Anyone else try steam for Linux?

I did yesterday, spent the entire afternoon trying to get the ati drivers to work, no luck, horrible resolution, 1fps on TF2 (on windows I get 30), if they are serious about games on linux one would think good graphics drivers support would be the first thing they would do... I know it's an issue of ATI and Nvidia, but come on!

pff, i just use my 32 GB USB

I was choosen for the closed beta but couldn't run a game since it was full of bugs/exes missing and all, plus when runing a 64 bits system. I finally decided to fix some craps 2 days ago (I think) to try 'em because.. I use windows for gaming only, and I was so disappointed by CSS as it has a little mouse input lag. This may be fixed but I won't play in these conditions and will not waste my time anymore for now. About other games.. well, because of steam I've lost all my saves from non-clouded games, so I'm not really in mood for that; maybe later.

installed ubuntu 12.04, updated, installed ati propietary (ati 4850), installed steam.

Tf2 didn't work, tried a couple of indie games and they did work tough.

havent tried it yet, my mother has a linux in his office for work, when i go there i might install steam and tf2 to ge the tux

Wow, so much negative experiences... Tried it back in closed beta, was buggy (Steam, not Linux - that sh*t is rock solid). Then I tried it again yesterday and as far as I can see, Valve managed to fix everything, Linux client is working just fine. Got my Tux in less than 20 seconds.

can not connect to thought, please call mysandvichpan.com for solutions

steam installed properly but it won't let me log in for some reason. it says that my account details are wrong, but i can log in with them on win7 :/

I'd say it's been great. Actually seems more stable compared to the PC version. The only problem I had was with AMD drivers, but solved that pretty quickly.

Oh, running it on a Wubi installed Lubuntu btw.

Tried it out for the TF2 Tux item.
It's nicer that the prior times I've tried Linux (SUSE Linux 10, I think, among earlier dabbles for a much briefer time), but still too much of a pain to make sure everything's working right for a casual person to be happy maintaining it.
Since I used WUBI (Ubuntu 12.10) on a local HDD, I can't say much about the system response time. Things were sporadically slow/frozen, but I'm sure it was due to it being dependent on a HDD for things it's not usually supposed to. Also, it would not work at the default 18GB install size. So in my mind, it makes it just as or more bloated than Windows (which isn't that bloated these days).

I have other nitpicks, but mostly, I came away from the Linux experience open-minded about it, but not seeing any particular advantages over Windows other than being legitimately free.

Steam itself was Steam. No real differences other than the store page defaulting to showing Linux games and my game library suddenly feeling a lot smaller. :D

I did it for the Tux item

Remember to update system, install build-essentials, linux-source & linux-headers-generic before Nvidia drivers, it can save you troubles.
Works great so far :)

I'm planning on installing it on a spare memory card and trying it out, see what I think and pick up the tf2 item :)

Think I might need to install Debian on my laptop again, just for shits. Now that I have a main desktop again, I can afford to fiddle with my laptop.

Pretty easy to get this without even going through the chaos of installing Linux. I haven't played any games on it, but I thought the Tux was worth getting as it seems to be another '1-time' thing which is interesting to have.

Virtual Box + Ubuntu + ~25GB space to install Ubuntu + TF2.

Ended up running the game and hearing the sound, but no picture. Apparently you don't need to really get into a game, but instead just load it up.

It made me remember how clunky it feels to try and do anything under Linux. Agreed, my knowledge is somewhat limited in that area but is seems everything is hit or miss in there.

Well what a thread. I have to admit I enjoyed figuring out how to get this stuff to work. Once I installed FTL I had to transfer the save file from windows. Took me forever to find the FTL Linux save file even with Google. Apparently the save files are in hidden folders that can accessed with the default file browser. I installed dolphin and tried to set that as the default file browser but it wouldn't fully replace the stock file manager. Once TF2 was done installing I got it to start up with no problems at all. It runs smoothly but the AA was terrible.

When I start up steam on Ubuntu it suggests installing experimental nvidia driver 310. After installing 310 and restarting the GUI did not load and I was left with the command line. On windows when nvidia drivers fuck up you usually have to delete every last part of them and it is a long painful process. I looked up "removing nvidia drivers Ubuntu command", entered several commands, and had the 304 drivers in no time, much easier than it would have been on windows to completely wipe nvidia drivers.

I thought it was pretty cool that I could enter simple commands to delete whole programs and re-install them with ease. Anyone else know how I can learn more about Ubuntu/Linux and more commands? The Ubuntu site snit that great for learning unless you have a problem.

I dont try it, and i never try it ;)

Im running it on VMWare and it seems to be fine
A few bugs here and there but fine nonetheless.

Yes I tried in Arch Linux, my FPS is lower in Linux then in Windows, but I guess it takes time to port the games and write better linux drivers. Installation was very easy, and Steam starts faster in Linux then in Windows, Yay for that! <3

I had about 40-70 fps in Source (CSS/TF2) games and 100 fps in Counter-Strike 1.6, Half-Life. I didn't test Killing Floor yet.. Will do that later today I guess. Now lets hope for more fps and stability.

Good question.

It was awful. I tried Virtual Box + Ubuntu 12.10. The ubuntu install was great, updated with no issues... but then, drama started. Virtual Box Add-ons never worked, specially the Shared Folders or Drag and Drop. So I had to redownload TF2.
Locating the installed shit on Linux is a complete mess (having to GUESS Ctrl+H isn't a good way to know the system).
Had to launch a Terminal... but there were no easy access to it, someone told me that I had to search it.
Also had to have root access (the whole sudo thing), which is pretty unconfortable to do, specially if I had to do it everytime I started the system.

Then I tried VMWare Player and it was even worse, had to use command lines (in 2013!!) to install it, and even then, the VMWare addons didn't work. Horrible, VMWare, just horrible.

So yeah. Won't be coming back to Unix in like 10 years. But it's getting there, for a free OS, I might say... Better get Windows 8 for 15 USD or so, saves a ton of time.

BTW, TF2 didn't even started but at least got the Tux.

Going well for me.

Here's some tips:

Use Ubuntu 12.10. It has a newer version of opengl which is faster along with many other reasons.

Don't use wubi, it's horrible & makes Linux look pants. Install Ubuntu properly & make sure you have seperate root & home partitions for extra happiness.

intel graphics card users should add xswat-updates repository for newest drivers. Steams guide for adding xswat-updates for Intel gfx.

Don't use nvidia's or Ati's crappy driver installers, they don't update automatically and that == DOOM. You can use xswat-updates for beta (possibly dodgy) nvidia/ati drivers or just install them by using the restricted drivers notification. How to install xswat-update beta drivers for Nvidia users.

Intel graphics users need to install driconf & enable s3tc texture compression. It can't be enabled by default by law. Driconf howto. Just go to Ubuntu software center & search for driconf.

Nvidia users have found that disabling v-sync in nvidia-settings causes no noticeable tearing but a dramatic increase in system responsiveness & fps.

Disabling desktop compositing while running games is a good idea too. This option wasn't enabled in Ubuntu 12.04 so many users experienced seriously slow gameplay.

I did

Tried it in Virtualbox with U12.10 but Unity made it slow as hell so I reinstalled with my old copy of Ubuntu 10.04 but I had to update it to 12.04 because of Steam. Luckily, 12.04 has Unity 2D so I didn't beat the crap out of my pc in nerves. I was able to run TF2 just to the point to receive Tux (black screen after "Starting game...").

I installed Ubuntu and Steam this weekend and it is all good :)