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[TheD]

How will this work? For starters, won't they need to develop and update drivers for the various kinds of graphic and sound cards and chipsets, as well as create their own programming and video API like Windows Direct X?

Windows had the benefit of gradually evolving along with the market and being developed by a multi billion dollar company -- is it possible for Valve to make an equivalent to Windows for gaming?

Uhh, SteamOS is a Linux distro.
They do not have to develop any of that, they are not making a 100% new OS.

 

[Sinfamy]

When Valve said they didn't like where Windows 8 was going, I guess they meant it.

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

I guess this will be like BPM. Announced but its going dark for the next 18+ months.

It's not going to be 18 months. It says it's coming soon and mentions that there will be big 2014 AAA game announcements coming shortly as well.

 

[Syphon Filter]

It's not going to be 18 months. It says it's coming soon and mentions that there will be big 2014 AAA game announcements coming shortly as well.

its probably existing titles.

 

[Pudge]

I guess this will be like BPM. Announced but its going dark for the next 18+ months.

They did say 2014 on the teaser site, so hopefully it won't take THAT long. I have a feeling that it's going to be a much quicker turnaround however if we're dealing with hardware.

 

[Josh378]

Can anyone see Sony bringing Vita TV functionality to SteamOS, since they are not (for now) bringing out Vita TV outside Japan?

SteamOS on PS4 or VitaTV would be megaton. I think Valve needs to put their OS software on as many streaming devices as possible. Hell, put it on the Xbox one or even make a deal with Samsung/Apple to have SteamOS on their devices....Valve can make more money doing it this way than releasing a OS box that doesn't inspire revolution in the market vs MS/Sony and Nintendo.

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

How will this work? For starters, won't they need to develop and update drivers for the various kinds of graphic and sound cards and chipsets, as well as create their own programming and video API like Windows Direct X?

Windows had the benefit of gradually evolving along with the market and being developed by a multi billion dollar company -- is it possible for Valve to make an equivalent to Windows for gaming? Get anywhere near the same level of efficiency, ease of use, etc?

Basing the OS on Linux eliminates all of your concerns entirely.

 

[Elfforkusu]

How will this work? For starters, won't they need to develop and update drivers for the various kinds of graphic and sound cards and chipsets, as well as create their own programming and video API like Windows Direct X?

Windows had the benefit of gradually evolving along with the market and being developed by a multi billion dollar company -- is it possible for Valve to make an equivalent to Windows for gaming? Get anywhere near the same level of efficiency, ease of use, etc?

Linux does all of this already. In many ways (low level performance, development toolchain) it has left Windows behind as a virtue of companies like IBM pouring tons of resources into the kernel for the past decade+. The graphics side has been a struggle, but AMD finally started to wake up a couple years ago, and Nvidia has done a good job for a while now. Graphics won't be a huge issue (OpenGL exists), they'll find a configuration that works and build hardware against that video card.

Valve's primary difficulty will be putting a shiny coat of paint on the OS, and figuring out how to get publishers to actually support the platform.

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

its probably existing titles.

Well, yeah. My point was just that they have already made it clear that it's going to be out by the end of 2014, not the 18+ months he was guessing.

 

[Jimrpg]

Well i don't really see the point of this. Seems overpriced if you're going to buy a box that just streams stuff... especially when there's a lot of media players on the market that streams stuff at 720p/1080p for sub <$100. I suppose if you have a spare PC lying around then this makes sense.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

Some predictions:

1) SteamBox is 99dollar Intel chip box ala Vita TV
2) Runs L4D2 and other Valve games and Linux games under or equal those specs natively
3) Doesn't need/have some sort of Wine like compability layer because streaming

 

[zoku88]

Is it possible for them to start from the base Linux instead of working off another distro?

Doesn't seem like that would be a good idea. Too much work.

A much better idea is to do what Google did and take a really minimalistic distro (Google used Gentoo. But there are many distros that re minimalistic) and just build on top of that. They could probably just have the base install; install X, edit defaults for loging purposes and then boot into a steam session and isntall packages that are normally included for the steam runtime.

