Torvalds: SteamOS Will 'Really Help' Linux On the Desktop 304
nk497 writes "Linus Torvalds has welcomed the arrival of Valve's Linux-based platform, SteamOS, and said it could boost Linux on desktops. The Linux creator praised Valve's 'vision' and suggested its momentum would force other manufacturers to take Linux seriously — especially if game developers start to ditch Windows. Should SteamOS gain traction among gamers and developers, that could force more hardware manufacturers to extend driver support beyond Windows. That's a sore point for Torvalds, who slammed Nvidia last year for failing to support open-source driver development for its graphics chips. Now that SteamOS is on the way, Nvidia has opened up to the Linux community, something Torvalds predicts is a sign of things to come. 'I'm not just saying it'll help us get traction with the graphics guys,' he said. 'It'll also force different distributors to realize if this is how Steam is going, they need to do the same thing because they can't afford to be different in this respect. They want people to play games on their platform too.'"
Re:Not happening (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, exactly like how Tivo buyers were all open source advocates, and Apple TV buyers are primarily interested in the fact that the kernel has posix API's. Though, there may be a small group of SteamBox buyers who buy it mainly because of playing games, and don't really care about what OS it runs.
Re:Stallman ain't gonna be happy (Score:5, Informative)
The FSF was mixed [gnu.org] about Steam for GNU/Linux. Since most of the issues remain the same with SteamOS, I'm guessing that their opinion on it will be similar.
For obvious reasons, they're never going to endorse anything that's partly proprietary, but it it moves people away from dependence on completely proprietary systems, in there view it's possible that there might be some benefit. The FSF isn't so hardline that they refuse to acknowledge the distinction between software that's mostly free versus software that's completely proprietary.
From the article I linked:
Re:Stallman ain't gonna be happy (Score:2, Informative)
If you're trying to teach yourself software development, or you're a kid, or you just don't have $500 or $800 or whatever the hell it costs, then Mingw is the only thing that lets you even try. .
Visual Studio Express is free.
Re: Netflix (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, great, but.... you have run silverlight based app via Wine, so it is kind of wierdly possible.. SteamOS can bring native Linux Netflix, at least there's hope.
Re:Not happening (Score:5, Informative)
The console crowd doesn't get to take advantage of PC hardware the way PC games do. Have you ever seen an Xbox hooked up to two or three monitors?
This is an alternative for PC gamers who might like to dump Windows and use an OS better suited for their games, coming from a company that already makes a lot of popular games. The people who will buy this thing are people who use PCs and are fans of Valve games.
The Linux fanboys don't need to buy the SteamBox; they'll just use their existing custom PC and run Steam on that, like they're already doing. This will merely help improve support for Steam on the Linux platform by getting the gfx card makers to better support Linux.
Re:Not happening (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Stallman ain't gonna be happy (Score:1, Informative)
Paint.NET may not have as many features as GIMP, but it's equally free and not even close to as painful to use.
Visual Studio has had a no-strings-attached free version since, what, 2003? Retire the obsolete FUD please.
Re: Netflix (Score:2, Informative)
I spent a few hours trying to get that to work on Debian, and I couldn't. I'm a rank amateur, but usually I can get stuff working, given enough time and Google. Part of the problem was that I wasn't starting from scratch; I tried using the Netflix app that some guy rolled together with WineSkin, targetting Ubuntu. Still...
And his point stands: if they can get Netflix working on Android, there's really no good reason they couldn't put something together for Linux in general.
Re: Netflix (Score:2, Informative)
Android has a DRM (digital restriction management) subsystem. The linux standard based does not.