Gaming is booming and is one of the most inspiring, exciting and innovative form of art in the IT industry. 2012 was an impressive year. With a global market of $67 billion gaming studios hire the most talented developers, artists, writers, and professionals and provide a huge selection of quality games. The budget and production are so high it’s becoming easier to choose a good game than to find a good movie these days… but most of them work on Windows, Xbox 360 or Playstation 3.
Just as “killer-apps”, games are among the top reasons which prevent people from switching completely to Linux. In 2012, 15 games were scored 90% or higher on Metacritic. None of them were released on Linux.
A couple of things happened though and the future might look a little brighter for Linux gamers.
2012 was a big year for “Indie gaming”. Independent developers challenged major studios with games like Minecraft, The Walking Dead and Journey. The fact that a few developers could achieve so much, without resources, changed the perception of many. Then came the Humble Bundles which sent two strong signals: Linux users want games and they’re ready to pay for them.
At the end of last year, Valve and Canonical announced they were working together to bring Steam (which is estimated to have a 70% share of the digital distribution market for video games) to Linux. Their efforts paid off and the Steam client is now available and working fine in most distributions.
The screenshot below shows Steam running on Linux Mint 14:
Valve is planning a new gaming console in 2013 based on Linux and the company is currently promoting its Linux client, even to its Windows users. Gaming media, blogs and magazines are covering the news and some of the major studios are considering porting their games to Linux.
If you like strategy games for instance, you’ll be happy to know Paradox Interactive already ported Crusader Kings II.
Crusader Kings II was given a 8/10 by IGN and Gamespot and a 9/10 by Destructoid. It is one of the very good strategy games of 2012. Other popular games are likely to follow; some old ones like Counter Strike 1.6 or Half Life, or brand new ones like “The Cave”.
If you’re into gaming and you’d like to play on Linux Mint, don’t hesitate to get involved and to send Valve your feedback:
- Browse the Steam Linux catalog online at http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/
- Install Steam in Linux Mint with this .deb or add this repository: http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/
- Get involved in the Linux Steam community at http://steamcommunity.com/linux
- Send issues and ideas at https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues
We’d also like to hear from you on how you’d like us to improve or facilitate things for you in regards to gaming on Linux Mint.
Note: Most popular games are commercial and developed by major studios, so if they come to Linux they’re likely to become available through Steam. However, if you’re interested in HTML5 or online gaming or if you have ideas on how to further promote Indie gaming and Free Software games, please let us know. Many Windows games also run quite well using Wine. We like for things to work out of the box, but maybe we can help here as well. Don’t hesitate to comment if you’ve some experience to share with Wine or wine-related software.
Can i play games i bought from Ubuntu Software Center on Linux Mint?.RC Miniracers as an example.
Edit by Clem: Yes, but I think you’ll need to run Ubuntu Software Center for that. It works well in Mint but not out of the box (as far as I know Canonical doesn’t provide any template for Mint so you need to create one). It’s easy to fix, so if it’s flagged as an issue during or prior the RC, it will definitely work out of the box in Linux Mint 15.
I’ve been playing Counter Strike 1.6 using wine on Linux Mint and it ran perfectly.
I would like to see some more indie demos in the Mint Repos
how about a download manager for widows games and demos that are known to run will on wine ; or maybe a fake package that will just run a script and download the real games from somewhere else
I bought Amnesia for Linux before Steam was available and loved it. I am definitely using Steam for the follow-up this time!
You know what would be lovely? A single wrapper-like application to browse all the Linux games from Desura, Steam, USC, external! repos, websites like HiB and whatnot. Don’t know about other people, but I really dislike having so many separate places to check for available updates. Even worse when I have to chase dependencies to install separately cause they conflict with the system ones. Sometimes I really wish that Desurium would become like a ‘Gaming Control Center’ or something… guess that’s not happening any time soon.
