Valve releases linux betas of Half Life 1 and Counter Strike 1.6

[torrentthief]

True, but pair that with the first part of my response and it makes sense IMO. If you're making games for Linux, why not make them available to desktop users too? We don't know either way if the Steambox will be a hit. A venture into the console market is always a risk, but if the likes of Sony and Microsoft can pull it off, the cards aren't off the table for Valve either.

They are making their games available on desktop linux too, thats what this thread is about, you can play them on your pc or the upcoming steambox upgradable pc's. Steambox isn't going to be a single device, it will be small desktop pc's with multiple motherboard sections that can be upgraded, there will be multiple manufacturers making them.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

They are making their games available on desktop linux too, thats what this thread is about, you can play them on your pc or the upcoming steambox upgradable pc's.

I think you misunderstood. That was my point, the question was rhetorical :p

[+Red King Subscriber²]

And yet steam is still a 32-bit application without a metro interface.

For all intensive purpose steam is an advertising client, game launcher, gamer facebook, guides and FAQ, company and game update news source, console GUI, cloud storage for game settings, and probably something else I failed to mention.

And all I do is... launch games from it.

[(Account no longer active)]

The great thing about Linux gaming is that users won't have to pirate a version of Windows to run games. Good move Steam.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

And yet steam is still a 32-bit application without a metro interface.

For all [intents and purposes] steam is an advertising client, game launcher, gamer facebook, guides and FAQ, company and game update news source, console GUI, cloud storage for game settings, and probably something else I failed to mention.

And all I do is... launch games from it.

If you're looking for a metro-styled Steam client, our member BoneyardBrew has created a Metro-esque skin that you can check out here: https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1066270-metro-for-steam-271/.

[ichi]

I guess the point of dipping their toes in Linux is getting expertise on both porting old titles and going crossplatform on future ones so they can target all platforms with minimum effort. That is, even if the Linux or OSX markets were not actually worth it, they'd still be releasing for both Windows and the Steambox without pouring extra money to port games to the later.

[Growled Member]

Oh right, Steambox, forgot about that. I can't believe that's actually going to run Linux and be successful, considering there's essentially less than 0.001% of games that support Linux right now, and porting their own games to the platform won't skew that figure by much. It's... intriguing to say the least.

I may be wrong but I think the Steambox is going to be a big deal. I know a lot of people that's excited about it. What Valve is doing is not about desktop Linux, though I suspect desktop Linux may increase with all the good games coming for it. But the desktop will slowly die over the next few years.

[Gerowen]

Are these the Source version? If not, they have ran under Wine/WineX for a very long time.

Props to them for the effort though.

Yeah but it's nice to have a "native" port of these games instead of having to install some 3rd party compatibility layer. I had it working under wine a long time ago and it was kind of touchy. Sometimes I wasn't able to get out of full screen and other such nonsense, and the Windows steam client never ran quite right in Wine, and was really laggy for me. With what they've been doing we're actually able to have a good experience gaming with Steam on our Linux computers because they're actually porting their products over instead of doing what most game developers do and saying, "Try Wine, hope it works out for you, if it doesn't, too bad for you."

For those who may have experienced the "Frame Buffer" issue with Half Life or CS on the Linux version of Steam, I recorded a video on how to fix it.

[Athernar]

fixed for you. Don't want people getting the wrong idea. Gabe and Valve didn't give a rats ass about Linux or its users until gabe threw a tantrum about Windows 8 (hows that rage quit and no one using it going?). So don't try to pretend like he's seen the light and cares about us.

Please, don't try and pretend that the only reason you feel as such, is out of some misguided desire to defend a multi-billion dollar corporation and convicted monopolist that cares nothing for you.

It's funny that you actually think Valve exists solely to serve the whims of Gabe. Goes to show how much you know of Valve and their work structure.

I guess the point of dipping their toes in Linux is getting expertise on both porting old titles and going crossplatform on future ones so they can target all platforms with minimum effort. That is, even if the Linux or OSX markets were not actually worth it, they'd still be releasing for both Windows and the Steambox without pouring extra money to port games to the later.

They don't need the expertise, they already hired it. They brought in a bunch of Linux devs to bulk up their new Linux cabal, such as Forest "LordHavoc" Hale. I believe on recommendation from Michael Larabel of phoronix fame.

[Colin McGregor]

It's funny that you actually think Valve exists solely to serve the whims of Gabe. Goes to show how much you know of Valve and their work structure.

Ya its just coincidence that the beta shows up after gabe whines about Windows 8 and not long before when Linux users originally asked for it. Keep telling yourself whatever helps you go against these so called "multi-billion dollar corporation and convicted monopolist". Just remember to clean your tinfoil hat every few weeks to avoid infection.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

Ya its just coincidence that the beta shows up after gabe whines about Windows 8 and not long before when Linux users originally asked for it. Keep telling yourself whatever helps you go against these so called "multi-billion dollar corporation and convicted monopolist". Just remember to clean your tinfoil hat every few weeks to avoid infection.

They won't have just started the Steambox project on a whim after the Win RTM, something like this has to have been planned for years. The comments Gaben made put a lot of attention on the relationship between Valve and Linux. It was basically viral marketing for the Steam console, and we all lapped it up :)

[fusi0n]

This is great news :)

[ShMaunder]

I've already played a few hours of HL1. It works great.

I'm loving how much Intel and Nvidia are improving their Linux drivers because of this influx of games. Also, love the improvements in the cruddy poor memory leak prone Compiz compositor.

^^ Great news indeed!

[Athernar]

Ya its just coincidence that the beta shows up after gabe whines about Windows 8 and not long before when Linux users originally asked for it. Keep telling yourself whatever helps you go against these so called "multi-billion dollar corporation and convicted monopolist". Just remember to clean your tinfoil hat every few weeks to avoid infection.

Do you know what else is a coincidence? Sinofsky being booted out of Microsoft after Windows 8 is released. I guess using your logic that means Windows 8 is a confirmed failure, right?

But hey, keep telling yourself what you need to avoid that painful cognitive dissonance, aye?

[torrentthief]

Valve have probably been developing linux steam since the rumours of win8 having their own app store. It was certain that ms would do this after apple doing it successfully so they created linux steam in order to reduce this new threat.

I love that steam is coming to linux along with most likely all valve's own games. The linux drivers are seeing significant improvements as a result and will hopefully improve a lot more over the coming months.

[ShMaunder]

Valve have probably been developing linux steam since the rumours of win8 having their own app store. It was certain that ms would do this after apple doing it successfully so they created linux steam in order to reduce this new threat.

They've been doing something with it before the release of Windows 7 - http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=steam_confirmation&num=1

There's been so many improvements in the Kernel, Mesa and graphics drives since 2008 that it could be argued that the Linux desktop just wasn't ready 4 years ago ?