http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/11/steam-os-available-decemeber-13th/

Anyone out there excited to install this on a home machine or do most duders plan to wait awhile? I'm considering trying some dual boot action once I see what all is involved with the install.

I'm going to wait until the major kinks are worked out and there are some stable drivers released.

"Unless you're an experienced Linux hacker, though, Valve recommends that you hold off until later next year to give it a shot."

And the question is perpetuated: What the fuck is the once Source-games developer doing with their time nowadays? Jesus..

..Anyway, I hope the OS will please those who are interested. I'll be using Win7 for the next few years, I'm pretty comfortable.

Wonder how it would run in a virtual machine?

Windows works fine.

The way I see it, this is just like the new consoles: gotta wait a bit. i have some experience with linux, but i don't wanna install this until all the inevitable major bugs are resolved.

Doing stuff better than solely making video games

I probably won't try it right away but I will be paying close attention to how it turns out; better be videos up after it launches about how it looks and works.

Yes, anyone who has been around this stuff knows be excited but hold off on version 1.0 until it is well tested.

Microsoft, for example, didn't neglect developing more Windows (as well as the rest of their products which unlike Windows are useless), in order to start making game consoles. They continued to Windows, while simultaneously branching further into something that is better than solely making Windows: creating a terrific line of game consoles.

Valve done fucked up with their focus. If they can't simultaneously do both, then they chose the wrong option to focus on IMO.

You know me, I'm Vincent "Experienced Linux Hacker" Caravella.

Huh? This logic supposes Microsoft has done both well (have they really?) and Valve can not handle multiplatform (which they do) and that they are stopping development on their games to launch this (which they are not looking at the updates to CS:GO and Dota 2).

I have a spare machine that I will try and run it on. Trying to see if I can get everything smoothly running up in the living room will be pretty interesting. I have spent a lot of time with Linux in college and on the side in my professional life but if it is an year out, it shouldn't be too hard to handle at this stage. Even if it is, Linux communities are willing to help and have lots of documents on almost any subject in that universe. It is all in the research.

He's just mad that they're not making games that he wants to play

i'm so lacking the motivation to learn how to use linux (especially the command line), though it's something i really HAVE to learn for my work. maybe this will help.

I second this. It's misguided, ignorant, angry banter.

Might dump it onto a separate SSD and have a play, wonder if it's a openSUSE or Debian fork. Probably Debian since a lot of their early work was on Ubuntu.

maybe run it off a thumb drive? :fun:

They're saying the Streaming is coming in later in a patch, so no I won't be installing it on the 13th. The streaming is the entirety of what I want out of SteamOS.

I remember reading somewhere that Gabe Newell does not want to make any more retail games. It's a very volatile market and they have been far more successful making DotA 2 and TF2 fun, approachable, and financially profitable.

At this point, the hype for HL3 is so huge that they could ship the most perfect game ever made, and people will be disappointed. The only game-related product I want to see out of them is Left 4 Dead 3, but with the same free-to-play model as TF2 and DotA2, or even a small up-front fee like CS:GO.

@chiablo: Just release a .txt file that finishes the Half-Life story, if that's really the route they want to go. Totally acceptable.

I'm planning on waiting until my Steam Machine arrives in the mail on Monday.

I'm not expecting much to begin with but I'll absolutely give it a go. It'll be interesting to follow along and see how their idea of a user-friendly Linux evolves.

/home/gaben/.plan

It's a custom distribution not based on Debian or any other distribution.

From Engadget:

As promised, the OS is built on Linux (not based on Ubuntu, we're told, but entirely custom), though you'd never know it as the only interactive layer is all Steam.

worth a try, but even still valve has had rocky launches even on their own modest attempts. So taking it with a grain of salt.... they still haven't improved Big Picture mode since it's launch.

As I understand, the inner workings of Valve are very unique. Unlike EA or Activision there is no "you must make this game" boss. Everyone does what they want and eventually that doing stuff turns into gameplay which turns into a game. If no one there wants to make Half-Life 3 then Half-Life 3 will not be made, they're off doing stuff they want to make (which mostly will never see the light of day since they can't make a game behind it).

Yea I'll give it a go dual running, I don't know a lot about Linux but this should be a good chance to have a look see.

Oh I wasn't suggesting they haven't put significant work into tailoring Linux for their own needs, simply citing their early test bed. Ubuntu itself uses Debian package manager and the Steam client has been served up in .deb form on Linux until now, so it's likely that will be the package manager bundled up with the rest of the OS.

Well I guess we'll find out either way in 2 days. Woo!

Well its up now. You can download it from http://repo.steampowered.com/download/SteamOSInstaller.zip if you want.

Edit: OK so the download has failed on me twice now. I'm guessing their servers are getting hammered right now.

Official FAQ: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/1/648814395741989999/

Lots of info, unofficial torrent, official checksums and more: http://steamdb.info/blog/35/

I love to see enthusiastic early adopters. Partially to give life to a system, and partially to make it easy for me to sit back and watch while the kinks get ironed out and I can jump on later.