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News Valve SteamOS set for launch on Friday

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 12 Dec 2013.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  2. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    I would be more interested to know if the release on Friday will have the streaming from a PC functionality built in, and what type of boxes OEM's come up with as a receiving unit.
     
  3. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    To quote Coomer: 'stay tuned for the in-home streaming beta to begin soon, too!'
     
  4. Phil Rhodes

    Phil Rhodes Hypernobber

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    Another Linux distro. Oh good, that'll help.
     
  5. GuilleAcoustic

    GuilleAcoustic Ook ? Ook !

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    Cool. I was going to install a Linux on my machine to replace Windows ... this comes at the right time :D
     
  6. keir

    keir S p i t F i r e

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    I'd like to see them updating the store pages, saying if games will work on it.
     
  7. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    They already do: if a game's page has a picture of a penguin on it, that means it's compatible with Linux and by extension SteamOS; if it's got a picture of an apple, it's OS X compatible; and if you see the old wibbly Windows logo it's compatible with Windows.
     
  8. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag What's a Dremel?

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    This isn't your average linux distro - it has commercial funding and isn't yet-another-linux-desktop-OS. There are at least 100 actively developed linux distros that you could remove today that have no use of being around, but Steam OS isn't one of them. Keep in mind that there's still a noteworthy percentage of linux distros that serve a specific purpose (like Steam OS) or have a very different approach to your run-of-the-mill desktop distros. So while there are too many distros out there, you could probably find at least 20 that should never go away.
     
  9. AlienwareAndy

    AlienwareAndy What's a Dremel?

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    hmm going to need another hdd to install this to.
     
  10. Shirty

    Shirty W*nker! Super Moderator

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    I haven't been keeping up to date with this at all. By how much are the overheads of things like Windows and directX reduced when running a distro like this? How are the GPU drivers? Should I be genuinely interested in dual booting with something like this?
     
  11. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Probably not this or even next year, my guess is it will take time for drivers to mature, features to get working and bugs to be worked out.
     
  12. dyzophoria

    dyzophoria Minimodder

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    Honestly it will still be a while til we see the difference, the graphics drivers need to mature more, if the xbox one and ps4 had equal hardware specifications, we could have a good idea though (from what I understand PS4 is running on bsd/unix)
     
  13. SexyHyde

    SexyHyde Minimodder

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    Eeeeeek! The safety is off. It starts right now. My guess would be we have about three years before it be starts to be viable for mainstream from this point. Exciting times though.

    I used to think there are way too many Linux distro's also, but that is the great thing about Linux - You can build the OS that best suits your wants and needs. There are a staple of great solid versions and then versions tweaked or built for specific roles, these 'lesser' ones may never get mainstream attention but are there to serve the small group that need or want that particular flavour.
     
  14. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    This. God, this. I've never understood the argument that says because there are umpty-hundred Linux and BSD distributions it therefore sucks. Since when was choice a bad thing? It's this flexibility - impossible with closed-source software - that has given us cheap and powerful routers, NAS boxes, Smart TVs, Android tablets and smartphones, firewalls, Steam Machines - hell, Apple's OS X and Sony's PS4 both run a modified BSD, so it even allows companies a shortcut to creating commercialised platforms of their own.

    Here's the thing: the world of open source is, when things are going right, a meritocracy. The cream rises to the top. Ubuntu isn't perfect, but it's stable, well-supported and covers 99% of a user's needs - that's why it's the most popular distribution around. For those who don't like Unity, or who don't like Canonical for that matter, there's Linux Mint. For the speed-freaks there's Gentoo. Don't like having your hand held, and think you should have to work for your operating system? Arch. Bosh. Got an old 386 that you need to repurpose, god help you? Puppy Linux. Try sticking a still-supported copy of Windows on that, see how far you get. Need to run a lightweight OS on embedded hardware? Plenty of options there. Running a server farm? The chances that you're not running Linux, BSD or a similar POSIX-alike are slim indeed. Want a GUI that looks like Windows or OS X, is designed for ultra-fast performance on low-power hardware, is completely customisable, is designed for touch, is designed for the legally blind, is designed with the most whiz-bang special effects imaginable? Yeah, you're covered there, too.

    There are Linux distributions for gamers, hackers, coders, managers, schools, students, babies, office workers, emerging nations, translators, researchers, police, forensic analysts, musicians, videographers, artists, traders, noobs, pros and everything in between. This is a good thing. If you're happy with your one-size-fits-all ecosystem, then good for you - although the number of people I've seen saying that Windows 8 is fine "once you install this third-party package to get your Start Menu back, and this third-party package to disable the Start Screen, and this third-party package to do something else" suggests that's probably not the case.

    TL;DR: Choice is a good thing, and people should stop pretending otherwise - or, if you'd prefer, we could go back to the days of "any operating system you want, as long as it's Microsoft BASIC."
     
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  15. Star*Dagger

    Star*Dagger What's a Dremel?

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    GH, these guys would complain if Amy Pond sat on their lap.
     
  16. yodasarmpit

    yodasarmpit Modder

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    All we need is someone to setup an Xbox One to dual boot and we are onto a winner :)
     
  17. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    While i agree with you that choice is a good thing, it can also be a bad thing.
    To the novice with little knowledge it can be difficult to choose between product A, B or C as they don't know enough about the subject to make an informed choice, so will often not make a decision for fear of making the wrong one.

    Sometimes people don't have the time or inclination to learn what makes one product better for them than another and just want someone to tell them whats best.
     
  18. GuilleAcoustic

    GuilleAcoustic Ook ? Ook !

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    There's huge chance that novices will end up using Ubuntu, as it is the first distro that appears when you google for "linux" ... and they will perfetly be fine with it.

    I wouldn't complain :D
     
  19. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Not a problem with Linux. A novice will never have even heard of Gentoo or Arch. A real novice might not even know that there are different Linuxes. A complete novice has probably never even heard of Linux. A novice, you see, doesn't install his or her operating system; a novice uses whatever the box bought from PC World came running by default.

    There's another aspect of open source software that distances it from closed-source, commercial stuff: market share doesn't really matter, beyond willy-waving. Yeah, Linux as a group has a single-percentage share of the desktop market (although a majority share in servers, overwhelming majority in supercomputing, and a big chunk of mobile and embedded) - but that doesn't matter. I use Linux; I will continue to use Linux whether it has a 0.001% or a 100% share of the desktop market. Unlike Windows or OS X, which relies on market share to generate cash, Linux started out as a project of hobbyists with no budget - and would survive quite nicely if Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical and all the others currently making a very nice living out of it went away tomorrow.

    So, I'd disagree that choice is a problem: if you're knowledgeable enough to be considering replacing or augmenting your existing operating system with a Linux distribution, you likely know enough to at least have a stab at picking a distribution - or, like people do in the Software sub-forum of this very site, know who to ask for advice.

    An alternative rebuttal: does the fact that there are a billion and one different motorised vehicles, from electric Smart cars to diesel-driven armoured personnel carriers, make it more or less likely that a novice will buy a car?
     
  20. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Well you only have to look back at some of the awful cars people bought in the past to see how bad people are at making logical choices.
    Maybe our interpretation of novice is different. I was thinking of the person who knows they don't want to use Windows, hears about this Linux thing only to find out there are so many different versions they just give up and say to them selves its not worth the effort to find out what version to use.

    EDIT: isn't this one of the problems SteamOS and Machine are going to help address though, in that people buy the box and don't have to make the choice of what OS its running ?
     

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