[Ubuntu] Want to test Steam for Linux?

[Dos_Box]

Must be running Ubuntu 12.04 or higher. More from The Register here: Valve taps testers for Linux Steam ? Reg Hardware

[DT2]

Duly registered

[CAM]

I'm holding off on this as I'm still new to Linux as a primary OS. Will be chasing the next set of beta invites though for the newer Linux users.

Does Kubuntu count as well?

[Arthur]

Steam for Linux Beta Now Available

[CyberNerd]

Bypass Steam Linux Beta Invitations

OMG! Ubuntu! learned from a reader that Reddit users on /r/linux_gaming have already figured out a way to bypass Valve’s Beta Invitation – which allow users to start exploring Steam on Linux much earlier than the folks at Valve had likely planned for.

In order to enjoy the Valve on Linux Beta early users have been using the following steps…

From Terminal:

wget http://media.steampowered.com/client...ller/steam.deb
sudo dpkg -i steam.deb && sudo apt-get install -f
Then From Unity Dash:

Launch Steam App
Login to Steam
You will get a message saying you aren’t in Beta.
Close this.
If you are on amd64 architecture then you will also need to run “sudo apt-get install libjpeg-turbo8:i386 libcurl3gnutls:i386 libogg0:i386 libpixman-1-0:i386 libsdl1.2debian:i386 libtheora0:i386 libvorbis0a:i386 libvorbisenc2:i386 libvorbisfile3:i386 libasound2:i386 libc6:i386 libgcc1:i386 libstdc++6:i386 libx11-6:i386 libxau6:i386 libxcb1:i386 libxdmcp6:i386″ from terminal without the quotations.

Finally from terminal run “steam steam://open/games” without the quotations and you will experience Steam on Linux providing you have all the package dependencies and follow the above steps.

More information on this bypass can be found on /r/linux_gaming subreddit and readers are reminded that although this is not a hack but just a loophole that requires not modification that it could in some manner still violate the Valve Terms of Service so we suggest caution.

Some video of Big Picture and Steam on Ubuntu 12.10 is available here and video of Team Fortress 2 on Ubuntu is here.

Gamingredditsteamvalve

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/11/reddit-users-bypass-valve-linux-beta-invitations?fb_action_ids=10151493080598082&fb_act ion_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&actio n_object_map={%2210151493080598082%22%3A3729714261 24546}&action_type_map={%2210151493080598082%22%3A %22og.likes%22}&action_ref_map=[]

[JJonas]

I like it, but it does look like a good way to get your Steam account banned

[CAM]

Haha! Valve's first lesson in dealing with the Linux community, plenty of tech savvy customers with many ways to do the unexpected.

[CAM]

Just some of the interesting bugs I have dealt with so far:

- Missing game exectuables.
- TF2 taking over 5 minutes to load maps.
- Chat windows snatching focus.
- Steam occupying 100% CPU time when TF2 runs.
- TF2 suspected to be fragmenting files all over the disk (even though this isn't meant to be a major problem in Linux).

I'd advise waiting longer...!

[Arthur]

I like it, but it does look like a good way to get your Steam account banned

[Arthur]

Steam for Linux has now been publicly released (although it's still in beta).

The Steam for Linux beta program is now open to the public! In order to participate in the beta, you must download the latest Steam Linux client or upgrade your existing Steam for Linux client to the latest version.

In addition, we will now track Steam for Linux client bugs using GitHub. This provides a better interface for tracking bugs than the forums used in the closed beta. The Steam for Linux repository (currently empty) is public, allowing anyone with a free GitHub account to create a new issue and edit or track it and search the existing bug database. The repository contains a readme file (README.md) detailing how to create a new issue (it 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. The sub forums will remain open so that people can join/continue existing discussions about the Steam for Linux client.

And last but not least, we now have a steam installer package repository. There is a mailing list for announcing updates to the steam installer package. To subscribe, use the public mailman page located here: list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/steamrepo.

Here's the change list for this release:

• The Steam for Linux client closed beta transitioned to an open beta.
• 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

[Arthur]

It seems that you can't please fans of penguin-flavoured OSs.

A Steam developer johnv has written on the Steam Linux Group forum asking for feedback on package install changes.

We've gotten a lot of feedback around the hacky way that Steam manages dependencies. Some of this is because of lingering multiarch problems on Ubuntu 12.04 and hopefully this will go away as Canonical irons those out. But some is due to the way that package management doesn't work well with an auto-updating application like Steam. For example, if we add a new feature to Steam that requires a new OS package to be installed, we need to make sure that happens before the new auto-updated Steam runs. And with different distros having different approaches and interfaces to package management, it is impossible for us to cover all the different configurations.

One proposal we have to make things easier for other distros is to separate out the package management logic (basically the install_extra_packages() part of /usr/bin/steam.sh) into a separate script - steam-depends.sh. Then we would call that script to do any post-install package installs. Other distros could provide a different script that would do the equivalent.

I would love to get some feedback from people running (or trying to run) Steam on non-Ubuntu distros. Does this help some? Any better ideas?

It has already caused a heated debate as usual with some people rather unhappy at the way the current client works. Some people are frustrated with Steam forcing updates to itself and games. (Source)