Episode: 1040
Title: HPR1040: Steam on Linux
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1040/hpr1040.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 17:48:56

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All right, so we've heard probably just the biggest fucking news that me or you have been,
you know, hearing rumors about for quite a while, dude.
Yeah, it is.
And just to say specifically since we're recording this for HPR, we've got Daughter,
and I'm, of course, little Jonathan Blue.
And the news we're talking about is that Daughter has finally officially announced the release,
or at least they're working on a steam client for Linux, which they have dubbed,
Schemed Pingwoods.
So far, I don't know how it's gonna pan out.
Definitely from reading the blog post, it's fairly functional right now.
Yeah, the blog post basically states that left for dead is what's in the works,
and then porting the other title.
Left for dead too.
Left for dead too.
But once they have that working, I mean, it's smooth sailing from there.
Now, do we know if left for dead too, rain on the steam engine, or was that something else?
I'm not certain.
I want to say yes.
It is a steam engine.
So if you look on the steam engine, that means they're porting the steam engine over,
and that would mean a lot of valve specific titles would not be too far behind either.
Yeah, yeah.
But there was one piece of news in that that I think we should mention is that they say they're writing this,
or writing it for Ubuntu.
And I think there's some concerns that could come up out of that pretty quickly for some people.
Oh, yes, especially me.
I'm using Savion all the time.
And I don't really plan to switch.
Now, as I mentioned, my disk takes for Unity.
And that's where I think we would have to wonder what they're doing.
No account was a pretty big project a while ago that they wrote specifically to Ubuntu
and they used Unity specific features.
Well, that was my next thing.
I really don't know if valve is going to be...
I really... I hope that valve is not going to be so mean to us to make a...
I mean, I can understand that they want to bind themselves to canonical for now because it's newsworthy.
But I really hope that they wouldn't be so mean as to make a client that has Unity down.
Yeah.
So we'll just have to kind of watch that part alone and see what they do because if it's using Unity specific hooks,
that means only something running.
Unity will ever be able to run this.
And we can't forget that also...
One else has Unity but Ubuntu.
Yeah, but this could also be just valve making a handshake deal with Ubuntu for the moment
for their distribution platform, which they are.
Not just their store or reposer would have you, but just the fact that they're probably the most widely used
that's probably next right now.
Indeed.
So it could come bundled in there.
It could come bundled in the ISO now with Ubuntu with that deal.
Well, I doubt they bundled it directly and but they would make it available through the Ubuntu store.
Yeah.
But part of the reason this was happening is a while ago, Valve actually listed some major concerns
about the future of gaming on Windows with the upcoming Windows 8.
And I think that's part of where this whole move for a Linux client is coming out of.
I want to know something.
My speculation might be that they won't write something specifically to Unity
because they are making this move, I think, in part because of the tie-ins of Windows 8
and they're trying to avoid some of that.
So I could imagine they wouldn't make those same moves here coming to the Linux platform.
Yes. Well, I mean, as long as it's not Unity bound, we might see community efforts being made to bring steam around.
I mean, I don't particularly use Savion for gaming, but I do think that, like, I mean, according to them,
Savion is intended to be a gaming platform of the form, like that's the whole point of Savion.
It's like cutting edge yet stable Linux for gaming.
I don't know. I, as I was saying before, I really like steam being brought to Linux is a big deal.
Not because they're such a big dog in the gaming community, but more, the influence alone is going to help because it's not just steam developing games on there.
I mean, I really think that steam kind of brought immigrant indie gaming to the forefront because a lot of indie games get released on the steam platform.
Yeah. Steam is probably the biggest centralized marketplace for gaming at this point.
Yeah. I mean, we have the Sora, and I think the Sora is already on Linux.
And I, I slightly think that this steam, the steam move could be sort of like, you know, maybe the Sora is on to something.
And the fact that going back to what you said there, the fact that you think that they're scared of Windows 8, so to speak,
that doesn't stay much for me because if I'm scared of going to Windows 8 to play games, and Valve is scared to go to Windows 8 to play games, what does that say for game companies?
I don't know. Like that's not, I mean, I'm not the only one with these concerns.
Well, part of steam, Valve's concerns with gaming on Windows 8 is their steam platform, not just their games.
Yeah. And I mean, I think a lot of people are not happy with the whole metro interface. Nobody wants a mobile phone desktop.
I mean, my daughter is even upset over just mentioning Windows 8 phone UI.
Right. I mean, I think that the metro interfaces is all well and good. I'm not going to say it's the most fantastic thing I've ever used on the Xbox.
But in the Xbox, on the Xbox, it works a lot better than what the new Xbox experience was.
But I mean, not something I think I want on a computer.
I did, I am running Windows 8 on a computer here, and I haven't touched it in months. Like I got that developer release when that came out.
If I really, I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to say anything premature, but I want to say that like adding applications to that metro interface is not as nice as I'd like it to be.
Like it's not hard or nothing. It's not overly difficult. I mean, we may be more technical than others, but for me at least it's not difficult to add a new button to that menu.
But it's not very clean. Like icons go missing and things. And it's just not as nice looking as a app that is Metro-enabled already.
So, and the fact that every time I hit that Windows Start button, that metro interface comes up. I just want to puke.
It's not. I want to get away from that. And it's, I don't know. I mean, I already don't like the Windows interface with the Start button and all.
And then they're going to throw like a whole full screen over everything. I don't know.
Yeah. Well, let's go back to the original topic that's got us going here. Final thoughts or overall thoughts on this moved by Valve dev finally after years of speculation releasing a Linux client.
I don't know. I really, in the end, I just think it's great because I mean, I'm running Windows now, but I mostly play Minecraft.
And then recently I bought like Borderlands and Saints Row 3 on Steam. You know, the Steam sales are amazing.
But that's what's keeping me from going to Linux on some of my desktops here. It's not, it's not so nice to not have those games around when I take for them over here.
But I can actually like make the move to Linux and forget Windows forever. And that, but.
And I have to say my final thoughts. It's fantastic to hear, you know, Valve finally announcing what's been rumored on and off for what three, four years now at least.
Yeah. And, you know, to hear that they've got something that is apparently pretty much a fully functional client up and going is great.
I am really hoping though that it's not tied to Unity specific or some bizarre Ubuntu specific thing like we found with one screen recording utility in the past.
Yeah, at least.
But one other thing that I think some people will want to pay attention to if it's a concern for them, this means that some form of a DRM system will be coming along with it.
So, I'm willing to live with this option, but it's something that, you know, we'll just have to, you know, realize it coming.
Yeah, it's going to happen, but especially with if EA gets behind this at all.
We'll see if their own system now is sold or run, but that can be a completely different subject for another day.
For sure.
All right. Well, I'm paying this recording now.
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