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OK I have been wondering about how many people who brought Steam Machines are actually using them in the Living room instead of just adding a KBM, turning them into full fledge computers? In fact I will bet that most purchasers have replaced SteamOS with some other Distro... If I just spent ~$1000 on the Zotac Steam Machine for example, I would certainly`use it as a full computer instead of a game console.

Now that I'm thinking about this, did Valve even planned on people not using SteamOS at all?

Has anyone here even bought one?

just brew it! wrote:

Has anyone here even bought one?

Considering that we could build a better Linux gaming system for the prices the Steam Machines go for, probably not. Aside perhaps the Alienware and Zotac machines due to their small size.

I'd be more excited about SteamOS if they put some effort toward including non-Steam legacy games (e.g. give Wine some lovin'), as it is I just see it as a console wannabe that's not very useful beyond a distribution platform that I don't particularly like in the first place.

I don't think Valve really considered the full implications of SteamOS and user alternatives, nor do they care. The project mostly exists to show that Microsoft is not the only superpower anymore, whether it actually succeeds is secondary.

I actually bought a steam machine back during a black friday sale. The Cyberpower PC Syber. It was actually cheaper, by about ~$50 than parting it out even when I didn't the $100 MIR and only counted $100 Instant rebates. It was a really good deal.

I ended up putting it in a different case, an NCASE M1 I had for a planned ITX build that this replaced. It's under my TV as I type. But I'm typing this post on that system, using a wireless keyboard and trackball for living room use, and I've triple booted it to SteamOS, Win10 and Manjaro. I'm thinking of maybe just replacing Manjaro with OpenElec if I can't get the rendering stack or window manager (not sure which is the problem) in SteamOS to play nice. It works fine in desktop mode but Big Picture mode has problems with applications that aren't full screen, even terminal windows. It's a little annoying actually.

NovusBogus wrote:

I'd be more excited about SteamOS if they put some effort toward including non-Steam legacy games (e.g. give Wine some lovin'), as it is I just see it as a console wannabe that's not very useful beyond a distribution platform that I don't particularly like in the first place.

I don't think Valve really considered the full implications of SteamOS and user alternatives, nor do they care. The project mostly exists to show that Microsoft is not the only superpower anymore, whether it actually succeeds is secondary.

Yeah I think that the real purpose of SteamOS/Steam Machines was to make gaming on Linux viable. Given the number of Linux games I brought and planning on buying even more, I will consider this to be successful.

Aren't steam machines just regular computers with steamOS pre-installed? My thoughts are.....they're just regular computers with steamOS instead of windows.

As for steamOS, I really want it to take off. Breaking the microsoft near monopoly on gaming would be a good thing.

I'm still not sure what a Steam Machine is going to do that the same machine with plain Ubuntu on it won't. And if plain Ubuntu can't do something that SteamOS can, then what does that tell us about Valve's plans for linux? That they'd rather have us run their variant of it instead of what we'd install on our and our friends'/family's computers?

odizzido wrote:

Aren't steam machines just regular computers with steamOS pre-installed? My thoughts are.....they're just regular computers with steamOS instead of windows.

As for steamOS, I really want it to take off. Breaking the microsoft near monopoly on gaming would be a good thing.

Yes. And SteamOS is just Debian with some updates and using Big Picture Mode.

Firestarter wrote:

I'm still not sure what a Steam Machine is going to do that the same machine with plain Ubuntu on it won't. And if plain Ubuntu can't do something that SteamOS can, then what does that tell us about Valve's plans for linux? That they'd rather have us run their variant of it instead of what we'd install on our and our friends'/family's computers?

SteamOS is just a baseline for game developers to target. Keep in mind that the Steam Client for Linux was out a few years before SteamOS and the Steam Machines were released.

I dual boot my HTPC with SteamOS and Win10, since I wanted to test SteamOS about a year ago.

Thing is, Steam on Win10 is better than SteamOS by a non-trivial margin. I boot into Steam very infrequently - and it's only out of curiousity really. I quickly have to boot back into Windows to regain access to the majority of my Steam library

whm1974 wrote:

odizzido wrote:

Aren't steam machines just regular computers with steamOS pre-installed? My thoughts are.....they're just regular computers with steamOS instead of windows.
As for steamOS, I really want it to take off. Breaking the microsoft near monopoly on gaming would be a good thing.

Yes. And SteamOS is just Debian with some updates and using Big Picture Mode.

