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Portal Released For Steam On Linux
- shock 13y agoyum!
- gourlaysama 13y agofinally!
- u2328 13y agoPretty cool! Thanks Valve!
- gizbot 13y agoIt's the slow move from the Operating System to the GPU code; most games find Windows as much a hinderance as a help. I wonder if MS will try to do something useful to woo game developers more towards the Windows platform?
- chc 13y agoPC game developers could hardly be wooed any further in that direction. A game being released for Linux two years after Windows is hardly an imminent threat.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- StavrosK 13y agoIt's not a matter of when it was released, but that it's an indication that Valve is porting its Source engine to Linux. It looks like Future Valve games are going to be released on all three platforms simultaneously, which is a pretty big win for Linux.
- chc 13y agoThat was my impression when Valve started porting Steam, but then Dota 2 came along and proved us wrong.
- AimHere 13y agoDota2 hasn't even been released yet. People are still playing a test version. It's still possible (though unlikely) for a simultaneous Windows/Mac/Linux release!
- chc 13y agoMeh, that's a weird nomenclature game. It's beta like Google Maps was for the first six years of its life. Valve is selling and running international tournaments on this "open beta." Like, it may say "beta," but it is definitely released. You can go on Steam and buy it right now. They even have a separate test client in addition to the nominally "beta" normal client.
- 14113 13y agoIt my understanding that they were being somewhat turned off by windows 8, but I could be mistaken.
- Andrex 13y agoPortal was released in 2007, so... six years for that game. :(
- quiesce 13y agoIt wasn't a big deal when Portal was added to OS X Steam years after the Windows release, it was a big deal when Portal 2 was available on day one.
- untog 13y agomost games find Windows as much a hinderance as a help. Do they? In what sense? I wonder if MS will try to do something useful to woo game developers Like create a games console that uses PC components and makes porting much easier?
- chongli 13y agoSweet. Now hopefully they bring DOTA2 over next. That game will lead to a ton of Linux switchers!
- StavrosK 13y agoAnd all my productivity evaporating.
- hkmurakami 13y agoYup, I've been waiting for Dota2 on Linux steam for a few months now (getting the game to work via Wine & an ATI graphics card was one of the first things I spent hours figuring out after getting my linux box! http://www.hkmurakami.com/blog/2013/022_dota2_linux.html http://www.hkmurakami.com/blog/2013/022_dota2_linux.html)
- thefreeman 13y agoYou didn't happen to run into (and solve) the issue of all characters moving in an extremely jerky fashion, did you (ie. take two steps forward, suddenly jerk back a frame)? It's the one thing I cannot solve and forces me to continue to dual boot >_>
- barbs 13y agoAgreed! And for OSX as well :). They're going to have to I think if they want to compete with League of Legends.
- fla 13y agoIndeed. However, it must be said that DOTA2 runs perfectly with OpenGL through wine on a decent machine . Thanks Valve! use these options : "-gl -window -novid -noborder -w 1920 -h 1080"
- aeflash 13y agoO_O. You just obviated my last reason for having windows on my home desktop.
- stevejb 13y agoExcellent! Looking forward to this. As of 17:28 PDT it does not seem available.
- RunningDroid 13y agoIt is available, they just haven't changed the store page to say it is yet.
- stevejb 13y agoI get "Portal 2 is not available on your current platform" which is Ubuntu.
- RunningDroid 13y agoSorry, I had assumed you meant Portal 1. According to SteamDB Portal 2 is still only available for Windows and Mac. Portal 2 page on SteamDB: http://steamdb.info/app/620/ http://steamdb.info/app/620/
- rinon 13y agoNow if we can only get semi-stable, long-term graphics driver support for Linux to be able to play these games. I think there may be light at the end of that tunnel, since hardware vendors seem to be providing more support for Linux now.
- thejosh 13y agoIt's gotten so much better since Valve started to port over their games and they launched Steam for Linux which helped bring other Linux games to light. This forced a good update to nVidia cards that helped boost all cards performance under Linux to be actually playable. Once they port over DOTA2 (currently one of their most popular games that makes $$ after Team Fortress 2) this should also cause a large kickstart in driver performance as more users play their games on Linux.