 

[Dmented]

I found a leaked video showing the Steambox's boot animation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fgP7JFz2tk

 

[RedSwirl]

While we're talking about Microsoft and operating systems, I'm going to take a minute and vent about stupid infuriating Microsoft bullshit.

So my dad got a new laptop tonight with Windows 8, and made a typo when he was setting it up. Typed @ol.com instead of @aol.com when setting up his user account that he needs to verify online before he can use any of the Metro stuff, because just setting up a name with no password is apparently beyond Microsoft. This, of course, fucked him. So he's having trouble fixing it and gets me to do it. I figure out how to create a local account that doesn't need to be verified on the Internet, but before I can do that I need to enter the password for the fucked up account he just made, because why should anyone be able to use their computer without checking in with Microsoft, right?. So I enter his usual password. Incorrect. I enter a password he used to use. Wrong again. I try the first one again in case of a typo, and it's wrong again. I go off and find him, get the new password from him (which the computer told him he needed because apparently his regular password wasn't strong enough for the laptop sitting in his fucking office at home), and I put that one in. Nope, still incorrect. Do it a couple more times just to make sure. No dice.

I get out of Metro and get online via the desktop, figure out how to reset the password, go to do so on the Microsoft site, and it tells me that the account is locked because I entered the wrong password too many times, but I can unlock it by resetting the account via it's email address. Which doesn't exist because of the typo that started all of this. I say whatever dad, just don't use Metro and you can get your email just fine through the browser like you've always done. Except we leave the computer alone for 5 minutes and it goes to sleep, and when we come back we need to log into the busted account to get on to the computer at all, and that account is completely locked from even logging on. After an hour and a half of customer support, I find out that Microsoft refuses to unlock the account or send the email to the proper account, and my only option is to reinstall the operating system with a boot disc that I don't have because the OS came pre-installed.

So, because he incorrectly entered his email and I entered the wrong password, the computer is effectively useless. Microsoft permanently locked the only account to get on a brand new computer until the password is reset on an email account that doesn't exist, and now I have to pray for Dell customer service to have a dream solution tomorrow, which will probably take 4 hours of my day if it exists at all. Thank god for the fucking cloud protecting us all.

To bring it back to the subject on hand, I'm ready to install SteamOS onto every computer I ever see for the rest of my life as long as it has a web browser and doesn't go out of it's way to personally ruin my life.

Sounds like Dell is gonna have to just re-install the OS themselves. And ask them to leave you a boot disc for God sake.

Also, that account shit hast just scared me away from possibly ever installing Windows 8 (I'm still stuck on Vista).

 

[hikarutilmitt]

Is it possible for them to start from the base Linux instead of working off another distro?

Certainly.

Way too much work for the size of Valve, with very few reasons for doing so. They'd have to reinvent a hell of a lot of stuff.

Not particularly. One of the benefits of an open source OS is that you can put the time in to tailor it to your needs. You can strip out fluff, compile the kernel and sources to fit a specific arch and build only the dependencies that you truly need. Consider the size of something like Fedora or Ubuntu or Mint, even after install, to Windows. It makes it a smaller footprint on the drive and makes it easier to distribute for the people with lower internet speeds.

To be honest, just rolling and modifying Linux From Scratch would almost be the best way to go, since you'd have more control over the tasks and not have to worry as much about cross-distro compatibility with packages.

 

[Elfforkusu]

While we're talking about Microsoft and operating systems, I'm going to take a minute and vent about stupid infuriating Microsoft bullshit.

So my dad got a new laptop tonight with Windows 8, and made a typo when he was setting it up. Typed @ol.com instead of @aol.com when setting up his user account that he needs to verify online before he can use any of the Metro stuff, because just setting up a name with no password is apparently beyond Microsoft. This, of course, fucked him. So he's having trouble fixing it and gets me to do it. I figure out how to create a local account that doesn't need to be verified on the Internet, but before I can do that I need to enter the password for the fucked up account he just made, because why should anyone be able to use their computer without checking in with Microsoft, right?. So I enter his usual password. Incorrect. I enter a password he used to use. Wrong again. I try the first one again in case of a typo, and it's wrong again. I go off and find him, get the new password from him (which the computer told him he needed because apparently his regular password wasn't strong enough for the laptop sitting in his fucking office at home), and I put that one in. Nope, still incorrect. Do it a couple more times just to make sure. No dice.

