• Valve introduces SteamOS

    From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to All on Mon Sep 23 23:58:03 2013
    Computer game publisher Valve has introduced their own operating system, SteamOS, which is based on Linux and aimed for living room PCs. This sounds interesting as a video game platform: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/23/4762370/steam-box-os

    Nightfox

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  • From Mindless Automaton@VERT/ELDRITCH to Nightfox on Tue Sep 24 13:18:52 2013
    On 9/23/2013 10:58 PM, Nightfox wrote:
    Computer game publisher Valve has introduced their own operating system, SteamOS, which is based on Linux and aimed for living room PCs. This sounds interesting as a video game platform: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/23/4762370/steam-box-os

    Nightfox

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    Sounds like vaporware! :P

    -Mindless Automaton
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  • From Dreamer@VERT/SETXBBS to Mindless Automaton on Tue Sep 24 18:41:45 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Mindless Automaton to Nightfox on Tue Sep 24 2013 08:18 am

    system, SteamOS, which is based on Linux and aimed for living room
    PCs. This sounds interesting as a video game platform:

    Sounds like vaporware! :P

    They've been working on this for a while now. The founder doesn't like being tied to one OS for his games, and has been wanting to influence game development for Linux in order to help break Microsoft's major share of PC gaming (or something like that).

    This is good news, as other developers will be paying attention. And, with the number of quality titles available, and some real statistics pouring in, if there's enough Linux users using Steam, perhaps we'll see other developers make Linux releases.

    I remember back in the late 90's or early 2000's, Linux titles were actually being carried in some of the local stores and Wal-Mart. You could buy the OS, a CD of extras, and a couple games. Unfortunately, since at the time relatively few people had heard of Linux nor had a need/want for something different, they never moved much, and very few titles have been ported since.

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Dreamer on Tue Sep 24 17:44:17 2013
    They've been working on this for a while now. The founder doesn't like being tied to one OS for his games, and has been wanting to influence game development for Linux in order to help break Microsoft's major share of PC gaming (or something like that).

    The founder doesn't like being tied to one OS for his games, so they decide to develop their own OS? Doesn't make sense to me..

    This is good news, as other developers will be paying attention. And, with the number of quality titles available, and some real statistics pouring
    in, if there's enough Linux users using Steam, perhaps we'll see other developers make Linux releases.

    I remember back in the late 90's or early 2000's, Linux titles were
    actually being carried in some of the local stores and Wal-Mart. You could buy the OS, a CD of extras, and a couple games. Unfortunately, since at
    the time relatively few people had heard of Linux nor had a need/want for something different, they never moved much, and very few titles have been ported since.

    I certainly hope more developers will start making Linux versions of their games. I remember seeing those Linux versions as well in the late 90s and early 2000s. I remember Loki being the company that was releasing most of those Linux ports (Quake 3 Arena, SimCity 3000, etc.). I heard Loki went out of business because there weren't enough customers buying the Linux ports.
    But these days, the Linux gaming market may be different.

    Nightfox

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  • From Mro@VERT/BBSESINF to Mindless Automaton on Tue Sep 24 21:23:28 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Mindless Automaton to Nightfox on Tue Sep 24 2013 08:18 am

    On 9/23/2013 10:58 PM, Nightfox wrote:
    Computer game publisher Valve has introduced their own operating system, SteamOS, which is based on Linux and aimed for living room PCs. This sounds interesting as a video game platform: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/23/4762370/steam-box-os

    Sounds like vaporware! :P

    -Mindless Automaton

    eh, probably going to be hard for them to keep up with all the different types of hardware and the changes.

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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to Nightfox on Wed Sep 25 00:40:08 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Nightfox to All on Mon Sep 23 2013 06:58 pm

    Computer game publisher Valve has introduced their own operating system, SteamOS, which is based on Linux and aimed for living room PCs. This sounds interesting as a video game platform: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/23/4762370/steam-box-os

    I read about that - sounds interesting. I'm tempted to take one of my boxes and turn it into a Linux media center - can Steam OS act as a MC, too?

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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to Dreamer on Wed Sep 25 00:41:21 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Mindless Automaton on Tue Sep 24 2013 01:41 pm

    I remember back in the late 90's or early 2000's, Linux titles were actually being carried in some of the local stores and Wal-Mart.

    WalMart sold some loss-leader PCs with Linux - I think they used Linspire? THey were low-end AMD systems, remember seeing a sub $250 desktop.

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  • From Dreamer@VERT/SETXBBS to Nightfox on Wed Sep 25 03:27:44 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Nightfox to Dreamer on Tue Sep 24 2013 12:44 pm

    The founder doesn't like being tied to one OS for his games, so they decide to develop their own OS? Doesn't make sense to me..

    My understanding is Steam games will run on Windows or SteamOS.

    I certainly hope more developers will start making Linux versions of their games. I remember seeing those Linux versions as well in the late 90s and early 2000s. I remember Loki being the company that was releasing most of those Linux ports (Quake 3 Arena, SimCity 3000, etc.). I heard Loki went out of business because there weren't enough customers buying the Linux ports. But these days, the Linux gaming market may be different.

    Yeah, I think they were the only ones doing it. I knew about them porting id Games's software, but didn't know about SimCity being ported. Shame, I would've bought it.

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  • From Dreamer@VERT/SETXBBS to Mro on Wed Sep 25 03:33:58 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Mro to Mindless Automaton on Tue Sep 24 2013 04:23 pm

    eh, probably going to be hard for them to keep up with all the different types of hardware and the changes.

