Report: Steam Coming to Linux 'Within Months'
Linux users, if you can be patient for just a little longer, your wish for Steam to run natively on your OS of choice will be Valve's command.
After years of waiting, we wouldn't be surprised if Linux users had given up hope of seeing a Steam for Linux release any time soon. However, it seems Valve is indeed hard at work on Steam for Linux and, according to the latest rumors, it will be released 'within months.'
Word comes from Phoronix founder Michael Larabel. Larabel reports that the Steam client and Source Engine are being ported to Linux and will arrive in a matter of months. The founder of the Linux enthusiast site said he was privy to Valve's Linux efforts at a recent visit to the company's offices. Proof comes in the form of a photo that shows Left 4 Dead 2 running natively on Linux.
"No Wine library or anything else for "fake" support," Larabel writes. "This is on an Ubuntu 11.10 installation with the AMD Catalyst Linux driver."
So, what's the hold up? According Larabel, Valve has been working on Linux support for quite a while but a lack of structure meant things moved kind of slowly until Gabe Newell got involved with the project.
"In part, what has taken so long is that Valve's management structure is rather flat," he writes, later adding, "There has been developers working on the Linux support for sometime, but not until recently has Gabe Newell become personally involved with the Linux client work. In fact, his desk is currently in the current Valve Linux development camp!"
Linux support is expected in the coming months. For now, Valve is working hard on Linux support and Michael Larabel says Valve is looking to expand its current tea of Linux developers. They've apparently already taken on one person he recommended and they aren't finished hiring yet.
Follow @JaneMcEntegart on Twitter.

You know that open source isn't a requirement for Linux support, right?
I wonder what 'within months' means in Valve time.
If all of my steam games end up being supported eventually on Linux I'll ditch Windows.
Not because it's bad or anything, I mean it's pretty good and industry-standard too.
But looking at where windows is going... (tiles) I think it isn't a bad idea.
You know that open source isn't a requirement for Linux support, right?
Well, for the average user, many distros are not easy to use. However, some (especially the desktop Ubuntu distro) are initially set up to 'just go' after installation and anything that is especially technical still isn't usually too easy to do unless you know how to use the cli...and google. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since many users don't need to do anything especially technical.
With that said, once you learn it, you can do some amazing things for absolutely free with linux.