News SteamOS beta download now available

Valve has made a beta of SteamOS available for download.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2013/12/14/steamos-download-now-available/1

 

Very exciting indeed, looking forward to dual booting this on a couple of machines later to take it for a spin!

 

You can't dual-boot it for the moment.

 

It's interesting does cutting out windows do anything for performance?

As I don't play many games these days don't think i'll be turning my pc into a gaming machine.

 

See, that's kind of the point. It's linux, YES YOU CAN dual boot it, you might just have to put in a little more effort to find the dual boot program and set it up properly. Linux doesn't limit what you can do, it just might not support it out of the box.

In this case (IIRC) you install Windows, install Gparted, and then install linux. The computer boots into Gparted and then asks you what actual OS you want to boot into. The functionality is there, it's just not always the easiest to figure out.

 

He meant the installer blasts all partitions.

 

Yawn. Don't care...another mediocre Linux distro.

 

I see it didn't take long for the trolls to come out of the woodwork...

 

Yes. It makes it worse.

I'm yet to see a cross platform game that runs faster under Linux.

 

There are two installers, one is a system image which will wipe everything like a Windows restore disk, the other, I believe, is a normal Debian installer (which Steam OS is based on), that one's easy. The restore disk version either needs a separate drive or install it first, then your second OS. Regardless, you can dual boot both.

 

So you've tried it already and found the user experience "mediocre"?
Or is you opinion based purely on assumptions and factless prejudice towards "another" linux distro or linux in general?

Game performance? No. Graphics drivers for Linux are generally still not as good as their Windows equivalents. Hopefully the new push to Linux by developers will encourage AMD and nVidia to put more effort into them. If your only concern is the best gaming performance, I don't think you'll want to switch anytime soon.
However, for general desktop performance you will notice an improvement, from what I've seen. Most of your experience will be based on personal preference though.
(If you're not planning on playing a lot of games, but are interested in Linux, I'd recommend to just try a well-established, beginner-friendly linux distro like Ubuntu or Linux Mint through wubi (or on a VirtualBox). It'll create a small virtual harddrive within your Windows partition and can be uninstalled just like any other program. If you like it you could later on go to a full dual-boot, or try out SteamOS when it's a bit better supported. If you don't, then you can just uninstall it with the click of a button. It's both free and risk-free, so why not give it a shot?)

 

hope it does good for valve, though I seriously was hoping they should have just focused on developing HL3

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I think I'll get it and hang on to it even if I choose not to install it, let alone use it. The main reason for this is the cynic in me that thinks that one day things like this may not be free and having this version already may well provide me with what is needed for a back door. I do like testing things BEFORE I hand over money for them.

 

They're required by law to provide the source code, so the OS will always be free. Some things that come with it, such as the Steam client, are not open source, so they could still charge for that.

 

"By law" is a bit of a misnomer, but the linux code that it's based on is all licensed under the General Public License and part of what that means is that all derivative products must also be open source. This is more of a contractual issue, but it is legally enforceable and has been upheld in court.

 

The performance of a game has less to do with the OS, and more to do with the drivers and optimisations done on the graphics API.

According to Valve’s own blog post testing done on L4D2, DirectX running on Windows hit 270.6 fps, OpenGL on Linux hit 315 fps, and OpenGL on Windows ran at 303.7 fps.

I found the following article informative on the differences between gaming on Windows vs Linux
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/167541-making-sense-of-the-steam-box-windows-vs-linux-opengl-vs-direct3d-and-the-impact-of-support-from-amd-nvidia?print

 

I installed it onto a VirtualBox image last night just to see what the fuss is about. So its no different from steam running on windows.
it IS just debian with steam installed onto it, maybe a bit of a UI change, im not familiar with debian on its own.
I don't know what I expected, maybe something a bit more customised, but its clearly just linux with steam installed, no reason why someone couldn't just install it onto their own already built linux machine.
I downloaded DOTA2, didnt run very well because, well it was a VM.
I think I would rather stick to PC gaming, my PC is in my living room anyway

 

My gaming PC is in my study/office. With a tidy SteamOS box in my lounge, I will be streaming games on the big lounge screen when the missus goes to bed. Lots of the oldskool adopters of Steam have grown up and gotten bigger houses and will likely be doing same as me.

 

I haven't installed it virtually or otherwise. But from what I've seen its just debian with a few packages missing and the steam client installed. Thats about all steamOS really will be even after beta, perhaps slightly more restricted.

It's all a bit disappointing really. I was at least expecting some sort of customized desktop or interface, instead of just a bare debian/gnome combo.