36 games available for Linux as of today, Jan 7, 2013. I'm not sure if this is better than WinE, VMWare, or dual booting yet.
Steam for Linux open to all
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Valve has invited all interested users to provide feedback on its Steam for Linux beta.
After a limited beta test, Valve has opened up its Steam for Linux testing phase to all users.
The company announced the Steam for Linux beta client is now available to all Steam users.
"With a growing catalog of Linux-supported games, an active Steam for Linux community group, and a new GitHub bug reporting repository, the timing's right to jump in and share your feedback," Valve encouraged its users.
Valve announced its plans to bring Steam to Linux in July this year, revealing that it is starting with Ubuntu and a work-in-progress Left 4 Dead 2 port. The external beta began in October this year, and included Steam, one Valve game, and support for Ubuntu 12.04 and above. The initial round of invitations went out to 1,000 users.
The project, which began in 2011, aims to allow Steam to work with a functioning Ubuntu build of Left 4 Dead 2. Valve's 11-person Linux development team wants to make the game run on Ubuntu as well as it does on Windows, and has plans to accommodate other distributions of Linux.
Steam on Linux would add another notch on the digital distribution service's already large platform base, which spans PC, Mac, PlayStation 3, Android, and iPhone.
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Laura Parker is the Associate Editor of GameSpot Australia. She loves adventure games, sparkly stuff, Trivial Pursuit, cake, Master Chief, earthworms, and rhetorical questions. She once stole a sandwich from Peter Molyneux.
79 comments
if steam ever makes linux work with all games (old and new) i'm throwing my win7 out the window, and will never buy another microsoft OS again.
:)
@Gamer_4_Fun I don't think all, but certainly more than just the ones listed for linux do. I would be interested to hear what games don't work.
4 Like Nice, steam on linux means Windows loses the only advantage it has ever had as an OS...very exciting
@Jerian I also forgot to mention DirectX support, which is crucial in todays games. Porting them to OpenGL is a hassle and not always benefactor y for the game itself. I also mention Nvidia cards, you also lose out on PhysX.
@Jerian You mean except broad driver support, ease of deployment in a virtual environment and excellent hardware support (proprietary graphics cards -EVERY Nvidia card. SSD support straight out the box, plus all UEFI motherboards). Great consistency and focused development (contra the thousands of *nix distros).
If you remove all those parts, Linux is about the same as Windows.
I have used SUSE for many years, and I wish, I truly do, that Linux would the OS of my choice, alas it is not the case. I still have to use Windows in a slow virtual environment to run the basics of applications thats Java based, and ever since Oracle bought Sun, OpenJDK have replaced Java as the main repository package.
Linux, it is my love-hate relationship.
@uberjannie @Jerian Right, well didnt go into details but obviously im talking about the advantage as being a PC gaming platform not just the steam app which includes your points. Thing is if enough people start using it itl grow, and the hardware support/drivers will follow. ATI already has a driver for Linux. Biggest advantage X has is still direct X. However given a base and hardware games will follow. Look how many are coming out for IOS & Android, granted thats mobile but point is those are OS outside of Redmond. Wont happen overnight but Steam on linux is a good sign that the base/interest for games on linux is on the rise.
2 Like It's laughable at the amount of ignorant people with the "Not worth it, there's only a few games available" comments. Are you guys reading the right news? It says it's in Beta stages, and possibly very early stages before they release a greater deal more games. But not to be funny, 40 games (including Team Fortress) on a beta release as early as this, is pretty damn impressive to me.
@meconate I understand what they mean in the way that I am still going to use Windows until it is fully operational with at least 90% of my games.. though I disagree in that it is definitely worth the development. They should have started this sooner. Now it's up to the distro's and AMD to get their drivers sorted out properly, still a little dodgy on that front.
1 Like @eddieham13 @meconate It IS definitely worth the development, just check this
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/
It says how Valve was able to make L4D2 run at better framerates in OpenGL linux and how it also improved the OpenGL implementation for Windows after making those tweaks. This means that in the way of making games work for Linux, we as windows users are actually getting performance improvements
7 Like great news, a little late but great. if someday i'll be able to play all my games on linux, ill be no longer a windows user
Steam for Ubuntu and Big Picture mode, next the Steambox. Hail to the rise and rist (and eventual downfall) of Valve as a cultural force to be reckoned with.
...Okay, well too bad they're not saying that it is open-source, 'cause, for what it's worth, and that's not much AT ALL, both Steam and Linux by design are ALREADY open to all!
How interesting. So now I have to install a Ubuntu OS on a seperate partition for a tiny little selection of games, that i already have working perfectly in Windows. Oh sweet, what a fine deal! Not. I'd get bored of the novelty within minutes. Pass.
3 Like @andrew_ribbons No, I'll tell you what you have to do. Shut up, uninstall Steam, go out to your local college, and enroll in an English language course. Nobody has ever told you that you have to do any of what your post says, so clearly your reading comprehension is in need of dire improvement.
6 Like @andrew_ribbons What the heck are you talking about?
Nobody's telling you to install Linux or partition your hard drive. No one invited you, my friend.
This is a beta test, meaning that is somewhat limited and possibly with bugs and performance issues. No one said "Oh hey! Steam is now fully working under Linux, and it just has 2 games, forever!"
This is the first step. Hopefully, we'll see many games released both under Windows and Linux.
