8 ms·

Valve hired their first wave of Linux developers, hiring more

216 points by shazow 14y ago

moistgorilla 14y ago
Great news! Honestly, the only software that will be holding people back from switching fully to linux now will be creative tools (audio, 3d + 2d design, video editing). I think this can be solved by us. If we show them that there is a demand for these tools on linux someone will move to supply. Open operating systems provide too many advantages to ignore.
- truncate 14y ago
  I think presence of mainstream CAD software is very important as well. I have seen many people not willing or not being able to shift to Linux only because of CAD.
  - moistgorilla 14y ago
    I meant that too. Basically when adobe and autodesk make their software linux compatible we will see a huge shift to linux. The amount of money saved by businesses on a whole would be huge if switching to linux was an option.
  - petermonsson 14y ago
    I think that you need to specify which type of CAD software you have in mind. CAD software for Semiconductor designers have an incredibly strong presence on Linux.
    - truncate 14y ago
      I think in the domain of Civil Engineering, Architecture, Mechanical Engineering. My dad is a Civil Engineer and I know stuff he needs doesn't exist on Linux.
- shazow 14y ago
  Some of the best tools in the industry (Audacity, Blender, Inkscape, others?) are already free, open source, and native on Linux.
  - moistgorilla 14y ago
    Sadly, some people refuse to work if they aren't using photoshop/illustrator/autocad/etc. But yeah, I'm with you, I use gimp and inkscape but I'm no professional.
    - twog 14y ago
      A perfect example are front-end developers. It can be tough for anyone to make a living in that line of work without being able to edit/open photoshop and illustrated without having to configure wine. I truly believe Adobe holding back their products is one of the largest roadblocks linux has to get widespread adoption amongst the design/developer community.
      - iron_ball 14y ago
        I love Linux for general hacking, but not having Adobe tools is a huge blow when it comes to working on a design. It's almost insurmountable.
      - jiggy2011 14y ago
        I'd be surprised if Adobe isn't at least looking into this, especially considering their sometimes sour relationship without Apple. A lot of the more "arty" people I know would consider giving them a Windows computer to use as a personal insult and would probably be more open to switching to Linux than Windows. Getting arty people to use desktop Linux could be a huge net positive if they decide to help "pretty" the place up a bit.
        Kerrick 14y ago
        It's certainly nice when UI/UX people run GNU/Linux distributions. Daniel Foré is in charge of Elementary OS [1]. Because he's a designer, the project already has a proper set of Human Interface Guidelines [2], a set of uniquely designed (and easy to use) core applications [3], and a beautifully coherent look to the entire OS and website. [1]: http://elementaryos.org/ http://elementaryos.org/ [2]: http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines [3]: http://elementaryos.org/discover http://elementaryos.org/discover
- james4k 14y ago
  Agreed, and with Adobe and Autodesk monopolizing creative software, I think we'll see more and more of this. Blender has been doing spectacularly with 3D to the point that Autodesk must be incredibly worried, and I expect we'll see more Photoshop contenders as projects like GIMP start to answer the pleas of its on-the-fence users. See the GIMP roadmap: http://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap http://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap Edit: And I expect as browser technologies continue to expand, we'll see more web-based competitors. In particular, with WebGL, I'm surprised we haven't seen things like all-GPU image editors to compete with the slow giants we have to deal with now.
  - cpeterso 14y ago
    In the mid-2000s, Macromedia started an experimental port of Dreamweaver (I think) to Linux using Wine. The project was abandoned because the market for commercial Linux applications was seen to be too limited for the difficulty of maintaining the port.
  - mladenkovacevic 14y ago
    Also in the video editing space Lightworks might prove to be an acceptable (if not even better) alternative to Avid and FCP.
- gillianseed 14y ago
  Well when it comes to 3D Linux is actually well off due to it's strong position in SFX, you have the latest Maya, XSI, Mudbox, Renderman, Houdini, Lightwave, 3D-Coat etc available in native Linux form. And as others have stated there's also great free solutions like Blender.
  - moistgorilla 14y ago
    Thanks for informing me of this, I honestly didn't know they worked in native linux.
  - dman 14y ago
