Linux in Mainstream Gaming ... likely?

[Duper]

Here is a VERY interesting article that explains how this just might happen and who the players are. ... would you believe BF4???

Read On...

[Isaac]

The man's right. There has yet to be real Linux exclusive and that's really what's needed.

[Avder]

SteamOS will make it happen at some point.

[Isaac]

May the Gaben be with us.

[Ferno]

Something i've been saying for years. Linux needs both game support and better user interactivity in order to really get going.

It's great behind the scenes, but what scares people off most is the fact that a person still needs to compile their own kernel/drivers/packages in order to get the most out of it. Save for the die-hards, most people either don't want to bother with it, or just can't wrap their heads around it. If the learning curve was smoothed out some and if there was some real industry support, you'll see linux become a real competitor to windows.

[Isaac]

Ferno, Steam Box is an actual console.
You buy the box and plug it into your TV. Its OS, Steam OS, just happens to be a Linux distro and its games can run on any Linux distro on the Steam Linux client, which is already available.

So if you have Lubuntu 13.04 you go to the steam website, right now if you wanted, and you can download steam, download Linux ported games, and play! I have around 24 Linux games that run on my little netbook (my only computer). No windows emulators* are needed, like Wine*.


*Wine is not an emulator. It is an API for Windows. But nobody understands what that means so I say "emulator".

[Top Gun]

I tried out Ubuntu once to get the cute little Tux item in TF2, and I consider myself to be a fairly-competent person when it comes to working with computers and looking up information to troubleshoot stuff...but it took me the better part of two weeks before I could get to the point where TF2 would launch, and I'm honestly not sure I ever got my video card working fully. I wound up deleting the install soon after to save hard drive space, but I'm in no hurry to try it again anytime soon.

[Isaac]

Nobody on this forum would have recommended Ubuntu. Ever want to try again, you might want to ask the Linux users here.

[snoopy]

Nobody on this forum would have recommended Ubuntu. Ever want to try again, you might want to ask the Linux users here.

Actually... I recommend Ubuntu to linux noobs. My 2c on the Linux bottom line: if you're not doing things through a command line interface, you're doing it wrong.

[Isaac]

Nobody on this forum would have recommended Ubuntu. Ever want to try again, you might want to ask the Linux users here.

Actually... I recommend Ubuntu to linux noobs.

To people online or actual people you know? If you're just causally recommending Ubuntu, you might want to rethink that next time. I have tried putting people on Ubuntu and they can't warm up to it. Put them on a distro with a normal desktop, no problem.

My 2c on the Linux bottom line: if you're not doing things through a command line interface, you're doing it wrong.

Well that's not true for everything, but anyone depending on Linux would befit from learning the basics.

[Duper]

I placed with Ubuntu several years ago when it was 8.something iirc. I needed to learn some basic line commanding. If nothing else, to just set up a partition.

Linux will need to be more accessible to the masses if it wants support. Ubuntu tried this with limited success. If Steam can create a gaming OS that is Linux based that is stable and everyone can get on board, then awesome!

I will say that it's one thing about the linux community is that it's a bit "Schizophrenic". I think if so many weren't off doing their own thing "best", there would have been a lot more interest (if not only slightly more) from the industry. In stead I think many view the Linux crowd as a bit Emo: sitting in the corner with their toy and saying "we're cool! you don't get us! go away!".

just sayin'

[Isaac]

I placed with Ubuntu several years ago when it was 8.something iirc.

Oh yeah, ubuntu used to be good. 11.xx and up is garbage that needs an overhaul if it's going to be used.

[Top Gun]

Nobody on this forum would have recommended Ubuntu. Ever want to try again, you might want to ask the Linux users here.

Well it pretty much had to be Ubuntu, because that was all that was officially supported by Steam when it rolled out on Linux, and still is in fact; I don't doubt that people are running it successfully on other distros now, though. The fact that Ubuntu has (or had, as I understand it) the handy "Wubi" installer meant that I didn't have to mess around with partitions...I was just able to fire up the installation as though it was a normal Windows program, which was far less of an investment on my part.