- pudquick 13y agoValve had exactly this effect on Apple's included video drivers when Steam was originally released for the Mac: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20014102-263.html http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20014102-263.html
- hdra 13y agowhen that day comes, I am sure many would switch to Linux, especially among the developers. In the past few years using Windows, I have stopped thinking about device drivers at all, I just expected them to work. I am looking forward to the day where this comes to desktop Linux.
- ChrisAntaki 13y agoOnce Linux has good device drivers, someone will release a highly optimized distribution for gaming. Afterwards, I think Linux will start to become the leading desktop OS.
- zanny 13y agoI have no problems with the Nvidia driver on Arch, and haven't had an issue in over a year. Everything runs rock solid, I've never had the display freeze or crash, and it runs a truckload of games in Wine. Linux becoming a leading desktop OS is all about defaults. Unless it is sold in Best Buy on laptops as a default option, priced below the Windows variant license costs, it will always be a niche product because it requires users to go absurdly out of their way to find or install it. The Steambox is much more likely to rectify that. Consumer Linux PCs in the guise of game consoles will get it wide deployment.
- loser777 13y agoYet another reason to lament the lack of decent mouse driver support in GNU/Linux. As long as I have to relearn how to move my mouse in order to play a game, I'm going to keep a Windows box handy for games.
- tomrod 13y agoI don't follow?
- sendob 13y agoI think may be referring to products such as: http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-naga-epic http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-naga-epic "System Requirements PC or Mac with USB port Windows® 8/ Windows® 7 / Windows Vista® / Windows® XP (32-bit)/ Mac OS X (v10.6-10.8)" I enjoy the ability to fully utilize my right hand and minimize the amount of movement I do to and from the mouse, both for work and general computing. Depending upon what you want from your mouse ( in the case of the naga, do you want custom binding of macros to buttons beyond a numeric keypad? => if so you need the driver support :( ) A good alternative that I use on my linux machines is: http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-lachesis/ http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-lachesis/ Which has its own memory to retain macros(can be a pain to load, I have typically used windows VMs w/ drivers :/)
- loser777 13y agoI play games at 1600cpi with a specific mouse with no acceleration. Even with the supposed fixes that disable acceleration in GNU/Linux, I don't get the same cursor response with my mouse that I would in Windows. In addition, my mouse's cpi can only be set to 1600 in software. This is especially problematic as I tend to play games where mouse accuracy is very important.
- stephengillie 13y agoHow long before Steam for Android? And Portal for Android?
- jaredmcateer 13y agoWell steam is already on android, just no games
- stephengillie 13y agoRight now, they have an app with which you can view Steam profiles and text chat. I'm excited for the eventual Steam Apk Store and Steam Games for Android.
- BHSPitMonkey 13y agoDon't forget the app's main purpose (buying games).
- zanny 13y agoI'm pretty sure Google will ban it. They don't allow competing app stores (same reason Amazon basically forked the entire stack for their Kindle devices). Maybe Valve will distribute Steam Android devices, but that seems silly. If Valve wants to get mobile, they need to hope for the success of Ubuntu Phone / Plasma Active / Tizen. Even Ubuntu Phone is probably going to block in the Canonical app store competing markets.
- nekgrim 13y agoYou can download Amazon AppStore on your Android phone, but you can't find it on Google Play, you have to download the apk from Amazon website.
- zanny 13y agoBy stack I mean app store stack. If Valve releases Steam for Android you will have to manually get it from them because Google will never allow it.
- Nursie 13y agoI played portal via steam on Linux years ago! (OK so that was wine, but it worked pretty well :)
- momokatte 13y agoI did too! In a little window in the middle of my screen. Sometimes the game would freeze for a second or two to load a sound effect. Tonight I played the first half of the linux beta at 1920X1080 resolution and it just made me giddy. I'd been waiting a long time for this day.
- Nursie 13y agoReally? I had it running fullscreen and pretty perfectly. Fullscreen was 1280x800, mind. But it worked fine. L4D and L4D2 I've had working too.
