It’s no secret that Linux and Valve has teamed up to create the best possible gaming experience on Linux. But why are they doing it, and why now? Gabe Newell top-man of Valve explained:

The big problem that is holding back Linux is games. People don’t realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior.

We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.

Gabe is sure Windows 8 is going to be a catastrophe, and perhaps his right but it’s still hard to tell the output. I myself did a post on  Steam for linux when it was announced, and like Gabe I wasn’t impressed with Windows 8, so I did a sum up of the latest windows systems successes and fails.

• Windows 95 = Not successive
• Windows 98 = Successive
• Windows ME = Not successive
• Windows XP = Successive
• Windows Vista = Not successive
• Windows 7 = Successive
• Windows 8 = Not successive??

Now I won’t judge Windows 8 before the official version is released, but I’m not at all satisfied with what I’ve seen in the consumers preview. I find it hard and annoying to use and adjust to. And I’m definitively not the only one struggling with the consumer preview. They’ve spent so much time developing the touch surface, that they forgot their main consumer group: Desktop users. We’re not ready to go full touch, most of us don’t even own a monitor with touch support – so what’s the use?

Even further only a small bunch of apps will have window support, which means the window UI is only usable IF you use supported applications.

Sure the system is less space requiring, consumes less ram, boots faster and supports hyperthreading but Linux still proves to be the best even on a 32 bit version which only supports up to 4 gb of ram, where as the windows version is 64 bit and supports all 32 gb of ram. It might not be of much use in game, but it’s still a factor to consider.

I came across a video titled “How real people will use windows 8″, a video in which we’re following a man which has used windows all of his life, in his first attempt to use Windows 8, it shows how hard it is to adjust to even for an all time windows user.

To compare, I found the very same man trying OS X for the first time – which went silky smooth.

In my opinion this just isn’t good enough, and Microsoft needs to step it up a notch if they want to play in this game. They need some attention drawn to usability.

I’m getting ready to leave windows for good when Steam hits the Linux platform, and hopefully I won’t be the only one doing “the move”. Am also hoping for Blizzard to join in on the Linux project, there have been multiple threads on the blizzard forums already stating “We want Linux support”, no answer from Blizzard so far.

A few days ago Valve opened their official Steam for Linux blog, to inform users, developers and other curious souls about their progress in Linux gaming.

Their latest post “Faster Zombies”, described their current FPS situation in Left 4 Dead 2 running with these specifications:

• Intel Core i7 3930k
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680
• 32 GB RAM
• Windows 7 Service Pack 1 64-bit
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Ubuntu 12.04 32-bit

Left 4 Dead 2 is running at 315 FPS on Linux. That the Linux version runs faster than the Windows version (270.6) seems a little counter-intuitive, given the greater amount of time we have spent on the Windows version. However, it does speak to the underlying efficiency of the kernel and OpenGL. Interestingly, in the process of working with hardware vendors we also sped up the OpenGL implementation on Windows. Left 4 Dead 2 is now running at 303.4 FPS with that configuration.

They were able to beat windows 7 (64 bit) by 32,8 fps using Linux (32 bit) and they’ve spent less time on the Linux version – as they describe it “counter-intuitive”. Why would they want to work on Windows, when Linux is able to reach higher FPS in less time?

Also Valve spent time working with hardware vendors like AMD, Nvidia and Intel to improve graphic drivers for Linux. The cooperation between hardware and software developers, allowed even more bug fixes and as Valve describes it: “should provide value to the Linux community at large.”

This is great news, and perhaps they’ll be able to reach even better FPS scores as they’ve been able to overtake Windows performance in such short time. This is just the start.

Valve is making great progress, and hopefully they’ll start beta testing soon. I myself am looking forward to beta testing, and hope to acquire beta aces for testing purposes.  Make sure to stay updated on the Steam for Linux blog.