Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gabe Newell (Formerly Microsoft, Now Valve's Head) and Intel Declare GNU/Linux Desktop Victorious

Gabe Newell
Source: Official GDC



Summary: The long-ridiculed claims that GNU/Linux has reached its year of desktop prominence are becoming mainstream

Valve is shifting away from Windows and will soon reveal its GNU/Linux appliance [1-10], which will be a gaming machine. Intel, the largest chipmaker, is meanwhile showing increasing levels of support for GNU/Linux leaders [11] (except Canonical's forks with Ubuntu [12]) in order to sell chips on devices [13-14], desktops/laptops [15], and servers [16]. There is clearly a lot of work going into kernel-level improvements [17-20] and Intel now foresees a future of GNU/Linux as the dominant desktop platform [21-22]. Given that even allies of Microsoft (or former staff-turned-entrepreneur with net worth of $ 1.1 billion) switch to GNU/Linux so enthusiastically, can anyone still say with a straight face that GNU/Linux will never "make it"?



Related/contextual items from the news:



  1. Half-Life: Source & Half-Life Deathmatch: Source Come To Linux
    Valve are making another Linux push towards having their full library available on Linux, this time it's Half-Life: Source & Half-Life Deathmatch: Source.


  2. Valve Hints at Steam Box News for Next Week


  3. Postal 2 DLC Details Revealed
    Running With Scissors has revealed some but not all of the details of what will come with the Postal 2 (Steam, Desura) DLC!


  4. Gabe Newell At LinuxCon 2013, Linux Is The Future Of Gaming


  5. Valve CEO: Why Linux is the future of gaming
    Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve declared that proprietary software and closed platforms are gaming's past, its future is open and on Linux.


  6. Valve Linux-Based SteamBox Details Coming Next Week
    For those that didn't yet watch Gabe Newell's talk about Linux gaming, at the end of the presentation he notes next week will be more information from Valve about their plans to bring Linux into the living room.


  7. Gabe Newell: Linux is the future of gaming, new hardware coming soon
    Valve chief blasts PC market, promises big news is coming next week.


  8. Valve's Gabe Newell Talks Up Linux For Gaming
    Gabe Newell was one of the prominent speakers today during the first day of LinuxCon in New Orleans. Here's an upload of his presentation where he's trumpeting the benefits of Linux for servers and gaming. Gabe believes, "Linux is the future of gaming."


  9. The State of Linux: Game On at LinuxCon
    Linux is landing on gaming systems and embedded devices, but challenges still remain as leading technology thinkers detail the state of Linux at the LinuxCon conference.


  10. Gabe Newell talks about Linux as the future of gaming; teases "Steam Box" hardware
    The gamers among us waited... very... patiently... for Steam to come to Linux. This week, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell came to LinuxCon to talk about Linux, gaming, and how important open source is to the future of gaming, which given the audience, he described as "sort of like going to Rome and teaching Catholicism to the Pope." In even better news, he also strongly hinted at a Steam Box announcement next week.


  11. Intel, Red Hat working on enabling Wayland support in Gnome
    Open Source is all about collaboration and contribution and two leading communities are working towards making Wayland a reality.


  12. Intel not to support Ubuntu's XMir
    As a major set-back to Canonical's plans for Mir, Intell has pulled the carpet from underneath Canonical by announcing that they won't support XMir.


  13. Atom-based PC/104 SBC runs Linux hot or cold
    EMAC announced a fanless, Linux-ready PC/104 format single-board computer built around Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom N270 processor, available in a wide temperature (-40 to 80€°C) model.


  14. Expandable Mini-ITX SBC runs Linux on 1.8GHz Atom
    Acrosser announced a Fedora Linux-ready Mini-ITX single board computer (SBC) equipped with a dual-core 1.86GHz Intel Atom D2550. The AMB-D255T3 supports up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM, can run dual displays via VGA, HDMI, or 18-bit LVDS interfaces, and offers both PCI and Mini-PCIe expansion.


  15. Google announces Haswell powered Chromebooks
    Intel and Google have announced new Chromebooks powered by the much talked about Haswell processors. Two major PC vendors ASUS and Toshiba have joined the Chrome OS club which include Samsung, Acer and HP. While HP and Acer are offering new Chromebooks, ASUS is brining new Chromebox to the market.


