this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
176 points (98.9% liked)

Linux

48069 readers
681 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
top 7 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is this for streaming video game soundtracks or ??

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's a tool for easily creating realistic audio in games. Basically you can give it a 3d environment, and it can bake sound propagation information so that sounds have realistic reverb and filters. They've used it for some of their recent games (most notably Half-Life: Alyx).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

God the sound design in Alyx was insanely good. I felt like I was legitimately in City 17 and it was terrifying. It was a really good showcase of what Steam Audio can do.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 8 months ago (2 children)

For others who wonder the same: the announcement is from the 19th this month and they licensed it under Apache 2.0.
This is really cool to see! I hope they are testing the waters for releasing the source engine as free software. I remember Gabe Newell stating that they would consider it if people were interested. Doesn't have to mean anything, but a woman can dream~

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago

The biggest hurdle to open sourcing proprietary stuff is often 3rd party code, but we can indeed hope.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I don't get it. Is it just audio tweaking tools that developers can use, that they have now made open source?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago

It's more than just a simple tool with which you can tweak audio. Some features are listed at https://valvesoftware.github.io/steam-audio/. The tool is mainly intended for the development of games (also under Linux).

And yes, it's basically just about the fact that Steam Audio is now completely open source.