my games on linux.
March 28th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Well written post. Will there be a follow up sometime soon?
April 1st, 2010 at 5:02 am
I have a followup of my own.
Used Windows 7 for a while, and it doesn’t really improve much on what I had mentioned in my previous comment, including the drivers-needed problem. And of course, once I had all my drivers installed, I started getting BAD_POOL_HEADER bluescreens. Something I understand is actually commonplace in Windows 7. And this is for drivers written specifically for Windows 7.
How is it that Linux can continue to offer me updated drivers and STILL never have a SINGLE kernel panic, but Windows has to wait around for a SECOND service pack to resolve driver issues?
I switched from Ubuntu to Arch, also. Drivers still there waiting for me with the stock kernel. And I still had to install nVidia’s driver myself, which still goes way faster than on Windows because I don’t even have to load a GUI up to do it. Just use pacman from the console. BAM, I got fully functional GUI, complete with full-scale visual effects in five minutes, tops.
The reason I switched from Ubuntu is Pulse Audio. Some moron amongst the devs decided that Ubuntu needed it and ruined sound. Arch attracted me because it installs just teh core and lets me play and decide what I want. Thus no garbage like Pulse Audio or stuff I REALLY don’t want like Mono go byebye.
As for Source… well, recent development is that OS X just got a port. And one person commented a year or so ago that Valve wouldn’t do that. So maybe, just *maybe* we might see Valve give Linux users some love finally. I remember when Phoronix went off its kilter reporting a port that wasn’t actually occuring.
November 26th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
transonic = troll
don’t waste the bandwidth on trolls.