Valve Launches Limited Access Beta of Steam for Linux
Valve is now beta testing its Steam for Linux client.
Valve Software announced on Tuesday the launch of a limited access beta for its new Steam for Linux Beta client. This new Linux beta currently supports the free-to-play game Team Fortress 2, and approximately two dozen additional Steam titles that are playable on Linux-based systems including Trine 2, World of Goo, Serious Sam 3: BFE and more.
"This is a huge milestone in the development of PC gaming," said Gabe Newell, Valve President and co-founder. "Steam users have been asking us to support gaming on Linux. We're happy to bring rich forms of entertainment and our community of users to this open, customer-friendly platform."
According to Valve, the studio received over 60,000 responses to its recent request for participants in the Steam for Linux Beta within the first week. That said, the first round of participants has already been selected but fear not: the Linux client will become available to a widening group of users over the course of the beta.
"Subsequent participants will be chosen among survey respondents, and once the team has seen a solid level of stability and performance across a variety of systems, the Steam for Linux client will become available to all users of Steam," Valve said.
Currently the Steam for Linux Beta client is available for Ubuntu 12.04, and includes the Big Picture mode designed for a wide-screen HDTV and a gamepad. Frank Crockett, a member of the Steam for Linux team, said the team plans to support additional popular Linux distributions in the future. "We'll prioritize development for these based on user feedback," he said.
More details regarding Steam for Linux, including community discussion, beta participants' feedback, official announcements and syndicated news, can all be tracked on the new Steam for Linux Community Hub right here.

Really? You do know Steam supports OpenAL, right?
I hope it will get somewhere with Valve pushing it. After all, they sell their engine to a number of game developer studios.
Really? You do know Steam supports OpenAL, right?
We have OpenAL for audio, SDL for input and windowing.
I hope it will get somewhere with Valve pushing it. After all, they sell their engine to a number of game developer studios.
Yes obviously that is a problem for... wait the article says 2 dozen games are already available. And how do all those Mac users play games? How do Android and iOS users play games without DirectX??
Yes DirectX is a bit of a hurdle, but obviously not an overly onerous one.
Sorry Gabe but I just don't have my hate on for Windows 8 like you do. Grats to the Linux folks though. More games for gamers is always a good thing.
The fact that they are releasing the client only for Ubuntu and may release Steam for other distros is a clear indicator that support among different distros is still an issue.
Steam supports Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and 12.10 officially. However, users are free to install in on what ever flavor they want. Valve isn't blocking that.
Since Ubuntu is the most used distro and the easiest to use and configure, I believe what you point out is a non-issue.
The Linux community will figure out a way to run Stem wherever they want. For example, Arch Linux already repackaged it in record time: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/steam/
and let us filter software and dlc from sales tab...
all i want, all i ever want.
Now for game manufacturers to settle on a single set of standards implementations on Linux. SDL / OpenGL / OpenAL and such. Then those standards need to back port support for older driver API's that may not be supported like ALSA / OSS / Pulse and such. Once the nightmare of tangled HW / SW standards gets sorted then it'll be awesome.
Agree but will still keep 7 for some games I like unless they all get ported. as for old legacy PC games (Baldur's Gate and such) I use XP on a bootcamp partition on my Mini Mac.
Still going to use Win 7 Ultimate
Legacy games run well in Wine.
How is Windows 8 closed? Steam still works perfectly fine in Windows 8. MS just introduced their own store that could compete in some small part with Steam and Valve just flipped crap.
Windows 8 is not closed, Valve is just being anti-competitive. If any other company displayed anti-competitive behavior like this, people would be up in arms over it. Instead, people are applauding Valve for flipping out over Windows 8 having its own software store.