Valve's Steam game distribution client and Source game engine are coming to Linux!

Modern distribution like Ubuntu are finally in range of competition with the most famous [2] commercial operating system. That's true for a lot of things. For other things they're even superior. But not for gaming. Every Linux user knows that gaming on Linux it's a big pain in the ass. Don't mistake me. There are lots of independent games and you know that I'm especially fond of them. Apart from few exceptions though the major games are lacking.

However the future scenario of Linux gaming is getting a bit brighter. Today Phoronix announced what was a long time speculation and something that they stalked since long: Valve is going to release Steam, their gaming distribution client, for Linux. The good news aren't finished though. Valve will also release their Source game engine for Linux. Source is a modern game engine that powers games like Half Life 2, Portal, Left for Dead 2 and so on.

This is a huge hit for Linux gamers and users in general. The trend of increasing quality some Linux distributions are showing so far is getting more and more users to Linux. It's a drop of water in the sea comparing to major commercial operating systems, yet is improving. Could this be one reason of Valve's bet on Linux? I can't say for sure but I hope this incredibly good news will spawn other good happenings. For one I hope Id Software support to Linux will strengthen. Moreover -and here I can be wrong- but Linux strategy towards game development frameworks sucks, or better is non existent. There are scattered libraries for the management of the basic systems needed for gaming like graphics, sound and controls. However the lack of a unified and solid framework affects game development and keep developers away from Linux. It's far too common to encounter problems when running games for Linux. For example I can easily recall the most recent disappointments trying out the demo of X2 the Threat which had serious audio problems, Little Space Duo with non existent sound, Heroes of Newerth which didn't even start. 

To wrap this article up, Steam for Linux is expected for the end of the summer and a Valve announcement is imminent. Kudos for Valve for what they're doing and I look forward supporting their choice and buying Linux games when available - Portal, Portal 2 and Postal III in particular.