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Valve adds CD-ROM drive support to Steam Frame kernel, took less than ten minutes — update comes one day after user requests for capability in the Steam Community forum (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 5 days ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[–] 31 points 5 days ago (43 children)

Why bother disabling cdrom drivers in the first place? It comes with the kernel for decades and costs virtually nothing to load.

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  • [–] 132 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (16 children)

    The kernel has a ton of optional modules that they'd be stupid to include them all. They certainly don't need support for an obscure Quebec companies GPUs that stopped producing in the 90s.

    Its pretty standard operating to cut out any cruft you can, saves on storage, boot times, etc. This one was probably saving milliseconds and kilobytes, so presumably not much thought was given to disabling it, nor needed to reenable it.

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  • [–] 97 points 5 days ago (6 children)

    Again?! An unwarranted attack by the anglophones against the Québécois GPU artisans!

    L’enterrement de cyber-crapaud!!

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  • [–] 30 points 5 days ago (3 children)

    Listen here frenchy!

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  • [–] 23 points 5 days ago (3 children)

    The existence of it also adds another potential attack vector for hackers. It's unlikely that this would be a real problem, but any additional software is just another place that could be exploited.

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  • [–] 11 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    Thats a really good point, especially with the more obscure modules.

    It must be interesting for steam to develop a hackable device in a market that usually locks their hardware down so aggressively.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago* (1 child)

    I mean just because steam doesn't mind you tinkering with their own hardware doesn't mean they should not try to secure the base system OS against outside intrusion (like a RAT entering in via an AUR installation using modules as an entry point)

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago

    Yeah, sorry I meant more in the way that a user in a VM is a really different threat surface to a full root user.

    For sure both should apply security patches, and avoid malware, I'm just wondering even within that model what the differences are.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 child)

    The kernel has a ton of optional modules that they’d be stupid to include them all.

    True but part of Valve's marketing for Frame is the expansion slot, so at least peripherals compatible with ARM hardware were probably meant to be enabled and this was an oversight.

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  • [–] -3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    How unloaded kernel module can slow boot time?

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  • [–] 23 points 5 days ago

    Still needs to be read from disk/flash, for the kernel to know it exists. And more relevantly every module has a number of dependencies that will all contribute to size/boot times in their own way.

    Maybe even milliseconds is giving it too much, but bloat is really important especially near the release of new hardware.

    I imagine the last thing anyone was worried about in crunch time was if they enabled enough random hardware in their config file.

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  • [–] 34 points 5 days ago

    Not everything is included by default, otherwise kernel gets larger for no reason as do possible CVE issues. Its good practise to only include what is needed.

    I had to add CDROM drivers on my Linux machine when I added an external CD after install.

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  • [–] 38 points 5 days ago (3 children)

    Have you ever configured the kernel? As in make menuconfig.

    There's a zillion options in there and best practices dictates that you only enable that which you need. For example, why would you enable support for sound cards that don't exist in your board? Beyond wasting space, it could enable some vulnerability discovered in the future.

    Example: My PC doesn't have a MIPI DSI display connector (or support for one on the motherboard), so why would I enable support for that in my kernel? Sure, I could compile it as a module and let it sit there, taking up a few kilobytes of space on my hard drive but why?

    It makes no sense to support CD ROMs on a VR headset so I completely understand why they didn't enable the driver. Even though it's a "real PC", the Steam Frame is still embedded hardware.

    I want to know why this person wants CD ROM support! The Steam Frame has at least a 256GB SSD and a Micro SD card slot. Just put the ISO (or .bin/.cue files) on one of those and mount it like any other loopback filesystem or use FUSE cdemu (yes, Linux has support for that built-in; unlike Windows haha). It'll be a zillion times faster and a vastly superior experience!

    Aside: Yes, I know Windows 11 can natively mount an ISO file but it only supports a limited subset of the filesystems that you can find on CD/DVD ROMs. So unless the image is ISO9660 with the Joilet extension or UDF, it's not going to work. Example: Trying to mount a PS1 CD ROM works in Linux but not Windows. Not without 3rd party stuff, anyway.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (2 children)

    Porn? Maybe some early VR DVDs or maybe they are burning / buying content that way..I have no clue I'm not familiar with the space.

    Maybe music? Queue up some cool visuals in the goggles while listening to we tunes.

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  • [+] -20 points 5 days ago (19 children)

    Free good publicity for “fixing” it.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 days ago* (5 children)

    Uhm, they just did not thought of enabling the kernel module because it's an embeeded system that has no CD/DVD/BlueRay reader...

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  • [–] 0 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (4 children)

    … it’s intended to have stuff added to it. It’s like having a modular pc without the drivers for controllers or a keyboard and mouse.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (3 children)

    No one though of adding a CD drive to a VR apparently, which makes sense considering you are supposed to move with a VR

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  • [–] 0 points 4 days ago (2 children)

    Cd drives have been usb powered for decades now, people use them on the deck, why wouldn’t they use it on VR? It’s a feature they essentially chose to remove from one device to the next.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    Do you walk around while playing a game on the steam deck?

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  • [–] 0 points 4 days ago*

    I use it to transfer cd ISOs to it while I’m not actively gaming.

