Archived Editorial: I ditched SteamOS in favour of a normal Linux distribution for my gaming (gamingonlinux.com)
submitted ago by ChillyHellion
Posted by: ChillyHellion
Posting time: 4.3 years ago on
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Archived on: 2/12/2017 1:51:00 AM
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36 upvotes, 0 downvotes (100% upvoted it)
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Archived Editorial: I ditched SteamOS in favour of a normal Linux distribution for my gaming (gamingonlinux.com)
submitted ago by ChillyHellion
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[–] Forbin 0 points 13 points 13 points (+13|-0) ago (edited ago)
I've gotten a LOT of downvotes here in the past when I said nearly the exact same thing about SteamOS...I'm glad to finally see that folks are willing to call a spade a spade. SteamOS is garbage. It was birthed from Gabe Newell's meltdown over Microsoft's plans to compete with Steam. Folks should be honest about Valve--they're not really promoting FOSS. To the contrary, they are pioneers in DRM and closed-systems...and worse yet, they have a LONG history of being anti-consumer and doing really negative shit that impacts all PC gaming (e.g. creating a gambling industry, attempting to charge for mods, selling unfinished, buggy products as "early access," etc.)
At it's core, SteamOS was an attempt by Valve to maintain it's virtual monopoly in PC gaming by creating what is tantamount to a walled-garden of it's own. There was NEVER a reason for them to focus on creating their own distro instead of the broader Linux base. SteamOS literally boots into a storefront and does it's absolute best to keep people there. It has a lot more in common with Amazon's FireOS (a fork of Android) than it does with run-of-the-mill Linux distros....the real intention was to move PC gaming over to a platform where they didn't have real competition.
I'm all for gaming on Linux and I know that folks who use Linux were mostly fans of SteamOS because it brought more games over. Just don't delude yourselves that Valve has any noble intentions....if it did, it could have opted to allocate it's time and resources into better integrating the Steam client into the big distros instead of building it's own (shitty) storefront distro.
And don't get me started on a rant about Steam Machines....
[–] bikergang_accountant 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago
I don't know why Linux old hat never try to introduce new Linux users to Free gaming. I installed Brutal Doom on my friends Mac (it was hell getting it done). He immediately put down Modern Warfare II.
[–] Kookus 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago
Yeah, that's what I did, too. I'm still using Big Picture as my UI by way of a startup script, largely because I like the design and like being able to control everything with the Steam remote, but it has its issues, and having a real DE to fall back on when it goes wonky is really nice.
[–] ChillyHellion [S] ago
Nice :) I love big picture but I have my desktop hooked up to my monitor and my TV so I flip between the two.
[–] Kookus 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
Nice. Mine's driving the bigscreen in the living room, and I'm trying to make it easy enough that everyone else can use it without much trouble -- sort of like it's supposed to be out of the box.
The guy mentioned that he couldn't get Netflix working... I just registered a chrome app and then modified the command to go full-screen and point to Netflix. Because it uses my saved credentials, this works like a champ. This is basically the same way I had to set it up in Kodi because the Netflix "launcher" is busted due ot lack of maintenance. The only down-side is that there's no way to get out of the app other than to alt-f4 it, but you can map that to the controller, so no big deal.
For everything else (Pandora, local video/audio streaming via nfs, etc.), I just registered a launcher for Kodi. Kodi occasionally does weird stuff when it goes full-screen video; I think it is stealing focus from the Steam overlay. But I have a BT keyboard hidden away for those little hiccups.
[–] ChillyHellion [S] 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
Archive
[–] 6194836? 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago (edited ago)
Valve is no longer in the software business, they sell keys for fan-made cosmetic items now. How the mighty have fallen...
[–] Scotcheggs 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
I was really hoping steam os and the steam machines would take off. They had a good chance because this gen consoles were rather weak and disappointing. I was eager to get one myself until I watched a few steam OS demos. It's suprising how badly they actually failed.