    This is what XSI has to say about Linux - "Softimage 2013 is also capable of running on other configurations, such as boutique distributions of Linux. However, enumerating systems that are not tested and cannot be supported or that fall below the requirements for a productive user experience is beyond the scope of the online certification charts.". Lightwave isnt available for Linux either.
    - gillianseed 14y ago
      Ah, I was under the impression that Lightwave 10 was released for Linux last summer, granted it's not really on my radar. Looking at their site now showcasing version 11 there's no mention of Linux so it seems you are right. Still, Wine's AppDB page for Lightwave mentions a Linux native Lightwave 10 CORE under development.
      - carpo 14y ago
        Yeah, the latest Lightwave runs on Linux. I installed one of the Beta's a few months ago and it ran OK, though it didn't include everything the windows version had. I still use Lightwave via Virtual Box.
- dedosk 14y ago
  Krita (www.krita.org) is also very great piece of software recently, sometimes called "best-kept secrets among Linux applications". See this blog-post from professional illustrator http://www.davidrevoy.com/index.php?article98/krita-2-4-beta-screenshots-features-and-ppa http://www.davidrevoy.com/index.php?article98/krita-2-4-beta...
prezjordan 14y ago
Sort of off-topic, is there a reason Steam on windows is so unresponsive? Mac, too, but I think that's because it's a port. It seems to me that Steam is not written in native windows code and that's why it runs so sluggishly. Some say they have no idea what I'm talking about, while others agree. What does HN think?
- fsckin 14y ago
  Parts of it are served from the internets.
- derefr 14y ago
  As far as I know, it uses Webkit for the entire UI--and possibly a rather old version of it.
  - james4k 14y ago
    Yes, that is true to an extent. For the web portions of the UI like the Steam store, it uses the Chromium Embedded Framework: http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/ http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/
- ineedtosleep 14y ago
  Define "so unresponsive". Recently (less than a year ago), I had a switch in hardware from a Athlon X2 3200+, 4GB RAM machine to an i5-2500K, 8GB RAM and 2 SSDs. Sure there was a noticeable difference in responsiveness, but never on either machine would I consider Steam "so unresponsive".
  - barrkel 14y ago
    My last machine was an i7 920 with 12GB and Intel 80GB SSD; I now have an i7-3770K with 16GB and Samsung 256GB SSD; and Steam has always been fairly unresponsive. Specifically, it's most unresponsive on the "preparing disk space" page when installing games. It takes multiple seconds for no apparent reason. There's no high CPU usage and no high I/O usage. It's also very slow to start, and very slow to let me play a game. My theory is it's due to some degree of online activity, that it's gated on my internet bandwidth. Since I only play single-player games, that's a huge annoyance to me, and I often don't start playing games because I know I'll have to sit through Steam startup for several seconds.
ghc 14y ago
Oh, thank Gabe! I've been waiting for this for a decade now!
integricho 14y ago
At first I read valve FIRED their first wave of linux developers...
jiggy2011 14y ago
This will be welcome by me, steam on Linux that is. I've bought a number of games from steam when they have been on sale, games that have a Linux port available. Of course I am unable to run them without buying the Linux copy separately at present but once this is implemented I will already be able to play a fair cross-section of my games on Windows and Linux. Of course this could be a net negative for my productivity.
- icebraining 14y ago
  Linux developers doesn't necessarily imply there'll be Steam for Linux Desktop™. It may be that Valve is looking to finally build their Steam Console and base it on Linux.
  - stevengg 14y ago
    steam for linux is coming http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_linux_dampfnudeln&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve...
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    That's true, but this article seems to indicate that it will be there for the regular "desktop". http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_linux_dampfnudeln&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve... It is of course possible that they are planning a console and that this is why they are focusing their efforts. If they do develop a Linux based console then hopefully it will still make sense for them to support "proper" Linux as part of that.
    - pyre 14y ago
      I think that if they support 'proper' Linux might also depend on the architecture of the console. If it's PowerPC or ARM, then we might not see x86 desktop support.
  - mackal 14y ago
    No, I this is Steam for Linux. The Steam Console was just a rumor, and that's all. I've had an employee (friend) verify these facts to me.
Keyframe 14y ago