As far as Wine gaming goes, from my experience the only ‘reasonable’ way to do it is through PlayOnLinux since it offers such vast configuration possibilities while still keeping it relatively simple. If a title doesn’t work with the newest Wine I can just revert to the older one without any penalties. ’tis a shame that it’s suffering greatly from the lack of working autoscript contributions though.
Also, if you we are talking about promoting gaming contents, then getting in touch with websites like GamingOnLinux or LinuxGamesCast does help a lot. The LGDB is also an excellent resource when listing is concerned. Other websites include LinuxGamingNews, PenguSpy, RootGamer, Lin-App… there’s quite a few actually.
Anyway, about gaming on Mint: one thing I will say is that Cinnamon doesn’t seem to play very nicely with some 3D titles. As in, on the same machine I’ve had much worse performance with it than while using pure GNOME; sometimes to the extent of titles not wanting to even display anything on-screen. Not even gonna start on the whole proprietary video drivers situation which is still quite a mess. Installing them isn’t half as difficult as when you need to remove them if they botch everything.
Edit by Clem: Thanks Alex, that helps a lot.
Hi Clem,
It’s not just Steam either! The Humble Indie Bundles (who insist on their games being ported to Linux) have been very successful too. I’d always dual-booted my machines between Win 7 and Mint, but was more than happy to see some of my favourite games (Amnesia, Psychonauts, Darwinia) had been ported to Linux.
The best thing has been my Windows purchases have followed through on the Linux games, so I’ve not had to ‘re-buy’ anything 🙂
I could go on for ages about this subject tbh, but a couple of things would be handy for future Mint releases:
1 – Being able to change/update proprietary graphics drivers easily. Gaming’s very graphics intensive and it’s really important to keep your drivers up to date. At the moment it’s sort of buried under Software Sources -> Additional Drivers, and it took me quite a while to find it. Being able to add/remove/update and perhaps even switch between graphics drivers easily will gain you many, many fans in the gaming community.
2 – Getting sound sorted out. As with Graphics drivers, sound’s the other main component of gaming. I must admit, I still don’t properly understand ALSA and OSS, but getting my soundcard playing nicely was very important too
3 – Please let’s have a gaming section on the forums…
4 – OK, getting feedback to Gabe Newell’s one thing, but how about we start pestering companies like GOG.com and Bethesda? Seriously, if we get Skyrim on Linux I’d probably never need to go back to Windows again…
5 – Get demo games in the Mint repos as Corbin says. Get Steam in your software manager 🙂
6 – Regarding writing games in HTML5 etc. I would have happily been coding away with Adobe AIR until they pulled the plug on Linux. Tide SDK looks to be the closest thing now since Titanium went mobile only.
Hope that helps 🙂 If I think of anything else I’ll drop you guys at Mint a line 🙂
Edit by Clem: Thanks, it does.
I have been using Steam on my Linux Mint install (Cinnamon) since December. While I don’t do much gaming in Linux, as my integrated Intel graphics cannot handle it, it is nice to have the Steam Friends available while working.
The largest issue currently is that the Steam icon does not appear in the system tray, while Steam expects this functionality.
The other issue is that Steam notifications occur underneath the task bar, so the majority of the text is cut off. This is not a major issue.
Will Steam work on LMDE or is it Ubuntu only?
Edit by Clem: Valve wants it to run on as many distributions as possible. They’re making the dependencies, pre and post installation of Steam more flexible to achieve that.
I know this is more of a Steam-request rather than a Linux Mint one, but LMDE would love to have a working set of .deb files 🙂
The Ubuntu ones don’t play nice with LMDE.
You can make Steam run on LMDE. Problem is with the package dependencies.
There are a few dependencies with versions that are available only in ubuntu. Replacing those with latest LMDE versions, seems to do the trick.
Then there are dependencies that are named differently in ubuntu. Changing names, seems to do the trick.
Finally, there’s dependencies that require later version than available in LMDE distro, you need to install those manually.