My 2c on the Linux bottom line: if you're not doing things through a command line interface, you're doing it wrong.

See there's the catch for me: I don't see any sane reason why, in the year 2013, anyone should be doing daily tasks via command-line. Some sort of esoteric configs, sure, but we've had GUIs for decades, and there's no excuse for not being able to do normal maintenance via them. I felt the same way when my college compsci professors were teaching us programming using gcc and a Unix shell...hell, I'd never even seen an IDE until fairly recently, and I still don't really know what I'm doing with them, which is kind of sad. You're sure as hell not going to get any sort of mass-market adoption of an OS if you have to be typing in "sudo apt-get" all over the place.

I will say that it's one thing about the linux community is that it's a bit "Schizophrenic". I think if so many weren't off doing their own thing "best", there would have been a lot more interest (if not only slightly more) from the industry.)

I definitely agree with this. Someone in another forum I frequent posted a Wiki link to a branched diagram showing most of the major Linux distro lines and how other distros have forked off from them, and, well...let's just say I've seen evolutionary trees in bio textbooks that were less complicated. I get that there are legitimate differences between some of them, but I have to think that there's been an awful lot of reinventing the wheel over the years.

[Isaac]

Uh, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Linuxmint, Bodhi ... there's hundreds of others that support debian installer files and that are based on 13.04. Again, if you have a Linux problem, there's no shame in asking the community for help.

[snoopy]

See there's the catch for me: I don't see any sane reason why, in the year 2013, anyone should be doing daily tasks via command-line. Some sort of esoteric configs, sure, but we've had GUIs for decades, and there's no excuse for not being able to do normal maintenance via them. I felt the same way when my college compsci professors were teaching us programming using gcc and a Unix shell...hell, I'd never even seen an IDE until fairly recently, and I still don't really know what I'm doing with them, which is kind of sad. You're sure as hell not going to get any sort of mass-market adoption of an OS if you have to be typing in "sudo apt-get" all over the place.

Yeah... I guess that (and most of this) gets down to the mentality that I think matches Linux: an interest in tinkering with your computer. I don't expect mass market adoption of my philosophy on Linux.

It sounds like you can appreciate how you can operate a computer via keyboard/CLI much more efficiently than via GUI.

[Duper]

See there's the catch for me: I don't see any sane reason why, in the year 2013, anyone should be doing daily tasks via command-line. Some sort of esoteric configs, sure, but we've had GUIs for decades, and there's no excuse for not being able to do normal maintenance via them. I felt the same way when my college compsci professors were teaching us programming using gcc and a Unix shell...hell, I'd never even seen an IDE until fairly recently, and I still don't really know what I'm doing with them, which is kind of sad. You're sure as hell not going to get any sort of mass-market adoption of an OS if you have to be typing in "sudo apt-get" all over the place.

Yeah... I guess that (and most of this) gets down to the mentality that I think matches Linux: an interest in tinkering with your computer. I don't expect mass market adoption of my philosophy on Linux.

It sounds like you can appreciate how you can operate a computer via keyboard/CLI much more efficiently than via GUI.

I totally get that Snoopy. Tinkering can be great fun and there's nothing wrong with that. But it's not practical where mass consumption in involved. Now, more than ever, the market needs a viable option. Steam/Id has managed to win the trust of much of the gaming community (such as it is) and the Industry. That is amazing, really.

[Isaac]

I'd like to remind people that,


Linux has no single goal, no single mentality, nor one single purpose. Almost everything from Android to a Mercedes Benz car computers have some kind of Linux on them. Those that buy a Mercedes aren't going to experiment on their car's computer. Those that use their home routers normally don't mess with its linux inner-workings. Modern printers, with an Apache2 installed, hide their Linux inner workings from the user.

[snoopy]

Okay okay okay....

I meant Linux as a desktop computer environment, not Linux as part of a larger system.

Linux as part of a larger system still applies... it's just the developer rather than the user that's doing the tinkering.

[Foil]

As a developer, I love the power and flexibility of working on Linux-based systems.

As a user when I get home from work, I don't want the bother.

