SteamOS

[nicholas]

That enough to make me drop everything steam and go some where else. Although I thought that was a Valve project - no?  I am used to being wrong these days.

Also, this Steam idea has one fatal flaw. Being tied to linux means I will most likely never go there. I hate linux with a passion. I would rather work with Windows!

Steam isn't tied to Linux.

[bloodline]

That enough to make me drop everything steam and go some where else. Although I thought that was a Valve project - no?  I am used to being wrong these days.

Also, this Steam idea has one fatal flaw. Being tied to linux means I will most likely never go there. I hate linux with a passion. I would rather work with Windows!

Linux is a great kernel and there are some brilliant distributions out there that meet most needs... My only grip about Linux is the lack of proper realtime scheduling, I recently tried to to some embedded control using a raspberry pi running raspbian (Debian for the pi), and was getting up to 10ms jitter!!!

Back on topic, your dislike of Linux is illogical.

[AJCopland]

That enough to make me drop everything steam and go some where else. Although I thought that was a Valve project - no?  I am used to being wrong these days.

Also, this Steam idea has one fatal flaw. Being tied to linux means I will most likely never go there. I hate linux with a passion. I would rather work with Windows!

I think you've misunderstood a few things:
- Steam (the program) runs on Windows/Linux/Mac/Android/PS3/etc,
- SteamOS is a Linux derived operating system _probably_ with Steams Big Picture mode as it's user interface,
- A SteamMachine is basically a customised PC running SteamOS (like XboxOne & PS4).

We don't know enough yet to say exactly what SteamOS or these SteamMachines are actually going to be like. What their UI will be etc, but Big Picture mode does seem like the logical answer, along with whatever their final announcement will be on Friday.

I'm interested in it all, will probably install SteamOS to try it out, maybe even build or buy a SteamMachine at some point in the future.

Generally though I think it'll be good to scare the pants off of Sony and MS since anything Valve/Steam do in this area is going to cause a massive upset simply due to the number of loyal fanboys they have.

[Delta]

@Ajcopland

So SteamOS is built similar to C=OS, just a GUI over linux?

[yssing]

I am sure steam OS is a lot more than a skin for Linux.

[AJCopland]

@Ajcopland
So SteamOS is built similar to C=OS, just a GUI over linux?

No, that would be too great a simplification.
Also we don't know exactly what any of these things are yet in truth we're just speculating at this stage.

What is known is that Valve have been working closely with GPU manufacturers to improve their drivers. You do this with high-end games development anyway but it's usually Windows focused. Driver bugs are found, cases which produce them are submitted and then a bug fix will appear in the next driver release.
The difference with the Linux work that Valve/Steam have been doing is that there has been a lot more of the low hanging fruit to gather.

There's other things to consider. For example Linux is a stack of software rather than any one distinct thing. What we think of as Linux is actually "GNU Linux" and the GNU part is what provides a lot of the functionality. "Linux" itself is just the kernel and you don't even need a window manager, X Window system or much less above that for something to be "built-on-Linux".

So whereas C=OS has taken a distro and just changed the theme, added a wallpaper and called it a day SteamOS could be absolutely anything from basic theming and boot into Big Picture mode through to removing the window managers, replacing the software stack and providing a direct rendering interface and API layer. Who knows.

[Duce]

I am sure steam OS is a lot more than a skin for Linux.

It is, to some extent.  The "slingbox" style of being able to play games on the SteamOS machine is very much custom, but I worry it won't work well.  It still requires a host machine for the games to reside on, though games can be streamed cross platform.  If it works well, it'd be great.  People are missing the true value of SteamOS, and that's the cross platform streaming style gaming, but it's still limited to having to have a host machine with the native version of the game for your respective OS in your local network.  A Windows Steam game won't run on SteamOS natively or "over the cloud", the host machine still needs to be local.

The thing with this is, they are driving home the point you can have a SteamOS machine in your living room, a Linux machine.  If you have another Steam equipped machine on the network, be it a Windows or Mac one, you can stream the games from that machine and its' different OS onto the SteamOS machine even though they are running differing OS's.
Think having a Windows only Steam game on a Windows PC in your home, and being able to play it on the SteamOS machine.  A good concept in theory, and Valve are not foolish enough to think developers will ever adopt Linux for games like they have Windows.

A great concept, but let's hope it works better than how the nVidia Shield works - which is barely workable at all.

