Valve will begin putting the Linux version of its Steam client through its paces next week.
"Things have been going well," a dev posted on the official Valve Linux blog. "We will be having an internal beta starting next week, and a private external beta for 1,000 users sometime in October."
Next month's private external beta will include Steam, one Valve-developed game and support for Ubuntu 12.04 and above. Big Picture mode and additional Valve games will not be supported.
"For existing Linux users, the external private beta is a good release for seeing where we are in running our games on Linux," reads the blog entry. "We will be using a sign up page for the external beta. Information about the sign up will be announced in a future post.
"For those new to Linux, we recommend waiting for a subsequent release where more features are implemented along with improvements to the user install experience."
Earlier this month Valve also launched the beta for Steam Big Picture Mode, which gives its digital gaming platform a living room and controller-friendly makeover.
Comments
3 comments so far...
Mark Hayhurst on 27 Sep '12 said:
They should just make their own OS. If steam could play all my games, my movie files, and let me access the internet I'd have no need for windows and my machine would probably run like lightening.
Dalaeck on 27 Sep '12 said:
Really really happy for this move. I can tell you, I am NOT alone.
BuggeryMeNot on 29 Sep '12 said:
Or maybe just use the worlds most rapidly evolving, powerful and versatile operating system, which just happened to get that way due to the open source platform that it is. Valve can contribute and improve the OS just as everyone else with the benefits felt by all.