I don't use linux as my desktop OS for quite some time (now it's windows and osx, used to have Redhat and later fedora workstations). My question is, is it possible to target 'linux' in general as a single platform at all? I thought heterogeneous nature of linux distros is what would hinder that effort. Something like when you buy certain graphics programs, you get to have only this and that linux variant with this and that software on it in order to run it.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  In the 'enterprise' market, targeting 'Linux' means targeting RHEL. I don't think that would be the way for Valve to go though. If they are really going to release anything to the public for Linux I imagine they will just officially target Ubuntu.
  - jebblue 14y ago
    Ubuntu is focused on delivering a great desktop. I'm not a fan of Unity and find that to get the same performance I used to have, I have to run my games on Unity 2D. Regular Unity (3D) eats a lot of my games's FPS. If Steam picks Ubuntu then I hope they work with Canonical to get Unity to perform as fast for games as Unity 2D (and Gnome 2).
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      That should probably be as easy as providing a way for games to tell Unity to turn off compositing, right?
      - jebblue 14y ago
        I'd imagine that it would be some serious work to see whether just turning off compositing would be enough and what effects that has on running non-game apps that are in the middle of using compositing.
      - freehunter 14y ago
        Windows does this already for games that enable it. Turns off desktop effects when it goes full screen, then reloads it when the game exits.
bfrog 14y ago
Will this finally mean linux becomes more and more mainstream for commercial games and applications? I actually hope so! Thank you Gabe and Valve, for bringing things a step ever closer.
pixie_ 14y ago
Does anyone else think this has little to do with 'bringing Steam to linux' and a lot to do with SteamBox, the rumored console Valve is working on.
shinratdr 14y ago
So that thing that this very same site has insisted is in full development and is near ready to go... is going through a hiring round for devs to build the thing? Right. I'm so sick of these articles. Ever since the Mac version came out this site and other Linux focused blogs have insisted Steam for Linux is minutes away. Every single time they've been proven wrong or miss their timeframe. It probably is being built, but the last person who has legitimate up to date info on the project is Phoronix. They seem to just be making things up.
- JDShu 14y ago
  Phoronix seems to be playing a kind of Pascal's wager here. There is no way that it can be definitively proven that Steam will never arrive for the Linux desktop, but if it does then they can feel smug satisfaction that they knew all along and nobody believed them.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  IIRC they actually went to valve's office and showed screenshots of source engined games running under Ubuntu natively. I wouldn't be surprised if they have it "90%" ready-to-go and just need some serious domains experts to do the last 90%. Not to mention for bugfixing , updates down the line as well as maybe porting some of their new tech (HL3 engine?) to Linux.
shmerl 14y ago
The problem of Valve is their usage of DRM. I won't use them just because of that, whether they release Linux client or not. I.e. it's better to run a non DRM-ed Windows game (let's say from GOG) on Linux using Wine, rather than native one from Valve but with DRM. But their entering to the Linux scene in general is good, since it might encourage others to do it as well, and eventually non DRMed distributors like GOG will push for more Linux games too.
sandGorgon 14y ago
I have a Dell Vostro with an ATI 6600m card running ubuntu 12.04. Putting "echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch" effectively boosts my battery time from 1 hour to 3 hours. What I'm seriously hoping from Valve is not a game per se, but a linux distro (or a standard) that is compatible with my drivers, multimedia devices (dual hdmi monitors - I'm looking at you) and audio/video. I would pay serious money for that kind of a distro.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I don't think Yet Another Desktop Distro is really the answer to our prayers. If fixing your laptop battery is as simple as that one liner , perhaps your can write a script that detects hardware at startup and runs that line if appropriate and then submit it back to Ubuntu?
- helmut_hed 14y ago
  a linux distro (or a standard) that is compatible with my drivers, multimedia devices (dual hdmi monitors - I'm looking at you) and audio/video yes, that would be great! Major distros (I use Kubuntu) are understaffed and concentrate on getting the new features from their upstreams integrated, not on making sure fancy hardware is supported. It's a question of resources. Although I think Valve is less likely than a hardware vendor to have a business reason for doing this work.