Firestarter wrote:

I'm still not sure what a Steam Machine is going to do that the same machine with plain Ubuntu on it won't. And if plain Ubuntu can't do something that SteamOS can, then what does that tell us about Valve's plans for linux? That they'd rather have us run their variant of it instead of what we'd install on our and our friends'/family's computers?

SteamOS is just a baseline for game developers to target. Keep in mind that the Steam Client for Linux was out a few years before SteamOS and the Steam Machines were released.

Honestly I will say that the idea of a baseline OS that has a consistent environment is really really useful for game developers. The truth is the various libraries, library versions, how different package managers handle things, etc is really hard to develop universally for when the goal is 'It just works'. As an advantage that means that for most cases the game will work just fine on another distro. But by having a defined 'this is the standard' userland it's much easier to port.
The next step is a consistent and high performance render path. But that's it's own kettle of fish on linux. I think that's one thing that's holding things back. There's, so far as I understand, really no equivalent to exclusive fullscreen mode as it exists on Windows.

Oh and X11 needs a successor. The model is great for what it's design envisions, but the fact that it uses a client server model on the same host is a little twitch inducing for me as a gamer. It's godly as a system admin or dev though.

Well if a standard userland is what they want, why don't they take what is arguably the standard already and make sure that the Steam client works perfectly on that? Because that is not the case so far. I only ever use Steam on linux to stream from my Windows PC to my HTPC, but to get even that to work I have to downgrade drivers that ship with Ubuntu to make them work with the outdated libraries that use them in Steam. Coincidentally, if I install Linux Mint instead of Ubuntu, it works out of the box because Mint is based on an old version of Ubuntu (like SteamOS) and thus uses the old drivers. This has been a known issue for the last 18 months.

I get that having a supported baseline is great for everyone, partly because issues like the one I have can be solved in the OS, and I guess that it's in the spirit of things to spin your own distro if that is what it takes to get things right, but I don't think that it's the best thing they could do if promoting gaming on linux is their ultimate goal.

I have a not-quite Steam Machine. Alienware X51 running Windows 10. I use it for Netflix, DVDs, iPlayer, and Steam games. If SteamOS had a big enough game library (or Windows compatibility), I'd be tempted. But Windows has too many advantages.

Firestarter wrote:

Well if a standard userland is what they want, why don't they take what is arguably the standard already and make sure that the Steam client works perfectly on that? Because that is not the case so far. I only ever use Steam on linux to stream from my Windows PC to my HTPC, but to get even that to work I have to downgrade drivers that ship with Ubuntu to make them work with the outdated libraries that use them in Steam. Coincidentally, if I install Linux Mint instead of Ubuntu, it works out of the box because Mint is based on an old version of Ubuntu (like SteamOS) and thus uses the old drivers. This has been a known issue for the last 18 months.

I get that having a supported baseline is great for everyone, partly because issues like the one I have can be solved in the OS, and I guess that it's in the spirit of things to spin your own distro if that is what it takes to get things right, but I don't think that it's the best thing they could do if promoting gaming on linux is their ultimate goal.

And what is the standard Linux Distro? Speaking for myself, I never had a problem using Steam with any distro I used.

whm1974 wrote:

And what is the standard Linux Distro? Speaking for myself, I never had a problem using Steam with any distro I used.

I guess that can't be answered without sparking a furious off topic debate. I'm sure it runs great on a wide variety of machines and distros, but for me it looks like the issue that I'm having is caused by not using their reference distro. Or vice versa, their application doesn't run as well as it could on my HTPC because of a higher focus on SteamOS instead of the popular current distros

Firestarter wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

And what is the standard Linux Distro? Speaking for myself, I never had a problem using Steam with any distro I used.

I guess that can't be answered without sparking a furious off topic debate. I'm sure it runs great on a wide variety of machines and distros, but for me it looks like the issue that I'm having is caused by not using their reference distro. Or vice versa, their application doesn't run as well as it could on my HTPC because of a higher focus on SteamOS instead of the popular current distros

Bummer. I guess everyone's mileage will vary.

odizzido wrote:

As for steamOS, I really want it to take off. Breaking the microsoft near monopoly on gaming would be a good thing.

I'm all for third-party games being made compatible with SteamOS, but if all the games have to be bought and managed with Steam then it's really just trading one monopoly for another. Sometimes monopolies are useful--MS and Valve both did very important things in their respective heydays--but I'm not in a very monopolistic mood these days.

