Earlier this year we shared that Valve's Source Engine is coming to Linux after receiving some information that pointed in this direction. In addition, a year ago Valve Software was publicly looking for a senior software engineer to port Windows-based games to Linux platform. There have long been rumors and hopes among Linux users that Steam games would become natively available for Linux, but we have additional confirmation that Valve Software has ported their Steam game client to Linux. In Valve's most recent title, Left 4 Dead, there are shared Linux libraries shipping alongside this Windows game client.
We were tipped off this morning by an attentive Phoronix reader that in the demo copy of Left 4 Dead there were several Linux library files worth investigating. In particular, one of these files was even named steamclient_linux.so. This is in the Windows demo client -- we're not referring to the Linux dedicated server-only version. Left 4 Dead is a first person shooter developed by Turtle Rock Studios and then acquired by Valve and is written around the Source Engine. Left 4 Dead brings several new features to the Source Engine such as post-processing effects, rendering and AI improvements, and dynamic lighting and shadowing improvements. The Windows client was released earlier this month and a playable demo a few days before the release. The retail game is distributed via Valve's Steam client, but the demo is no longer available through the Steam network.
With the demo version, there were shared libraries for Linux with the game client on Windows. The Left 4 Dead playable demo has twenty Linux library files shipping with the client (not simply the dedicated server version) and among them were steamclient_linux.so, studiorender_i486.so, vstdlib_i486.so, libsteam_api_linux.so, and engine_i486.so. We had bought the Left 4 Dead Windows game through Steam to continue our investigation, but the shared libraries were not to be found in that build at this time. The Linux files are obviously also present in the latest dedicated Linux server for Left 4 Dead through the HLDS utility.
We had explored the various shared libraries using the strings command. Among the many strings within steamclient_linux.so that caught our attention were k_EMsgClientRequestForgottenPasswordEmailResponse, k_EMsgClientGetLobbyMetadataResponse, k_EMsgClientPurchaseWithMachineID, k_EMsgClientGamesPlayed, k_EMsgAMSetCommunityState, SetOverlayNotificationPosition hates linux, Average %.2f fps, %.2f ms per frame, Steam_GSSendSteam3UserConnect, GetBillingAddress. These strings plus hundreds of other technically shouldn't be needed if this were simply for Linux server usage -- even though no Linux server binary ships with the Windows game on Steam.
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Other interesting strings were similarly found within libsteam_api_linux.so such as "[s_API FAIL] SteamAPI_Init() failed; unable to update local steamclient. Continuing with current version anyway." These strings for the Linux shared libraries were the similar to the Microsoft DLL files used by the Steam client on Windows. There were also strings referencing a Steam 3 release client on a Linux file-system (/home/VALVE/alfred/valve/steam3_rel_client/) likely belonging to Alfred Reynolds, who has long been involved with Valve's Linux operations. However, the Linux Steam client library doesn't appear to be an exact replica of the steamclient.dll, which has about twice the number of strings currently.
Also in the latest version of the Steam.exe is a "Bad eCurrentLinuxClientVersion field in CClientConfigRecord" string, taking note of the Linux client version.
Could Left 4 Dead be Valve's first game with a native Linux client? Judging by the popularity of this brand new title, it certainly wouldn't be a bad launch title. Alternatively, perhaps Valve messed up in prematurely pushing out these Linux files with the demo? These shared libraries compiled for Linux add over 50MB to the download size (with steamclient_linux.so being 30MB alone), so they should have a good reason as to why they are shipping them on Windows. For those that use both Windows and Linux, it looks like it will be a single Steam game download will be compatible with both operating systems. This is similar to how the Linux clients for titles from id Software and Epic Games operate with a vast majority of the in-game content files being cross-platform and then just having a few Linux-specific files that need to be dropped in for the operating system support.
Further reiterating a point from our previous article, Postal III is being released in 2009 by Running With Scissors. Vince Desi, the CEO of Running With Scissors, has officially confirmed that Postal III will be available for Linux and it too uses Valve's Source Engine.
So what we have with Left 4 Dead are several Linux shared libraries shipping with the demo on Windows. It's odd that they would ship the .so libraries in addition to the Microsoft DLL files without an official Linux client or even a Linux server binary in the same download, but they did, and this is the first Steam game we have encountered where these Linux files can be found. We are not even talking about the server-only version. It's looking good though that Linux support for the Steam client and Source Engine, which should come hand-in-hand, will be here in the not too distant future.