So once you fix those issues, rebuild a new deb file, it does seem to work just fine. I didn’t say it out of the box.
Kristian, How to buy applications and games in Ubuntu Software Center on Mint:
First, edit software.list – add line:
deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main
Next, install software-center.
Next, as superuser edit file /usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/distro/__init__.py
Change python get_codename(self) method’s body to return “precise” (comment-out or delete rest of method’s body – basic knowledge about python is needed)
Next, recompile __init__.py :
sudo python -m compileall __init__.py
Now Ubuntu Software Center will think that you are running Ubuntu Precise 🙂
Already installed Steam on Linux Mint 14 Cinnamon and it works outa box!! I think I have to ditch Windows forever!!
Will Steam work on LMDE UP7 when it comes out? It seems like a lot of work to make Steam run on UP6.
I have been testing out on ubuntu 12.10 the performance of it.
I have always used windows, but i always felt some friendship with linux, especially linux mint and ubuntu.
OGL games like amnesia work as great as the windows version.
The problem is.. the games that have been ported the performance of the HD 7850 was very lower, half of the framerate.
Anyway I am not complaining, because I think Linux never received so much support for gaming before.
And running through wine may be enough, but getting full support of a Dev team is awesome.
So i guess it is just a matter of time until things will be better.
So i guess we all should support it, buying games, testing, reporting bugs, grab attention of the market.
I know that linux always have been a father of open-source.
Because i have seen some complainings about the dev team didnt give the open source code.
I think if the linux wants to evolve, wants to grab a step forward, it will need to be living side by side with the close source code.
So lets do it, i am ready to do my support through my youtube benchmark account, and buying.
Regards 😀
I am so happy about the improvements for gamers. I have also heard that Blizzard plans on releasing a native Linux client for one of their three major titles this year. Also, hopefully Nvidia and AMD will start taking Linux as seriously as they do Windows. Which could mean that they push for Wayland to get more features for their high-end cards.
I’ ve been playing games in linux many years and last 3 on mint with no problems. Games like diablo 3 and lineage. If you want to play a game in linux, you will. Have a nice day you all 🙂
What about porting it to LMDE? It can be nice feature!
Excellent topic : i’m playing on linux for 4 years now, using a combination of Wine/PlayonLinux, Dosbox and Virtualbox.
The number of game working well is acceptable for me (-/+ 100 of AA quality ; Classics from the 2000’s up until very recent ones like Dishonoured & Xcom).
The best aspect of the usage is that each system upgrade doesn’t wipe out my installs … they are portable !
Learned from testing, i also found that the best enviromnent for game is a non-GL desktop (xfce, mate, lxde).
For Mint to improve Gaming is mostly to improve awareness :
1/ Create a batch of Links to Websites like Steam, Humble indie, Playonlinux
2/ How tos are all over the forum, a gaming section would be nice…
Concerning the Indie games and Steam, i’m somewhat reserved as to the long term compatibility with our systems. i admit having had bad experiences in the past with linux ports not being able to launch anymore due to obscure GlibC pbs….
Hi Clem – Timely article indeed. I have installed Steam client on my laptop that runs Linux Mint 13 KDE. My graphics card is Nvidia Optimus and hence had to tweak a bit to run the Team Fortress 2 game. Nevertheless, it works 🙂
Please allow me to digress and will be happy to hear your thoughts – There was NO indication that Nvidia Optimus graphics card is not supported when i installed Mint. Is it possible to at least alert the users after installation that technology is currently not supported / recommend Bumblebee. (Under Additional driver Menu perhaps). Believe me, it took lot of googling to understand the Optimus limitation in Linux and to take the optirun route.
One thought I had, it would be great for the Mint project to try and work closely with the open source graphics driver developers. Maybe the Mint project could partly fund (from donations) a developer to spend time on the open drivers to improve the out of the box graphics experience?? Just my 5 cents worth.
