Steam is coming to a new operating system

[Abarbarian]

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/

As we’ve been working on bringing Steam to the living room, we’ve come to the conclusion that the
environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself.
SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen.
It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines.

The Penguin Army is on the move. Long live TUX !!

 

[floppybootstomp]

I've been reading about that myself. Nothing seems absolutely clear yet but from what I can glean Steam intend to build ready made PC's with their OS plus - shock horror - a console

So, it will be possible to have a machine dedicated to just gaming. If the Steam OS has the ability to browse online, play music and films and can load and run Libre Office then I can honestly say it's goodbye to Windows on my main machine.

I'll still keep a version or two of Windows on my bedroom/AMD machine though, if only to open Publisher files.

 

[Abarbarian]

http://eyeonlinux.com/linux-news/valves-amazing-steam-controller/

Valve’s Amazing Steam Controller

September 28, 2013
By Jim Lynch

Valve announced the Steam Controller for its Steam OS devices today. And this sucker looks great! The Steam Controller is designed to work with all Steam games, even older games. It comes with two trackpads, and includes haptic feedback. The Steam Controller is hackable too.

Valve sure are trying to break the Microsoft strangle hold on gaming. Whether they succeed or not remains to be seen.
I'd like to have a go on one of these controllers or at least read some decent test reviews before thinking of buying one.
The gaming world is changing which I find very entertaining.

 

[floppybootstomp]

I've been looking at this and my initial feelgood factor has just dissipated. Why? I was thinking I could have a Windows-free computer just for gaming, music, films, internet and office, which is all I use my main machine for.

But of course a Steam machine will only run Steam games, which means no EA, Ubisoft and Blizzard, to name but a few. That probably won't hold much appeal.

And then of course I expect only games where the developer has decided to modify their product with a Steam client so it runs will be able to run on a Steam machine. I reckon that will mean many major games developers just won't be interested and Steam likely will have just indie games as the majority of it's catalogue.

So, for the time being, may as well just stick with Win 7 running the Steam client.

I know this much though, until Microsoft ditch Win 8 and release something that appeals to me at least as much as Win 7, I will be buying no more MS OS's.

I envisage a future where I have vintage machines running vintage games, multi-player & single player, have a Linux box or two running the best games that they can, and actually foregoing PC-Windows-exclusive games. But that, hopefully, is a fair ways off.

 

[Abarbarian]

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamController/

A different kind of gamepad

We set out with a singular goal: bring the Steam experience, in its entirety, into the living-room. We knew how to build the user interface, we knew how to build a machine, and even an operating system. But that still left input — our biggest missing link. We realized early on that our goals required a new kind of input technology — one that could bridge the gap from the desk to the living room without compromises. So we spent a year experimenting with new approaches to input and we now believe we’ve arrived at something worth sharing and testing with you.

While we are waiting for more info on the Steam OS here is some interesting news on the Steam Controller.


Also if you want to try out a Sabyon's SteamBox today you can,

http://www.sabayon.org/article/make-your-own-steambox-sabayon-now

http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2013/09/26/steambox-sabayons-version-of-the-steam-machine/

After Valve Software announced SteamOS, a few days later, the company announced the Steam Machine, a hardware gaming console that will be released sometime in 2014. Right about the same tine, the lead developer of Sabayon Linux, a multi-purpose distribution based on Gentoo, announced a remastered 64-bit version of Sabayon that you can use to, in a sense, build your own Steam Machine. It’s called a SteamBox.