6 ms·

I'm going to show my lack of linux history here... why not Debian? Are they really building something that is native to ubuntu that you wouldn't work in <insert

by columbo 14y ago

I'm going to show my lack of linux history here... why not Debian? Are they really building something that is native to ubuntu that you wouldn't work in <insert-debian-fork crunchbang or mint>?

biomechanica 14y ago
I think it has to do with their familiarity with Ubuntu server and the popularity of the distro. They wrote on that post that they do indeed want to support other distro's in the future. I suspect they just want to get some stability before committing to a wide range of distro's. Ubuntu is very popular, so it makes sense. Distro's can take the .deb files and extract them through their package managers to fit their systems, probably without much hassle.
grakic 14y ago
I expect it will eventually work on any recent distribution, and there would be community docs everywhere on how to install dependencies, configure and run their software on distribution X. Saying that, Ubuntu is popular, there may be some commercial connections with Canonical, and picking one distribution to do the testing should streamline their efforts.
mbell 14y ago
Simple answer is that most of the differentiation between Ubunu and Debian is in the areas of audio and video. Specifically regarding drivers, which is a critically important component of game development.
Ralith 14y ago
They're working with Canonical to make sure that it's well supported, and they chose them because Ubuntu in particular is focusing on making Linux for the mainstream. In this context, "supported" on a particular platform doesn't mean "can run," it means "should work out of the box for absolutely everyone." I have no doubt that, come the release on Ubuntu, unofficial packages will come into being for nearly every distro--and on Debian you probably won't even need that.
trotsky 14y ago
Ubuntu's the only major distribution (that I know of) that has an integrated and supported process for installing the closed video drivers you'll need to run their games on ati/nvidia.
- mitchty 14y ago
  Arch linux isn't all that hard, not sure if this counts as "integrated and supported" But... # pacman -S nvidia nvidia-utils https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA Is all I did for the work install, took longer to finish the setup but thats more due to me having 2 monitors than anything else, one is mad simple. Can't speak to the ati stuff. I know SuSe is about as simple as well.
  - trotsky 14y ago
    looks like it was a good thing i hedged ;)
  - wickedchicken 14y ago
    > Arch linux isn't all that hard Yes. Yes it is.
    - mitchty 14y ago
      I'll admit, i'm biased. >.< But having installed Linux back in 1997 and dealing with X11Rwhatever it was back then and minicom and all that jazz, kinda makes my view of hard a bit off of what most people view as hard.
      - wickedchicken 14y ago
        The problem I ran into with Arch was that it forced you to make many decisions about your system up-front, before you had a system to begin with. I even found Gentoo easier to set up, and Gentoo forced me to pick which version of cron I wanted to install. One nice thing about Arch though is the ArchWiki: it has copious amounts of documentation on software that is usually applicable to other distros. A good example is https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Awesome https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Awesome
sandGorgon 14y ago
This is why I think they just miscalculated. They still dont know the religious wars of Fedora vs Ubuntu, or rpm vs deb. I was seriously hoping for a Valve distro, which would be perfectly tuned for all things media (they hired the SDL guy). Maybe have Steam as the package manager for everything. Instead, they just joined a camp - this is not good. The other way they could have approached it was to support Android - not as a playing system, but rather as a console device connected to peripherals - and sponsored some project to run Android apk on Linux with access to the sound and graphics layer (SDL?? )
- gcr 14y ago
  Porting between Ubuntu and Fedora, or even Ubuntu and Android once you have a native Ubuntu build is far easier than porting from Windows to Ubuntu.
- ekianjo 14y ago
  They clearly mentioned in their post they would support other distributions if STeam on Ubuntu is successful. They are not choosing sides, simply starting with the largest distribution. Which makes sense.
- cageface 14y ago
  Instead, they just joined a camp - this is not good. This is exactly what they should be doing, not further fragmenting an already gratuitously fragmented market. Every time some commercial vendor makes a move into Linux and people start bickering about distros I just /facepalm.
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    No kidding. How ungrateful is this reaction (and I'm not normally one to grate-guilt)? If it works in Ubuntu, it will probably work just fine on other Linux variants, but Ubuntu is the primary support scenario. And why would a new distro make sense? Now you can have gaming if you just install ~~Windows~~ ValveLinux.
  - sandGorgon 14y ago
Longlius 14y ago
The Linux Standard Base keeps most of the system structure and ABI consistent across distributions, which means that binaries are trivial to move among them.
ekianjo 14y ago
If it works for Ubuntu it will work for Mint. Mint is 100% compatible with Ubuntu, you can even install the Ubuntu software center in Mint.
- mtgx 14y ago
  I hope so, because I like Mint a lot more than regular Ubuntu.
fl3tch 14y ago
Debian has the Debian Free Software Guidelines and the community as whole is less supportive of proprietary software, not to mention that it's all volunteers. I think Valve would rather work with a company-supported distro like Ubuntu, which focuses on just working. In any case, the client may very well run on Debian, it just won't be officially tested or certified by Valve (for now).

