Hi Folks, Steam seems to add a Linux client in the near future, so maybe Wine will not be needed anymore for that. or did i get something wrong? That might reduce our "market share" a bit as i guess that many Wineusers play steam games. On the other hand Intel presented its Z600, which is basically x86 but without IDE, SATA or a BIOS. Thats the reason that it cant run Windows. So Linux runs and so should Wine i guess. So we might see some mobil advantures in the near future?
2010/5/5 André Hentschel nerv@dawncrow.de:
Hi Folks, Steam seems to add a Linux client in the near future, so maybe Wine will not be needed anymore for that. or did i get something wrong? That might reduce our "market share" a bit as i guess that many Wineusers play steam games.
The rumor is that Valve is porting the Source Engine and the Steam client. Not all games that come on Steam use the Source engine, and until their developers port to Linux natively, there will still be a need for Wine.
And don't forget about Solaris/BSD users ;-).
On 05/05/2010 02:34 PM, André Hentschel wrote:
Hi Folks, Steam seems to add a Linux client in the near future, so maybe Wine will not be needed anymore for that. or did i get something wrong? That might reduce our "market share" a bit as i guess that many Wineusers play steam games. On the other hand Intel presented its Z600, which is basically x86 but without IDE, SATA or a BIOS. Thats the reason that it cant run Windows. So Linux runs and so should Wine i guess. So we might see some mobil advantures in the near future?
I would not hold my breath waiting for that Steam client, there's still been no official announcement and it could just as well be something they just play around with as a side project for the next half decade.
Phoronix has been claiming Steam for Linux was imminent for 2 years... but for how many years did they (and even the developers) say that UT3 was right around the corner? A few 32-bit god-awfully incomplete binaries that can't even launch the actual GUI is not near enough to start me waiting in a virtual line.
To take the Devil's advocacy a step farther: For all we know, Steam for Linux is not even being actively developed; They may have started it with the Mac port and abandoned it as too resource intensive for the expected payoff. The few updates that we've seen (before the Linux build was pulled) may well be the result of of the automated package builder recompiling the Linux files due to changes in some shared upstream code (being changed for the benefit of the Mac or Windows client).
Now, personally I am hoping like crazy that Steam for Linux does materialize in the next year or two. But, if it does, it will hardly put a dent in Wine's use for gaming. Steam's not a game, so naturally we must assume that Valve will port the Source engine too, so that they will have some games to sell. That's great, but how many games in the AppDB are using the Source engine? How many games sold through Steam even use it, and will the non-Valve developers take the time to build Linux packages? Wine has plenty of gaming left in its future.
-J
On 6 May 2010 10:01, Evil Jay wine@eternaldusk.com wrote:
On 05/05/2010 02:34 PM, André Hentschel wrote:
Hi Folks, Steam seems to add a Linux client in the near future, so maybe Wine will not be needed anymore for that. or did i get something wrong? That might reduce our "market share" a bit as i guess that many Wineusers play steam games. On the other hand Intel presented its Z600, which is basically x86 but without IDE, SATA or a BIOS. Thats the reason that it cant run Windows. So Linux runs and so should Wine i guess. So we might see some mobil advantures in the near future?
I would not hold my breath waiting for that Steam client, there's still been no official announcement and it could just as well be something they just play around with as a side project for the next half decade.
Phoronix has been claiming Steam for Linux was imminent for 2 years... but for how many years did they (and even the developers) say that UT3 was right around the corner? A few 32-bit god-awfully incomplete binaries that can't even launch the actual GUI is not near enough to start me waiting in a virtual line.
To take the Devil's advocacy a step farther: For all we know, Steam for Linux is not even being actively developed; They may have started it with the Mac port and abandoned it as too resource intensive for the expected payoff. The few updates that we've seen (before the Linux build was pulled) may well be the result of of the automated package builder recompiling the Linux files due to changes in some shared upstream code (being changed for the benefit of the Mac or Windows client).
Now, personally I am hoping like crazy that Steam for Linux does materialize in the next year or two. But, if it does, it will hardly put a dent in Wine's use for gaming. Steam's not a game, so naturally we must assume that Valve will port the Source engine too, so that they will have some games to sell. That's great, but how many games in the AppDB are using the Source engine? How many games sold through Steam even use it, and will the non-Valve developers take the time to build Linux packages? Wine has plenty of gaming left in its future.