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bullo525
Earlier this year we shared that Valve's Source Engine is coming to Linux after receiving some information that pointed in this direction. In addition, a year ago Valve Software was publicly looking for a senior software engineer to port Windows-based games to Linux platform. There have long been rumors and hopes among Linux users that Steam games would become natively available for Linux, but we have additional confirmation that Valve Software has ported their Steam game client to Linux. In Valve's most recent title, Left 4 Dead, there are shared Linux libraries shipping alongside this Windows game client.
We were tipped off this morning by an attentive Phoronix reader that in the demo copy of Left 4 Dead there were several Linux library files worth investigating. In particular, one of these files was even named steamclient_linux.so. This is in the Windows demo client -- we're not referring to the Linux dedicated server-only version. Left 4 Dead is a first person shooter developed by Turtle Rock Studios and then acquired by Valve and is written around the Source Engine. Left 4 Dead brings several new features to the Source Engine such as post-processing effects, rendering and AI improvements, and dynamic lighting and shadowing improvements. The Windows client was released earlier this month and a playable demo a few days before the release. The retail game is distributed via Valve's Steam client, but the demo is no longer available through the Steam network.
With the demo version, there were shared libraries for Linux with the game client on Windows. The Left 4 Dead playable demo has twenty Linux library files shipping with the client (not simply the dedicated server version) and among them were steamclient_linux.so, studiorender_i486.so, vstdlib_i486.so, libsteam_api_linux.so, and engine_i486.so. We had bought the Left 4 Dead Windows game through Steam to continue our investigation, but the shared libraries were not to be found in that build at this time. The Linux files are obviously also present in the latest dedicated Linux server for Left 4 Dead through the HLDS utility.
We had explored the various shared libraries using the strings command. Among the many strings within steamclient_linux.so that caught our attention were k_EMsgClientRequestForgottenPasswordEmailResponse, k_EMsgClientGetLobbyMetadataResponse, k_EMsgClientPurchaseWithMachineID, k_EMsgClientGamesPlayed, k_EMsgAMSetCommunityState, SetOverlayNotificationPosition hates linux, Average %.2f fps, %.2f ms per frame, Steam_GSSendSteam3UserConnect, GetBillingAddress. These strings plus hundreds of other technically shouldn't be needed if this were simply for Linux server usage -- even though no Linux server binary ships with the Windows game on Steam.
Page 2
Quote:
Other interesting strings were similarly found within libsteam_api_linux.so such as "[s_API FAIL] SteamAPI_Init() failed; unable to update local steamclient. Continuing with current version anyway." These strings for the Linux shared libraries were the similar to the Microsoft DLL files used by the Steam client on Windows. There were also strings referencing a Steam 3 release client on a Linux file-system (/home/VALVE/alfred/valve/steam3_rel_client/) likely belonging to Alfred Reynolds, who has long been involved with Valve's Linux operations. However, the Linux Steam client library doesn't appear to be an exact replica of the steamclient.dll, which has about twice the number of strings currently.
Also in the latest version of the Steam.exe is a "Bad eCurrentLinuxClientVersion field in CClientConfigRecord" string, taking note of the Linux client version.
Could Left 4 Dead be Valve's first game with a native Linux client? Judging by the popularity of this brand new title, it certainly wouldn't be a bad launch title. Alternatively, perhaps Valve messed up in prematurely pushing out these Linux files with the demo? These shared libraries compiled for Linux add over 50MB to the download size (with steamclient_linux.so being 30MB alone), so they should have a good reason as to why they are shipping them on Windows. For those that use both Windows and Linux, it looks like it will be a single Steam game download will be compatible with both operating systems. This is similar to how the Linux clients for titles from id Software and Epic Games operate with a vast majority of the in-game content files being cross-platform and then just having a few Linux-specific files that need to be dropped in for the operating system support.
Further reiterating a point from our previous article, Postal III is being released in 2009 by Running With Scissors. Vince Desi, the CEO of Running With Scissors, has officially confirmed that Postal III will be available for Linux and it too uses Valve's Source Engine.
So what we have with Left 4 Dead are several Linux shared libraries shipping with the demo on Windows. It's odd that they would ship the .so libraries in addition to the Microsoft DLL files without an official Linux client or even a Linux server binary in the same download, but they did, and this is the first Steam game we have encountered where these Linux files can be found. We are not even talking about the server-only version. It's looking good though that Linux support for the Steam client and Source Engine, which should come hand-in-hand, will be here in the not too distant future.
Source:http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=steam_confirmation&num=1
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