  16. Intel Uses Open Source, OpenStack Cloud to Its Advantage
    At LinuxCon, Dirk Hohndel, Intel's chief Linux and open-source technologist, explains why Intel is invested in open source and what his company is doing with the OpenStack cloud.


  17. Intel Is Still Working On Linux Power Capping
    It's been a while since last hearing anything from Intel engineers about their proposed Power Capping Framework or Running Average Power Limit driver for the Linux kernel, but that changed today. New patches have been released for the power monitoring and limiting kernel code.


  18. Intel Iris Pro Linux Performance Doubles With Driver Upgrades
    Last week I ran a System76 Galago UltraPro Preview with some benchmark results and a special article looking at the Intel Iris Pro 5200, the Haswell graphics cores with 128MB of dedicated video memory stacked onto the die itself. Those tests were done remotely but now with having a System76 Galago UltraPro ultrabook review sample in the labs, here are some fresh tests looking at the very latest state of Haswell Iris Pro graphics under Linux. The benchmarks cover the state of Ubuntu 13.04 going through the latest open-source Linux graphics driver code with the yet-to-be-released Mesa 9.3 and the Linux 3.12 kernel.


  19. Intel "Haswell" Iris Pro Linux Graphics Yield Some Wins Against Windows
    For the past few days at Phoronix we have begun looking extensively at the Intel Iris Pro 5200 graphics under Linux, since receiving the System76 Galago UltraPro. The Iris Pro 5200 are the new high-end Intel Haswell graphics that have 128MB of embedded video RAM on the die, which should yield a nice performance boost when properly implemented within the Intel Linux driver. Already our testing has found the Iris Pro performance on Linux has doubled with open-source driver improvements since Haswell's launch. Now we're out today with our first Intel Iris Pro OpenGL gaming benchmarks between Ubuntu Linux and Microsoft Windows 8 for this Intel Core i7 Ultrabook.


  20. Linux Still Needs Better OpenGL Debugging Support
    Intel's Ian Romanick will take to the Linux Plumbers Conference tomorrow with a plea to work together to provide better capabilities across the Linux stack for better debugging and profiling of graphics applications/systems on Linux. The open-source Intel Linux Mesa developer himself calls the current graphics debugging situation on Linux a "disaster" to be fixed.


  21. Is the year of the Linux desktop finally here?
    Today in Open Source: Intel thinks the year of the Linux desktop is here. Plus: Linus and Moore's Law, and Tiny Core 5.0 screenshots


  22. Intel: The year of the Linux desktop is here
    New Orleans: The Sept. 18 LinuxCon keynote sessions were kicked off by Intel Chief Linux and Open Source Technologist and Linux kernel developer Dirk Hohndel who said that client computing today is mostly Linux. Thanks to Android on smartphones and tablets, plus the rise of Chromebooks, Intel sees Linux as the leading end-user operating system.




Recent Techrights' Posts

What EPO Staff, the Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO), and Europe Want and Need
Who should be served by patents?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 49 Out of 200: Two Americans, One Case, Recycled for Low Budget at Brett Wilson LLP and 5RB Barristers
Change one character, bill the client tens or hundreds of thousands of US dollars
 