*thumbs up*
Although I do not like Steam at all, porting it to Linux is one step in the right direction. Being (mostly) unable to play actual games on Mint is the ONLY reason for me running TWO operating system!
So, keep up the good work!!!
Don’t forget about all the great emulators than run in Linux! Bsnes, Dolphin, Zsnes….
No computer game is as good as Mario Kart for the Wii in my opinion, and it plays perfectly in Linux Mint even with a real wiimote via bluetooth!
Steam is big news, MS is losing their hegemony finally.
Also Civilization 2, arguably the greatest computer game ever made runs perfectly in Wine these days. I’m one of the appdb maintainers over at winehq. 🙂 Lots of games run great in wine, but most are not worth mentioning when you can have one….more….turn…….
If they can integrate it somehow with playonlinux it would be great. They’ve got a great product and provide debian packages, what are the odds of getting it into mint’s repositories?
“MS is losing their hegemony finally..”
When MS cleverly established DirectX over OnpenGL and aimed it at game devs they recognised the potential of the gamers (and prepared the way to the first Xbox we discovered).
Nowadays, all people think about is Smarthone games… even MS doesnt need PC gamers as it controls the Xbox business.
It costs almost zero to a dev to create a Linux version if they chose the right game engine at the beginning of the project. This doesn’t mean that a Linux version is cost free as the devs have to build a test env, test the builds and maintain/patch accordingly….
A window of opportunity exists but not for much longer than a year (launch of the new Xbox/Sony consoles).After that it’s dicey again…
Seriously I will feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven as soon as Star Trek Online, Civilization V, and Counter Strike:Source are all ported to Linux. These are pretty much the only 3 games I ever play and I’m always buying expansion packs or other items to support my gameplay in these titles.
I really want to make a permanent move to Linux Mint, and completely rid myself of Windows, especially since the whole Windows 8 bomb, but I can’t do it without these games…
I just got word that Euro Truck Simulator 2 is coming to Linux. Now… this game isn’t for everyone (some of you WILL find it boring), but it’s another example of a great, recent, popular game making it to Linux.
It also happens to be one of the games I play, so I’m delighted personally 🙂
As I am not an avid gamer, I do like to fire up a game every now and then. Especially when I get new HW, as it is a good way to stress-test and have fun. 🙂
So I am just waiting for Half-Life (1) to be released to have some fun at least, as I can not see any bottlenecks in my system as of yet.
$ inxi -F
Sys: Host: xXxXx Kernel: *-generic x86_64(64 bit) Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 14 Nadia
PC: Mobo: Gigabyte model: Z77X-D3H version: 1.0 Bios: American Megatrends version: F16 date: 10/24/2012
CPU: Quad core Intel Core i5-3570K CPU @ 4000.00 MHz (-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx)
Clock Speeds: 1: 1600.00 MHz 2: 1600.00 MHz 3: 1600.00 MHz 4: 1600.00 MHz
GFX: Card: NVIDIA GK104 [GeForce GTX 670] X.Org: 1.13.0 driver: nvidia Resolution: 1280×1024@60.0hz, 1920×1200@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: GeForce GTX 670/PCIe/SSE2 GLX Version: 4.3.0 NVIDIA 310.14
Snd: Card-1: NVIDIA GK104 HDMI Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel Sound: ALSA ver: 1.0.25
Card-2: Intel 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel
Net: Card: Atheros AR8151 v2.0 Gigabit Ethernet driver: atl1c
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex
Disk: HDD Total Size: 1240.3GB (17.6% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: INTEL_SSDSC2CT12 size: 120.0GB
2: id: /dev/sdb model: INTEL_SSDSC2CT12 size: 120.0GB 3: id: /dev/sdc model: WDC_WD10EACS size: 1000.2GB
Part: ID: / size: 29G used: 5.4G (20%) fs: ext4 ID: /home size: 79G used: 38G (51%) fs: ext4
ID: swap-1 size: 4.09GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
RAID: No RAID – /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Temp: Sys Temp: cpu: 29.8C mobo: 27.8C gpu: 37C
Info: Processes: 170 Uptime: 3:36 Memory: 1809.2/16005.6MB Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4
Oh yeah, it is going to be fun.