216 points by shazow 14y ago

Great news! Honestly, the only software that will be holding people back from switching fully to linux now will be creative tools (audio, 3d + 2d design, video editing). I think this can be solved by us. If we show them that there is a demand for these tools on linux someone will move to supply. Open operating systems provide too many advantages to ignore.

truncate 14y ago
I think presence of mainstream CAD software is very important as well. I have seen many people not willing or not being able to shift to Linux only because of CAD.
- moistgorilla 14y ago
  I meant that too. Basically when adobe and autodesk make their software linux compatible we will see a huge shift to linux. The amount of money saved by businesses on a whole would be huge if switching to linux was an option.
- petermonsson 14y ago
  I think that you need to specify which type of CAD software you have in mind. CAD software for Semiconductor designers have an incredibly strong presence on Linux.
  - truncate 14y ago
    I think in the domain of Civil Engineering, Architecture, Mechanical Engineering. My dad is a Civil Engineer and I know stuff he needs doesn't exist on Linux.
shazow 14y ago
Some of the best tools in the industry (Audacity, Blender, Inkscape, others?) are already free, open source, and native on Linux.
- moistgorilla 14y ago
  Sadly, some people refuse to work if they aren't using photoshop/illustrator/autocad/etc. But yeah, I'm with you, I use gimp and inkscape but I'm no professional.
  - twog 14y ago
    A perfect example are front-end developers. It can be tough for anyone to make a living in that line of work without being able to edit/open photoshop and illustrated without having to configure wine. I truly believe Adobe holding back their products is one of the largest roadblocks linux has to get widespread adoption amongst the design/developer community.
    - iron_ball 14y ago
      I love Linux for general hacking, but not having Adobe tools is a huge blow when it comes to working on a design. It's almost insurmountable.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      I'd be surprised if Adobe isn't at least looking into this, especially considering their sometimes sour relationship without Apple. A lot of the more "arty" people I know would consider giving them a Windows computer to use as a personal insult and would probably be more open to switching to Linux than Windows. Getting arty people to use desktop Linux could be a huge net positive if they decide to help "pretty" the place up a bit.
      - Kerrick 14y ago
        It's certainly nice when UI/UX people run GNU/Linux distributions. Daniel Foré is in charge of Elementary OS [1]. Because he's a designer, the project already has a proper set of Human Interface Guidelines [2], a set of uniquely designed (and easy to use) core applications [3], and a beautifully coherent look to the entire OS and website. [1]: http://elementaryos.org/ http://elementaryos.org/ [2]: http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines [3]: http://elementaryos.org/discover http://elementaryos.org/discover
james4k 14y ago
Agreed, and with Adobe and Autodesk monopolizing creative software, I think we'll see more and more of this. Blender has been doing spectacularly with 3D to the point that Autodesk must be incredibly worried, and I expect we'll see more Photoshop contenders as projects like GIMP start to answer the pleas of its on-the-fence users. See the GIMP roadmap: http://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap http://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap Edit: And I expect as browser technologies continue to expand, we'll see more web-based competitors. In particular, with WebGL, I'm surprised we haven't seen things like all-GPU image editors to compete with the slow giants we have to deal with now.
- cpeterso 14y ago
  In the mid-2000s, Macromedia started an experimental port of Dreamweaver (I think) to Linux using Wine. The project was abandoned because the market for commercial Linux applications was seen to be too limited for the difficulty of maintaining the port.
- mladenkovacevic 14y ago
  Also in the video editing space Lightworks might prove to be an acceptable (if not even better) alternative to Avid and FCP.
gillianseed 14y ago
Well when it comes to 3D Linux is actually well off due to it's strong position in SFX, you have the latest Maya, XSI, Mudbox, Renderman, Houdini, Lightwave, 3D-Coat etc available in native Linux form. And as others have stated there's also great free solutions like Blender.
- moistgorilla 14y ago
  Thanks for informing me of this, I honestly didn't know they worked in native linux.
- dman 14y ago
  This is what XSI has to say about Linux - "Softimage 2013 is also capable of running on other configurations, such as boutique distributions of Linux. However, enumerating systems that are not tested and cannot be supported or that fall below the requirements for a productive user experience is beyond the scope of the online certification charts.". Lightwave isnt available for Linux either.
  - gillianseed 14y ago
    Ah, I was under the impression that Lightwave 10 was released for Linux last summer, granted it's not really on my radar. Looking at their site now showcasing version 11 there's no mention of Linux so it seems you are right. Still, Wine's AppDB page for Lightwave mentions a Linux native Lightwave 10 CORE under development.
    - carpo 14y ago
      Yeah, the latest Lightwave runs on Linux. I installed one of the Beta's a few months ago and it ran OK, though it didn't include everything the windows version had. I still use Lightwave via Virtual Box.
dedosk 14y ago
Krita (www.krita.org) is also very great piece of software recently, sometimes called "best-kept secrets among Linux applications". See this blog-post from professional illustrator http://www.davidrevoy.com/index.php?article98/krita-2-4-beta-screenshots-features-and-ppa http://www.davidrevoy.com/index.php?article98/krita-2-4-beta...