The other solution is they pull a Picasa/Google Earth manoeuvre and bundle Wine with Steam (or rely on Wine to play the games).
-J
Knowing that they are developing an opengl version of their engines (for mac os), I'm guessing porting it to linux will be trivial.
J. Leclanche
On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 3:07 AM, Ben Klein shacklein@gmail.com wrote:
On 6 May 2010 10:01, Evil Jay wine@eternaldusk.com wrote:
On 05/05/2010 02:34 PM, André Hentschel wrote:
Hi Folks, Steam seems to add a Linux client in the near future, so maybe Wine will not be needed anymore for that. or did i get something wrong? That might reduce our "market share" a bit as i guess that many Wineusers play steam games. On the other hand Intel presented its Z600, which is basically x86 but without IDE, SATA or a BIOS. Thats the reason that it cant run Windows. So Linux runs and so should Wine i guess. So we might see some mobil advantures in the near future?
I would not hold my breath waiting for that Steam client, there's still been no official announcement and it could just as well be something they just play around with as a side project for the next half decade.
Phoronix has been claiming Steam for Linux was imminent for 2 years... but for how many years did they (and even the developers) say that UT3 was right around the corner? A few 32-bit god-awfully incomplete binaries that can't even launch the actual GUI is not near enough to start me waiting in a virtual line.
To take the Devil's advocacy a step farther: For all we know, Steam for Linux is not even being actively developed; They may have started it with the Mac port and abandoned it as too resource intensive for the expected payoff. The few updates that we've seen (before the Linux build was pulled) may well be the result of of the automated package builder recompiling the Linux files due to changes in some shared upstream code (being changed for the benefit of the Mac or Windows client).
Now, personally I am hoping like crazy that Steam for Linux does materialize in the next year or two. But, if it does, it will hardly put a dent in Wine's use for gaming. Steam's not a game, so naturally we must assume that Valve will port the Source engine too, so that they will have some games to sell. That's great, but how many games in the AppDB are using the Source engine? How many games sold through Steam even use it, and will the non-Valve developers take the time to build Linux packages? Wine has plenty of gaming left in its future.
The other solution is they pull a Picasa/Google Earth manoeuvre and bundle Wine with Steam (or rely on Wine to play the games).
-J
It is a shame that it is just a rumor but really that's all it's been for the last half decade. Plus, Phoronix refuses to release this binary their meant to have found which I tend to think means they don't have it. Steam for Linux would really be a huge win for native gaming but from Valves point of view it might be too risky?
A better solution which you'd hope they'd approach Codeweavers or the likes of Ubuntu about would be integrating Wine into a native Steam to run Win32 binaries of non-native games. On top of native Source games that is. This would be pretty easy, and using the Steam first-time-run script system we could actually make a native version support Win32 binaries via Wine ourselves (if it agreed to download and install them!).
On the Steam topic I should note that Steam is now at the point where you can run it in the background 24/7. There is a patch that allows you to buy things via the Steam store and using the latest Beta Client update from the opt-in menu removes the last couple of CPU intensive problems with running it (this is distinct from the new UI update).
I've had it open for the last week just like a native program and it's great to catch up with friends playing various games instead of them having to tell you to login and join!
Edward Savage wrote:
It is a shame that it is just a rumor but really that's all it's been for the last half decade. Plus, Phoronix refuses to release this binary their meant to have found which I tend to think means they don't have it.
It is just a rumor and the binaries there were available were for the dedicated servers of some games. I made a copy here in case you're really interested: http://haar.student.utwente.nl/~julius/steam_linux/
On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 8:04 PM, Julius Schwartzenberg julius.schwartzenberg@gmail.com wrote:
It is just a rumor and the binaries there were available were for the dedicated servers of some games. I made a copy here in case you're really interested: http://haar.student.utwente.nl/~julius/steam_linux/
I had wondered what was in those.
Dedicated servers is nothing new though, most HL servers of all types have been running on Linux for a decade now.
On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 09:24, Edward Savage epssyis@gmail.com wrote:
It is a shame that it is just a rumor but really that's all it's been for the last half decade. Plus, Phoronix refuses to release this binary their meant to have found which I tend to think means they don't have it. Steam for Linux would really be a huge win for native gaming but from Valves point of view it might be too risky?
