Steam for Ubuntu Officially Announced by Valve

Steam for Ubuntu has been finally announced by Valve on its official blog, giving rest to all the rumors that have been circulating in past few months.

In the blog post titled 'Steam'd Penguins', lots of details on their Linux plans were revealed. Valve is looking to strengthen the gaming scene on Linux, both for players and developers. This includes Linux ports of Steam and Valve games, as well as partner games. They are also investigating open source initiatives that could benefit the community and game developers.

About the Valve Linux team

Initially formed in 2011, the Valve Linux team is currently 11 people and growing. This team will investigate open source development with a specific focus on supporting Steam and other Valve products on the Linux platform. The Linux background of their team varies from those who have a deep knowledge of Linux development to those who have just scratched the surface.

History

For some time, Gabe Newell has been interested in the possibility of moving Steam and the Source game engine to Linux. At that time, the company was already using Linux by supporting Linux-based servers for Source-based games and also by maintaining several internal servers (running a 64-bit version of Ubuntu server) for various projects. In 2011, based on the success of those efforts and conversations in the hallway, they decided to take the next step and form a new team. At that time, the team only consisted of a few people whose main purpose was investigating the possibility of moving the Steam client and Left 4 Dead 2 over to Ubuntu.

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