Valve announce Steam OS

[Neil]

http://www.nextpowerup.com/news/3809...pc-gamers.html Valve announced its own operating system for PC gamers, which turns any PC into a "Steambox." Simply named Steam OS, the operating system is a highly modified Debian Linux stripped to bare, with all its non-essentials tossed out, and proprietary multimedia CODECs added, along with fonts, runtime environments, and in-built drivers for popular GPU, sound card, and gaming-peripheral brands. In essence, there's everything in the operating system for PC gamers, and then some. http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/

[EvilNed]

So it's like a windows, except you can't work on it.

[Neil]

So it's like a windows, except you can't work on it. I suspect (being based on Linux) it'll have open source flavours? It's clearly aimed IMHO at entertainment/consumption devices though, so not a replacement for a true PC?

[krakenslayer]

I can't decide whether this is a stupid idea - of what little benefit is a "game-optimized" OS when it has to compromise to accommodate a vast plethora of hardware, just like Windows does (standardized hardware was supposed to be the big sell of this whole project, no?) - or whether it is another nail in Microsoft's rapidly-closing coffin.

[shootemindehead]

F*ck that shite. Steam is a piece of $hit. It always has been. Grand for buying cheap deal games, utter bollocks for everything else.

[Neil]

I can't decide whether this is a stupid idea - of what little benefit is a "game-optimized" OS when it has to compromise to accommodate a vast plethora of hardware, just like Windows does (standardized hardware was supposed to be the big sell of this whole project, no?) - or whether it is another nail in Microsoft's rapidly-closing coffin. I don't think it's aimed at standard PC's, more as a means of creating a method of generating a new bread of game machines with a standard OS on them!? - - - Updated - - - F*ck that shite. Steam is a piece of $hit. It always has been. Grand for buying cheap deal games, utter bollocks for everything else. Can't agree there! Great way indeed to buy software, but also to keep it up to date, and then to play easily with friend online too!

[shootemindehead]

It's UI is awful. It's as buggy as hell and it does things that I don't want it to do. Sometimes I don't want a game "patched", sometimes I just want to play the bloody thing. I don't like being locked out of a game for hours while Steam (ing pile of crap) diddles about with its godawful patching process, applying a "patch" that I didn't want in the first place. These are basic things that can be fixed easilly, but Valve simply ignore users who have been asking for these basic fixes for years.

[Neil]

It's UI is awful. It's as buggy as hell and it does things that I don't want it to do. Sometimes I don't want a game "patched", sometimes I just want to play the bloody thing. I don't like being locked out of a game for hours while Steam (ing pile of crap) diddles about with its godawful patching process, applying a "patch" that I didn't want in the first place. These are basic things that can be fixed easilly, but Valve simply ignore users who have been asking for these basic fixes for years. Are we talking about the same product? Terrible UI - Generally OK, but I would admit it could do with simplifying as a number of different options/areas do the same thing. Buggy as hell - Can't recall the last time I had a problem? Locked out of games - It's very rarely I want to play a game, and it's being patched? Typically and downloads are done seamlessly in the background? I've even got it to update my video drivers for me automatically!

[shootemindehead]

Same product, different xp. Case in point about patching, the other night I went to play Shogun, found out it "needed" a patch. A patch I didn't feckin want...result = I couldn't play for the next 2 hours while slow as shite steam struggled to download 16mb. All on a 50mb fibre connection? God help 'Rome II' players, cos there's a patch every bleedin week going out for that thing. If I want a patch, I should have the option to download...IF I want it. If I want to just play a flippin game and download a patch later, I should be able to do that. That's Day One stuff. But, no, Steam dictates to the user when a patch is to be applied. Not only, its patching is bloody stupid. What Steam does is it checks your files against the files on its servers and goes through a rigmarole, instead of simply downloading and applying the files that are "in need" of updating. It's a ridiculous method, but indicative of the rubbish arcitechture that the platform is built on. As for bugs, while downloading this do nothing patch, Steam reported that there was 0 bytes downloading, while there was actually data downloading and they still haven't fixed the "Do not keep this game up to date" button, because Steam still ignores it. And it randomly changes my settings on where I download files from. Found out last night that files were coming from France!!! Even though I made no changes to this. And users still cannot install a game anywhere but on the C: drive, despite years of users asking for this to be implemented. Steam is crap. But because it does good deals at times, it gets a pass from a lot of people. To me, it's an annoying, unfinished, PITA.