Today was the «Ubuntu day»According to many users, but the truth is that for me it is not very relevant news, with nothing new to offer and that is repeated every six months, do not feel evaded or believe that I discredit Ubuntu, I simply say that a new version does not bring anything and that in fact, it is overshadowed next to the commotion that the news of Steam for Linux.
Well, some are very excited about this news, I include myself in that excited pack, but truth be told, the most important thing about the arrival of Steam a GNU / Linux It is not simply that we will be able to play really popular titles without the need for Wine or partitions, but what is behind it all, the progress that all this implies for our platform and the benefits it represents. Let's start breaking this all down piece by piece to make it as clear as possible.
Yes, we will finally play some popular games without Wine or a Windows partition.
It is the main thing, the soul of the matter is the games and finally that ordeal is going to end for many. At first we may not watch too many games (We are already sure that Left 4 dead 2 will arrive, and I must say that I am a fan / vicious of this game) large, but we can be sure that Valve will port most free games to your platform Steam all with GNU / Linux (Linux to dry from here) because they well know that we do not like to pay for those things, for which we will surely see Counter Strike natively in Linux, Dota2 (AMEN) since it was said that it will be free from Steam, Team Fortress which has been free for a long time and maybe a good amount of indie games that we already have in Desura we will see them in Steam. Of course we will see paid games in Steam and I am one of those who supports that because as a developer I can understand very well that the work is not easy and we must eat and of course, stimulate those markets in Linux, nothing of "everything must be free»Because it hurts whoever hurts, we don't eat air or thank you.
This is obviously going to motivate many other houses and independent developers to release their games in Linux since now they will have a popular platform where to do it, and not just any, but the most popular of all. All this augurs a very bright gaming future for Linux, although it may take some time before we have a well-nourished catalog.
Desura will have competition on Linux.
This is great because I like it Desura and I don't see why not use both services, a free and high-quality one and a very high-quality private one as well.
It is no secret that Desura has certain «glitches»That make it uncomfortable sometimes, like that sometimes and with several games it doesn't run, not directly Desura but the game, it happened to me with several that I installed and they never ran from Desura. Maybe the competition will make them get to work on polishing themselves more and more so as not to be left behind and offer developers new and interesting possibilities, hopefully these guys grow because they are on the right track.
And so far we have only talked about games, but there is more than that behind what meets the eye; Steam will unleash many technical breakthroughs in various sectors of GNU / Linux, from proprietary drivers to the development of OpenGL and the Linux kernel.
AMD and Nvidia are going to have good reasons to upgrade and greatly improve the quality of their graphics drivers.
By having such a company providing games in Linux, now these two giants have reasons to offer true quality drivers, they no longer have the excuse that in Linux we only need drivers for "weak" games dependent on OpenGL and for stationery. Now they will need to move more and better games, OpenGL it will begin to be used more intensively for more things and its development will surely skyrocket. The demand will grow and they will be forced to improve the product.
The need to port games to OpenGL will drive development.
En Phoronix demonstrated, OpenGL can run a game like Left 4 Dead 2 en Linux, no Wine, no DirectX, OpenGL outright proving that it is not only used for nonsense. This surely attracts more companies to get involved in the growth of the free standard for graphics since the need arises to improve it so that their products have better quality and cover more market, it is that simple gentlemen; money, dirty but in the long run beautiful money. And this will benefit many other sectors at the graphical level of GNU / Linux.
As OpenGL and proprietary drivers grow, free drivers will grow exponentially.
It is as simple as that the greater the advance in other technologies, the better the possibilities of the already proven fighters and seasoned free controllers, which although they are not of the quality of the owners, have shown that their existence is not a whim and that for those who do not play are worth it. Now with this attachment, they will grow, that's for sure.
Wayland may benefit!
The one who comes to replace X.org will benefit from the growth of OpenGL, Why? Because plain and simple OpenGL is the backbone of this project, and if he grows, Wayland as well. Pure simple logic.
Last but not least and obviously obvious… Linux will be able to attract more users.
What can I say? Many will like the idea that they will be able to play in Linux and they are going to prove it, that simple; the excuse of «my games»It will go down the drain little by little and it will only remain«I use Office«, Which is falling short with the constant growth of LibreOffice.
All this is what the arrival of Steam a Linux, maybe many do not like that this happens since Steam It is proprietary, closed and although they have the right not to feel happy with the arrival of this platform to the Tuxito system, then good for them. But they cannot deny that the aforementioned will bring benefits to the system and will help it grow exponentially in different aspects, many of them may not have been mentioned, but neither can everything be covered in a single article.
I hope everything I say comes true, I would love to see the growth of GNU / Linux in these areas.