Windows 8 to offer nine versions for sale

[Carol Haynes]

The link isn't broken - right click and show it in another window. Must have leech protect or similar applied to it. Perhaps you couple save the file and add it as an attachment!

[mahesh2k]

The image is hosted on free image hosting so they are likely to have bandwidth limitation. It doesn't load sometimes. Here is the first blow for windows 8.

The chaps at Phoronix have confirmation from Valve that the developer are working on a Linux version of their platform-bestriding distribution system, and are even hiring new Linux developers. Phoronix have apparently spoken directly to Mr Newell, who was quite keen on the open-source platform. They report: “His level of Linux interest and commitment was incredible while his negativity for Windows 8 and the future of Microsoft was stunning. In fact, as soon as I return to my office this weekend I plan to try out Windows 8 simply to see if it’s as bad as Gabe states…”

http://www.rockpaper...ng-to-linux-at-last/

[Carol Haynes]

LOL !!

Not sure I would take Gabe seriously - they may want to expand into Linux (which would be great) but I can't seem them abandoning Windows any time soon - not matter how much he hates Windows 8.

Don't forget the article is written by people with a vested interest in Linux!

The image is hosted on free image hosting so they are likely to have bandwidth limitation. It doesn't load sometimes.

-mahesh2k (April 27, 2012, 03:14 AM)

Doesn't display in thread for me at all, ever - displays fine if I right click on the placeholder and say show in new tab.

[Curt]

-oh, so there really is something?
I thought he first posted and then went back and deleted, leaving an empty post:

[Deozaan]

I see a broken image placeholder.

[jgpaiva]

-oh, so there really is something?
I thought he first posted and then went back and deleted, leaving an empty post:

-Curt (April 27, 2012, 05:27 AM)

Fixed

[mahesh2k]

LOL !!

Not sure I would take Gabe seriously - they may want to expand into Linux (which would be great) but I can't seem them abandoning Windows any time soon - not matter how much he hates Windows 8.

Don't forget the article is written by people with a vested interest in Linux!

The image is hosted on free image hosting so they are likely to have bandwidth limitation. It doesn't load sometimes.

-mahesh2k (April 27, 2012, 03:14 AM)

Doesn't display in thread for me at all, ever - displays fine if I right click on the placeholder and say show in new tab.

-Carol Haynes (April 27, 2012, 05:17 AM)

I didn't mean it that they are abandoning the platform. I don't think we have to take this news as if it is from linux people. What I feel about this news is that more software publishers moving for the  linux or in general away from windows means there is going to be decline of users. I know many people on diaspora using windows only for steam and news like this is going to turn them away from windows if they get same software for linux platform and that is ..big change.

[Carol Haynes]

I know many people on diaspora using windows only for steam

-mahesh2k (April 27, 2012, 11:27 AM)

You are probably correct.

The big problem is not porting Steam but porting the games people want to play!

There are oodles of games for Windows on Steam and they have done a pretty good job with most getting them to be compatible with Windows XP through to 7 x64, but the choice for Mac is much smaller and I can't imagine that any time soon a huge library of Linux games will appear.

There is also the real problem distro differences to deal with - unless they abstract that - and then it would be good if graphics and sound card manufacturers actually started to produce any drivers for Linux at all.

Not an easy task for Steam to convince the developers who have to see dollar signs (or pound signs, or whatever) before committing themselves to a very expensive project.

[mahesh2k]

I know what you mean by driver problem. I have this new Dell vostro 1550 with ubuntu 10.10 which died on current soundcard driver. I am going to upgrade it to see if the driver works. In any case linux hardly suffers  from driver issue like this because most of the time community is quite active for unofficial drivers. e.g sakis3g that supports dongles of almost any manufacturer on linux.

Distro difference is not serious because package building hardly takes few minutes to hours. So if we assume they release steam for ubuntu then it will run on debian and all the chiId distros of it. Only thing will be about porting to non-debian distros which is not hard to setup as another community project on other distros.

I don't think steam people have to convince anyone to develop for linux. Nobody convinced app developers and game developers to develop for android but we all know that many developer are these days developing for android and apple at the same time. All that I see these days are blackberry, Nokia and windows app store without any good apps or games.

[Deozaan]

Distro difference is not serious because package building hardly takes few minutes to hours. So if we assume they release steam for ubuntu then it will run on debian and all the chiId distros of it. Only thing will be about porting to non-debian distros which is not hard to setup as another community project on other distros.

-mahesh2k (April 27, 2012, 12:22 PM)

I think you're missing an important point:

There's a big difference between running the Steam client on Linux and running Steam games on Linux.

Though a natural consequence of porting the Steam client to Linux will be more developers porting their games to Linux, that won't change the fact that almost the entire Steam library of games have no Linux port, and therefore would be unplayable on Linux even if you could run the Steam client on Linux.

[mahesh2k]

I am not missing the point here, thats why i presented android app store example. Like app store,games in linux steam arent going to get filled overnight. Python and C/Cpp, java games? Sure thats easy. C sharp games with dx or ms game dev studio released games? Hell lot of time to port them. In fact these are the games that will take more time to get there.

[Deozaan]

C sharp games with dx or ms game dev studio released games? Hell lot of time to port them. In fact these are the games that will take more time to get there.

-mahesh2k (April 27, 2012, 06:25 PM)

And most of the existing library will probably not be ported at all.

[Ath]

And most of the existing library will probably not be ported at all.

-Deozaan (April 28, 2012, 02:48 AM)

Sounds like Microsoft is shooting themself in the foot... with a high-power nuclear gun

[mahesh2k]

They have a platform to protect and have more commercial intentions. Whereas linux is not centralized and is people driven, so microsoft is not shooting themself in the foot, they're just trying to hold the platform as long as possible. I do have some expectations with Wine, but it is far from perfect when it comes to porting games.