6 Like This is great. Soon I'll have no use of Windows. (As a developer I find Ubuntu so much better than Windows)
@zaboon_ I wish I was a developer like you. I heard the Ubuntu is like the Android of PCs. Open ended OS where you can simply play around in it. I am just fine Win 8. I mainly use it for my studies, integrated social apps and gaming (but I prefer to play on X360).
2 Like @Virtual_Erkan @zaboon_ Correction: "Android is like the Ubuntu of PCs." Ubuntu has been on the desktop for almost a decade. Android is only 4 years old.
@fallin75 my problem is that my laptop just crashed completely. The laptop doesn't want to power up at all.
@alchie11 @zaboon_ I know but ask 1000 people if they know ubuntu. Only 100 of them will know it. Ask those guys if they know android, all of them will know it.
2 Like @andrew_ribbons @alchie11 @Virtual_Erkan @zaboon_ ubuntu has become a lot more user friendly since then, you should try the windows installer if you don't want to make the partition and all that stuff, it works the same as the normal OS installation.It would also serve has a backup os in case windows fails (if your windows installation dies, you can almost always still get your files back from within Ubuntu).
@alchie11 @Virtual_Erkan @zaboon_
Ubuntu was a horrible mess when i tried Feisty Fawn a few years ago. It completely put me off the OS. Spent days trying to get it to install something and it just wouldn't. And the lack of native general support for file types and codecs out of the box makes it a nightmare too. I don't care that stuff is available to fix those problems, it's a hassel. And I like the essentials to be covered. As do many.
@zpluffy Is that meant to be like a joke?There are plenty of peope, which is kind of evident here that use linux who are gamers, but for that they use Windows because they have to. Enjoy your outdated OS.
Well, if they can my games list over to Linux then I will switch. Until then I will stay a Windows 7 64-bit user.
4 Like Noticed my steam library was there after installing the steam beta, so this morning had it download Company of heroes and didn't have a chance to try it until now. Works great under Linux! Even though there are only about 40 native Linux games, many of the Windows games works just fine automatically with steam and no linux port! Looks like steam uses wine for windows games, so you can probably get a rough idea if your favourite games can work from http://appdb.winehq.org/ )
1 Like A few of my classmates are gonna love this. They've been running Steam games via Wine for a few years now. To run then natively is gonna put a nice, big smile on their faces.
5 Like The only reason I have yet to make the permanent switch to Linux is because there aren't games for it. If devs start making new games compatible with Linux, consider me a switcher.
4 Like This can't be anything but good. Even though I don't use Linux, there is always a chance I will in the future.
4 Like This is great! Windows looks like its going to flop. I will never switch to a Mac. So this is F**king awesome!!!!!!!!!
3 Like All hail open-source coding and no patents! I am quite fond of this move to Linux. Linux isn't as "heavy" on memory as windows, it is a better platform to play games in my opinion, however few they are at this time. Let see how it goes.
Nice. I'[m just wondering, if I built a cheap PC and put Linux on it would I be able to use the games I'v got already on steam on it? or do only some games work on Linux? how does it work?
@Johny_47 You'll be able to use the games that are both certified for Linux *and* already in your Library.
There's about 5 I think that are stable-ish.
@naryanrobinson Ok, do you think more and more games will be 'patched' or something to work on linux or will Microsoft try and buy everyone out to not support it? hope linux gets support.
It would just be nice to have a platform JUST to play games without needing consoles.
@naryanrobinson PS3 being dificult to develop for is not about OpenGL, it's about the cell processor
@SycrJohnny Well obviously that's the case since Microsoft isn't going to just hand Sony the tools to their success on a platter.
But the PS3 is *significantly* more powerful than a 360, and yet it looks worse for almost all multi-platform titles on the market.
I think that says something about how difficult OpenGL is to migrate to.
@naryanrobinson @Johny_47 Most of today game engines work both with DirectX and OpenGL...If you think about it... most engines or games works on PC, XBox, Wii U and PS3... PC and XBox use DirectX, but PS3 and WII U use OpenGL... If you check Unreal engine (all versions) has OpenGL support, Source has OpenGL support, CryEngine has OpenGL support... As well as most game engines today...So, I don't think that the "migration" will be as hard to do as you say.
1 Like There's always Wine: an app that allows Linux and Mac to run Windows based software. But it can be iffy.
My advice is dual-boot Linux and Windows XP. Switch'em up as needed. That's what some of my classmates do on their laptops. I'm highly considering it myself. There are Youtube clips that show you how. Ubuntu is especially friendly with dual booting.
2 Like @Johny_47 Hmm, it's not exactly like that.
Most games are built from the ground up around something called DirectX, a rendering protocol only Microsoft has the distribution rights for.
It really depends on the engine the game uses. Not all engines are like this. The Source engine, made by the guys at Valve, supports DirectX, but isn't made with it in mind from scratch, so to "patch" it isn't such an impossible task. It takes time though. The open-source equivalent of Microsoft's DirectX is called OpenGL, and is actually more powerful in nature, but doesn't have the support, and there aren't nearly as many developers in the industry that know their way around it.
If you want my personal take on it, there *will* be a *lot* more games coming in the future to the Linux client, but you're going to have to be very, very patient.
Now all Linux needs is better driver support. Once my graphics card gets supported I'll give it a spin.
1 Like @Aiberg What does a 24 year old thrash metal record have anything to do with this?
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