I get out of Metro and get online via the desktop, figure out how to reset the password, go to do so on the Microsoft site, and it tells me that the account is locked because I entered the wrong password too many times, but I can unlock it by resetting the account via it's email address. Which doesn't exist because of the typo that started all of this. I say whatever dad, just don't use Metro and you can get your email just fine through the browser like you've always done. Except we leave the computer alone for 5 minutes and it goes to sleep, and when we come back we need to log into the busted account to get on to the computer at all, and that account is completely locked from even logging on. After an hour and a half of customer support, I find out that Microsoft refuses to unlock the account or send the email to the proper account, and my only option is to reinstall the operating system with a boot disc that I don't have because the OS came pre-installed.

So, because he incorrectly entered his email and I entered the wrong password, the computer is effectively useless. Microsoft permanently locked the only account to get on a brand new computer until the password is reset on an email account that doesn't exist, and now I have to pray for Dell customer service to have a dream solution tomorrow, which will probably take 4 hours of my day if it exists at all. Thank god for the fucking cloud protecting us all.

To bring it back to the subject on hand, I'm ready to install SteamOS onto every computer I ever see for the rest of my life as long as it has a web browser and doesn't go out of it's way to personally ruin my life.

Linux Mint! Do it!

 

[Quasar]

Also, that account shit hast just scared me away from possibly ever installing Windows 8 (I'm still stuck on Vista).

But you don't need to use cloud based accounts. I continue to use local accounts just as I did with 7 and Vista.

 

[nubbe]

What if GTAV is SteamOS exclusive?

 

[Syphon Filter]

What if GTAV is SteamOS exclusive?

valve isnt going to limit any game for that.

 

[xJavonta]

Negative.

The games that are streamed are rendered locally on your PC, the video is streamed to your SteamOS.

So what I was originally saying was correct? lol the piece of shit PC is the one with the 4000, my main PC is the one with the dedicated card I use to game on

I suppose I could've worded it better, sorry

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

Not particularly. One of the benefits of an open source OS is that you can put the time in to tailor it to your needs. You can strip out fluff, compile the kernel and sources to fit a specific arch and build only the dependencies that you truly need. Consider the size of something like Fedora or Ubuntu or Mint, even after install, to Windows. It makes it a smaller footprint on the drive and makes it easier to distribute for the people with lower internet speeds.

To be honest, just rolling and modifying Linux From Scratch would almost be the best way to go, since you'd have more control over the tasks and not have to worry as much about cross-distro compatibility with packages.

They could do it, theoretically, but again I maintain that where Valve is at with their employee count and current projects, it's simply not feasible to build an entire Linux distro. They just don't have the manpower to support it. The performance gains wouldn't be worth the time it would take to rebuild package management and configuration.

 

[BakedSardine]

I really don't see the point of this - it seems like they are trying to take PC gaming out of the Windows universe, which has its merits, but isn't that essentially just creating a console? If they are putting out actual boxes, developers will develop to spec, as happens on consoles, and the PC Master Race will be dead.

 

[wutwutwut]

Given how badly performance on Windows (and non-free stacks in general) sucks, I'd be the happiest person in the world if Linux became the dominant force in PC gaming.

 

[Beautifully Shaped Monsters]

While we're talking about Microsoft and operating systems, I'm going to take a minute and vent about stupid infuriating Microsoft bullshit.

So my dad got a new laptop tonight with Windows 8, and made a typo when he was setting it up. Typed @ol.com instead of @aol.com when setting up his user account that he needs to verify online before he can use any of the Metro stuff, because just setting up a name with no password is apparently beyond Microsoft. This, of course, fucked him. So he's having trouble fixing it and gets me to do it. I figure out how to create a local account that doesn't need to be verified on the Internet, but before I can do that I need to enter the password for the fucked up account he just made, because why should anyone be able to use their computer without checking in with Microsoft, right?. So I enter his usual password. Incorrect. I enter a password he used to use. Wrong again. I try the first one again in case of a typo, and it's wrong again. I go off and find him, get the new password from him (which the computer told him he needed because apparently his regular password wasn't strong enough for the laptop sitting in his fucking office at home), and I put that one in. Nope, still incorrect. Do it a couple more times just to make sure. No dice.

