Steam Coming to Linux

Linux gamers have always gotten the short end of the stick. Sure, there’s WINE, but not having a native version of, well, almost anything has to be frustrating.

It looks like Valve is answering the call for someone, anyone, to develop for the operating system. They’ve announced they are porting both Steam and Left 4 Dead 2 to Linux, specifically the Ubuntu distro.

Valve say they picked Ubuntu because, well, they needed to pick one to focus on anyway, and Ubuntu is one of the more popular versions of Linux out there. They haven’t ruled out supporting other distros yet, and it wouldn’t surprise me if whatever they release works on other versions anyway.

It sounds like they’ll be porting many of Valve’s other Source engine games over to Linux once they get Left 4 Dead 2 working well, but as they point out in that blog post, the Linux team is only 11 people. If you don’t luck into them picking your favorite game next, it could be a while before they get to it.

Still, a major videogame publisher/developer is acknowledging the existence of Linux. That in and of itself is a step in the right direction.