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Comment by aristidb | Hacker News Reader

So, there are multiple approaches to Linux software distribution (for free-as-in-beer closed-source software, like the Minecraft client, Skype, Chrome or Steam):

1. Pump out versioned tarballs, and let distro maintainers deal with packaging. 2. Create a very thin launcher, and deal with updates yourself in the Launcher. Minecraft does this. 3. Provide package repositories for Ubuntu and Fedora and deal with updates yourself. Chrome does this.

I think (1) and (2) are preferable. (1) is also the easiest to implement (!), but may result in delayed distribution to the end user.

It is possible to mix (1) and (3), of course.

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The chromium project releases their updates for Ubuntu users thru a PPA, but Canonical also distributes stable packages. A mix that is working really well.

God forbid #2, a system-wide system for downloading and updating applications is one of the zen-things about using the Linux-based OS's.

How it works on Mac OS X and is chaotical, and the way Microsoft does it, with countless messy installers and self-updating apps is hell to deal with.

Well, Steam is by necessity an independent package manager. So you can't really have that Zen if you want to use it. Might as well update itself, too. ;)

To pinkbucket: you seem to have been hell-banned when your account was new. You will need a new account. My condolences.

(3) is much easier to implement for Ubuntu due to PPAs. It's also the most convenient for the users, although trusting a wide range of PPAs is somewhat of a security issue.

It's also an usability nightmare, as a lot of things that Steam is used for both update very often (weekly to daily), and always need to be kept updated to the newest version or they fail to start. You'd have to run a apt-get update && apt-get upgrade every time you launch your favourite game.

Most likely, Valve will provide a steam_installer.deb, which depends on all platform libraries Steam needs, and which only contains a script that creates the necessary users and rights, reserves some directory for steam, fetches the actual Steam off a Valve site, authenticates it, and runs it.

Steam has it's own usability issues though. For example it won't let me play a game and download a game at the same time.

I guess this is for performance reasons, but I'm sure my PC can run Braid and do some disk IO at the same time.

I also can't find a way to have different games installed on different partitions/drives. This would be very useful if you have an SSD but can't fit all of your games onto it.

> I also can't find a way to have different games installed on different partitions/drives. This would be very useful if you have an SSD but can't fit all of your games onto it.

You can do this by moving the directories in question into the other disk, and then creating a junction (symbolic link) from the original location to the new one. On windows 7: mklink /j "path/to/steam/steamapps/common/gamefolder" "path/to/the/other/disk/gamefolder"

Thanks, will try that.

Shame this isn't made a bit easier.

>Steam has it's own usability issues though. For example it won't let me play a game and download a game at the same time.

You can do it manually. Activate the game to play, alt-tab to Steam. Library, view the downloads. The download will be suspended, pause it and then you can unpause it and it'll resume downloading. Alt-tab back to the game.

Lots of work, but it works (or at least I think it did when I last tried it).

The post I was replying to was talking about Linux software distribution in general. I wasn't suggesting using the package as a delivery mechanism for Steam software, which seems like a pretty silly idea.

For Ubuntu, you can release closed-source software in the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Also PPA-based, by the way.

Honestly, I dislike the way Chrome works on Ubuntu. I don't like using PPAs and I'm never sure how/when Chrome gets updated. Sometimes it seems like the OS does it and sometimes it seems the Chrome updates itself (just like on other platforms). Maybe its just me.

So, I think my vote for how Valve updates would be (2). Give the Linux vendors something to package but since they move very slowly you need to be able to fix bugs in a timely manor.

In my experience with Ubuntu, Chrome gets updated through Update Manager like everything else.

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