News Steam for Linux game list leaks out early

With repect to Office, have you guys tried running OpenOffice on Linux? I've been pleasantly surprised with it in Windows. When I was working from home, I was able to modify documents and send them back to work where they were running a combination of Office 2007 and Office 2010. The only gotcha I saw was some weird behavior with rather large documents where the section numbering was already somewhat broken in the original Office doc.

 

Yes, I've tried Open/LibreOffice. It's OK for basic stuff, but as soon as you start getting complex, it just can't cope. Every Word document I've opened in it with complex formatting has been totally shot and unusable, from vast swathes of text hyperlinked wrongly, to tables and figures badly mangled or outright missing, to section breaks set wrong and a host of other issues.

Nah, this was a 'middle of the afternoon, got some free time until evening and bored' upgrade. But it still went badly.

SuSE 8.2 was my first 'own' linux distro. Bought the boxed version which came with installations support and everything. Enjoyed it, but having spent time with APT and pacman, RPM just has too many quirks...

My GTX680 experiences weren't postive the last time I tried, which was back in August.

Yeah, I've been experimenting with Windows+Office in a VM for tasks that need Office.

My recent nVidia issue was with a GTX680. My GTX470's behave well in linux, they just gently toast themselves as it doesn't set a sensible fan profile. 70*C idle is crazy.

 

Running linux for years multiple distros, even distros that don't officially let you use propriety drivers and I've never had any driver issues. In fact I find it more difficult to go back to windows nowadays because of the multitude of issues I face there.

 

I feel like I'm the only person who has never had any trouble with windows. What am I doing wrong?

 

I've never had trouble with Windows that hasn't been induced by a session of stupid ideas from the user (Be that me, or any one of the customers I deal with daily).

I've only ever had to reinstall 7 due to massive hardware changes, so.. Once on the desktop, and once on the laptop (Desktop changed everything, laptop went to SSD, and I was told cloning is not the best way to migrate to an SSD).

On topic, though.

I like the idea of Linux more than I actually like Linux. It sounds great on paper, but in reality I spend so much time scratching my head working out the reasons portion X has failed because something in dependency Z broke after an update that didn't touch Z, but one of Z's dependencies.. Eugh.

It's a big pass from me on that front.

Ubuntu, too, with its recent "new interface" that looks cack, I've not had the time or stomach to work out how to turn that stupid thing off and just get the two bars I like.

I suppose it doesn't help that I, occasionally, use "exotic" (Read: New) hardware that Linux drivers just don't exist/work for.

 

Well, to be honest the biggest driver issue I had was on Windows. Last one was 2 days ago at work, when the Intel (ok, they are noe good at gfx drivers) HD2000 drivers crashed in all their glory ... resulting in 640x480 / 4 bits color display with only the right screen working ...

Tried the right-clic --> properties on my desktop to accep display prop ... but it opened the windows on the left screen

Tried windows + E to open an explorer .... opened it on the left screen

Reboot ..... login screen opened on the left screen

had to safe reboot with network, dl intel drivers, uninstall intel driver, reinstall them, reboot .... right screen only

Made it a second time ... it worked, woohoo.

I know it's not user friendly, but when it's all broken in Linux, you still can switch to the console and try to fix things there. With windows, if the display is broken you're really screwed.

 

Not to be someone who starts a bitch-fest, but I think people who use the "Windows just works better" argument to dismiss Linux, kind of misses the point. Windows benefits from a huge amount of time and money to develop and support the platform. Of course it is going to be easier for the user to support*. If Linux had that, it would work better as well. Probably work better than Windows does now.

I game on Windows, play on Linux, and work on both. More support for Linux, for whatever reason, will make Linux better for everyone. So I welcome Steam on Linux if it is going to push device makers to help with support, and inspire game developers and publishers to release more games for the platform.
Given I own some of these games on Steam already, I look forward to an extension of the SteamPlay program.

* Having said that, if Windows just works better, why do I spend so much time fixing things that bork themselves? Device problems, driver problems, program problems. I find that Linux is more difficult to set up right, but Windows is more difficult to maintain.

 

L4D2?

 

SOrry Gareth, but I strongly disagree !!

A game is outdated when it's GFX are ageing (compared to games with similar gameplay) or when it's mechanics as been overused .... not because it's a year old.

It's not a burger, you do not have a play-limit-time-or-it-wont-be-fun date printed on the box ! They are not the damn latest released games, but it shouldn't mean you can't have fun playing them.

EDIT : That kind of news should be purely informational. The journalist shouldn't give any kind of judgment on the content. Give the list and let readers have their own. It's not a review ! That kind of news is the feeding the "Linux is crap troll". That's what I think.

 

... sorry I do not get your point ? What does it have to do with "outdating" ? Ok they are not new, but does it mean that nobody's playing them ? TF2 is old but it still have a huge bunch of players playing it.

What the point with a game selling or not ? The best games I've ever played were not really "best sellers". They still are damn better than BF3 or PES or any of those damn flat gameplay games.

"A" game is not better than "B" game because it's selling 1000x more copies.

Edit : you and we are "users" not "sellers". Our judgement should only be : "Is the game (still) good or not ?".

 

I think their move is not done to sell Linux game, but more to test wether or not people are using it. By choosing older games, the chance that many users already have them is increased (especialy with humble indie bundle, since it's the major source of game for Linux users).

If many people are using Steam for Linux, then they can continue the porting and they will have a huge argument towards game developers.

 

Well a question that is not clear ... most of my Steam games are Linux native, I hope I won't have to "re"buy them, would I ?

 

presumabely they will let you add games you bought elsewhere to steam just like they do on windows.

 

YUp, but what about games I bought on Steam that are Linux Native ? Did I only bought the Windows version ?

I also bought Indie bundles and reddemed them on Steam. Will I be able to install them on Linux Through Steam ? Or should I use the install and "link" them on Steam?

 

Confused FTL with Galcon Fusion. My bad.

I believe it will fall under SteamPlay and automatically work on Linux in time, similar to how all my Windows games with OSX ports work on OSX, Well, should work at any rate....