    Why on earth would you assume it would be used for active gaming? Hardly any games run off the cd anyways, it installs to the HD since it loads in a fraction of the time.

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  • [+] -6 points 5 days ago (11 children)

    Good publicity from... having a bug?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago* (10 children)

    How’s this a bug?

    And cd support is the current hot issue with gaming. It’s free publicity, not many people know about it being already available and they artificially limited it. So even if people know and get it out there, the publicity generated is far more positive and washes that out.

    This is a common marketing tactic. They look like the good guys for adding a feature that was “requested”. Because of course people are gonna bring it up with everything going on.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 days ago (9 children)

    Still clearly is now an intended feature, that yeah I'd even consider it being overlooked as a bug.

    Assuming every single thing they do is a calculated, profit driven decision is like blaming all your bad luck on the devil, without proof youre just swatting imaginary faries.

    I'd be insanely surprised if like 1 TV commercial would market leagues above "some company most old people don't recognise changed something about a thing most people don't know how works. The company claims its a positive".

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  • [–] -3 points 5 days ago* (1 child)

    the devil

    IT'S NOT THE DEVIL IT'S GABE NEWELL

    STEAM SKIMS 15% OFF OF EVERY MARKET TRANSACTION

    30% OFF OF EVERY GAME PURCHASE

    THOSE TRANSACTIONS ARE DENOMINATED IN FUN BUCKS THAT YOU ALREADY PAID TAXES ON

    EVERY TIME AN ITEM CHANGES HANDS, THE FUN BUCKS DIMINISH AND VALVE KEEPS A FRACTION

    YOU CAN'T TAKE OUT THE FUN BUCKS FROM THEIR CIRCUIT LEGALLY, BECAUSE IT'S LITERALLY A FUCKING CASINO

    EVERY VALVE GAME IS A STORE FRONT FOR LITERAL FUCKING NFTS AND LOOTBOXES THAT CONTAIN NFTS

    AND YOU GUYS KEEP SUCKING THE COCK OF A GUY WHO DOESN'T JUST OWN A YACHT BUT A YACHT COMPANY THAT HE OWNS BECAUSE OF THE ABOVE

    It's literally DIGITAL COIN CLIPPING

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago

    Also Steam acquired its user base in the first place by vendor lock-in on Quake mods. (Counter-Strike derived from Navy Seals Quake, Team Fortress was originally a Quake mod, and Half-Life is a Quake total conversion originally sold on a CD-ROM in a box.)

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  • [–] -2 points 5 days ago* (6 children)

    And this is why it works, people make excuses for them when people point this stuff out.

    I would be extremely disappointed with their marketing group if this didn’t come up.

    But sure, it’s a “bug” since it’s “now” an intended feature and they get credit for fixing it. That’s incredibly backwards thinking. You’re making my case for me, while defending this corporation. It’s crazy how apparantly only Valve is somehow immune to this here.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 days ago (5 children)

    So what's the marketing team say when 1500 indexes join a botnet cause they didn't properly audit the CDrom code?

    Really worth the potential 3 extra sales, by ruining your entire reputation as youre trying to build it.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 days ago* (4 children)

    Hyperbole is not a good look, especially when you’re clearly using fake numbers to make it so lopsided in your favor.

    Clearly it was so easy they could do it so fast (article specifieds 10 minutes even for you….), so why didn’t they? It couldn’t have been for an audit, and if it was, that wasn’t that robust of one of its out so fast now isn’t it? I wouldn’t trust a 10 minute audit, that’s nuts.

    Quit making excuses for them.

    And as I said it’s a common marketing tactic, guerilla marketing uses the exact process you’re decrying.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (3 children)

    Why not? Hyperboles are a literary tool, and meant to be used.

    Unfortunately its as off topic as your random hate for companies and literary structure, so I'm a bit hesitant to continue this debate.

    That being said I'd assume it was in their test suite considering their haste.

    Doing things the wrong way will always be cheaper, Elon had the same argument as you when he used a padlock to secure a datacenter worth of confidential twitter data. It makes money immediately, but anyone with a 2and grade education realises time exists beyond the next quarterly report.

    Properly auditing and testing software takes time, looks like shit quarterly, and develops a long term following leading to stable profits. I see no reason for Steam to have changed from this path.

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  • [–] -2 points 5 days ago* (2 children)

    Hyperbole using extremes at both ends to bias a point is a fallacy and not conversing in good faith. It’s a tool when used correctly, you have not.

    You’ve never heard of guerrilla marketing before have you?

    This isn’t something new that they’ve done, why do you think it can be called out, theres even wikipedia pages where you can see examples of other companies doing this. You’re not seriously thinking I’m coming up with this new novel never heard of thing before…. Are you…? Because that’s just clearly foolish.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Wait so its incorrect to say "its as hot as hell in here"?

    I'm explicitly implying it is truly hot as hell, while not even addressing the possibility its cold as shit as well. Hell I'm not even using it to describe the fallacy that it is, in fact, not hot as hell, as hell may not even exist physically - much less have an average atomic kinetic energy.

    Or maybe were both just being pedantic dicks cause were incorrect in our original claim?

    Damn I gotta get back to English class

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