Network Maintenance Next Friday
We must be doing a terrific job so far given how much money gets spent trying to silence us
"The Work-to-rule is Having Effect" at the European Patent Office (EPO)
The media knows how to contact SUEPO, but it's clearly not doing it
Improving the Sites, Not Bloating Them
Sites need to evolve over time. Many conflate evolution with bloat (as if more complexity is desirable).
SLAPP Censorship - Part 50 Out of 200: The Time Staff of Law Firm Burgess Mee Was Showing Up in Letters Sent for a Serial Strangler From Microsoft
Family-friendly? No.
Next Week the Star of the "EPO Reality TV Show" Will Likely be Absent (Absconding the Tough Reality of Widespread Unrest)
He tarnishes the legacy of that surname and the country's image by spouting out lies and hurling abusive insults (lots of the "f word") at staff
Speculations That IBM's CEO is on His Way Out
IBM has mass layoffs, but the media is not covering this [...] IBM is a company in the loo, a firm in a state of rapid disintegration
Slopwatch Was Deprecated, It's Not Coming Back
LLMs that produce many words very fast (and waste a lot of energy in the process) cannot compete with authentic news sites
WELCOME to The Cyber|Show @ Geminispace!
Andy set things up this past week
Links 18/04/2026: Microsoft's PR Department (Waggener Edstrom) and CEO's Wife Buys NPR (BillPR, Now BallmerPR) as Independent/Public Service Media Dims Down
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/04/2026: Chronic Pain and CodingFont Game
Links for the day
Links 17/04/2026: "I Hate the Internet" and Fake Wallet in Apple App Store
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 17, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, April 17, 2026
European Patent Office (EPO) Strikes and Other Industrial Actions Are Working: Patent Application Grants Have Collapsed
Even before the strikes happened any day of the week
Pension Contribution Increases as Another Attack on Compensation for EPO Staff (Mostly Patent Examiners)
Pension contribution increases!
Almost 1,000 IBM Layoffs Not Newsworthy (Nobody Covers It), Unlike When Snap Does It and Mentions a Celebrated - or Reviled - Buzzword
not a word regarding IBM layoffs
Behind the Scenes With Richard Stallman
If you support his ideas, even if you dislike him as a person, then you'll welcome his ability to speak about those ideas
Gemini Links 17/04/2026: "Many Problems and Inequities in the Legal System", "No Place to Hide"
Links for the day
Links 17/04/2026: SRA Breaks Its Own Rules as Solicitor Attempts Suicide, IPv6 Barely Hits 50% After 20+ Years
Links for the day
ActBlue former IT boss disappearance: Decklin Foster & Debian, Harvard suicide lab, Chris Gleason is wife, whistleblower or both?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/04/2026: Getting competent in NixOS and Alhena 5.5.6 Released
Links for the day
Links 17/04/2026: "We Cannot Lose Sight of Ukraine" and "When Leaders Should Resign"
Links for the day
GizChina Appears to Have Become a Slopfarm, I.e. Fake News Site With Fake Text
Don't waste a moment reading LLM slop, as at the very least it rewards plagiarism [...] Deemed to be slop also by two human beings, not just two scanners
Massive, Cross-Site Strike at the EPO Today
There's coordination across sites for maximal pressure
Dr. Andy Farnell Says "AI" is "Only a Marketing Term" for Things That Exist for "Entertainment Purposes Only"
distortion or misuse of the term (now buzzword/s) "AI"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 16, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, April 16, 2026
Strikes at the EPO Carry on, Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) Increases Pressure Ahead of Technical and Operational Support Committee (TOSC) Meeting Next Week
the local section The Hague (or SUEPO TH) wants to rally many staff members
Gemini Links 16/04/2026: LLM Nuisance, Identity Systems (Surveillance), and Why Windows is Failing
Links for the day
'Going Offline' is Not Primitivism
Computers are good at automation, but people are not robots
The Register MS Has Published Article With "AI" 18 Times in it, "Cloud" 9 Times. It Got Paid to Do This.
What happened to journalism?
In Europe, More People Turn to Russia for Answers, Not Microsoft
The future of computing doesn't look pretty
SLAPP Censorship - Part 48 Out of 200: Brett Wilson LLP and 5RB Copy-Pasting Bogus Claims for Violent Americans (Microsoft) Who Tell Women to Kill Themselves
Microsoft's Graveley telling his partner to kill herself is probably a crime
The EFF Is Hardly Doing Anything Anymore
Our series about the EFF has been brewing for over 2 years already
Microsoft Uses Slop to Bribe (at No Cost) Nations That Otherwise Would Move to GNU/Linux and IBM is Forcing Red Hat Staff to Use Slop
Life it too short to waste "consuming" slop
Links 16/04/2026: Roblox Launching ‘Roblox Kids’ Accounts and "Deepfake Nudes Crisis in Schools"
Links for the day
Red Hat Staff: IBM Red Hat Laid Off About 400 Engineers, the Media Did Not Cover This
The media is not doing its job or doing a really shoddy job
Gemini Links 16/04/2026: Nocturnal Pulse, Unpersoned Outlaws, and Monaspace Lagrange Fontpacks
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Lecture in GDC Auditorium in Austin, Texas
corporate power could not 'cancel' the man
It's Not About the Head, It's About the Masters (and Funding)
Regardless of who the OSI claims to be its leader, its masters are Microsoft, just follow the money
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 15, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 15, 2026