Steam for Linux Beta

by futureperson • 14 years ago

236 62 14 years ago

rowsdower2• 14 years ago

I'm confused. What was the point of posting this link? This is just the Steam group for the beta. It doesn't include any new information (or a way to get in the beta) that I can see.

dexen• 14 years ago

An official group is yet another milestone to having Steam on Linux. Also, there's a prominent `Join' button for them early adopters :-)

rowsdower2• 14 years ago

Right, but this doesn't guarantee beta access, nor does it confirm anything we didn't already know. I'm not trying to be prickly, I just don't see the point of this submission as it stands. If anything, the title should have been, "Join the Steam for Linux Beta Group" or something along those lines.

aristidb2• 14 years ago

Can somebody explain what precisely this page means?

veeti• 14 years ago

It's an official group for the beta which is hopefully coming soon that appeared on Wednesday. There are no news about the beta and there has been no clarification about this page's purpose. Nothing has been announced yet.

darkstalker• 14 years ago

Looks like it's gonna be a closed beta.

jiggy20113• 14 years ago

Ok , so I joined the group but I can't get into group chat from my Linux box.

LukaD• 14 years ago

Can't join from the Steam Android app either. Kinda pointless.

pja• 14 years ago

Looks like they might be going to announce something at the upcoming Ubuntu conference: http://cdr.thebronasium.com/sub/17746

jamesmiller5• 14 years ago

I'm quite surprised the domain is "steamcommunity.com" and not "community.steam.com", it made me hesitant to enter login details.

jiggy20113• 14 years ago

   Name Server: NS1.VALVESOFTWARE.COM
   Name Server: NS2.VALVESOFTWARE.COM
   Name Server: NS3.VALVESOFTWARE.COM

Seems legit.

ElliotH• 14 years ago

Steam doesn't actually own Steam.com The current owners won't sell it.

emperorcezar• 14 years ago

Which is hilariously funny since there's nothing there but a drop page.

sathyabhat• 14 years ago

Steam's community domain has been what you'd mentioned since quite some time. No need to be hesitant.

Zr40• 14 years ago

If you check the certificate for https://steamcommunity.com/, it should show Valve Corporation. Regardless, you can log in at the Steam store (https://store.steampowered.com/); the session should automatically transfer to Steam Community.

masklinn• 14 years ago

Valve does not have steam.com, the store site is steampowered.com and the community site is steamcommunity.com...

presidentender• 14 years ago

I installed Windows specifically to get Steam (and Visual Studio). If Steam works on Linux, I have very little need of Microsoft products outside the office.

envex• 14 years ago

Steam on linux doesn't necessarily mean (all) games on linux.

You'll still want to keep a windows computer around if you want to play a wide range of games.

It's the same with steam for mac. Only a handful of games worth playing.

aerique• 14 years ago

Only two handfuls of games are worth playing on Windows as well.

aristidb2• 14 years ago

Even once Steam is on Linux, most games won't be. Much like Steam is on Mac but the vast majority of games don't support it.

However: 1. You should install Steam for Linux anyway! (Once it's public.) 2. I read games in virtual machines actually work reasonably well these days. (Not with VirtualBox though, sadly.)

(And I will never understand why people love Visual Studio so much. Oh well.)

w1ntermute2• 14 years ago

> Even once Steam is on Linux, most games won't be.

While that's true, it'll lead to the creation of more games for Linux, particularly with a lot of people apprehensive about the big GUI changes in Windows 8.

More importantly, 90% of my "regular" gaming takes place in Source-based engines (TF2/L4D2), so I would be more than happy as long as those Source games are available on Linux (and I believe that was Valve's plan all along with Steam for Linux).

hack_edu• 14 years ago

As long as Team Fortress 2 runs, I'll be happy :)

wtallis2• 14 years ago

Some of the games available for Mac through Steam are using Mono or a Wine wrapper. Those games should be very easy to port to Linux.

And while you can do gaming inside a VM with the right combination of hardware and software, it is very tricky to set up.

drivebyacct22• 14 years ago

Not to dispute what you're saying, but I can't think of anything likely to cause a shift in momentum as Steam on Linux.

zanny• 14 years ago

> games in virtual machines actually work reasonably well these days

In KVM / Qemu, you need to forward a hardware graphics card to the VM, which means you can't use it in the host OS. It works ok if you have a crossfire or sli setup (since Linux support for either is... lacking) but you still need to have separate displays for the host and guest then.

I haven't tried vmware / xen though.

barbs4• 14 years ago

> (And I will never understand why people love Visual Studio so much. Oh well.)

Me neither!

olanmatt• 14 years ago

Wait until there is a selection of games that you wish to play available on linux before you go ahead and write off Windows. Also, wait for driver support to be up to snuff for what you want to do.

seanc722• 14 years ago

IMO if you REALLY want games on linux you should use it for everything possible. If everyone just sits on windows waiting for games on linux then those games are not going to come lol.

gizmo686• 14 years ago

I recall reading an article here a couple months ago that steam found ported games running faster on linux, after some OS optimization, as compared with the more heavilly optimized windows version.

rtcoms• 14 years ago

Isn't kickstarter would be perfect for companies to create games for linux platform?

This way they will know in which games people are really interested and I also think that people will gladly support those kickstarter. Overall much less risk on investment.

ihsw• 14 years ago

People still treat Kickstarter like a pre-order system, also Kickstarter disallows you from posting renderings instead of actual products (pretty much all game publishers do this).

ChrisClark• 14 years ago

That's only for physical products, you can still post rendering for games.

forrestthewoods• 14 years ago

Most Kickstarters for games now include or add support for Linux. I doubt most games would do it if not for HumbleBundle which requires Linux support and can earn you $100k to $300k or so. If not for HumbleBundle the number of new customers a Linux build gets you is almost certainly not worth it.

iddqd• 14 years ago

The actual beta sign up page was just posted to the group.

http://www.valvesoftware.com/linuxsurvey.php

Steam for Linux Beta

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