Of course, now I dual boot with Windows. Which is OK, as I do most of the support for family and friends.
But would be nice to move that to a Virtual Box, and never dual boot again.
Although, GNU/Linux has come far, in most respects.
atle
I tried Crusader Kings II on windows and can’t wait to have a try.
can’t really belive it!
Hello ,
I have installed and tested Steam. Now I would like to buy Killing grounds for Linux. The game requires Nvidia, ATI, or Intel GPU with hardware-accelerated drivers. I have a Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2125 CPU 3.30GHz. Is that an Intel GPU? About the hardware-accelerated drivers I don’t know, maybe Linix Mint installs them by default?
Maybe someone can answer this question?
Couple of months ago I made a survey on Linkedin:
Why do you still use Windows beside Linux?
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Why-do-you-use-Windows-65688.S.109077410?view=&gid=65688&type=member&item=109077410&trk=view_disc
Gaming was the second top reason!
Personally, I wish I could see Need For Speed 2 & 5 (2000) on Linux without any middleware such as Wine or something.
the thing about GOG.com is that a lot of their games are really old and they actually run inside a discrete version of dosbox. That being the case it actually shouldn’t be too hard for them to make a lot of their games available on Linux.
Steam works fine on Mint.
and i play Euro Truck Simulator on the WIndows Steam 🙂 It is a bit hit and miss as far as excitement goes but it’s calming driving throughout Europe, provided the AI cars don’t piss you off which they love to do, cut you off run into you and you cop the fine.
Dont like any of the current games available for Steam Linux, but that’s me. maybe Trine 2 would interest me but nothing else takes my fancy.
clem
Maya, yes, although I can’t guarantee “all” features will be backported
why? with kde there is no problem. now i have 4.9.5 with all features and in the near future i’ll make the update to 4.10 also with all features.
in this case maya cinnamon it’s only a very limited lts. will be normal to have a new iso but…. in fact is not lts. is better to say that you will support this lts only 1 year in a limmited way because the most important thing is this run for new bugs every 6th month.
let’s see and learn from bodhy linux:
2.0.0 July 2012 – First Stable release to our 12.04 base
2.1.0 September 2012 – First Update release to our 12.04 base
2.2.0 December 2012
2.3.0 March 2013
2.4.0 June 2013
2.5.0 September 2013
2.6.0 December 2013
2.7.0 March 2014
2.8.0 June 2014 – Last Update release to our 12.04 base
everything is very clear and everybody knows what to expect.
for wallpapers take the solution from kde.
if ubuntu will go to rolling releases will be a very good change because lts will gain in quality and attention.
Edit by Clem: Well we’ll try our best and you’ve seen what that meant in terms of backports between 14 and 13. You can expect the same level of attention and pragmatism. What you won’t get is promises and ETAs before we can guarantee it will be done. To give you an example, I’m pretty sure we’ll backport Nemo, Cinnamon, MATE, MDM etc… but we might not backport the latest themes due to incompatibilities between the various versions of GTK3, or some system improvements which rely on upgrade core components in the package base.
I would just like to leave this here as it is relevant 🙂
(especially the comments below the ‘tutorial’)
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/271
Having steam on linux is an amazing step. But definitely not the only option!
Hi Clem – Will be glad to hear your views on comment #20.
Joyous news Steam coming natively to Linux, like some of the guys on here the only reason i have a dual boot to windows now is for games, but to be honest now minecraft runs on Mint 14 like a sweetie not so much of a problem. I would dearly love to see more mainstream games come to linux and for my Windows disk to be trashed for storage 🙂 I still find it odd that more games aren’t available as al lthe ones i have played run better on linux.