    I thought about that, too, but I don't think it's as difficult as it was ten or fifteen years ago. Video is the only major hurdle left, and of that I think it's mainly nvidea drivers... and I just read that they're releasing more information for Linux developers, so that'll help out.

    I haven't heard anything yet, but SteamOS is likely built on top of Debian or other major system, so they'll have the benefit of all their hardware support. Probably includes in-house and nonfree solutions to boot... heck, could be they even licensed some driver support for maximum performance.

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Dreamer on Wed Sep 25 12:59:26 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Tue Sep 24 2013 22:27:44

    My understanding is Steam games will run on Windows or SteamOS.

    Many (if not all) of their games already run on Windows. And that still leaves MacOS users out..

    Nightfox

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Dreamer on Wed Sep 25 13:02:22 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Mro on Tue Sep 24 2013 22:33:58

    eh, probably going to be hard for them to keep up with all the
    different types of hardware and the changes.

    I thought about that, too, but I don't think it's as difficult as it was ten or fifteen years ago. Video is the only major hurdle left, and of that I think it's mainly nvidea drivers... and I just read that they're releasing more information for Linux developers, so that'll help out.

    Nvidia always had good drivers for Linux. Did that change at some point?

    I haven't heard anything yet, but SteamOS is likely built on top of Debian or other major system, so they'll have the benefit of all their hardware support. Probably includes in-house and nonfree solutions to boot... heck, could be they even licensed some driver support for maximum performance.

    I thought about that too. Why would Valve necessarily have to support all the hardware when it's the hardware vendors that create the drivers? The only thing that may make ValveOS better in that respect is doing something like Microsoft does with Windows and having hardware vendors submit their drivers for inclusion in SteamOS.

    Nightfox

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  • From Dreamer@VERT/SETXBBS to Nightfox on Wed Sep 25 19:51:59 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Nightfox to Dreamer on Wed Sep 25 2013 07:59 am

    Many (if not all) of their games already run on Windows. And that still leaves MacOS users out..

    Makes sense, since Valve's Steam started on Windows... :P

    Perhaps once they finish getting SteamOS rolled out, they'll work on getting the Steam stuff on Mac. To be honest, I've never used anything on Steam, so I really have no idea how all that works. I always thought it was just a distribution channel, until I heard about SteamOS... with the number of titles on it, I highly doubt every title is ported to run on Linux. I don't know if the titles literally run on top of Steam, or if SteamOS has some sort of finely tuned Wine app layer, or what.

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  • From Dreamer@VERT/SETXBBS to Nightfox on Wed Sep 25 20:02:25 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Nightfox to Dreamer on Wed Sep 25 2013 08:02 am

    Nvidia always had good drivers for Linux. Did that change at some point?

    My understanding is that Nvidia doesn't release the drivers, you have to use a community produced driver... I forget what it's called at the moment. I think Nvidia had published just enough information for users to use the card for X11 and some limited 2D video acceleration, but you couldn't get the full use of the hardware for gaming like you can on Windows.

    I thought about that too. Why would Valve necessarily have to support all the hardware when it's the hardware vendors that create the drivers? The only thing that may make ValveOS better in that respect is doing something like Microsoft does with Windows and having hardware vendors submit their drivers for inclusion in SteamOS.

    Up until recent times, hardware vendors simply didn't release Linux drivers. In fact, most still don't... but luckily, enough developers reverse engineered enough drivers that you'd be hard pressed to find something that doesn't work on Windows (usually odd USB devices).

    A good example is network drivers. The most popular are supported, but I have a PCI wireless card that has no Linux driver. You have to use a program called ndiswrapper and use a Windows driver. There's no transparent user-friendly GUI dialog to accomplish this (at least, not that I know about at the moment).

    In any case, Valve being such a well known gaming company with so many titles available via Steam, I think they'll have the clout to get vendors to seriously think about creating proper native drivers for Linux. So long as enough gamers actually use SteamOS. It's gonna be a while, methinks.

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Dreamer on Wed Sep 25 23:12:35 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Wed Sep 25 2013 14:51:59

    Perhaps once they finish getting SteamOS rolled out, they'll work on getting the Steam stuff on Mac. To be honest, I've never used anything on Steam, so I really have no idea how all that works. I always thought it was just a distribution channel, until I heard about SteamOS... with the number of titles on it, I highly doubt every title is ported to run on Linux. I don't know if the titles literally run on top of Steam, or if SteamOS has some sort of finely tuned Wine app layer, or what.

    It is mainly a distribution channel, and it makes buying games really easy. You can buy their games online and download & install them instantly, so you don't have to go to a store to buy a game.

    And no, not every title is ported to run on Linux. And from what I understand, Valve/Steam is mainly a publisher, and many games they sell are developed by other companies. So if SteamOS is able to run Windows games, I do wonder if SteamOS will use Wine or some other Windows compatibility layer.

    Nightfox

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Dreamer on Wed Sep 25 23:16:45 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Wed Sep 25 2013 15:02:25

    My understanding is that Nvidia doesn't release the drivers, you have to use a community produced driver... I forget what it's called at the moment. I think Nvidia had published just enough information for users to use the card for X11 and some limited 2D video acceleration, but you couldn't get the full use of the hardware for gaming like you can on Windows.