NovusBogus wrote:

odizzido wrote:

As for steamOS, I really want it to take off. Breaking the microsoft near monopoly on gaming would be a good thing.

I'm all for third-party games being made compatible with SteamOS, but if all the games have to be bought and managed with Steam then it's really just trading one monopoly for another. Sometimes monopolies are useful--MS and Valve both did very important things in their respective heydays--but I'm not in a very monopolistic mood these days.

Well at least with steamOS it is possible for someone else to build their own version. The main problem for anyone doing this would likely be getting the game publishers to work with them rather than anything technical or legal to do with SteamOS which is very different from pretty any other gaming platform.

I considered SteamOS for a few minutes but the effort of getting PLEX to run on the system made me back away. I do however like that it is out there. It is a good option for OS should I ever build for a friend who can't provide his/her own legal Windows key and isn't savoy enough for straight up Linux.

Anovoca wrote:

I considered SteamOS for a few minutes but the effort of getting PLEX to run on the system made me back away. I do however like that it is out there. It is a good option for OS should I ever build for a friend who can't provide his/her own legal Windows key and isn't savoy enough for straight up Linux.

Don't need SteamOS for that. There are Linux distros meant for new users.

Steam Machines are usually underpowered or overpriced "noob traps".

SteamOS - like any consumer desktop Linux OS - is a solution looking for a problem.

Kretschmer wrote:

SteamOS - like any consumer desktop Linux OS - is a solution looking for a problem.

I would quite honestly say SteamOS is most definitely trying to solve a real problem, just not one for the consumer per se. That is an OS that game developers will dev for that isn't Windows or a Console with all the associated lockin that those imply. The problem is that it's also trying to be a regular computer, and a console and a few other compromises. Unfortunately Valve, with it's corporate structure, seems to lack the type of very focused long term attention that would be needed to get the platform up and running quickly. I don't doubt that they have the potential to get there eventually, (see Steam itself) but it'll be a long and bumpy road.

ETA: Just to clarify, by OS I mean a defined target environment not just kernel, since clearly just having Linux exist didn't do the trick

But games are starting to come to SteamOS and Linux in general, and I honestly believe that from the standpoint of gaming on something other than Windows for PC use, SteamOS is slowly starting to succeed. Especially with the change from in house engine to using 3d party engines that the industry is doing, which means that if the engine is ported then it's a much smaller investment to port the game. And that's all it really needs.

As an aside, the truth of the matter is that game developers, once they've created a linux port, aren't required to sell it through Steam. The problem of course is without an alternative like GoG developing a Linux storefront that works on SteamOS there's nowhere to sell it from.

I disagree desktop linux is a solution in search of a problem; I think there's tons of demand for a desktop OS that doesn't suck and isn't Windows, which every 'prosumer' would likely at least consider. OSX would be more widely used if Apple wanted to put the resources in to it, but there's no reason for them to. I'd say it differently; there's a desktop OS problem searching in vain for a linux solution.

I don't get the idea SteamOS is even really trying to address that at all though, not yet. Their progress is so slow it's a little hard to believe they're really trying to address anything at all. Like a kid that got a new toy and has already got bored. I used to have a lot of hope for them but their progress has just been too slow.

w76 wrote:

I don't get the idea SteamOS is even really trying to address that at all though, not yet. Their progress is so slow it's a little hard to believe they're really trying to address anything at all. Like a kid that got a new toy and has already got bored. I used to have a lot of hope for them but their progress has just been too slow.

I honestly think that they created SteamOS in a similar vein to Steam itself. Which is something for their own purposes, that they maintain and open up a bit, and just wait. When the market changes they'll be positioned as the go to alternative. I don't think they're trying to build the market from the ground up, I think they're trying to just exist and be in popular conciousness and wait for developers to come to them because of mistakes by others (read Microsoft).

For example if Microsoft ever did actually piss off a lot of PC developers with UWP shenannigans, then 'Hey, there's always SteamOS, lets give that a shot' and viola market shift achievement unlocked.

w76 wrote:

I think there's tons of demand for a desktop OS that doesn't suck and isn't Windows

Why? There's a vocal minority that plays with different OSes for a hobby, but most people are going to go where the applications/support is and where their existing skills apply.

Kretschmer wrote:

w76 wrote:

I think there's tons of demand for a desktop OS that doesn't suck and isn't Windows

Why? There's a vocal minority that plays with different OSes for a hobby, but most people are going to go where the applications/support is and where their existing skills apply.

