Beta Late Than Never (Steam Linux Beta)

I find this announcement kind of bitter-sweet. It's awesome, amazing and inspiring that a company like Valve has put this much effort in to supporting Linux, no matter what their underlying motives are. At the same time, it's really sad that this is the biggest thing to happen to mainstream Linux gaming since Loki and id/Epic since the early '00s.<p>As somebody who was briefly caught up in the "convert-all-the-things-to-Linux" evangelism of the early 00's to the "fsck it, I don't care who uses it. I like it." attitude, I sincerely hope this makes an impact. Forget the FLOSS ideals and morals; if this means more 'power users' realize there's a viable Windows alternative for gaming (and more), everybody wins.<p>I know a lot of 'purists' will inevitably complain about the influx of 'noobs', but, fsck it. No matter what beliefs/philosophies you follow, it's always a good thing to be able to show people that there are other options.<p>As a long-time follower &#38; sometimes contributer to the free/open Unix scene, this makes me proud.

I don't even play video games anymore, but I played a hell of a lot of CS back in the day. Many years have passed, and I jumped on the Linux bandwagon about 3 years ago, and am now supposedly a productive member of society. But dammit, all I can think about now is plowing over AK-47 slinging bastards running through the top tunnel on de_dust with my pump shotty, or mowing people down with the UMP or headshots with the scout. I don't know, I loved the obscure weapons.<p>I would increase my consumption of video games from a non-zero amount if I could play CS on Linux.<p>Make it happen Valve. You got me, I'm now nostalgic.

It's about time a major player got behind Linux, I'm glad it's Valve as they are arguably one of my favourite game developers not just because they make great games, but because of their overall attitude and work culture. Hopefully this gives Linux a little needed spotlight boost and perhaps gains Ubuntu a few new users.

At first thought this seems like a major blow for CodeWeavers and the commercial WINE consultation crowd; Steam and Valve games are among their staples, selling a large number of CrossOver licenses. However, on further consideration, if Valve wanted to make Steam/Linux a more seamless experience, one could see them becoming a major patron of CodeWeavers et al and/or becoming major WINE contributors themselves, in an attempt to ensure that most Steam games work perfectly on WINE.<p>This makes even more sense if one supposes that Valve ultimately intends to release a "Steambox" console. In such a condition, the question emerges: at what point does Microsoft feel WINE is damaging its profits sufficiently to revoke the free pass its enjoyed for a long while and bring out the legal banhammer? I think a Steambox that relied heavily on WINE would be excellent provocation.

Would be better if they'd drop using DRM.<p>Let's hope GOG will follow with shipping native Linux games. With their DRM free stance - they'll be very well received by Linux users.<p>If you are interested, you can vote to show them that there is a demand for it:<p><a href="http://www.gog.com/en/wishlist/site/add_linux_versions_of_games" rel="nofollow">http://www.gog.com/en/wishlist/site/add_linux_versions_of_ga...</a>

I really hope this breaks the horrible Linux feedback loop.<p>We don't have games because we don't support games. We don't have hardware support becuase we don't have anything that requires hardware support.

I'm hoping they will provide access to the Humble Bundles as they do on Windows. It is a pain keeping up to date with them manually.

Such a small set of testers especially considering how many of them will go to friends/industry probably means they are expecting to get buried under a shit storm of bugs.

While it's great they're putting support behind Linux I'm not getting my hopes up. Just look at the poor selection of Mac games available on Steam. There are plenty of great indy titles but very few big budget games. Linux support will be even worse.

Is the 3 at the end of the URL a subtle jab?

Can't wait! Here's hoping Steam Linux - in combination with the Microsoft's terrible decisions on Windows 8 - can be the catalyst for a mass exodus of gamers from Windows to Ubuntu/Linux and end an era of Windows PC gaming dominance that has long been overdue.

&#62;&#62; We will be using a sign up page for the external beta. Information about the sign up will be announced in a future post.<p>Now I need to bookmark that blog. :-)

Hurray! This is my year of Linux on the desktop.

The ''one game'' in the private beta is left 4dead 2, or is there any indication it might be something else?

Hopefully they add basic RPM bundling as well; as much as I like Ubuntu I think if you are distributing binaries we should be able to expect support for the latest Fedora as well.

oh, steam on linux? really? it's will possible if Valve will do create the distribution of Linux and will support and further developed its.

This is a great thing, next year will be the year of linux... definitely...