[Isaac]

Foil, it's 2013 not 2003. I've only been using Linux since 2009 and it's changed tremendously in that time.

[Foil]

Where did I say 2003? I'm currently developing on Linux-based systems.

[Top Gun]

Uh, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Linuxmint, Bodhi ... there's hundreds of others that support debian installer files and that are based on 13.04. Again, if you have a Linux problem, there's no shame in asking the community for help.

But here's the thing: I really shouldn't have to. I shouldn't have to search several Linux support forums and even post there myself in order to get something as mundane as video card drivers working. Now I know in this case that I was hamstrung both by the fact that it's an AMD card, and that AMD for some inexplicable reason decided to shunt the whole 4000 series into their "legacy" drivers, but the point stands. If I need to upgrade drivers on Windows, I download the executable from AMD's site, install it, and *poof* it works. I don't have to touch a command-line, or install a user-created hack to get things working (which I did in this case). And I'm in the 5-10% of people who actually would try that...what about the vast majority who would be completely lost?

[Isaac]

Dude...

THIS IS A LINUX SUPPORT FORUM!

[Top Gun]

Or at least a Linux support person.

[Isaac]

I'm a linux noob.

Look at Jeff, Foil, Snoopy, and Krom(maybe). These guys know their Linux.

Then look at the causal Linux users, like Sigma, sdfgeoff, Pumo (?), and me. Any of us can help you too with basic stuff.

My experience is, I started in 2009, but I quit Windows cold turkey to see how long I could stand it. To my surprise, I never had to go back to Windows. I was able to graduate with a four year degree just using Linux, a degree I started in 2010. I'm still a Linux noob because I rely on a easy to use linux distro, Lubuntu. I'm not ready for a big boy OS, like Arch Linux

[Top Gun]

Well the bottom line is that the only time I could see myself going off Windows for good is when Windows 7 support expires, and if whatever nonsense MS has cooked up to follow up 8 is even worse than it is. And all of that is also contingent on full-fledged gaming support for Linux, which hopefully the topic of this thread will help further. Though in my perfect world, ReactOS would come to fulfillment, and then I could just use that.

[Isaac]

Top Gun, if I can make an analogy, that will probably make you laugh,

Windows is a sinking ship not designed to be submerged. Linux has been submerged for decades and under the surface it has grown hundreds of times larger than Windows or Apple. Only recently has it begun to rise from the dark waters and into the light of the desktop market. Windows users see it as a small iceberg, peeking into their waters. But before the Windows ship sinks, they'll see the Linux burg soar above them like frosted solid tower weighing millions of tons more than the little Windows ship. And when the Windows ship sinks the drowning Windows users will see the bottom of this iceberg like a submerged second moon, riddled with cracks and damage from all of its past expanding. The only place left for the Windows users to swim will be to this new land mass, Linux.

[Ferno]

Ferno, Steam Box is an actual console.
You buy the box and plug it into your TV. Its OS, Steam OS, just happens to be a Linux distro and its games can run on any Linux distro on the Steam Linux client, which is already available.

So if you have Lubuntu 13.04 you go to the steam website, right now if you wanted, and you can download steam, download Linux ported games, and play! I have around 24 Linux games that run on my little netbook (my only computer). No windows emulators* are needed, like Wine*.


*Wine is not an emulator. It is an API for Windows. But nobody understands what that means so I say "emulator".

Did you not read what I wrote? or did you not understand it?

Again: Linux needs more game and industry support. A console running Linux is a good start, but honestly, we don't know if it will be what's needed to give Linux the kick in the pants it needs to be in equal ground with windows.

My 2c on the Linux bottom line: if you're not doing things through a command line interface, you're doing it wrong.

This is the attitude we don't need if people are to adopt Linux. It's showing linux users as elitist, while at the same time the same users want more adoption. Can't have it both ways.

[sdfgeoff]

I use linux because I'm cheap.