Andy
I think that most of the issues about gaming on linux can’t really be addressed directly in Mint, like drivers and high profile games being released. However there are some things gaming-related, but not specifically games (more aimed at broadcasting), that do need work.
The first is flash. With adobe having dropped support, even though the version available probably will still work for a while, when websites like youtube and twitch.tv make incompatible changes, or even games themselves for that matter, there’s going to be a problem, and lightspark doesn’t quite cut it.
The next is streaming games. While it is possible using ffmpeg, and not that hard for simple streaming, there are no good gui options for users unfamiliar with ffmpeg/the command line for streaming games that I know of. Even simply screen recording is a bit of a pain on some hardware. Also, doing certain simple effects is really difficult live without using some sort of convoluted setup (gif-like transparency overlay of another section of the screen. I can supply an example if needed). A gui to ffmpeg could remedy this to some degree, and some do exist but not in the package manager, and some don’t even work. There’s also the sound system, but I don’t know enough about that to go into it (It mostly works for me).
Another thing is video editing itself to a lesser degree. Last time I tried video editing for a youtube video using a gui was a mess. Everything crashed, and there was always something that was off for the ones that didn’t. Lumeira seems like the most promising, but it’s still in early development.
Now, I understand that most of this is still out of the scope of Mint, especially with the amount of work you guys do (seriously, great job guys!) and the complexity of the issues which really should be directed at the individual projects themselves, but I just want to expose this side of the spectrum for you guys to think about.
Great. So I hope ROCKSMITH will be portet to Linux then I can completely get away from Microsoft…
Does anyone have any information or know if it is already planned?
Now if any one can make a big game house to release a really eye catching and excellent game only on Linux ……………………
Steam on Cinnamon with ATI Catalyst drivers don’t works properly.
I get black screen every time i start full screen games or “Big Screen”.
This problem happens not only in steam, but also in other games running in wine and most of “fullscreen” applications.
The trick to make it work is using CTRL+ALT+F1 and then CTRL+ALT+F8.
This problem is common among ATI+cinnamon users. Please fix it! I don’t want to use other graphical interface because i find cinnamon really good.
More info and user repots on this issue can be found here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/4/846939854231419278/
http://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/1513
Hey everyone, just like to give Clem a HUGE SHOUT OUT! Thanks for making the best damn linux EVER! On the gaming side of things. I have been running steam on Mint, through wine, for a while now, since 2010 or so. Ran pretty good but when I downloaded it for Linux I realized that I could play games ONLY native to linux, which was kind of a drag. Long story short I now game exclusively on linux through steam and games that are native. If anyone plays Killing Floor on steam look me up!
With regards to steam on Mint, in next release i would also suggest you make a install script or something and put the “install steam” icon right on the desktop for all to see, don’t just put it in the software manager, show it to the world. It will make a strong statement that Mint supports steam out the box, as well as give the guys that review mint something new to talk about, and also new users wont have to waste much time at all to get steam up and running.
You guys have always done an excellent job on mint and especially in making things easier and user friendly for the end user, so in a way, Reviewers will see the install icon as something they would expect the top ranked linux distributor to do, Afterall, Mint is in the spotlight now and rightfully it should be.
I have been playing games on Linux using Wine for a while now. I started using Mint from version 7 after getting annoyed at Open Suse when updates kept losing my sound card settings.
I recently switched to CrossOver in favour of Wine as my favourite game, Civilization IV, was getting harder to run.
I currently run Steam through CrossOver and find it very stable. Having Steam run natively should be a good thing for Linux and I really hope that Mint is able to leverage this new source of users. As a distribution I think Mint is one of the better ones, it is solid and polished, getting gamers on board via Steam support should increase it’s popularity.
