Steam on Linux - official!

[Bazu135]

Valve have officially begun development of a Linux-native version of Steam

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/

For now, it's only on Ubuntu, but they intend to expand when/if the experiment proves successful. Development's begun, and they've begun working on porting Left 4 Dead 2 as a 'release title'.

Interestingly, they compared performance between Windows and Linux L4D2:

Intel i7
NVIDIA GTX680
32GB RAM

64-bit Windows: 270fps
32-bit Ubuntu: 315fps

Valve said they found that to be because of overhead issues in DirectX that just don't exist in OpenGL. I can't help but wonder how the 64-bit Ubuntu tests are going to look! (Incidentally, they also note that they took what they learned from OpenGL and applied it to their Windows version and got it up to 303fps too - FOSS just keeps giving! )

Is it fair to say I'm excited about this? Very much so! Even if the project ends up being a dud, they're finally giving it a chance - we can't ask more than that!

[angryfirelord]

Valve said they found that to be because of overhead issues in DirectX that just don't exist in OpenGL.

I like Valve as a company, but I don't believe that's the primary reason. I think the reason is because of the Windows app store. Valve relies on the Steam store for their revenue and having an app store where Microsoft is the middleman could seriously impact that. Apple has an app store itself, so Linux seems like the way to go.

Still, it would be groundbreaking if a major software publishing company released Linux binaries. I don't expect that it would be perfect (especially since APIs in Linux land change every day), but it would be a start.

[Bazu135]

Oh yeah, I agree with that entirely - Valve have made it publicly known that they don't like the Windows app store. The 'overhead issues' thing was in reference to the improved performance of OpenGL over DirectX, not their reason for transferring!