Steam Linux

[Alistair]

Steam have decided to released a native (well not really) version of Steam for Linux so users no longer have to run Steam through Wine which is a Windows emulator.

The only problem is the .deb released will only work properly on Ubuntu.

So Valve seems to think all Linux users use Ubuntu.

Why couldn't they make a tar.gz which I could extract and compile, or a shell script?

VirtualBox have a shell script version of their software that runs fine, why couldn't Steam do the same?

There are ways to get it working on Debian but this involves cross-packaging with Ubuntu which is deadly to your package system and can create many problems.

So in short: Valve get your finger out and provide a Steam client for GNU/Linux as you stated!! Not Steam for Ubuntu.

An whilst I'm at it, Ubuntu is shite. You might as well use Windows 8 especially with Gnome's latest interface (hollow points at the idiot(s) at gnome who wanted to change the interface to what it is now). Debian even changed their default display manager to XFCE4 because it was so damn awful.

[James]

I would assume Valve will put resources into making sure tackle the most popular used distro before spreading it out, right? Quality assurance, etc.

[Alistair]

So it should be titled Steam for Ubuntu instead?

This sort of thing was unheard of until Ubuntu came along and start mixing proprietary software with open-source.

A big no no in Linux philosophy.

I can see where Valve is coming from, obviously for them it comes down to one thing, money. And they need to allocate their resources to the most popular distribution

But for a person who uses a different Linux distribution to get taken out of the equation is unfair.

Like I said, it should be renamed Steam for Ubuntu - not Linux.

It's hard to measure the most popular distribution objectively:-

"The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more.”

http://www.zdnet.com/the-5-most-popular-linux-distributions-7000003183/

If they get it to work well for Ubuntu who knows the next Linux distributions will come along and Ubuntu will be out of the picture. Linux Mint is already climbing the ladder. Then what will Valve do?

In theory it's simple as Debian, Ubuntu and Linux Mint use .deb's but it's not that simple because they all use different versions! And different versions mean broken dependencies and in short a screwed up system.

[Dae]

A big no no in Linux philosophy.

Probably you mean the philosophy of the GNU Project, not Linux? [/rms mode]

I can see where Valve is coming from, obviously for them it comes down to one thing, money.

I heard Valve is developing a Linux-based game console, probably that could also be the reason why they're not very interested in other distributions.

[Alistair]

A big no no in Linux philosophy.

Probably you mean the philosophy of the GNU Project, not Linux? [/rms mode]

I can see where Valve is coming from, obviously for them it comes down to one thing, money.

I heard Valve is developing a Linux-based game console, probably that could also be the reason why they're not very interested in other distributions.

+1 Dae, you have a better understanding than me! But I usually just call GNU/Linux Linux [rms vomits brickdust in 4 dimensions] My present for you [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ]

Exclusion seems to be an principle against GNU and violates freedom.

[/b]