Virtual Worlds & Linux : The Importance Of STEAM OS : and : Video Hardware Driver Support

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Do not underestimate Linux as a desktop replacement contender, although the Desk Top Environment ~ User Interface at this current time is extremely splintered. ( and always has been ) It seems as if the Graphic Chip Manufacturers, the 3 major players are finally waking up to the fact that Linux is not going to go away. There is not a day goes by without a Mesa, Intel's open source Video Driver, AMD's  Open Source Gallium, or  Nouveau, the Nvidia open source equivalent are not updated.  Add on the fact the OS community offering's are currently making head over heals accomplishment's of an unprecedented  level completely unheard of or even imagined just a few years ago.

    What's driving this monumental push forward ? Video Gaming ! Plain and Simple, the constant push for greater realism and depth of perception allowing one to immerse themselves within the selected Virtual Environment seems to be the current Darling Gal everyone want's a Hot Date with, Developer's goal. Hey that's fine by me. ( actually I'm still playing a modified version of the original Zelda )  So be it.

    STEAM is the best thing that has ever happened for people like myself that really enjoy using Linux.

    Currently the Linux Operating System is not for everyone, nor was it meant to be, it does however seem to defy logic in a consumer oriented, give me everything I want now playing field of consumerism statistical metric's.

    So how does all of this tie into virtual worlds like Open Sim, or SecondLife ? STEAM is Huge, so is GOG, and toss in the fact Microsoft really pissed off a lot of folk's with Window's 8, Apple who know's.

    The Machinima field of creative art's ( I predict ) will see a large upswing in product's available for use from within the Open Source community very soon.

    The biggest conflict I can see is the X-Org standard, it is very outdated. There is a relatively new replacement that has been getting a significant amount of attention lately, and it seems to be vastly superior to X-Org's approach. That project is called Wayland, this new standard replacement should pretty much do away with the requirement of all video driver's support needing to recompile the Linux kernel.

    And STEAM is leading the way forward.

JayR Cela