prezjordan 14y ago

Sort of off-topic, is there a reason Steam on windows is so unresponsive? Mac, too, but I think that's because it's a port. It seems to me that Steam is not written in native windows code and that's why it runs so sluggishly. Some say they have no idea what I'm talking about, while others agree. What does HN think?

fsckin 14y ago
Parts of it are served from the internets.
derefr 14y ago
As far as I know, it uses Webkit for the entire UI--and possibly a rather old version of it.
- james4k 14y ago
  Yes, that is true to an extent. For the web portions of the UI like the Steam store, it uses the Chromium Embedded Framework: http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/ http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/
ineedtosleep 14y ago
Define "so unresponsive". Recently (less than a year ago), I had a switch in hardware from a Athlon X2 3200+, 4GB RAM machine to an i5-2500K, 8GB RAM and 2 SSDs. Sure there was a noticeable difference in responsiveness, but never on either machine would I consider Steam "so unresponsive".
- barrkel 14y ago
  My last machine was an i7 920 with 12GB and Intel 80GB SSD; I now have an i7-3770K with 16GB and Samsung 256GB SSD; and Steam has always been fairly unresponsive. Specifically, it's most unresponsive on the "preparing disk space" page when installing games. It takes multiple seconds for no apparent reason. There's no high CPU usage and no high I/O usage. It's also very slow to start, and very slow to let me play a game. My theory is it's due to some degree of online activity, that it's gated on my internet bandwidth. Since I only play single-player games, that's a huge annoyance to me, and I often don't start playing games because I know I'll have to sit through Steam startup for several seconds.

ghc 14y ago

Oh, thank Gabe! I've been waiting for this for a decade now!

integricho 14y ago

At first I read valve FIRED their first wave of linux developers...

jiggy2011 14y ago

This will be welcome by me, steam on Linux that is. I've bought a number of games from steam when they have been on sale, games that have a Linux port available. Of course I am unable to run them without buying the Linux copy separately at present but once this is implemented I will already be able to play a fair cross-section of my games on Windows and Linux. Of course this could be a net negative for my productivity.

icebraining 14y ago
Linux developers doesn't necessarily imply there'll be Steam for Linux Desktop™. It may be that Valve is looking to finally build their Steam Console and base it on Linux.
- stevengg 14y ago
  steam for linux is coming http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_linux_dampfnudeln&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve...
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  That's true, but this article seems to indicate that it will be there for the regular "desktop". http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_linux_dampfnudeln&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve... It is of course possible that they are planning a console and that this is why they are focusing their efforts. If they do develop a Linux based console then hopefully it will still make sense for them to support "proper" Linux as part of that.
  - pyre 14y ago
    I think that if they support 'proper' Linux might also depend on the architecture of the console. If it's PowerPC or ARM, then we might not see x86 desktop support.
- mackal 14y ago
  No, I this is Steam for Linux. The Steam Console was just a rumor, and that's all. I've had an employee (friend) verify these facts to me.

