Steam for Linux Now in Open Beta

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The Steam for Linux beta is now open for everyone.

Valve said on Wednesday that Steam for Linux Beta is now available to all Steam customers – an invitation is no longer needed. To participate, users must either download the latest Steam Linux client from here, or upgrade the existing version to the latest release. Bugs will be tracked using GitHub which provides a better interface for bug tracking than what was used in the closed beta.

Also now available is the Steam for Linux respository which is currently empty. This will allow anyone with a free GitHub account to create a new issue, edit or track it, and search the existing bug database. Details on how to create a new issue are listed within a readme.md file located in the repository, but it basically describes the same format used in the closed beta.

"The team will continue working through existing issues in the forum but it is strongly recommended that any new issues be entered using GitHub's issue tracking interface," Valve said. "The sub forums will remain open so that people can join/continue existing discussions about the Steam for Linux client."

Valve has also launched a Steam installer package repository. Users of the Linux Beta client can get an email notification when the steam installer package has been updated by signing up with this mailing list.

In addition to going into open beta mode, the latest Steam for Linux client features several fixes and improvements as seen below:

* Linux - Fixed excessive CPU usage by the Steam client when running Team Fortress 2
* Linux - Fixed overlay crash when starting Cubemen
* Big Picture - Improved back navigation behavior throughout user interface
* Big Picture - Added discount timers and other user interface to store

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Kevin Parrish
16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • illuminatuz
    Hope it supports CS:GO and CS 1.6.. my fav games..
    Reply
  • dameon51
    It would be nice if in the future steam had 2 options of all games... native install, or stream/cloud. That way you could use Linux, and even if the game wasn't available for linux natively, you'd have at least some backup option to play it.
    Reply
  • Soda-88
    illuminatuzHope it supports CS:GO and CS 1.6.. my fav games..CS1.6 has OpenGL support (and so do all the Half-Life 1 and Source based mods), CS:GO is D3D only which is reserved for Windows.
    Reply
  • tpi2007
    Awesome news! I will be installing Kubuntu on a secondary machine to try it out! This is the dawn of a new era in PC gaming. 40 games ported as of now. Imagine what the gaming community will look like in a year if 40 games get ported every month. In a year's time we could be looking at a librabry with more than 500 titles.

    Soda-88CS1.6 has OpenGL support (and so do all the Half-Life 1 and Source based mods), CS:GO is D3D only which is reserved for Windows.
    Not true. CS:GO is available for the Mac, hence it also renders in OpenGL.
    Reply
  • Fokissed
    Soda-88CS1.6 has OpenGL support (and so do all the Half-Life 1 and Source based mods), CS:GO is D3D only which is reserved for Windows.Source is D3D9 only. Goldsource is OpenGL since it is the Quake engine, but no one calls that engine source.
    Reply
  • chewy1963
    Been waiting for this. Glad it's in Beta. This is a big part of my Windows exit strategy :) Now shut up Steam and take my money!
    Reply
  • atikkur
    make it dream comes true. pc gaming would not be windows centric anymore..
    Reply
  • gpfear
    tpi2007Awesome news! I will be installing Kubuntu on a secondary machine to try it out! This is the dawn of a new era in PC gaming. 40 games ported as of now. Imagine what the gaming community will look like in a year if 40 games get ported every month. In a year's time we could be looking at a librabry with more than 500 titles.Not true. CS:GO is available for the Mac, hence it also renders in OpenGL.
    Make sure you use 12.04
    Reply
  • overclockingrocks
    Oh if this were to really take off and have the libary of games the windows side does ie make all games have a wrapper of some kind that allows them to play in either OS that would be glorious and I would exit Windows completely as I can run most of the software I use outside of games on Wine
    Reply
  • joytech22
    Next major feature they should implement is streaming from one machine to another for unsupported games.

    For example, your gaming machine would hold your downloaded steam content and games, and every other computer in the home would have access to the content through either streaming or playing directly off the devices storage.

    Windows would be out of my house faster than the amount of time it takes for light to reach my desktop from my window.
    Reply