Valve Linux Steam Client Beta Application | Hacker News Reader

Valve Linux Steam Client Beta Application

valvesoftware.com

214 pointscskau44 comments

Already filled this in.

2 Problems with it:

For some reason in chrome on ubuntu all of the text inside the select boxes is white on white so you have to select options to read them.

They specify that they are looking for "experience linux users" so if you want to game the survey you can answer the "how many years have you used linux?" dishonestly.

Also, I couldn't list both my desktop and my laptop, even though I'd install Steam on both.

I experienced the same behaviour with Chromium 24 on openSUSE Tumbleweed x86_64.

Looks like a good start for a more linux-centered experience, doesn't it? ;)

[edit] Put in a smiley at the end of the second sentence to convey my less-than-serious take on the matter, which did not succeed to keep me from signing up... [/edit]

Yeah, some CSS and GTK+ interactions is definitely useful data to make conclusions about whether or not the Steam client or Source engine run well in Linux... (Neither of which (are likely to) use GTK+ anyway at that).

Clearly a polished GUI is not requisite for good compatibility/performance, but it certainly is a canary-in-the-coal-mine indicator for other less visible bits. Basically, if they haven't had time yet to fix things like unreadable menus, that gives you an idea of how close to RTM quality the underpinnings are.

To be fair I imagine the client itself is much higher quality.

This just looks like a php form someone threw together in half an hour. Valve has a "work on what you want" policy so I imagine most of their developers are more interested in building the games and steam itself than survey websites.

Same here, Ubuntu 12.04, Google Chrome.

Yeah, but I've been 'using' Linux since 1997. Doesn't meant that someone who picked it up six months ago hasn't completely outstripped me in knowledge (easily done). That said, I've signed up to help the initiative. As a gamer, I'd really like to see Linux as a 1st class citizen of the gaming world.

For the people without a steam account: They are asking about several hardware details (CPU, GPU, resolution, amount of monitors, RAM) and will notify "selected people" in a few days.

One issue I have with steam is you need the client to reset your password.

I no longer have a windows machine to do that from.

Steam runs well enough with recent releases of Wine (I also had remarkably good experiences running Source games on it, i.e.: Half Life 2).

It must be great by now. I was regularly playing TF2 in Wine 4-5 years ago, it was good enough for me then.

I figured it out eventually, it just seemed odd to leave password reset out of the web interface.

I don't really understand why they need to limit the number of beta testers - I think it was said that only about 1000 users will get access to the beta client.

Because it's probably going to fail to cope with all the weird and wonderful Linux installations out there to start with & they'd rather it didn't gain a reputation as being a buggy sack of offal.

It's hardly unusual for companies to have a limited beta before they open out to a wider audience.

They are soliciting feedback and testing, they would rather have quality than quantity.

What they don't want is thousands of forums full of posts saying "OMG it crashez steam4Linux sux"

It only showed me a "submit response" button and no questions. So I clicked it and now I can't redo it.

Yeah, same problem yesterday for me. I don't know if this will lower the chance to get in the beta, but I sure hope it doesn't.

Contact support?

I did, though there isn't really a spot for it. I doubt they'll do anything, but oh well. No big deal.

Downvote more...I'm greedy and want to be the first to use Steam on Linux.

On a more serious note this bodes really well for gaming and software distribution on linux.

Submissions cannot be downvoted. (They can be flagged, but that is supposed to be reserved for spam and other egregious violations of norms.)

I can only guess this isn't being upvoted to not make other potential applicants aware of it! :D

There are just not so many Linux users over there.

Either that, or people are just too busy filling it out.

Or people just don't care. Or they know that it is Ubuntu only. Or they do not use Linux. Or they do not use Steam. ;-)

Gaming is just time spent not hacking ;) I myself do need a break once in a while, but some people seem to never stop and/or just don't like games (anymore).

It was already posted yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4701873

I guess that's why it's not being upvoted.

that post only mentioned the Linux Group. At that time, there was no news about a Linux Survey. The group was empty and all you could do is join the group, but there was no mention of a survey. So it seems unfair to me that this would not get upvoted because of the post you mentioned.

I don't know if it's unfair. I know I followed yesterday's link and completed the survey there.

So in my perception, this is a duplicate and I think that's why it's not upvoted. I don't see what fairness has to do with the success or failure of a submission.

Why do they assume that I'll be only testing on either laptop or desktop?

Being an Ubuntu user is required? or can be run on any other distro?

It gives an option on distro, and it seems to be anything that uses debs.

You can extract deb's with 'ar vx file.deb' and then manually install, but I guess they want to test only on debian based compatible distros.

Why should I install this when I sill still have to boot into windows to play all the games that are worth playing (of the games I am not already tired of)?

This should not even be news IMO. So mamy people say WebOS and Windows 8/RT will never gain prominence because they don't have the games of IOS/Android - Yet Linux gets a steam client and all I hear is excitement. do yo think that game devs want to create games for a 2% desktop market?

Nice double standard there - I understand it, but it is still an agenda/bias that I wish to call out.

humble indie bundle - there are plenty of good native games/ports for linux.

Plenty for who??? not the Main Stream/Typical/Average PC gamer. The numbers are not on your side so how can you back up your statement.

They have to start somewhere. Why are you so negative about this?

It's a chicken and egg problem. At least we'll soon have the chicken.

More seriously, game developpers will be much more encouraged to develop for Linux if they have a delivery system, especially given how Unity is becoming more and more popular.

>They have to start somewhere. Why are you so negative about this?

I am merely pointing out a bias and double standard.

This is a long play. I doubt that Valve would be doing this if they didn't have a long term belief in it's viability.

One big issue is Engine tech, typically the best game engines have been designed around Windows and Consoles. Now we have ports of Source engine and Unity3D to Linux. This can enable a whole batch of games to be ported to Linux with minimal effort.

Besides , this is a beta so intended for interested early adopters to play with rather than becoming the #1 game system overnight.

>This is a long play. I doubt that Valve would be doing this if they didn't have a long term belief in it's viability.

No their cash cow is being threatened by Windows 8 and they know that their monopoly is almost over. They have one shot to protect it and keep MS away from it for all times - turn the desktop market toward Linux.

And one shouldn't underestimate Valve's own offering of games. Those are among the best games ever made.

With Left4Dead, Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike, you have plenty of fun, and at least for Team Fortress 2 they regularly update the game with weekend specials, new items and new maps.

Right now it's Halloween special, with new game modes where the two teams should cooperate to kill the Horseless Headless Horseman with trips to the Underworld. It's really a laugh to play.

They have a pretty decent line up of Linux games already, and it's not a public release yet: http://marlamin.com/cdr/search.php?s=linux&searchby=os (~37 games so far)

There are also a lot of indie titles on Steam that have Linux versions available but aren't officially in that list yet.

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