I get out of Metro and get online via the desktop, figure out how to reset the password, go to do so on the Microsoft site, and it tells me that the account is locked because I entered the wrong password too many times, but I can unlock it by resetting the account via it's email address. Which doesn't exist because of the typo that started all of this. I say whatever dad, just don't use Metro and you can get your email just fine through the browser like you've always done. Except we leave the computer alone for 5 minutes and it goes to sleep, and when we come back we need to log into the busted account to get on to the computer at all, and that account is completely locked from even logging on. After an hour and a half of customer support, I find out that Microsoft refuses to unlock the account or send the email to the proper account, and my only option is to reinstall the operating system with a boot disc that I don't have because the OS came pre-installed.

So, because he incorrectly entered his email and I entered the wrong password, the computer is effectively useless. Microsoft permanently locked the only account to get on a brand new computer until the password is reset on an email account that doesn't exist, and now I have to pray for Dell customer service to have a dream solution tomorrow, which will probably take 4 hours of my day if it exists at all. Thank god for the fucking cloud protecting us all.

To bring it back to the subject on hand, I'm ready to install SteamOS onto every computer I ever see for the rest of my life as long as it has a web browser and doesn't go out of it's way to personally ruin my life.

Holy Shit! But doesn't these pre installs usually come with a special recovery partition that you have to boot into?

Good luck, and I would also support that other guy who said give Mint a try. Your dad might like it unless he needs Windows only software.

 

[CodonAUG]

They could do it, theoretically, but again I maintain that where Valve is at with their employee count and current projects, it's simply not feasible to build an entire Linux distro. They just don't have the manpower to support it. The performance gains wouldn't be worth the time it would take to rebuild package management and configuration.

Valve has hired a collection of self motivated workaholic geniuses. Who is to say they couldn't make their own distro?

 

[chubigans]

While we're talking about Microsoft and operating systems, I'm going to take a minute and vent about stupid infuriating Microsoft bullshit.

So my dad got a new laptop tonight with Windows 8, and made a typo when he was setting it up. Typed @ol.com instead of @aol.com when setting up his user account that he needs to verify online before he can use any of the Metro stuff, because just setting up a name with no password is apparently beyond Microsoft. This, of course, fucked him. So he's having trouble fixing it and gets me to do it. I figure out how to create a local account that doesn't need to be verified on the Internet, but before I can do that I need to enter the password for the fucked up account he just made, because why should anyone be able to use their computer without checking in with Microsoft, right?. So I enter his usual password. Incorrect. I enter a password he used to use. Wrong again. I try the first one again in case of a typo, and it's wrong again. I go off and find him, get the new password from him (which the computer told him he needed because apparently his regular password wasn't strong enough for the laptop sitting in his fucking office at home), and I put that one in. Nope, still incorrect. Do it a couple more times just to make sure. No dice.

I get out of Metro and get online via the desktop, figure out how to reset the password, go to do so on the Microsoft site, and it tells me that the account is locked because I entered the wrong password too many times, but I can unlock it by resetting the account via it's email address. Which doesn't exist because of the typo that started all of this. I say whatever dad, just don't use Metro and you can get your email just fine through the browser like you've always done. Except we leave the computer alone for 5 minutes and it goes to sleep, and when we come back we need to log into the busted account to get on to the computer at all, and that account is completely locked from even logging on. After an hour and a half of customer support, I find out that Microsoft refuses to unlock the account or send the email to the proper account, and my only option is to reinstall the operating system with a boot disc that I don't have because the OS came pre-installed.

So, because he incorrectly entered his email and I entered the wrong password, the computer is effectively useless. Microsoft permanently locked the only account to get on a brand new computer until the password is reset on an email account that doesn't exist, and now I have to pray for Dell customer service to have a dream solution tomorrow, which will probably take 4 hours of my day if it exists at all. Thank god for the fucking cloud protecting us all.

To bring it back to the subject on hand, I'm ready to install SteamOS onto every computer I ever see for the rest of my life as long as it has a web browser and doesn't go out of it's way to personally ruin my life.

holy crap man. Oh man. Wow.