    Hmm, that's interesting.. I've done gaming in Linux with Nvidia before, but the last time was maybe 8-9 years ago. I remember being able to download and install the Nvidia driver (I don't remember for sure if it was directly from Nvidia or not - it may have been thorugh the Linux distro's package manager) and was able to get hardware acceleration for games in Linux.

    Up until recent times, hardware vendors simply didn't release Linux drivers. In fact, most still don't... but luckily, enough developers reverse engineered enough drivers that you'd be hard pressed to find something that doesn't work on Windows (usually odd USB devices).

    A good example is network drivers. The most popular are supported, but I have a PCI wireless card that has no Linux driver. You have to use a program called ndiswrapper and use a Windows driver. There's no transparent user-friendly GUI dialog to accomplish this (at least, not that I know about at the moment).

    Yeah, I've set up a network driver via ndiswrapper before. I always thought the lack of Linux drivers was just because Linux device support was spotty. Some hardware vendors support Linux (even if it's indirectly) and some don't.

    In any case, Valve being such a well known gaming company with so many titles available via Steam, I think they'll have the clout to get vendors to seriously think about creating proper native drivers for Linux.

    I certainly hope so, and I'd look forward to that if that happens.

    Nightfox

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  • From Mro@VERT/BBSESINF to Dreamer on Thu Sep 26 01:32:06 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Wed Sep 25 2013 02:51 pm

    Many (if not all) of their games already run on Windows. And that still leaves MacOS users out..

    Makes sense, since Valve's Steam started on Windows... :P

    Perhaps once they finish getting SteamOS rolled out, they'll work on
    getting the Steam stuff on Mac. To be honest, I've never used anything on Steam, so I really have no idea how all that works. I always thought it


    well, i'm starting to think steamOS is going to be like that commodore OS. just debian with a theme and a few bells and whistles.

    i remember back in the day when everyone was glad to finally be able to just make games for windows because they went through hell coding drivers and working with manufacturers to get drivers to work with their games.

    i had one game that i had to switch a jumper on my soundcard... just so i could play it. then i'd switch it back since it was so non-standard.

    i dont know if things have changed or if the same people arent there and they didnt go through all the troubles that people have in the past.

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  • From Khelair@VERT/TINFOIL to Poindexter Fortran on Thu Sep 26 02:27:05 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Poindexter Fortran to Nightfox on Tue Sep 24 2013 19:40:08

    I read about that - sounds interesting. I'm tempted to take one of my boxes turn it into a Linux media center - can Steam OS act as a MC, too?

    Isn't XBMC supposed to do that? It was too bloaty for the last
    system I tried to run it on, but I saw somebody else get it set up real
    nice with a remote and everything working over a home LAN and bigscreen beautifully. I've wanted to have something like that for a long time,
    just not had the cash for the decent enough A/V hardware.


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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Mro on Thu Sep 26 00:35:35 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Mro to Dreamer on Wed Sep 25 2013 20:32:06

    well, i'm starting to think steamOS is going to be like that commodore OS. just debian with a theme and a few bells and whistles.

    i remember back in the day when everyone was glad to finally be able to just make games for windows because they went through hell coding drivers and working with manufacturers to get drivers to work with their games.

    i had one game that i had to switch a jumper on my soundcard... just so i could play it. then i'd switch it back since it was so non-standard.

    i dont know if things have changed or if the same people arent there and they didnt go through all the troubles that people have in the past.

    I remember changing jumpers & such a long time ago too. I doubt SteamOS will be like that though. The advantage of making games (and software in general) for Windows was that Windows itself used drivers that were system-wide, and software could make use of those drivers by making standard system calls. Plus, Windows does plug-and-play hardware setup. I believe Linux is the same way.

    Nightfox

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  • From Deuce@VERT/SYNCNIX to Dreamer on Thu Sep 26 02:56:25 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Wed Sep 25 2013 03:02 pm

    My understanding is that Nvidia doesn't release the drivers, you have to
    use a community produced driver... I forget what it's called at the moment.

    Nvidia has always distributed an excellent top-notch driver for Linux. the "pure" distros like Debian won't touch the stuff though because it has a binary
    blob, they use the noveau driver which is community produced and much worse than the official one.

    I'm positive SteamOS will include the official closed-source one.

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  • From Mark Hofmann@VERT/TCP to Khelair on Thu Sep 26 15:26:00 2013
    Isn't XBMC supposed to do that? It was too bloaty for the last
    system I tried to run it on, but I saw somebody else get it set up real
    nice with a remote and everything working over a home LAN and bigscreen beautifully. I've wanted to have something like that for a long time,
    just not had the cash for the decent enough A/V hardware.

    I use a combination of XBMC and Windows Media Center on all my TVs in the house. Everything is controlled by the remote and I can switch between the two
    via the Windows Media Center menu.

    I only use Windows Media Center for live TV via my HD Homerun Prime (which has (3) tuners and uses a cable card).

    Works very nice - and even wife approved. :)

    - Mark

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  • From Mro@VERT/BBSESINF to Nightfox on Thu Sep 26 21:11:27 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Nightfox to Mro on Wed Sep 25 2013 07:35 pm

    general) for Windows was that Windows itself used drivers that were system-wide, and software could make use of those drivers by making
    standard system calls. Plus, Windows does plug-and-play hardware setup. I believe Linux is the same way.


    yeah, but still not as well. i couldnt get the correct video resolution on my laptop and i had nvidia drivers. AND my laptop was neither old nor new.

    i'll believe it when i see it, but i think it's going to be a nightmare for them to move off of windows onto linux.

    would be nice, though.

