Valve recently confirmed that there is a dedicated team within the company that has been working on a native Steam version for Ubuntu 12.04 since 2011. They've already ported "Left 4 Dead 2" over to the penguin and are now improving performance to have it ready for launch alongside the platform.
This is fantastic news. It may not sound like much to regular Windows users that don't see the need for it, but Linux users have been starving for games for a while and lately they've been getting a lot of recognition.
I myself am an avid Linux user (currently running Xubuntu 12.04 LTS on the desktop, Puppy on the netbook). I have made my dislike for Microsoft products clear several times, especially those of the "Windows" brand and for good reason; they are a fucking mess. Linux can be hard to deal with at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's usually more reliable, more flexible and offers a ton of software for free.
Games have always been Linux's biggest setback. PC Games rely on Windows-specific APIs and DLLs, which is the main reason why they don't run on Linux. WINE, a utility that kind of emulates Microsoft's platform (this is a gross oversimplification-- WINE isn't an actual Windows emulator) has managed to reduce the lack of games on Linux platforms, but its reliability is understandably suspect. Some run, some don't, others are supposed to run but don't and then there is the graphics drivers issue, because neither graphics accelerator company releases proper drivers for the platform and so on and so forth.
There have been native games for Linux and most of them are free. I will get around to talking about these in detail, hopefully, but as an example 0 A.D., a great, traditional RTS is native on Linux, as is OpenArena, an open-source Quake 3: Arena clone and its mod Urban Terror, a team-based, pseudo-military FPS, reminiscent of the old multiplayer shooters on the PC.
The scene has been more active in the last year, thanks to the love the platform has been getting especially from indie developers. Games like Braid, Limbo and Minecraft have been ported over (I think Minecraft launched for all systems) and are available for purchase.
I have been using Steam via WINE and while the platform itself works, running a game through it may prove an unmitigated disaster, as you're tasking WINE with a little too much.
It'll be a long time until Linux catches up, so don't get rid of your Windows double-boot yet, but even the ease of booting up L4D2 or Counter-Strike without having to log off your preferred system, just to log into the other one to play, is a bigger relief than it sounds.
Valve said that after L4D2, they will move onto porting the other Valve titles as well, first for Ubuntu and then for other distros (not that there is that big a difference between them).
Valve has a good track record of customer service and respect, but it remains to be seen whether or not users will have to buy their games again once they change operating systems.
This is fantastic news. It may not sound like much to regular Windows users that don't see the need for it, but Linux users have been starving for games for a while and lately they've been getting a lot of recognition.
I myself am an avid Linux user (currently running Xubuntu 12.04 LTS on the desktop, Puppy on the netbook). I have made my dislike for Microsoft products clear several times, especially those of the "Windows" brand and for good reason; they are a fucking mess. Linux can be hard to deal with at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's usually more reliable, more flexible and offers a ton of software for free.
Games have always been Linux's biggest setback. PC Games rely on Windows-specific APIs and DLLs, which is the main reason why they don't run on Linux. WINE, a utility that kind of emulates Microsoft's platform (this is a gross oversimplification-- WINE isn't an actual Windows emulator) has managed to reduce the lack of games on Linux platforms, but its reliability is understandably suspect. Some run, some don't, others are supposed to run but don't and then there is the graphics drivers issue, because neither graphics accelerator company releases proper drivers for the platform and so on and so forth.
There have been native games for Linux and most of them are free. I will get around to talking about these in detail, hopefully, but as an example 0 A.D., a great, traditional RTS is native on Linux, as is OpenArena, an open-source Quake 3: Arena clone and its mod Urban Terror, a team-based, pseudo-military FPS, reminiscent of the old multiplayer shooters on the PC.
The scene has been more active in the last year, thanks to the love the platform has been getting especially from indie developers. Games like Braid, Limbo and Minecraft have been ported over (I think Minecraft launched for all systems) and are available for purchase.
I have been using Steam via WINE and while the platform itself works, running a game through it may prove an unmitigated disaster, as you're tasking WINE with a little too much.It'll be a long time until Linux catches up, so don't get rid of your Windows double-boot yet, but even the ease of booting up L4D2 or Counter-Strike without having to log off your preferred system, just to log into the other one to play, is a bigger relief than it sounds.
Valve said that after L4D2, they will move onto porting the other Valve titles as well, first for Ubuntu and then for other distros (not that there is that big a difference between them).
Valve has a good track record of customer service and respect, but it remains to be seen whether or not users will have to buy their games again once they change operating systems.
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