And here's my experience with both OS's:

I buy a laptop with Windows 8 preloaded. Windows 8 breaks and the recovery partition corrupts. So I set up a dual boot system, one for Ubuntu, one for Windows 7 (which i have a key for through our uni).
Setting up Windows 7:
1) Download the ISO with much difficulty from Microsoft Dreamspark. (You need a windows computer to download the iso for windows. Yeah.)
2) Burn the ISO to a 16gb flash drive.
3) Plug it in, wait for it to install, giving it data when necessary including typing in a security key of random digits
4) Start the computer
5) Why doesn't my wireless card work? It's in low graphics because it can't find my graphics card (either of them), USB 3.0 ports don't work, microphone and sound doesn't work.
6) Spend three days hunting down errant drivers involving download size > 2gb total. (This was made harder because the manufacturer only offered support for Win8, and some of the drivers didn't work on windows 7)

Bother: 8/10. Lot's of input required when setting up. Drivers needed to be hunted down

Setting up Ubuntu:
1) Download the ubuntu from the webpage
2) Burn the ISO to a 1gb flash drive
3) Plug it in, select 'Try Ubuntu' Click the install button, set up the partitions, install on the second one.
4) Start the computer, and notice that it now has two options on boot, Windows and Ubuntu.
5) Wireless, USB, sound, and one of my graphics cards works.
6) Google the make and model of my graphics system, find a post on stackoverflow, follow instructions, none of which did not involve downloading unknown files from the internet.

Bother: 2/10. Most things worked out of the box. Install was quick, and setting up what didn't was fast.


In terms of install process, Ubuntu wins. In terms of download size, Ubuntu wins. And for people like me, I use a command line for a few things because it's faster/easier. My sister, who also uses Ubuntu, has not touched a command line in the 3 years she's had Ubuntu installed.

I should mention that I have since changed the windows partition to windows 8.1, which is better than windows 8 and has support for the drivers. However, there are quite a few awkward things about it. (no multiple desktops yet either)

But I agree that Ubuntu will take more than a single great game to make it a gaming platform.
And that's because it has a completely different mindset. Every OS has a target market. Windows 7 was aimed at general computer-users, Windows 8 and Mac are aimed at less-computer-literate people, Arch/slax/other linux distro's are aimed at pro users. But you know what? I've never figured out who Ubuntu is aimed at. It appears to be aimed at everyone, but the dramatic differences between the Unity interface and Windows or Mac place a damper on that given that it doesn't come pre-installed on anything. Pro-users avoid it because it tries to be too intelligent and so on. They need to pick a target market.

If anything, I think Bodhi linux is the one I suggest for people new to Linux to use. It offers the same ease of install, is flashy-looking, and is familiar to either Mac or Windows depending on what you select when you install it. All things that run on Ubuntu will run on Bodhi, it even shares the same repositories. My only gripe is the messyness of the settings/administration menu.

I shouldn't have to search several Linux support forums and even post there myself in order to get something as mundane as video card drivers working.

Video drivers are not mundane, they are a complex thing, particularly because they are unique to operating system, manufacturer, whether you have dual-graphics and a gazillion other things.
The key difference for graphics drivers is that most manufacturers list windows drivers in massive letters on their website, but the linux ones in much smaller letters somewhere in the footnote. They also fail to provide the files with necessary dependency lists etc. I think that if Linux became more popular, the manufacturers would up the mark, and setting up a system on linux would get easier.

[Isaac]

but honestly, we don't know if it will be what's needed to give Linux the kick in the pants it needs to be in equal ground with windows.

That's a good point. And if Steambox fails, free (as in freedom) Linux distros will have little chance in becoming dominant.

Steam is tricking/forcing the hardware and software developers into developing for Linux distros. And if Valve wanted to boost the sales of their box they need an exclusive title for Linux that people want, like Half life 3.

[Isaac]

Where did I say 2003?

I was only making fun of you.

[Duper]

I'd like to remind people that,


Linux has no single goal, no single mentality, nor one single purpose.

And this is partly why I called it schizophrenic. (but I was joking really)

The base language is what it is. I know what Linux is, I remember hearing about inception a bit after I graduated highschool. Back then, Pascal and Qbasic was all the rage for us upcoming Geeks. Trash 80's and Apple II.