[EvilGuy]

Speaking of Steam, just saw a popup for Surgeon Simulator and the graphic has on old 1351 mouse in it. I thought it was cool at least

[motrucker]

Back on topic, your dislike of Linux is illogical.

Not from my perspective it isn't.....

[James2002]

@Ajcopland

So SteamOS is built similar to C=OS, just a GUI over linux?

 Steamos was made from  Ubuntu. In a way I agree with you. If Steamos gets out of beta I would be willing to try it. I don't like beta at all.

[TCMSLP]

SteamOS won't be a 'custom GUI' - I expect it'll completely hide the underlying OS.  Much like any other device (Xbox, PS3, Android, iOS etc) - you'll live in a nice fluffy GUI/TV-friendly driven world and not have to worry about what's really going on underneath.  I really don't think they'll be using a desktop interface (certainly nothing even remotely command line orientated) on a device designed for gaming / the living room.

Have you tried any of the XBMC Linux distros?   They boot directly into the Xbox Media Centre interface - *everything* is configured from within it (wifi etc) - exiting XBMC shuts down the machine.  The only clue it may be Linux is the GRUB loader which suggests a Linux kernel.

[jj]

Really can not get on with any distor linux.  Tried a few many times.  Whilst they have come along way, I really cant be arsed trying to get things working.
 
Windows and Mac OS have at least got the most important parts sorted , which is the user experience.  I just want to use a computer these days to achieve things.

[slaapliedje]

I'd have to say Debian Wheezy really is the best out of box system I've seen.  Namely because the open source drivers are good enough (not sure about if you have the newest nvidia or ati cards, but older ones work well) and because they have almost all the codecs working out of the box.  At that point you just need to install flash, and you should be good to go.

But then I'm sure there's things I don't notice that I just do automatically when setting up a new system .

I'm pretty sure though that SteamOS will NOT end up being on Ubuntu.  Reason being is Mir.  Since Ubuntu is pushing for it so much, and there will be some performance issues using XMir (the 'wrapper' for Xorg to Mir) will not be worth it for Valve.  Wayland may have the same issue, but since everyone else is working toward Wayland, and/or SteamOS itself may just stick with Xorg, I just see no logical reason why they'd keep supporting Ubuntu.  Ubuntu support was chosen first before Mir was even announced.

But previous posters are correct, all they'd need to do for SteamOS is have it boot up to a login screen (get Big Picture mode to have a login) then you can just log into your steam account and start playing.  Even I could set up something like that based on Debian Jessie with relative ease.

slaapliedje

[bloodline]

Really can not get on with any distor linux.  Tried a few many times.  Whilst they have come along way, I really cant be arsed trying to get things working.
 
Windows and Mac OS have at least got the most important parts sorted , which is the user experience.  I just want to use a computer these days to achieve things.

MacOS X if I want to get stuff done... Debian Wheezy if I want to play.

[Iggy]

Linux is a great kernel and there are some brilliant distributions out there that meet most needs... My only grip about Linux is the lack of proper realtime scheduling, I recently tried to to some embedded control using a raspberry pi running raspbian (Debian for the pi), and was getting up to 10ms jitter!!!

Back on topic, your dislike of Linux is illogical.

A "great kernel", hmm..

If you are a fan of monolithic kernels, yes Linus did a great job of copying the core of an OS that was developed in my country by Bell Labs and Universities across the United States.

That being said, I am pretty sure my dislike of Linux is well founded.

In fact, since most of my coding goes back to OS' that have their roots in process control (you know, real time software, something Linux has always done pretty poorly), hey, I'd rather be using something like QNX.

But, those of us that have advocated for tight micro kernel based operating systems have had their opinions overshadow by the hack you guys seem so convinced is a genius.

Let me explain my opinion on this clearly, Torvalds could never have actually designed have an operating system on his own, and before you correct me, no not even a kernel.
And, if I wanted to use a UNIX knock off, I'd run BSD or OSX (which is kind of the same thing now that I think about it).

So, the next time any of you cares to pontificate about the glories of Linux, I hope I'm not around. Because as far as I'm concerned, you're all just coasting on the backs of things that were developed and financed in my country during my childhood.

[commodorejohn]

I love how people rave about what a great kernel Linux is and completely gloss over the manifold shortcomings in every other aspect of its design. Because, hey, who doesn't have their entire computing needs met by a kernel, right?