While that's true, I don't think it's the consumer Valve is looking at for the OS. I think they're trying to just exist as a viable option for if/when other market changes make them a more palatable option than the market leader. When it happens, there'll be a lot of people helping improve SteamOS with tweaks and forks which can be folded back into the mainline version.

And if that doesn't happen they probably haven't lost that much.
Edit:grammar

Kretschmer wrote:

Why? There's a vocal minority that plays with different OSes for a hobby, but most people are going to go where the applications/support is and where their existing skills apply.

One of the points of Steam OS is to remove the need to have "existing skills" to be a PC gamer. It's a managed gaming environment a bit like a console but without the hardware lockin (albeit with a semi Valve lockin). The whole point of it is that you buy a box, plug it in and have your games appear without you having to download/install anything. All updates are taken care of for you and at least in the short term you don't have to worry very much about malware. The game installation process is also much soother than it is under Windows, no clicking "next. next, next" on a bunch of installer wizards. Games download and decompress at the same time becoming playable as soon as they've finished downloading.

Go back to before Steam OS came along and there was simply no way to achieve this with Windows. When you sold a Windows PC it had to boot into a Windows desktop, you weren't allowed to have it simply boot into something like Big Picture mode and ask you what games you wanted from your library.

If you've only ever gamed on a console or phone/tablet this is a path into PC gaming that means you don't have to learn how to run a Windows PC. In your view "most" people already know how to run a Windows PC but working in IT support my opinion is that virtually no users I deal with have even the faintest idea what they're doing. This will be different on sites like TR but the reality is that most people don't know how to use Windows and aren't interested in learning. Most people are looking for a mobile like experience (Android and iOS have certainly been very popular with most people) and while Windows 10 can give that to you with UWP apps the fact is that there are more games available for Steam OS than there are for Windows using UWP.

Ikepuska wrote:

Kretschmer wrote:

w76 wrote:

I think there's tons of demand for a desktop OS that doesn't suck and isn't Windows

Why? There's a vocal minority that plays with different OSes for a hobby, but most people are going to go where the applications/support is and where their existing skills apply.

While that's true, I don't think it's the consumer Valve is looking at for the OS. I think they're trying to just exist as a viable option for if/when other market changes make them a more palatable option than the market leader. When it happens, there'll be a lot of people helping improve SteamOS with tweaks and forks which can be folded back into the mainline version.

And if that doesn't happen they probably haven't lost that much.
Edit:grammar

Like I said Steam runs just fine on other ditros besides SteamOS, even non-Debian based ones.

whm1974 wrote:

Ikepuska wrote:

*snip*While that's true, I don't think it's the consumer Valve is looking at for the OS. I think they're trying to just exist as a viable option for if/when other market changes make them a more palatable option than the market leader. When it happens, there'll be a lot of people helping improve SteamOS with tweaks and forks which can be folded back into the mainline version.

And if that doesn't happen they probably haven't lost that much.
Edit:grammar

Like I said Steam runs just fine on other ditros besides SteamOS, even non-Debian based ones.

That's true, but I think of SteamOS as a part of the mostly successful push to start developers down the path of Linux ports. It's arguable if it was a necessary part or not, but I personally think that having a defined development target and the marketing features of SteamOS were preconditions to the larger success of the Linux Gaming movement.

We can agree or not on that last point, but I don't think we'd have gotten Shadow of Mordor on Linux without Steam Machines and SteamOS being a thing. That's just my opinion.

Ikepuska wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

Ikepuska wrote:

*snip*While that's true, I don't think it's the consumer Valve is looking at for the OS. I think they're trying to just exist as a viable option for if/when other market changes make them a more palatable option than the market leader. When it happens, there'll be a lot of people helping improve SteamOS with tweaks and forks which can be folded back into the mainline version.

And if that doesn't happen they probably haven't lost that much.
Edit:grammar

Like I said Steam runs just fine on other ditros besides SteamOS, even non-Debian based ones.

That's true, but I think of SteamOS as a part of the mostly successful push to start developers down the path of Linux ports. It's arguable if it was a necessary part or not, but I personally think that having a defined development target and the marketing features of SteamOS were preconditions to the larger success of the Linux Gaming movement.

We can agree or not on that last point, but I don't think we'd have gotten Shadow of Mordor on Linux without Steam Machines and SteamOS being a thing. That's just my opinion.

I agree with you on both points. Although like I said before, I doubt that most of the folks who brought Steam Machines are using them as Living Room game consoles.