Tested: Valve's Steam for Linux beta
Steam Punk
Steam for Linux finally brings current games to the Linux desktop. Valve has put a lot of energy into the project, but the first steps on the new terrain still look a little shaky.
Games vendor Valve has ported its Steam platform [1] to Linux, thus shifting the free platform into the focus of serious gamers. The manufacturer recently invited some users to participate in a closed beta phase. I took a look at the trial version of the Steam client, which still has some quirks.
Officially, Valve only supports Ubuntu and other Debian-based distributions, so I used a recent version of Ubuntu (12.10 "Quantal Quetzal") in my tests. With some tinkering, you can talk Steam into cooperating with other distributions. The "Valve's Strategy" box explains why the company uses Linux as a platform.
Graphics Drivers
Shortly after the news broke that Valve was planning a Steam client for Linux, the company announced it would support programmers of free graphics drivers in their optimization efforts. Linux has long suffered from a lack of good drivers for 3D acceleration.
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