The binary was not given to Phoronix. They found a link to the Linux version in a shell script for the Mac version. It is still available, and the binaries are periodically updated by Valve.
http://store.steampowered.com/public/client/steam_client_linux
If you run the following shell code in an empty directory, it will download and fix a bug the Linux Steam client so that it will actually show a (nonworking) GUI. You'll need bspatch installed for this to work.
http://pastie.org/private/4ryiocqxbea8uq8dgexg
All of this clearly shows that Valve is working on a Linux GUI of the Steam store, and not a Linux server tool. I ask that you don't do any further hacking on these binaries, nor host them yourself, because this is not free software. You can't just redistribute it. Besides, the goal was to investigate whether Valve was working on Steam for Linux, there's nothing more to see here.
On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 12:40, Remco remco47@gmail.com wrote:
If you run the following shell code in an empty directory, it will download and fix a bug the Linux Steam client so that it will actually show a (nonworking) GUI. You'll need bspatch installed for this to work.
I'm sorry, that's the wrong (old) shell script. The following will do what you want:
On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 8:40 PM, Remco remco47@gmail.com wrote:
The binary was not given to Phoronix. They found a link to the Linux version in a shell script for the Mac version. It is still available, and the binaries are periodically updated by Valve.
http://store.steampowered.com/public/client/steam_client_linux
If you run the following shell code in an empty directory, it will download and fix a bug the Linux Steam client so that it will actually show a (nonworking) GUI. You'll need bspatch installed for this to work.
http://pastie.org/private/4ryiocqxbea8uq8dgexg
All of this clearly shows that Valve is working on a Linux GUI of the Steam store, and not a Linux server tool. I ask that you don't do any further hacking on these binaries, nor host them yourself, because this is not free software. You can't just redistribute it. Besides, the goal was to investigate whether Valve was working on Steam for Linux, there's nothing more to see here.
Again, this is nothing new. Valve ran a closed trial of a native Steam client back in 05 (iirc) and all this time there have been strings and Linux compiled object files included with the Win32 Steam. It would be silly to assume they haven't had a hobby project of Steam natively on Linux since then as they have the team with the skills (for the server work). Now that they have a client that works with Mac you can be sure they have one for Linux. How ever a hobby and an actual release are two very different things.
Phoronix has been on this dead horse so long there is no point getting our hopes up until Valve speak.
As for your doom and gloom 'don't touch this golden goose' rubbish. The binaries are freely distributed under license and completely unrestricted to download and redistribute (without modification). We can do what ever we want as long as there EULA isn't broken. I can host it if I wish as can any one else. Plus, for some reason you assume it's okay to 'hack' on these to take a sneak peak but after that you draw the line? Your morality is out of whack.
On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 12:54, Edward Savage epssyis@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 8:40 PM, Remco remco47@gmail.com wrote:
The binary was not given to Phoronix. They found a link to the Linux version in a shell script for the Mac version. It is still available, and the binaries are periodically updated by Valve.
http://store.steampowered.com/public/client/steam_client_linux
If you run the following shell code in an empty directory, it will download and fix a bug the Linux Steam client so that it will actually show a (nonworking) GUI. You'll need bspatch installed for this to work.
http://pastie.org/private/4ryiocqxbea8uq8dgexg
All of this clearly shows that Valve is working on a Linux GUI of the Steam store, and not a Linux server tool. I ask that you don't do any further hacking on these binaries, nor host them yourself, because this is not free software. You can't just redistribute it. Besides, the goal was to investigate whether Valve was working on Steam for Linux, there's nothing more to see here.
Again, this is nothing new. Valve ran a closed trial of a native Steam client back in 05 (iirc) and all this time there have been strings and Linux compiled object files included with the Win32 Steam. It would be silly to assume they haven't had a hobby project of Steam natively on Linux since then as they have the team with the skills (for the server work). Now that they have a client that works with Mac you can be sure they have one for Linux. How ever a hobby and an actual release are two very different things.
Since Steam was built around Internet Explorer, I very much doubt that it ran on Linux. Today, it clearly does. It may take a while before Valve decides on a release, but the emergence of the actual software makes this much more likely.