 

[KojiKnight]

I really don't see the point of this - it seems like they are trying to take PC gaming out of the Windows universe, which has its merits, but isn't that essentially just creating a console? If they are putting out actual boxes, developers will develop to spec, as happens on consoles, and the PC Master Race will be dead.

But they aren't building to a standard. It's still PC hardware, anyone can install the SteamOS (we know this much for a fact).

The question is will Valve license "official" steam boxes.

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

Valve has hired a collection of self motivated workaholic geniuses. Who is to say they couldn't make their own distro?

Why do people keep saying "could?" Of course they could. I never said otherwise. But it'd also be a massive waste of manpower for little tangible benefit, and would also increase the cost of maintaining SteamOS over time by a significant amount. In the end, geniuses still have to ship and support a product.

Valve could write their own OS using Oreos' cookie and cream as binary. It'd be awesome and funny. But they won't.

 

[Vilifier]

I hope all of Valve's future games will be steamplay and I can choose whether I want to play on linux or windows. Hate them to make it exclusive to linux, I think that would alienate alot of gamers.

 

[KojiKnight]

Valve has hired a collection of self motivated workaholic geniuses. Who is to say they couldn't make their own distro?

Mint is essentially run by a single guy and a bunch of free developers... there is no reason why SteamOS can't take a similar approach... in fact, reading the press release about how customizable it is sounds EXACTLY like a distro.

All Valve would need (after initial setup) is 1-2 people who oversee and finalize any changes (and maybe a few people for any proprietary back end they have) and let the community work on the distro itself.

 

[wsippel]

They could do it, theoretically, but again I maintain that where Valve is at with their employee count and current projects, it's simply not feasible to build an entire Linux distro. They just don't have the manpower to support it. The performance gains wouldn't be worth the time it would take to rebuild package management and configuration.

That really depends on what exactly they plan to offer. Unless it's a quick and dirty re-skin of some popular distro, it could be just an extremely basic system comparable to Arch or Gentoo minimal (and possibly derived from one of those), with X or Wayland and Steam on top - and nothing else. No desktop environment, no office suite, no games, no servers, no bullshit. It's intended for HTPCs after all, not for desktops. Everything that isn't part of the core OS will be distributed via Steam itself.

 

[Vestal]

While we're talking about Microsoft and operating systems, I'm going to take a minute and vent about stupid infuriating Microsoft bullshit.

So my dad got a new laptop tonight with Windows 8, and made a typo when he was setting it up. Typed @ol.com instead of @aol.com when setting up his user account that he needs to verify online before he can use any of the Metro stuff, because just setting up a name with no password is apparently beyond Microsoft. This, of course, fucked him. So he's having trouble fixing it and gets me to do it. I figure out how to create a local account that doesn't need to be verified on the Internet, but before I can do that I need to enter the password for the fucked up account he just made, because why should anyone be able to use their computer without checking in with Microsoft, right?. So I enter his usual password. Incorrect. I enter a password he used to use. Wrong again. I try the first one again in case of a typo, and it's wrong again. I go off and find him, get the new password from him (which the computer told him he needed because apparently his regular password wasn't strong enough for the laptop sitting in his fucking office at home), and I put that one in. Nope, still incorrect. Do it a couple more times just to make sure. No dice.

I get out of Metro and get online via the desktop, figure out how to reset the password, go to do so on the Microsoft site, and it tells me that the account is locked because I entered the wrong password too many times, but I can unlock it by resetting the account via it's email address. Which doesn't exist because of the typo that started all of this. I say whatever dad, just don't use Metro and you can get your email just fine through the browser like you've always done. Except we leave the computer alone for 5 minutes and it goes to sleep, and when we come back we need to log into the busted account to get on to the computer at all, and that account is completely locked from even logging on. After an hour and a half of customer support, I find out that Microsoft refuses to unlock the account or send the email to the proper account, and my only option is to reinstall the operating system with a boot disc that I don't have because the OS came pre-installed.