- dr3daemon 13y agoMe too. I played it when it was free, one of the first full windows games that I got to work flawlessly on my Linux laptop.
- fragsworth 13y agoSteam is now the de-facto "app store" of the PC as far as games go, which was no small feat. It took them more than 10 years to get to this point and it's now in jeopardy. With Google and Apple already controlling the mobile app stores, various console manufacturers controlling their own ecosystems, and Microsoft attempting to abandon their "open" Windows (so they can run their own app store) - the industry is shifting into a position of hardware/OS manufacturers/monopolies taking massive cuts (30%) from the software market. Valve, without any hardware of their own, but a very large PC app store with a significant user base, really has nowhere else to turn. Gabe himself has expressed quite a bit of dismay over Microsoft's recent decisions. I expect them to use everything in their power to make Linux become a mainstream thing. They're going to port all of their own games to Linux, and I expect at some point there will be Linux-only discounts for their games. I really hope Microsoft underestimated their power, and that Valve is capable of doing this. It'll be better for all of us. The software industry is heading in very bad directions, and this is at least a glimmer of hope.
- sharkweek 13y agoSpit-balling a marketing strategy that could violently backfire here; but if anyone could pull it off, it might be Valve... Ok try not to laugh.... HL3 releases in the next few years.... only available on Linux for the first few months
- philsnow 13y agoDon't laugh, it could work -- they could make an argument that, at least at first, doing a "soft release" on Linux first gives them access to a huge group of relatively savvy beta testers. It would just be icing on the cake that they don't have to pay 30% or whatever to anybody else for those early adopters.
- Skoofoo 13y agoI would sympathize with Valve if they didn't completely ignore Linux before acting like the Linux community's best friend when it became apparent that they had nowhere else to turn to [1]. Like many, I'm a fan of their games and their flat management, but they have a history of being as short-sighted and callous as EA and I wish more people would see that [2]. I have a lot more respect for the people behind Humble Bundle/Wolfire, who went out of their way to support Linux long before it was cool [3]. Plus they don't force DRM middleware on you. [1] http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/steamd-penguins/ http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/steamd-penguins/ [2] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/11/valve-tricked-h/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/11/valve-tricked-h/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugaru https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugaru
- flabbergasted 13y agoI'm shocked! Valve doesn't accept bitcoin as a payment option? :)
- zanny 13y agoOh gosh the speculative bubble money you could make off that happening.
- KerrickStaley 13y agoThe article is incorrect: Portal 2 is not available, only the original Portal.
- mekpro 13y agoI'm so GLaD !
- nathanb 13y agoOK, it bothers me when people say "Steam on Linux". It's really "Steam on Ubuntu". Some other distros are supported with 32-bit only packages, but if you're running a 64-bit OS you need .deb package support. I haven't installed 32-bit support on any Linux system I've provisioned this decade. Even corporate IT at my job, who are normally borderline incompetent at providing a workable environment, have native 64-bit packages for everything I use. So when Steam (and Skype, and so on) gets released "for Linux", I just sigh and shake my head. I'm a Linux user. And I can't run your program. Don't tell me it's "for" me.
- jeltz 13y agoThere has been some progress here. Steam has been repackaged for several other distributions. http://packages.debian.org/experimental/steam http://packages.debian.org/experimental/steam https://www.archlinux.org/packages/multilib/x86_64/steam/ https://www.archlinux.org/packages/multilib/x86_64/steam/
- nathanb 13y agoYes...for instance, I use Arch Linux. 64-bit. With no 32-bit support. I want to support Steam on Linux because I think it's a good thing. But I don't want to install 32-bit support in order to do so. I realize that I'm complaining about something that has an easy workaround I'm refusing to use. But it's weird that they'll support 64-bit Ubuntu and not 64-bit anything else.
- gizmo686 13y agoValve is only providing official support for Ubuntu. The licence for the Steam Launcher (in Ubuntu) specifically grants permission for people to modify and redistribute the launcher to make it work on other platforms.