As for your doom and gloom 'don't touch this golden goose' rubbish. The binaries are freely distributed under license and completely unrestricted to download and redistribute (without modification). We can do what ever we want as long as there EULA isn't broken. I can host it if I wish as can any one else. Plus, for some reason you assume it's okay to 'hack' on these to take a sneak peak but after that you draw the line? Your morality is out of whack.
All I'm saying is, don't go hacking the binaries or Valve is forced to take them down. My morality has been out of whack ever since some chick ate an apple.
On 05/06/2010 02:24 AM, Edward Savage wrote:
...Plus, Phoronix refuses to release this binary their meant to have found which I tend to think means they don't have it.
What are you on about? The binaries were up on Valve's servers for several days, and lots of us downloaded them. They exist, they were just in an unusable pre-alpha state (when run, they fail connecting to the servers). Someone on the Phoronix boards posted a binary patch that would allow it to bring up a single broken dialog.
A better solution which you'd hope they'd approach Codeweavers or the likes of Ubuntu about would be integrating Wine into a native Steam to run Win32 binaries of non-native games.
I think you mean "slower" solution, that doesn't fix any of our problems like in-game chat. Native is always the better solution when you're talking about something where performance is everything.
-J
On 6 May 2010 17:24, Edward Savage epssyis@gmail.com wrote:
A better solution which you'd hope they'd approach Codeweavers or the likes of Ubuntu about would be integrating Wine into a native Steam to run Win32 binaries of non-native games. On top of native Source games that is. This would be pretty easy, and using the Steam first-time-run script system we could actually make a native version support Win32 binaries via Wine ourselves (if it agreed to download and install them!).
It's worth noting on this point that they already do roughly this for older games with DOSBox, and I think they bundle ScummVM too.
So a native Linux Steam client would get both the ported Source engine games, and any other games that are emulated using a cross-platform backend, even before they look at integrating Wine for other games.
Then again, I don't know if it's Valve doing the emulation integration, or the content owners...
On 05/05/2010 07:07 PM, Ben Klein wrote:
On 6 May 2010 10:01, Evil Jay wine@eternaldusk.com wrote:
On 05/05/2010 02:34 PM, André Hentschel wrote:
Hi Folks, Steam seems to add a Linux client in the near future, so maybe Wine will not be needed anymore for that. or did i get something wrong? That might reduce our "market share" a bit as i guess that many Wineusers play steam games. On the other hand Intel presented its Z600, which is basically x86 but without IDE, SATA or a BIOS. Thats the reason that it cant run Windows. So Linux runs and so should Wine i guess. So we might see some mobil advantures in the near future?
I would not hold my breath waiting for that Steam client, there's still been no official announcement and it could just as well be something they just play around with as a side project for the next half decade.
Phoronix has been claiming Steam for Linux was imminent for 2 years... but for how many years did they (and even the developers) say that UT3 was right around the corner? A few 32-bit god-awfully incomplete binaries that can't even launch the actual GUI is not near enough to start me waiting in a virtual line.
To take the Devil's advocacy a step farther: For all we know, Steam for Linux is not even being actively developed; They may have started it with the Mac port and abandoned it as too resource intensive for the expected payoff. The few updates that we've seen (before the Linux build was pulled) may well be the result of of the automated package builder recompiling the Linux files due to changes in some shared upstream code (being changed for the benefit of the Mac or Windows client).
Now, personally I am hoping like crazy that Steam for Linux does materialize in the next year or two. But, if it does, it will hardly put a dent in Wine's use for gaming. Steam's not a game, so naturally we must assume that Valve will port the Source engine too, so that they will have some games to sell. That's great, but how many games in the AppDB are using the Source engine? How many games sold through Steam even use it, and will the non-Valve developers take the time to build Linux packages? Wine has plenty of gaming left in its future.
The other solution is they pull a Picasa/Google Earth manoeuvre and bundle Wine with Steam (or rely on Wine to play the games).
They didn't want that hassle with the Mac ports (they're native), so why would they do it for Linux?
-J
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André Hentschel -
Austin English -
Ben Klein -
Edward Savage -
Evil Jay -
Jerome Leclanche -
Julius Schwartzenberg -
Paul "TBBle" Hampson -
Remco