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Mro on Fri Sep 27 00:35:36 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Mro to Nightfox on Thu Sep 26 2013 16:11:27

    standard system calls. Plus, Windows does plug-and-play hardware
    setup. I believe Linux is the same way.

    yeah, but still not as well. i couldnt get the correct video resolution on my laptop and i had nvidia drivers. AND my laptop was neither old nor new.

    Yeah, there are still some glitches in the software sometimes. But your resolution issue isn't necessarily the fault of the driver. The driver might be working fine, but for whatever reason, the software that detects the possible monitor resolutions might be failing for some other reason.. but certainly a driver issue is possible.

    I saw something like that recently while setting up a CentOS 6.4 machine at work. For some reason, on that particular machine, the screen went blank when it was starting into X. Thankfully though, we didn't absolutely need a GUI on that machine, so I set it to boot in runlevel 3 (text mode) instead of the default runlevel 5.

    Nightfox

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  • From Dreamer@VERT/SETXBBS to Mro on Fri Sep 27 15:56:00 2013
    Mro wrote to Dreamer <=-

    i remember back in the day when everyone was glad to finally be able to just make games for windows because they went through hell coding
    drivers and working with manufacturers to get drivers to work with
    their games.

    i had one game that i had to switch a jumper on my soundcard... just so
    i could play it. then i'd switch it back since it was so non-standard.

    i dont know if things have changed or if the same people arent there
    and they didnt go through all the troubles that people have in the
    past.

    Heh, yeah I remember those. I assume you're talking about the ISA
    days, when you had to physically set addresses and IRQs via jumpers?

    If I remember right, there was a certain combination of hardware that
    would make life hell... some IRQ conflict between video, printing, and
    certain sound cards, or something like that.


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  • From Dreamer@VERT/SETXBBS to Nightfox on Fri Sep 27 16:01:00 2013
    Nightfox wrote to Mro <=-

    I remember changing jumpers & such a long time ago too. I doubt
    SteamOS will be like that though. The advantage of making games (and software in general) for Windows was that Windows itself used drivers
    that were system-wide, and software could make use of those drivers by making standard system calls. Plus, Windows does plug-and-play hardware setup. I believe Linux is the same way.

    I don't think it was Windows per se, it was the new PCI standard that
    came along at the same time. If you'll remember, in the early Windows
    95 days things could still be hell on certain hardware, as there was
    still a lot of ISA hardware out there. Windows made it easier to
    detect and came with a lot of preinstalled drivers, but there was
    still a lot of conflicting hardware.

    With PCI, there was the capability for the OS to set and control the interrupts, making life a hell of a lot easier. I remember on my
    first newer computer having fun in the device manager manually
    changing addresses and IRQs...lol...I thought it was so cool at the
    time... ;)


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  • From Dreamer@VERT/SETXBBS to Deuce on Fri Sep 27 16:06:00 2013
    Deuce wrote to Dreamer <=-

    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Wed Sep 25 2013 03:02 pm

    My understanding is that Nvidia doesn't release the drivers, you have to
    use a community produced driver... I forget what it's called at the moment.

    Nvidia has always distributed an excellent top-notch driver for Linux.
    the "pure" distros like Debian won't touch the stuff though because it
    has a binary blob, they use the noveau driver which is community
    produced and much worse than the official one.

    I'm positive SteamOS will include the official closed-source one.

    Ah, ok. I don't have an Nvidia card, so I wasn't aware of that.

    On a related note, I think I read that Valve is going to be releasing
    some kind of "Steam Box" game console, but the SteamOS itself is
    supposed to be completely opensource and free. Their words are
    something along the lines of "completely open"... so I don't know yet
    if they mean open as in completely GNU, or if it will include
    proprietary drivers for various cards.

    But, after hearing about that Steam Box, I'm thinking it's not going
    to include any proprietary drivers by default. Guess we'll just have
    to see what they release. Later on I'll have to look around and see
    if there's a version of SteamOS available for download yet.


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  • From Dreamer@VERT/SETXBBS to Nightfox on Fri Sep 27 16:11:00 2013
    Nightfox wrote to Mro <=-

    yeah, but still not as well. i couldnt get the correct video resolution on my laptop and i had nvidia drivers. AND my laptop was neither old nor new.

    Yeah, there are still some glitches in the software sometimes. But
    your resolution issue isn't necessarily the fault of the driver. The driver might be working fine, but for whatever reason, the software
    that detects the possible monitor resolutions might be failing for some other reason.. but certainly a driver issue is possible.

    I have to agree. X can be a real pain on certain hardware to get it
    going correctly. Several years ago, I was running Red Hat just fine
    on one version... I tried to install a newer version, and couldn't get
    it to play well at all on my Intel video. I changed to Slackware with
    no problem.

    A year later, I gave the next release of Red Hat a try, and it
    installed with no problem. I read up on what the issue was, and while
    it was driver related, there was a small workaround that had I known
    about it, would have worked fine... but the scripts, of course, knew
    nothing about it, until they were pushed down through an update later
    on.

    I think it had to do with the modelines not being detected correctly
    or some such thing.



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  • From Deuce@VERT/SYNCNIX to Dreamer on Fri Sep 27 23:56:44 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Deuce on Fri Sep 27 2013 11:06 am

    But, after hearing about that Steam Box, I'm thinking it's not going
    to include any proprietary drivers by default. Guess we'll just have
    to see what they release. Later on I'll have to look around and see
    if there's a version of SteamOS available for download yet.