by columbo 14y ago

I'm going to show my lack of linux history here... why not Debian? Are they really building something that is native to ubuntu that you wouldn't work in <insert-debian-fork crunchbang or mint>?

biomechanica 14y ago

I think it has to do with their familiarity with Ubuntu server and the popularity of the distro. They wrote on that post that they do indeed want to support other distro's in the future. I suspect they just want to get some stability before committing to a wide range of distro's. Ubuntu is very popular, so it makes sense. Distro's can take the .deb files and extract them through their package managers to fit their systems, probably without much hassle.

grakic 14y ago

I expect it will eventually work on any recent distribution, and there would be community docs everywhere on how to install dependencies, configure and run their software on distribution X. Saying that, Ubuntu is popular, there may be some commercial connections with Canonical, and picking one distribution to do the testing should streamline their efforts.

mbell 14y ago

Simple answer is that most of the differentiation between Ubunu and Debian is in the areas of audio and video. Specifically regarding drivers, which is a critically important component of game development.

Ralith 14y ago

They're working with Canonical to make sure that it's well supported, and they chose them because Ubuntu in particular is focusing on making Linux for the mainstream. In this context, "supported" on a particular platform doesn't mean "can run," it means "should work out of the box for absolutely everyone." I have no doubt that, come the release on Ubuntu, unofficial packages will come into being for nearly every distro--and on Debian you probably won't even need that.

trotsky 14y ago

Ubuntu's the only major distribution (that I know of) that has an integrated and supported process for installing the closed video drivers you'll need to run their games on ati/nvidia.

mitchty 14y ago
Arch linux isn't all that hard, not sure if this counts as "integrated and supported" But... # pacman -S nvidia nvidia-utils https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA Is all I did for the work install, took longer to finish the setup but thats more due to me having 2 monitors than anything else, one is mad simple. Can't speak to the ati stuff. I know SuSe is about as simple as well.
- trotsky 14y ago
  looks like it was a good thing i hedged ;)
- wickedchicken 14y ago
  > Arch linux isn't all that hard Yes. Yes it is.
  - mitchty 14y ago
    I'll admit, i'm biased. >.< But having installed Linux back in 1997 and dealing with X11Rwhatever it was back then and minicom and all that jazz, kinda makes my view of hard a bit off of what most people view as hard.
    - wickedchicken 14y ago
      The problem I ran into with Arch was that it forced you to make many decisions about your system up-front, before you had a system to begin with. I even found Gentoo easier to set up, and Gentoo forced me to pick which version of cron I wanted to install. One nice thing about Arch though is the ArchWiki: it has copious amounts of documentation on software that is usually applicable to other distros. A good example is https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Awesome https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Awesome

sandGorgon 14y ago

This is why I think they just miscalculated. They still dont know the religious wars of Fedora vs Ubuntu, or rpm vs deb. I was seriously hoping for a Valve distro, which would be perfectly tuned for all things media (they hired the SDL guy). Maybe have Steam as the package manager for everything. Instead, they just joined a camp - this is not good. The other way they could have approached it was to support Android - not as a playing system, but rather as a console device connected to peripherals - and sponsored some project to run Android apk on Linux with access to the sound and graphics layer (SDL?? )

gcr 14y ago
Porting between Ubuntu and Fedora, or even Ubuntu and Android once you have a native Ubuntu build is far easier than porting from Windows to Ubuntu.
ekianjo 14y ago
They clearly mentioned in their post they would support other distributions if STeam on Ubuntu is successful. They are not choosing sides, simply starting with the largest distribution. Which makes sense.
cageface 14y ago
Instead, they just joined a camp - this is not good. This is exactly what they should be doing, not further fragmenting an already gratuitously fragmented market. Every time some commercial vendor makes a move into Linux and people start bickering about distros I just /facepalm.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  No kidding. How ungrateful is this reaction (and I'm not normally one to grate-guilt)? If it works in Ubuntu, it will probably work just fine on other Linux variants, but Ubuntu is the primary support scenario. And why would a new distro make sense? Now you can have gaming if you just install ~~Windows~~ ValveLinux.
- sandGorgon 14y ago

Longlius 14y ago

The Linux Standard Base keeps most of the system structure and ABI consistent across distributions, which means that binaries are trivial to move among them.

ekianjo 14y ago

If it works for Ubuntu it will work for Mint. Mint is 100% compatible with Ubuntu, you can even install the Ubuntu software center in Mint.

mtgx 14y ago
I hope so, because I like Mint a lot more than regular Ubuntu.

fl3tch 14y ago

Debian has the Debian Free Software Guidelines and the community as whole is less supportive of proprietary software, not to mention that it's all volunteers. I think Valve would rather work with a company-supported distro like Ubuntu, which focuses on just working. In any case, the client may very well run on Debian, it just won't be officially tested or certified by Valve (for now).