this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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Valve's strategy is to maintain dominance of their software platform, Steam.
It has been pushing Linux as a viable computer platform as a counter to if/when Microsoft wanted to monetize PC gaming in direct competition to Steam, which seems to be a wise decision.
As we get closer to Microsoft forcefully shoving windows 11 down our throats, more and more I consider switching to Linux as my daily driver for home.
I'm not saying Valve was wrong. However, I can see Valve trying to do the same with Linux.
What will they shove though¿? They don't control linux like how Microsoft controls windows. The only OS they have control over is SteamOS.
And what are most people running to game on Linux? Consumer Linux right now is Android and Steam; servers have their own systems.
Valve is not forcing us to run steam. It can't do that. What it can do is offer a very good product which makes us use it. If in the future, valve starts doing shitty things with steam, most of the community will just move on.
Also what the hell do you mean by consumer linux is steam¿?
Valve runs the DRM that runs Steam. They are making the platform desktop agnostic, but that may not be sustainable.
Also what the hell do you mean by consumer linux is steam¿?
After the release of the Steam Deck, Linux on Steam has seen an increase so large that it now beats Apple for the #2. Steam may push users to Linux, but still run the Steam walled garden.
Sure, but they can't force Linux users to use Steam. It just so happens that most Linux gamers use Steam because it works well for them, thanks to the hard work of the various open-source devs (along with Valve, Codeweavers, etc) behind WINE, DXVK, and Proton. Microsoft can theoretically force Windows users to use only their store, if they felt like that was a good idea for whatever reason.
The Steam Deck has both a Desktop Mode which lets you run any application you want (so long as its Linux compatible of course), SteamOS is built on top of Arch (which you can build on top of), and lets you run whatever OS you would like (you can even go as far as removing SteamOS if that is what you want). I'm not sure how it's a "Walled Garden". A walled garden would be the Xbox / PlayStation / Switch and basically any other console, along with most mobile phones, where you cannot install the OS that you want - you're forced to use what the manufacturer provides.
You can use Android without Google Play Services and people do, but the vast majority of people using Android use Google Play Services.
I can see that happening to Linux on the desktop if the main driver is Steam.
There's a huge difference between GPS which is effectively a rootkit, and Steam which is a userland application however. To actually remove GPS requires that you have a device with an unlockable bootloader (or an active exploit to gain root privileges) so that you can flash a ROM without it - Steam is one simple uninstall away.
Sure, a monopoly on the gaming market isn't great, and while I hope I don't bite my words anytime soon - Valve/Steam is the lesser of the two evils. Especially if you consider that it wasn't really all that long ago where Linux gaming was an absolutely crazy idea that resulted in the pool of games available to you to be very very small.
For now. But also, phone companies can use Android without GPS, but they have to rebuild a lot of functionally to get it to work, and this was done as a design decision by Google to maintain control over Android. I can easily see Valve doing this in the future. Hell, imagine Valve buying Unity and integrating it to Steam while keeping developer costs low.
My brother in Christ you know not of what you speak
Right now Valve could disappear and gaming on Linux would continue, better for the efforts Valve have already made. I would think that the improvements would stagnate without Valve, though.
Non-Steam utilities like Lutris, Bottles and Heroic run games nearly as well as Steam. We'd carry on.
Most of the linux world is not for "consumers", it's for "participants" also refered to as "the linux community". Android and SteamOS are consumer oriented indeed, you buy your device that ships with a Linux-based OS. But on the PC side of things, you just get, install and use linux for free with no strings attached. Just by doing so you become a participant of the linux community, and you contribute to shape the future of Linux as an OS by choosing a distro over another, by choosing a DE, by reporting bugs, etc.
Any company that has influence on the development of Linux, can only have it by contributing to the whole project. This is what Valve is doing, as well as Intel, Canonical, Redhat and even Microsoft.
Do you count Android users as "participants"?
It's going to depend. Are you using the Android version that can shipped with your device, or a custom ROM? are you using F-droid? have you ever reported a bug to an app developer ? I assume a big majority of Android users are consumers and not participants, but at least with Android you have options to participate. Nothing wrong with being a consumer BTW.
However, Android is quite a bit different from what is broadly understood as Linux. Yes, Android uses the Linux kernel, but appart from that it's not a very open eco-system and Google absolutely controls the AOSP.
I would argue that the difference has a lot to do with whether the user is typically a consumer or participant. Valve seems to be making a a form of Linux for consumers, even if participants can use the system.
After all, why buy the Steam Deck to delete Steam from it?
On everything but the steam deck people are running their own choice of distro. You can't even install steamos on a non steam deck right now