Keyframe 14y ago

I don't use linux as my desktop OS for quite some time (now it's windows and osx, used to have Redhat and later fedora workstations). My question is, is it possible to target 'linux' in general as a single platform at all? I thought heterogeneous nature of linux distros is what would hinder that effort. Something like when you buy certain graphics programs, you get to have only this and that linux variant with this and that software on it in order to run it.

jlgreco 14y ago
In the 'enterprise' market, targeting 'Linux' means targeting RHEL. I don't think that would be the way for Valve to go though. If they are really going to release anything to the public for Linux I imagine they will just officially target Ubuntu.
- jebblue 14y ago
  Ubuntu is focused on delivering a great desktop. I'm not a fan of Unity and find that to get the same performance I used to have, I have to run my games on Unity 2D. Regular Unity (3D) eats a lot of my games's FPS. If Steam picks Ubuntu then I hope they work with Canonical to get Unity to perform as fast for games as Unity 2D (and Gnome 2).
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    That should probably be as easy as providing a way for games to tell Unity to turn off compositing, right?
    - jebblue 14y ago
      I'd imagine that it would be some serious work to see whether just turning off compositing would be enough and what effects that has on running non-game apps that are in the middle of using compositing.
    - freehunter 14y ago
      Windows does this already for games that enable it. Turns off desktop effects when it goes full screen, then reloads it when the game exits.

bfrog 14y ago

Will this finally mean linux becomes more and more mainstream for commercial games and applications? I actually hope so! Thank you Gabe and Valve, for bringing things a step ever closer.

pixie_ 14y ago

Does anyone else think this has little to do with 'bringing Steam to linux' and a lot to do with SteamBox, the rumored console Valve is working on.

shinratdr 14y ago

So that thing that this very same site has insisted is in full development and is near ready to go... is going through a hiring round for devs to build the thing? Right. I'm so sick of these articles. Ever since the Mac version came out this site and other Linux focused blogs have insisted Steam for Linux is minutes away. Every single time they've been proven wrong or miss their timeframe. It probably is being built, but the last person who has legitimate up to date info on the project is Phoronix. They seem to just be making things up.

JDShu 14y ago
Phoronix seems to be playing a kind of Pascal's wager here. There is no way that it can be definitively proven that Steam will never arrive for the Linux desktop, but if it does then they can feel smug satisfaction that they knew all along and nobody believed them.
jiggy2011 14y ago
IIRC they actually went to valve's office and showed screenshots of source engined games running under Ubuntu natively. I wouldn't be surprised if they have it "90%" ready-to-go and just need some serious domains experts to do the last 90%. Not to mention for bugfixing , updates down the line as well as maybe porting some of their new tech (HL3 engine?) to Linux.

shmerl 14y ago

The problem of Valve is their usage of DRM. I won't use them just because of that, whether they release Linux client or not. I.e. it's better to run a non DRM-ed Windows game (let's say from GOG) on Linux using Wine, rather than native one from Valve but with DRM. But their entering to the Linux scene in general is good, since it might encourage others to do it as well, and eventually non DRMed distributors like GOG will push for more Linux games too.

sandGorgon 14y ago

I have a Dell Vostro with an ATI 6600m card running ubuntu 12.04. Putting "echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch" effectively boosts my battery time from 1 hour to 3 hours. What I'm seriously hoping from Valve is not a game per se, but a linux distro (or a standard) that is compatible with my drivers, multimedia devices (dual hdmi monitors - I'm looking at you) and audio/video. I would pay serious money for that kind of a distro.

jiggy2011 14y ago
I don't think Yet Another Desktop Distro is really the answer to our prayers. If fixing your laptop battery is as simple as that one liner , perhaps your can write a script that detects hardware at startup and runs that line if appropriate and then submit it back to Ubuntu?
helmut_hed 14y ago
a linux distro (or a standard) that is compatible with my drivers, multimedia devices (dual hdmi monitors - I'm looking at you) and audio/video yes, that would be great! Major distros (I use Kubuntu) are understaffed and concentrate on getting the new features from their upstreams integrated, not on making sure fancy hardware is supported. It's a question of resources. Although I think Valve is less likely than a hardware vendor to have a business reason for doing this work.