    They'd be crazy not to include the official drivers from ATI and Nvidia. The open source drivers aren't anywhere close to the official ones in performance. If they want to create a gaming OS, they will use the best video drivers they can get.

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Dreamer on Sat Sep 28 00:33:38 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Fri Sep 27 2013 11:11:00

    I have to agree. X can be a real pain on certain hardware to get it
    going correctly. Several years ago, I was running Red Hat just fine
    on one version... I tried to install a newer version, and couldn't get
    it to play well at all on my Intel video. I changed to Slackware with
    no problem.

    A year later, I gave the next release of Red Hat a try, and it
    installed with no problem. I read up on what the issue was, and while
    it was driver related, there was a small workaround that had I known
    about it, would have worked fine... but the scripts, of course, knew nothing about it, until they were pushed down through an update later
    on.

    I often had the same problem with older Linux distributions: One version would work well with my PC's hardware, and the next version wouldn't, then the next version would work well with it again. I never really understood that - I'd think that once one version got it right, that it should continue working right for future versions.

    Nightfox

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  • From Dreamer@VERT/SETXBBS to Nightfox on Sat Sep 28 16:09:14 2013
    Re: Linux
    By: Nightfox to Dreamer on Fri Sep 27 2013 07:33 pm

    I often had the same problem with older Linux distributions: One version would work well with my PC's hardware, and the next version wouldn't, then the next version would work well with it again. I never really understood that - I'd think that once one version got it right, that it should continue working right for future versions.

    The point I was trying to make was that sometimes it's not the driver itself, but things changing with stuff that depends on the driver... because you have one X server, but an almost infinite number of configurations between drivers, cards, monitors, resolutions, etc.

    So, sometimes a glitch gets pushed down that isn't noticed until a few people hit that glitch and it gets reported.

    I got a computer and monitor in the other room that, for some OS's and certain resolutions, the view gets shifted slightly off to the left. Other OS's it's perfect. *shrug*

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  • From Android8675@VERT/SHODAN to Dreamer on Sat Sep 28 13:28:24 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Wed Sep 25 2013 03:02 pm

    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Nightfox to Dreamer on Wed Sep 25 2013 08:02 am

    Nvidia always had good drivers for Linux. Did that change at some
    point?

    My understanding is that Nvidia doesn't release the drivers, you have to use a community produced driver... I forget what it's called at the moment. I think Nvidia had published just enough information for users to use the card for X11 and some limited 2D video acceleration, but you couldn't get the full use of the hardware for gaming like you can on Windows.

    Last I checked nVidia publishes Linux drivers that coinside with the release of the Windows versions, They HAVE to provide drivers because their cards do NOT follow any standards and need to be tweeked every time a new video game is realeased.

    Was in the game development biz up until 2005, nVidia card always ran like shit until we submitted the game to nVidia and they had a chance to tweak their drivers to support our game. ATi's? Never an issue, always ran great (in DirectX) out of the gate.

    http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html

    Looks like Linux is on 319.xx, Windows is currently at 327.xx
    --
    Andy/Android8675


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  • From Deuce@VERT/SYNCNIX to Android8675 on Sun Sep 29 03:31:59 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Android8675 to Dreamer on Sat Sep 28 2013 08:28 am

    Last I checked nVidia publishes Linux drivers that coinside with the
    release of the Windows versions, They HAVE to provide drivers because their cards do NOT follow any standards and need to be tweeked every time a new video game is realeased.

    Partly that's because there aren't any standards beyond VESA.

    Was in the game development biz up until 2005, nVidia card always ran like shit until we submitted the game to nVidia and they had a chance to tweak their drivers to support our game. ATi's? Never an issue, always ran great (in DirectX) out of the gate.

    Well, in the Linux world, OpenGL is what matters... and nVidia has had better Linux drivers for over a decade now (even though Linus himself famously flipped
    them off). ATI is just starting to gain som ground - their Linux drivers were almost complete crap until AMD bought them.

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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to Dreamer on Sun Sep 29 13:42:25 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Fri Sep 27 2013 11:01 am

    With PCI, there was the capability for the OS to set and control the interrupts, making life a hell of a lot easier. I remember on my
    first newer computer having fun in the device manager manually
    changing addresses and IRQs...lol...I thought it was so cool at the
    time... ;)

    Didn't EISA and VLB do that, too?

    I remember my old XT and AT systems, I'd tape a piece of paper to the inside showing which ports and interrupts were in use with which hardware. Tricky when all the hardware I had was serial (Apple Laserwriter, serial mouse, and 2 modems)

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  • From Deuce@VERT/SYNCNIX to Poindexter Fortran on Sun Sep 29 18:35:52 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Poindexter Fortran to Dreamer on Sun Sep 29 2013 08:42 am

    With PCI, there was the capability for the OS to set and control the interrupts, making life a hell of a lot easier. I remember on my
    first newer computer having fun in the device manager manually
    changing addresses and IRQs...lol...I thought it was so cool at the time... ;)

    Didn't EISA and VLB do that, too?

    EISA did, VLB did not. VLB basically hooked the card directly up to the memory
    bus... which caused problems when bus speeds went up.

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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to Deuce on Mon Sep 30 00:15:48 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Deuce to Poindexter Fortran on Sun Sep 29 2013 01:35 pm

    Didn't EISA and VLB do that, too?

    EISA did, VLB did not. VLB basically hooked the card directly up to the memory bus... which caused problems when bus speeds went up.