So, because he incorrectly entered his email and I entered the wrong password, the computer is effectively useless. Microsoft permanently locked the only account to get on a brand new computer until the password is reset on an email account that doesn't exist, and now I have to pray for Dell customer service to have a dream solution tomorrow, which will probably take 4 hours of my day if it exists at all. Thank god for the fucking cloud protecting us all.

To bring it back to the subject on hand, I'm ready to install SteamOS onto every computer I ever see for the rest of my life as long as it has a web browser and doesn't go out of it's way to personally ruin my life.

have you tried going to Microsoft.com and loging in with your fathers account??

dude actually call Microsoft support they will fix you up in no time.

I am dead serious. You may even get free software while you are there. When I went to get a Windows 7 home premium license key unlocked for install they upgraded me to ultimate for free.

 

[Deleted member 22576]

Yeah, my dad got one of those cheap lenovos and I had a helluva a time reformatting the harddrive so I could install windows7 for him. It was a different format since it shipped with like seven partitions on it. I ended up having use a linux boot disk to format the drive blank and start fresh.

 

[BlazinAm]

Holy Shit! But doesn't these pre installs usually come with a special recovery partition that you have to boot into?

Good luck, and I would also support that other guy who said give Mint a try. Your dad might like it unless he needs Windows only software.

My new computer doesn't have email based username and I installed Windows 8 on it. Sucks for that guy though.

 

[BakedSardine]

But they aren't building to a standard. It's still PC hardware, anyone can install the SteamOS (we know this much for a fact).

The question is will Valve license "official" steam boxes.

True, but I think there is a bit of hubris if they think they will make large inroads in their install base. While a lot of people do build their own boxes, the vast majority of people using Steam are using off the shelf PCs with Windows pre-installed, they are not building from scratch. So to get large adoption of Steam OS, Valve needs to either:

1) Get on mass market PCs and into large retailers on a wide scale - the chance of this happening is nil. Or
2) Build hardware, which, unless they are able to offer different levels of hardware (as rumored) and are willing to upgrade those specs on a continual basis, they will lose the hardcore PC crowd.

I'd be impressed if they can make it work and make it profitable, but I don't see that happening.

 

[Wag]

What if GTAV is SteamOS exclusive?

No way in hell is that going to happen.

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

That really depends on what exactly they plan to offer. Unless it's a quick and dirty re-skin of some popular distro, it could be just an extremely basic system comparable to Arch or Gentoo minimal (and possibly derived from one of those), with X or Wayland and Steam on top - and nothing else. No desktop environment, no office suite, no games, no servers, no bullshit. It's intended for HTPCs after all, not for desktops. Everything that isn't part of the core OS will be distributed via Steam itself.

But they still need updates, because they're working on drivers with nVidia and AMD and Intel, so you need package management. Especially for the kernel. Steam can't handle that. And they'll probably need internet and wi-fi configuration too and potentially some control configuration, so throw in a small window manager (like dwm) and some basic administration settings. And a handful of other things, depending on the Steambox.

I can see them doing a minimal install of Ubuntu, with a nicely themed Openbox, a few graphical tools that hook in and out of Steam, and a custom repository set to auto install (with a tool to set when this checks/installs), mostly mirrored from Ubuntu and Debian.

 

[KojiKnight]

True, but I think there is a bit of hubris if they think they will make large inroads in their install base. While a lot of people do build their own boxes, the vast majority of people using Steam are using off the shelf PCs with Windows pre-installed, they are not building from scratch. So to get large adoption of Steam OS, Valve needs to either:

1) Get on mass market PCs and into large retailers on a wide scale - the chance of this happening is nil. Or
2) Build hardware, which, unless they are able to offer different levels of hardware (as rumored) and are willing to upgrade those specs on a continual basis, they will lose the hardcore PC crowd.

I'd be impressed if they can make it work and make it profitable, but I don't see that happening.

It's very easy to install linux on a machine now a days, you don't even have to make a boot disc... you can install from within windows itself. Steam could easily take this approach. "Hey, did you know you can stream games to your big comfy TV? Just click here and we'll install SteamOS!"

No need to reformat, no need to fuss or muss. NTFS linux drivers have fully matured so data could be stored on existing drives. Most cases you wouldn't even need to shrink/resize partitions as it could be installed on a virtual disc inside of windows (see Mint4win as an example)

 

[RoKKeR]

I'm honestly still a bit confused about SteamOS - is it supposed to be a replacement for Windows on my gaming PC?