I love Linux, but the gaming sucks at the moment and we all know it is because Microsoft has used illegal tactics to keep Linux down and Be os is living profe of that and they won their case. If Linux users came to gether they could create some good games and that alone might not help. Over time though more people will leave the Dark Side of the Force and Join us in our fight for freedom from the evil communiest Microsoft and we can take back the galaxy. Yes I made a star wars refcence. I do lots of gaming and while it might take time and effort I will love to see it grow. I also hope that you keep up the fight for all us Linux users who are tired of the MAN.
Very happy to see steam working in Linux properly. It was one of the main reasons I kept windows on my hard drive for so long. Although this would still only allow me to do play certain games and only has certain features that windows has. It’ll really a great day when Linux users can play PC games as easily a windows user.
@26 Peter:
Yes, I definitely agree. The world would be a completely different place if linux could handle games the way windows does. And I most certainly can’t wait for the day that it does. Now I definitely don’t see this as as the distant future, but a soon to come reality, or so I hope.
Normunds Mazurs (or anyone else who could answer this question):
I’m not familiar enough with Python. How exactly does one ‘Change python get_codename(self) method’s body to return “precise”’ in software center’s __init__.py file? Could you post the code, please? Once I can get the code in there, the rest of your instructions are easy. I tried figuring it out on my own, but just ended up with a non-functioning software center and had to reinstall it.
I’ve been wanting to enable the software center’s purchase feature since I first heard about it. It would be really cool if we had the same feature in Mint’s Software Manager. Until then, I wish someone would just post a sensible, understandable how-to, complete with the whole edited file (or at least a snippet).
Well derrr. Whats with the LATE realization about gaming?
Users have been saying this for YEARS.
There are only so many games of “Frozen Bubble” you can play.
So typical of Linux developers, they just don’t listen to users feedback, then one day they get this wonderful idea, hey lets include gaming.
Edit by Clem: Benny…. I wish you were right and I could just push a button and enable “gaming” in Linux. That’s not how it works though. For years, you’ve been saying this to the wrong people and there’s nothing they could do about it. What’s happening now is a change, with Steam on Linux with new gaming techs that are cross platform like HTML5, and with indie devs reaching to gamers in the mainstream industry. Sure we can improve casual gaming in Linux. Right now we’ve got the opportunity to think of the best ways to support the mainstream industry to work well on our platform though. So no, we’re not waking up from a long coma, yes we do listen to feedback, and indeed the timing is exactly right.
Sad that the late comer, and light weight Android, leaves linux in the dust for gaming. I’ll never understand linux developers !!!
Benny (#51): Let’s be a nice to the devs. They are making all of these great things for us for little (or no) money, little help, and only passion for the platform to spur them on. Linux devs don’t control the game industry. They can only contribute what they are realistically able, often at a surprising pace and quality for doing this as a hobby in their spare time usually. They need our support, not our derision. Besides, Frozen Bubble aside, there are still some really great games out there on Linux, considering the above.
Oh my…
can I use it in Linux Mint Debian version ???
hmmm.. i decided after starting w/dos 2.1 that window/ms after many years of support has stabbed their own foot w/ w8, and been on linux since it was unix on 3.5 disks many years ago that linux rocks these days very stable, real multitasking, many features , been a gamer from 1979, fps mostly,moved my main mach to mint nadia, still run w2k8server/winxp dvd writer/ as 2 backup machs.love it so far! and registered on steam for many yrs now as well.
i know someone mentioned GOG.com on here, for the most part their games are older and they don’t have as much control as far as porting goes (with the exception of the newer indie games) DOSBOX + Wine normally work perfectly for the older games. + SCUMM\SCI\AGI Games are all playable in SCUMMVM + people are always porting whatever code or remaking a game to be compatable with the original data (IE OpenTyrian, OpenTTD, OpenTH, etc., i guess they could make a client or repackage for linux possibly
Hi… I want to know if someone tried DotA 2 in Steam for Linux Mint. I have installed Mint 14, and I want to play some games in Steam, and I don’t know which of them can I play in Mint 14. I’m really interested in DotA 2 because I love it! Someone knows?