    Back then, I was running on inherited server hardware. Most of my systems were EISA with cheap ISA boards in it, the worst of both worlds. :)

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  • From Dreamer@VERT/SETXBBS to Poindexter Fortran on Mon Sep 30 18:47:00 2013
    Poindexter Fortran wrote to Dreamer <=-

    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Fri Sep 27 2013 11:01 am

    With PCI, there was the capability for the OS to set and control the interrupts, making life a hell of a lot easier. I remember on my
    first newer computer having fun in the device manager manually
    changing addresses and IRQs...lol...I thought it was so cool at the time... ;)

    Didn't EISA and VLB do that, too?

    I think you're right. I don't recall a big span of time between EISA
    and PCI, though... and, I was thinking VESA Local Bus was mainly for
    video (kind of a precurser to AGP).

    I remember my old XT and AT systems, I'd tape a piece of paper to the inside showing which ports and interrupts were in use with which
    hardware. Tricky when all the hardware I had was serial (Apple Laserwriter, serial mouse, and 2 modems)

    LOL, yeah, now that you mention it I had a sticky note somewhere
    around my desk with info like that.

    --- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
    þ Synchronet þ Sovereign State BBS
  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to Dreamer on Tue Oct 1 04:47:40 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Poindexter Fortran on Mon Sep 30 2013 01:47 pm

    I think you're right. I don't recall a big span of time between EISA
    and PCI, though... and, I was thinking VESA Local Bus was mainly for
    video (kind of a precurser to AGP).

    There were some odd VLB cards (I seem to recall an Adaptec VLB SCSI card) but since most systems only had one VLB slot, you wanted to use it for video to get the most bang for your buck.

    EISA was around for quite some time before PCI, but was mostly used in servers - not so much in desktop hardware.

    ---
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  • From Dreamer@VERT/SETXBBS to Poindexter Fortran on Tue Oct 1 20:09:00 2013
    Poindexter Fortran wrote to Dreamer <=-

    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Poindexter Fortran on Mon Sep 30 2013 01:47 pm

    I think you're right. I don't recall a big span of time between EISA
    and PCI, though... and, I was thinking VESA Local Bus was mainly for
    video (kind of a precurser to AGP).

    There were some odd VLB cards (I seem to recall an Adaptec VLB SCSI
    card) but since most systems only had one VLB slot, you wanted to use
    it for video to get the most bang for your buck.

    EISA was around for quite some time before PCI, but was mostly used in servers - not so much in desktop hardware.

    I had to go look it up, it's been so long since I looked at what was
    when. Looks like EISA was a response to IBM patenting their new MCA
    bus, and to standardize the open bus standard (the reason for a lot of
    hardware incompatibilities was the original bus being tied to the
    system clock, and as clock speeds went up, so did the bus. A card
    designed for 8Mhz was sometimes pushed to 12 or 20, and did not always
    function correctly).

    It was released in the late 80's, and while the first year or two may
    have been mainly server (or otherwise high-end) equipment, EISA was
    quick to catch on thanks to it being more stable than ISA.

    Turns out, an EISA card can be plugged into the VLB slot. I'd
    forgotten about that (it's why you always plugged a video card at the
    TOP slot, even though it would plug in any EISA slot -- in those
    years, VLB coexisted with EISA, but was always closest to the CPU). Manufacturers demanded a standard that would not cost much more to
    produce, and so they took the EISA bus, seperated and localized it for
    direct access to memory and CPU...and hardly anything else in between.

    VLB died out with the 486's... it was a quick and dirty solution to a
    problem at the time, and was designed only with the 486 in mind.

    Pretty neat to look back at all that...amazing some of the minor
    details that get forgotten.


    --- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
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  • From Froggyme@VERT/LILLYPAD to Dreamer on Wed Oct 2 03:41:50 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Poindexter Fortran on Mon Sep 30 2013 01:47 pm

    I remember my old XT and AT systems, I'd tape a piece of paper to
    the inside showing which ports and interrupts were in use with which
    hardware. Tricky when all the hardware I had was serial (Apple
    Laserwriter, serial mouse, and 2 modems)

    LOL, yeah, now that you mention it I had a sticky note somewhere
    around my desk with info like that.

    I still have a bunch of notepad papers in the boxes full of my computer parts with the CHS (cylinder head sector) information for the ancient harddrives I have. I don't know which harddrives they correspond to, though :(

    FroggyMe

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  • From Deuce@VERT/SYNCNIX to Dreamer on Wed Oct 2 18:08:49 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Dreamer to Poindexter Fortran on Tue Oct 01 2013 03:09 pm

    Turns out, an EISA card can be plugged into the VLB slot. \

    With a hammer, sure.


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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to Froggyme on Wed Oct 2 20:24:14 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Froggyme to Dreamer on Tue Oct 01 2013 10:41 pm

    I still have a bunch of notepad papers in the boxes full of my computer parts with the CHS (cylinder head sector) information for the ancient harddrives I have. I don't know which harddrives they correspond to, though :(


    I went through my file cabinet and found a folder with C/H/S information for my ST-225 (20 megs! 30 if you RLL it!)