Hopefully the impending hardware announcement will make it all a bit more clear to me.

 

[KojiKnight]

I'm honestly still a bit confused about SteamOS - is it supposed to be a replacement for Windows on my gaming PC?

Hopefully the impending hardware announcement will make it all a bit more clear to me.

It can be a replacement, but most gamers won't do that. Instead what they want people to do is buy a cheap-o HTPC to install steamOS onto and attach that to a TV. Then you use steamOS to stream the actual game from your gaming PC to your home theater/big screen TV and sit back on the couch.

 

[electricpirate]

I'm honestly still a bit confused about SteamOS - is it supposed to be a replacement for Windows on my gaming PC?

Hopefully the impending hardware announcement will make it all a bit more clear to me.

I don't think it's going to be compelling enough to ditch windows, but, it seems perfect for a HTPC with enough horsepower for games, or for streaming games.

I geuss if you are building a pure gaming desktop PC it may be an option at some point so you can save 100 dollars on a windows install.

 

[Sysgen]

What if a TV manufacturer like Panasonic or Samsung could put a TV on the shelf that you could play Fez, Aquaria or the next Portal or dare I say it Half Life 3. No console needed. That's where I can see this going.

 

[slicedmass]

Feels like they are just giving customers options and more features for pc gaming while at the same time laying the groundwork for things like a more Linux centric gaming world and a definite coming of game streaming via the internet (ala onlive). In 10-15 years video game streaming should be pretty common place for a lot of people.

 

[Grief.exe]

I was thinking about doing a reformat pretty soon anyways.

Maybe I will just wait to set up a partition and dual boot SteamOS on release.

Feels like they are just giving customers options and more features for pc gaming while at the same time laying the groundwork for things like a more Linux centric gaming world and a definite coming of game streaming via the internet (ala onlive). In 10-15 years video game streaming should be pretty common place for a lot of people.

Gabe has said in the past that he doesn't support streaming over the internet in that fashion.

This is laying the eventual groundwork for a OGL/ARM wrapper for the inevitable Android version.

 

[Wiktor]

Show what exactly? Start Steam, enable Big Picture -> that's what SteamOS looks like. I would imagine they don't even run a desktop environment in the background, just Steam for Linux directly on X or Wayland or something.

It needs desktop enviorement to succeed. Otherwise the whole OS is useless. How else would you install non Steam games on it?

 

[fallagin]

You guys, I think I might need this in my veins.

 

[Wiktor]

Why would anybody move off of DOS? That's where all of our software is!

Umm..were you even alive during switch to Windows? Because all DOS software worked just fine on it.

 

[kinoki]

This is a very logical step. It's time for something like this and they beat Microsoft to the punch. I'm all for this.

 

[hardcastlemccormick]

It needs desktop enviorement to succeed. Otherwise the whole OS is useless. How else would you install non Steam games on it?

By installing a different Linux distro instead. This is an OS for using Steam, playing media and streaming games from your other PC, that's it.

I could see them including an extra package management system for installing Linux games, but the lack of standardization in that area would make it not worth the effort. Unless Valve decides to pioneer their own standards. But they have Steam for that. So.

Umm..were you even alive during switch to Windows? Because all DOS software worked just fine on it.

Umm, were you even alive when Steam launched? Uhm, excuse me, uh, sir, but were you even alive when I made a joke and you didn't get it? Uhm, but, uhm. Um. Well.

 

[slicedmass]

I was thinking about doing a reformat pretty soon anyways.

Maybe I will just wait to set up a partition and dual boot SteamOS on release.



Gabe has said in the past that he doesn't support streaming over the internet in that fashion.

This is laying the eventual groundwork for a OGL/ARM wrapper for the inevitable Android version.

Interdasting although I feel it doesn't really matter his support for it as.Its an eventual service that will work for a lot of users and seems like a bad business decision to say no to offering the service and then giving it to another company. So hard to predict this sector though. 10-15 years is so much time that no one can guess where we will be with how content is consumed by us customers.