I'm not wanting this to degrade into a monkey ★■◆● fight. Everyone that plays with linux does for various reasons and its open endedness is ideal for make a go of your own projects. Heck, there are test machines at work that are using distros that are something like 12 year old. THAT's a problem.

I'm simply glad to see that it's getting some focus. I was tickled to here that Apple used a linux based OS. That's going to open up huge options to them and developers of all kinds. Now with Steam, we have a reliable, cohesive entity where we (hopefully) have to deal with flaky installers and updates. Line commands won't need to be a necessity. It won't make me feel like in the 9th grade again of the first day of high school.

There will always be the various factions of linux and that (yes I'm agreeing here) is one of the great things about it. BUT, if you want to deliver a consumable product to market, you have to bring your product out of the development lab, but a coat of paint on it and send it to the factory where it can be mass made. Steam (and Apple) have seemed to do that.


*******

Ok, read the whole thread indepth. Good stuff guys. ^_^

Also, there are Linux drivers on the AMD drivers site. They're in the last drop-down box and the very bottom. ....neat!

[Jeff250]

There are already too many people using linux as it is. We should be trying to get fewer people to use it. Has anyone been by the Ubuntu forums recently? It's inhumane!

[Isaac]

That's because the Ubuntu forum sucks; getting you question noticed is like winning the lottery. Reddit is much better and SO is a hundred thousand times better.

[Krom]

Linux is too fragmented to make it mainstream, that doesn't mean that some specific branch couldn't make it mainstream (steam box for example), but the vast majority of the work that goes into that branch probably would not work for most other branches. The day will never come when the vast majority of people would be using some personal favorite from any of the hundreds of branches of Linux as their primary desktop OS. I would even give it good odds that the desktop computer will die out as a commonly used device before people switch away from Windows.

[Duper]

I would even give it good odds that the desktop computer will die out as a commonly used device before people switch away from Windows.

I think that day is coming sooner than many think. The PC we know today will relatively become something like the Muscle car project that people do in their private garages.

Android might just be the "next Gen" of Linux that we see going forward as most of our gear will get smaller and more mobile. Look at what the ARM5 could do to the market in very short order.

[Krom]

Desktop computers are going to stick around for a LONG time still. Maybe not so much at home, but at work they will be around for ages to come because in terms of productivity no other computing device even comes close. When you just want to read the web, or listen to music, or watch video, tablets will probably take the place of desktops in the house because in some ways they are better for that kind of thing. But for when you want to get some actual serious work or any kind of computing project done, the desktop will be where it gets done the most efficiently.

It is a simple fact: Any type of compute productivity you can do on a mobile device at <5w you can also do a hell of a lot faster on a desktop at >300w. And no amount of evolution of mobile devices will change that fact, sometimes there just is no alternative to having a huge power budget.

So technically a muscle car is the wrong analogy for a desktop PC, a more appropriate analogy would be to compare it to tractor trailers, bulldozers, tour buses, or cargo ships. Meaning a vehicle of an entirely different class and designed to do way more hauling than the family sedan.

[Sirius]

The only way to completely obsolete the desktop PC as we know it is
1) Offload everything you currently need it for to datacenters and just go with a thin-client model (kind of like Chrome OS, but not only for the easy applications but also stuff like Creo, Maya, Dreamweaver, Visual Studio)
2) Obsolete the form factor - for which you need to find something better than keyboard + mouse for standard keyboard + mouse tasks

#1 is probably closer to reality, but still seems to be at least a decade away. #2 I don't see happening with any emerging technologies we have - touchscreens are not remotely close to useful for this. I have my doubts gesture recognition can do it either. For games I can see Oculus Rift headsets replacing LCD screen spam, but I doubt it's that good an alternative for standard productivity use.

One of the reasons Windows has been so hard to displace is pragmatism; it's kind of ugly, and there are compromises all over the place, but it's more or less worked for the majority of people without too many problems (not to say there aren't any, because I only need to read TechNet to see that). I believe Android's dominance in mobile form factors is due to the same kind of approach. Desktop Linux is still some way away from this; the likes of Ubuntu have been a sign that at least some parts of the ecosystem are drawing closer, but it's far from a sure thing that they'll succeed. The stuff under the covers they're trying to paper over is still a deterrent if anything happens to go wrong.

