7 ms·

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 di

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
  actually I am indeed talking about the "bickering" that is going to start. I use Ubuntu myself and am most definitely not bickering about Fedora. However, the Linux market is already fragmented. And even worse, it is deeply religious. Just google for the bickering that ensued when Meego chose rpm over deb. People have already started talking about why not Arch, etc. The point that you are missing is that, if anyone could unify the Linux fragmentation it is Valve. Steam is a killer app, and I can totally see people migrating towards a distro built around it (and laptops certified for it). I want Valve to succeed - how will it succeed in a severely fragmented market ? Can it justify the cost of its Linux team then ? Android is having a similar problems in version fragmentation. People have posted articles here on how they are unable to justify multiple version (distro?) development. Multiply that problem by a thousand - different audio toolkits, poor driver compatibilities. I am not able to see how they are going to succeed, unless they unify atleast the multimedia toolkits (something like CoreAudio)
  - ElliotH 14y ago
    I'm not sure this is the issue you think it is. Games in the Humble Indie Bundle releases have Linux builds. (.tar.gz or .bin) I haven't had major issues beyond installing the libraries that I get prompted are missing. That could get automated, especially now PackageKit abstracts away from the details of different package management utilities. Also, you could cover a huge portion of the linux market by just supporting Ubuntu and Fedora. Other distros (e.g Arch) have a community that has some experience in repackaging these for their distro.
  - cageface 14y ago
    Steam is a killer app, and I can totally see people migrating towards a distro built around it (and laptops certified for it). http://xkcd.com/927/ http://xkcd.com/927/ Anybody willing to switch distros just to run a game might as well just install a Windows partition.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      Very true, this reminds me of the failed Corel Linux years back. If the attitude towards fragmentation is to fork a new distro for every application, am I supposed to restart my computer every time I want to task switch or run hundreds of virtual machines? There are some specialised situations where a custom distro makes sense, like appliance type applications (smoothwall, backtrack etc)
jiggy2011 14y ago
I'm glad they are not making their own distro. If I wanted to run a "gaming OS" I'd use Windows or buy an Xbox. Where they could provide value though is to create a stable platform cross distro that is well supported for game/app developers. Anything that allows porting to Linux without worrying about distro fragmentation is a good thing. Besides when it comes to more esoteric distros I'm sure they will be able to tap into the community to help bring it there.

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
actually I am indeed talking about the "bickering" that is going to start. I use Ubuntu myself and am most definitely not bickering about Fedora. However, the Linux market is already fragmented. And even worse, it is deeply religious. Just google for the bickering that ensued when Meego chose rpm over deb. People have already started talking about why not Arch, etc. The point that you are missing is that, if anyone could unify the Linux fragmentation it is Valve. Steam is a killer app, and I can totally see people migrating towards a distro built around it (and laptops certified for it). I want Valve to succeed - how will it succeed in a severely fragmented market ? Can it justify the cost of its Linux team then ? Android is having a similar problems in version fragmentation. People have posted articles here on how they are unable to justify multiple version (distro?) development. Multiply that problem by a thousand - different audio toolkits, poor driver compatibilities. I am not able to see how they are going to succeed, unless they unify atleast the multimedia toolkits (something like CoreAudio)
- ElliotH 14y ago
  I'm not sure this is the issue you think it is. Games in the Humble Indie Bundle releases have Linux builds. (.tar.gz or .bin) I haven't had major issues beyond installing the libraries that I get prompted are missing. That could get automated, especially now PackageKit abstracts away from the details of different package management utilities. Also, you could cover a huge portion of the linux market by just supporting Ubuntu and Fedora. Other distros (e.g Arch) have a community that has some experience in repackaging these for their distro.
- cageface 14y ago
  Steam is a killer app, and I can totally see people migrating towards a distro built around it (and laptops certified for it). http://xkcd.com/927/ http://xkcd.com/927/ Anybody willing to switch distros just to run a game might as well just install a Windows partition.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Very true, this reminds me of the failed Corel Linux years back. If the attitude towards fragmentation is to fork a new distro for every application, am I supposed to restart my computer every time I want to task switch or run hundreds of virtual machines? There are some specialised situations where a custom distro makes sense, like appliance type applications (smoothwall, backtrack etc)

jiggy2011 14y ago

I'm glad they are not making their own distro. If I wanted to run a "gaming OS" I'd use Windows or buy an Xbox. Where they could provide value though is to create a stable platform cross distro that is well supported for game/app developers. Anything that allows porting to Linux without worrying about distro fragmentation is a good thing. Besides when it comes to more esoteric distros I'm sure they will be able to tap into the community to help bring it there.