    ---
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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to Deuce on Wed Oct 2 20:37:05 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Deuce to Dreamer on Wed Oct 02 2013 01:08 pm

    Turns out, an EISA card can be plugged into the VLB slot. \

    With a hammer, sure.


    http://web.archive.org/web/20060205120739/http://www.datadocktorn.nu/us_kortbyt e1.php

    ---
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  • From Deuce@VERT/SYNCNIX to Poindexter Fortran on Thu Oct 3 13:30:02 2013
    Re: Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Poindexter Fortran to Deuce on Wed Oct 02 2013 03:37 pm

    Turns out, an EISA card can be plugged into the VLB slot. \

    With a hammer, sure.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20060205120739/http://www.datadocktorn.nu/us_kor tbyt e1.php

    Heh. I particularily approve of the graphic card tongs and the computer tape.

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  • From Corey@VERT/TSGC to Nightfox on Mon Oct 14 23:25:03 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Nightfox to All on Mon Sep 23 2013 06:58 pm

    Computer game publisher Valve has introduced their own operating system, SteamOS, which is based on Linux and aimed for living room PCs. This sounds interesting as a video game platform: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/23/4762370/steam-box-os

    Nightfox


    linux is used for tons of stuff now.
    slot machines to arcade games.

    "Practise safe Lunch, Use a Condiment"


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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Corey on Tue Oct 15 00:32:38 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Corey to Nightfox on Mon Oct 14 2013 18:25:03

    linux is used for tons of stuff now.
    slot machines to arcade games.

    Yeah, I think Linux is pretty cool that way. Anyone can take Linux and make a software platform based on it.

    Nightfox

    ---
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  • From Corey@VERT/TSGC to Nightfox on Tue Oct 15 18:01:39 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Nightfox to Corey on Mon Oct 14 2013 07:32 pm

    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Corey to Nightfox on Mon Oct 14 2013 18:25:03

    linux is used for tons of stuff now.
    slot machines to arcade games.

    Yeah, I think Linux is pretty cool that way. Anyone can take Linux and make software platform based on it.

    Nightfox


    one of my favorite arcade games is based on it.
    house of the dead 4
    sega calls the system limbaugh
    runs on a dell computer, well, no one is perfect.

    "Practise safe Lunch, Use a Condiment"


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  • From Allen Scofield@VERT/PHARCYDE to Nightfox on Thu Oct 17 01:34:54 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Corey to Nightfox on Mon Oct 14 2013 18:25:03

    linux is used for tons of stuff now.
    slot machines to arcade games.

    Tivo uses Linux....love my Tivo. I have two of them :)

    Allen

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Allen Scofield on Thu Oct 17 02:52:08 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Allen Scofield to Nightfox on Wed Oct 16 2013 20:34:54

    Tivo uses Linux....love my Tivo. I have two of them :)

    Is Tivo still a subscription service? I still can't get used to the idea of paying a subscription for a service to automatically record my TV shows when VCRs and DVD-based recorders have existed for many years that do the same thing for free. :P Tivo is more reliable though, so I'll give them that.

    Nightfox


    ---
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  • From Android8675@VERT/SHODAN to Nightfox on Thu Oct 17 13:32:46 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Nightfox to Allen Scofield on Wed Oct 16 2013 09:52 pm

    of paying a subscription for a service to automatically record my TV shows when VCRs and DVD-based recorders have existed for many years that do the same thing for free. :P Tivo is more reliable though, so I'll give them that.

    Dude, a Tivo (or any DVR) is NOT a VCR/DVD, that's like comparing an apple to a grenade, or something non-fruit like.

    Anyone that compares a Tivo to a basic video recording decvice has never used a DVR for a prolonged period of time. Being able to STOP a show (pause) as you're watching was a HUGE game changer for me, not to mention the recorder smartly records stuff based on other shows you like to watch... VCRs/DVD recorders just don't do that. My friend beta tested the first Tivo unit, was the most amazing thing I ever saw. He had 2 of them the next time I visited, now they can record one program, watch others, you can load them with cable cards so you don't have to pay for a separate cable box.

    Tivo isn't more relable, they have hard drives in them, they crash. Not to mention you have to back up programs you want to keep eventually or you'll run out of space. Of course these days that's probably not that big of an issue thanks to cheap HDs.

    My first DVR was the ReplayTV 4400, thing had a skip commercial button! One press and it would find where your program started up every time. They got in trouble for that. Tivo was smart and never implemented that feature. My RTV crashed, I forget what I did with it. Might be in storage...
    --
    Andy/Android8675


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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Android8675 on Thu Oct 17 17:50:42 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Nightfox to Allen Scofield on Wed Oct 16 2013 09:52 pm

    of paying a subscription for a service to automatically record my TV shows when VCRs and DVD-based recorders have existed for many years that do the same thing for free. :P Tivo is more reliable though, so I'll give them that.

    Dude, a Tivo (or any DVR) is NOT a VCR/DVD, that's like comparing an apple to a grenade, or something non-fruit like.

    Anyone that compares a Tivo to a basic video recording decvice has never used a DVR for a prolonged period of time. Being able to STOP a show
    (pause) as you're watching was a HUGE game changer for me, not to mention the recorder smartly records stuff based on other shows you like to
    watch... VCRs/DVD recorders just don't do that.

    I suppose that's true.. I never really had a need to pause a show while I was watching it, so that's a feature I forgot about. I had a DVR provided by a cable company for a short while, but all I ever used it for was recording TV shows so I could watch them later - The same thing I had always used a VCR or DVD recorder for.

    Tivo isn't more relable, they have hard drives in them, they crash. Not to mention you have to back up programs you want to keep eventually or you'll run out of space. Of course these days that's probably not that big of an issue thanks to cheap HDs.

