"Traditional Linux userspace software" is an informal definition, but let's say something like X. Or your average window manager. Or, say, almost anything from GNOME.
"Traditional Linux users" is another informal definition, but if you use a distro, you're probably a traditional Linux user. Contrast this with an Android user. They run the Linux kernel but the software they interface with is an entirely different breed. The statement "Android is Linux" is true, definitely, but it's inside baseball to anyone but us nerds. The Linux-y aspects are more or less invisible (by design).
I'm not trying to slight either desktop Linux or Android or SteamOS or whatever, just to be clear. I think it's a huge win for Linux, at least in some sense.
I think it's misleading to read "Linux" and imagine "desktop GNU/Linux with all the trimmings." I can't imagine there won't be some way to get that on a SteamOS machine. My skepticism is directed at the idea that Valve will ship anything which, out of the box, resembles a traditional desktop Linux experience. I expect it will be more like an Android experience than Ubuntu, with rather limited access to OS internals, filesystem, package management, etc.
> but let's say something like X. Or your average window manager. Or, say, almost anything from GNOME.
This doesn't apply to embedded Linux, or Linux for servers, which could be argued to be just as "traditional" a use case as Linux for desktops.
Additionally, for the desktop use case, nearly every distribution uses a different window manager anyway. There are such a wide variety of window managers, I wouldn't know how to compute an "average" between them in a meaningful way. Although I use Linux for a desktop everyday, I don't have GNOME installed, and I would barely notice if X was missing and replaced by Wayland or a different component.
> I think it's misleading to read "Linux" and imagine "desktop GNU/Linux with all the trimmings."
Right. It's not Linux for the desktop, or Linux for the phone, or Linux for embedded devices, or Linux for servers, it's Linux for the living room. My point is that due to the diversity of the Linux ecosystem, there really wasn't such a thing as a "traditional" or "average" Linux Desktop in the first place, and that we can't even say Linux for desktop is the "traditional" or "average" use of Linux. Anything running the Linux kernel should be able to call itself Linux, without qualification.
That's fine, but the context was whether "Linux users" will pay for software or not. I basically agree with you in terms of the facts, but speaking primarily in terms of user behavior, each of those platforms is manifestly different.
I think it's pretty unlikely that Xorg won't be a part of it somehow. X+extensions is basically the only meaningful, portable, direct interface to video hardware that exists on linux. At least if you want the hardware vendor's own drivers (which steambox obviously would, Nouveau is not up to the challenge).
It would also mean that all the 300+ games that currently work on Steam For Linux would have to be retooled for whatever proprietary windowing layer Valve would have to invent. And Valve would have to convince nVidia to come along for the ride.
The closeness of the SteamOS experience to that of a typical desktop Linux distro is irrelevant. If it runs on the Steam Box, it will run on a Linux desktop of compatible architecture.
Considering there is already Steam for Linux, its probable that Valve will ensure Linux games run on both platforms equally well.
In any case, if there is no need for "all the trimmings", if Valve just wants to make an entertainment pipeline, then that's fine by me. It's the same kernel; this is a huge win for Linux by any measure.
But if they are optimizing a number of things in their own distribution, it's not far-fetched to think that games would run marginally better on the SteamOS.
- GPU driver improvements (they've already been working with nvidia, amd, and intel) which everyone benefits from
- kernel patches (maybe they fiddle with the scheduler or something) which anyone could pick up
- new/improved subsystems (perhaps they do some low latency input or audio layer), which (assuming they open source it) distros could choose to adopt or not
- improving porting techniques for bringing games or game middleware to Linux based platforms (everyone benefits)
It's possible that some stuff could be foreign enough to the way it has always been done on linux that it may take some time to make it upstream (see wakelocks from Android finally turning up in the kernel under a different name and a different implementation but providing the same functionality), but if it actually improves things, eventually I suspect the mainline kernel or distros or whomever will come around.
I think you misunderstood the point of my comment.
The context was whether or not "Linux users" will pay money for software. In this respect, the closeness is only relevant insofar as it is useful to discuss "Debian users" in the same breath as "SteamOS users."
"Traditional Linux users" is another informal definition, but if you use a distro, you're probably a traditional Linux user. Contrast this with an Android user. They run the Linux kernel but the software they interface with is an entirely different breed. The statement "Android is Linux" is true, definitely, but it's inside baseball to anyone but us nerds. The Linux-y aspects are more or less invisible (by design).
I'm not trying to slight either desktop Linux or Android or SteamOS or whatever, just to be clear. I think it's a huge win for Linux, at least in some sense.
I think it's misleading to read "Linux" and imagine "desktop GNU/Linux with all the trimmings." I can't imagine there won't be some way to get that on a SteamOS machine. My skepticism is directed at the idea that Valve will ship anything which, out of the box, resembles a traditional desktop Linux experience. I expect it will be more like an Android experience than Ubuntu, with rather limited access to OS internals, filesystem, package management, etc.
Does that make more sense?