That's not to say you can't install the right kind of Linux distro on your grandma's PC and she'll be just fine; if you don't have to go below the friendly level, it can still do pretty well (hence how it got used for the XO laptop at first). But there is very little traction for things like small business workplaces in industries that aren't particularly PC-savvy - they just don't have time for that, and can't afford to pay consultants to come in every time something goes wrong.

I actually wouldn't mind if that got "fixed", because we need a hedge against what I once heard amusingly dubbed "post-PC Stockholm Syndrome". Windows is going down that road too, and if the folks in charge don't take it seriously enough they could wind up marginalizing PC gamers (I mean I'm not even sure the MS gaming execs realize it exists, they're too busy staring at consoles - Steam could serve as another too-late wake-up call though). At least a fraction of the Linux community needs to get its act together and build an OS architecture that is more user-friendly for that to become a realistic proposition though (otherwise the rest of us are pretty much going to have to settle for Windows 7). General rules of thumb: 1) if the average user ever needs to see a command shell, that's a defect; 2) if a power user needs to use a command shell for any reasonably common tasks (installing or configuring hardware; routine system maintenance e.g. backup/restore, installing updates and the like), that's also a defect. If someone is likely to need it, there should be a UI for it - leave the config file editing and shell commands to computer science students.

[Krom]

The only way to completely obsolete the desktop PC as we know it is
1) Offload everything you currently need it for to datacenters and just go with a thin-client model (kind of like Chrome OS, but not only for the easy applications but also stuff like Creo, Maya, Dreamweaver, Visual Studio)
2) Obsolete the form factor - for which you need to find something better than keyboard + mouse for standard keyboard + mouse tasks

Agreed, but #1 is unlikely to ever happen on America's average internet speeds or costs, and the Cable / DSL duopoly is too deeply anti-competitive for this to change enough even in 10+ years to make a thin-client model economically practical. Sure, the client will be inexpensive and cheap (power) to operate, but the slow internet speeds will make it sluggish at best and then you run into the soon to be commonplace 5 GB cap with $5-10/GB overages billing model which will make even moderate use cost hundreds of dollars a month on top of the already absurdly expensive base price.

#2 is a good point, the keyboard + mouse interface is still better than any other technology out there currently, touch screens are never going to replace them because they lack tactile feedback which is way more important than a lot of people in the industry seem to think.

On the command shell, I agree nobody should have to use it for any common task, windows has shown quite well that even a bulky/sluggish/generally bad GUI is still better and way more accessible for the ordinary user than requiring them to use/memorize the command shell. Granted, I use the windows command shell quite often (sometimes almost daily), but I do it because once you invest the time to learn the commands, it is definitely faster and more powerful than navigating the GUI.

[Duper]

LOL Krom. You're hardly the "average user". I'd venture to say that no one on this board is.

Vanish completely? no. but by and large, the form factor will get much smaller. It's pretty common to see folks typing at a tablet now. 4 years ago that was unthinkable, even laughable. I agree, that there will be need in more industrial applications, but I think that's limited to maybe 20 years. With quantum computing getting closer and newer nanotech nearly a reality, form factor will follow. When all the computing power we need can be stuck in a KB and use a holographic display projected by that input device.... Why keep something as clunky as mid or micro tower around unless for nostalgia?
Storage space is getting smaller and even now, you can get your own wireless server for home at really reasonable prices. With Thumb drives breaking over 128 gig and in TINY form factor, disks will be obsolete soon too. But where that's concerned, it will be a while before we see them leave mainstream.

I think the following Gen of console will head the same way. I'm guessing that that gen (about 8 years) will possibly be streaming only with no hard copy and little user side storage. They could do that now but the market isn't ready for it. .(and I'm fine with that) So, once they get their business model adjusted to something that most will be able to swallow - like a game swapping or sell-back venue, it may be a bit. I really think the gaming service "On-Live" had the right idea, it was just WAY ahead of its time.