    Maybe I was a little vague; by "more reliable" I was thinking more reliable in recording shows - The clock on a VCR would often drift over time, so over time it might miss the beginning or end of a show. I have the impression that DVRs like Tivo are better about recording shows at the proper time - Perhaps even
    if the time of day or day of the week for the show changes.

    My first DVR was the ReplayTV 4400, thing had a skip commercial button! One press and it would find where your program started up every time. They got in trouble for that. Tivo was smart and never implemented that feature. My RTV crashed, I forget what I did with it. Might be in storage...

    That's cool. A long time ago, I bought a VCR that had a "commercial skip" feature, which sounded fairly cool, but all it was was a special fast-forward button that would forward the tape really fast, and when you pressed it again, it would back up a few seconds and start playing.. It wasn't as smart as I thought it would be. So when cool new features are advertised for DVRs and such, sometimes I wonder if they're just hype or if it's something really useful.

    Nightfox

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  • From Mro@VERT/BBSESINF to Android8675 on Fri Oct 18 02:59:05 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Android8675 to Nightfox on Thu Oct 17 2013 08:32 am

    My first DVR was the ReplayTV 4400, thing had a skip commercial button! One press and it would find where your program started up every time. They got in trouble for that. Tivo was smart and never implemented that feature. My RTV crashed, I forget what I did with it. Might be in storage...


    i have this thing called download. i get what i want in 5 mins and there's no commercials. i can pause it or stop it and watch the show or movie another day.

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  • From Android8675@VERT/SHODAN to Mro on Fri Oct 18 19:06:36 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Mro to Android8675 on Thu Oct 17 2013 09:59 pm

    i have this thing called download. i get what i want in 5 mins and there's no commercials. i can pause it or stop it and watch the show or movie another day.

    Same here, but 5+ years ago my DVR was the shit. Had a mod for it that put a web server in the thing, I could access it from a web browser and tell it to record stuff. Had it ready to go when I got home. as I recall I could pull the video files off it to my PC as well. Though for some reason it took a long time.

    So yeah, today, downloads, showrss, there's no doubt...
    --
    Andy/Android8675


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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to Android8675 on Sat Oct 19 15:13:16 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Android8675 to Mro on Fri Oct 18 2013 02:06 pm

    Same here, but 5+ years ago my DVR was the shit.

    Oh, man - I remember my TiVo Series 2. It would record 40 hours of TV - at low res, which looked like 240p Only 10 hours at something sort of like 480p.

    ...Although back then, I was renting VHS tapes so it didn't seem quite so bad.

    ---
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  • From Mark Hofmann@VERT/TCP to Android8675 on Sat Oct 19 16:38:16 2013
    Same here, but 5+ years ago my DVR was the shit. Had a mod for it that put
    a web server in the thing, I could access it from a web browser and tell
    it to record stuff. Had it ready to go when I got home. as I recall I
    could pull the video files off it to my PC as well. Though for some reason it took a long time.

    Cool stuff, things have come along way.

    I don't rent any boxes or DVRs from the cable company. Just have a multi-stream cable card in an HDHomerun Prime. I have 5 PCs that all run a combination of Windows Media Center and XBMC. All controlled via remote.

    I can pause live TV on any of them, record, check the guide, switch to XBMC for
    other saved content, check the weather, etc.

    It brings the best of both products to the media center.

    - Mark

    --- WWIVToss v.1.50
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  • From Allen Scofield@VERT/PHARCYDE to Nightfox on Sat Oct 19 19:58:45 2013
    Tivo uses Linux....love my Tivo. I have two of them :)

    Is Tivo still a subscription service? I still can't get used to the idea of paying a subscription for a service to automatically record my TV shows when VCRs and DVD-based recorders have existed for many years that do the same thing for free. :P Tivo is more reliable though, so I'll give them that.

    Nightfox

    Yes, Tivo is subscription based. I've been with them for 6 years and have two of the Premiere Series 4 units. I agree that VCR's and DVD recorders could do the job for free...BUT, Tivo makes it too easy. My favorite feature is the "Season Pass." I can get a "Season Pass" for my favorite shows and it will get them all without any further action from me. You can pause "live TV" (my wife's favorite feature) as well. All in all, it's very nice and, in my opinion, worth it.

    You should try it. They have a no commitment plan for $19.99 a month or sign up for a year and get it for $14.99 a month. Equipment not included.

    Allen


    ... Insufficient facts always invite danger. Spock, stardate 3141.9.

    ---
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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Allen Scofield on Sat Oct 19 20:01:36 2013
    Re: Valve introduces SteamOS
    By: Allen Scofield to Nightfox on Sat Oct 19 2013 14:58:45

    Yes, Tivo is subscription based. I've been with them for 6 years and have two of the Premiere Series 4 units. I agree that VCR's and DVD recorders could do the job for free...BUT, Tivo makes it too easy. My favorite feature is the "Season Pass." I can get a "Season Pass" for my favorite shows and it will get them all without any further action from me. You can pause "live TV" (my wife's favorite feature) as well. All in all, it's very nice and, in my opinion, worth it.

    You should try it. They have a no commitment plan for $19.99 a month or sign up for a year and get it for $14.99 a month. Equipment not included.

    Those do sound like handy features, but for me I don't think $14.99/month is worth it. But I'm someone who doesn't watch much TV, and the shows I like to watch regularly can be streamed any time for free from the broadcast network's web site or on services like Amazon Prime and such. I haven't yet had the need to "pause" live TV either.

    Eric

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