Steam and Left 4 Dead 2 coming to Linux

Steam is coming to Linux, Valve has announced. The first game available will be Left 4 Dead 2.

Valve's 11-person (and growing) Linux team will target the Ubuntu 12.04 distribution. The team's made "good progress" getting Steam working with Linux this year, and all the "major features" are present and correct. But there's still work to do, and an internal beta focused on compatibility and auto-updating will begin "in the near future".

Valve picked co-op zombie survival FPS Left 4 Dead 2 to be the first Steam Linux game. "Excellent progress" has been made converting this in the last "few" months, and the game already runs natively on Ubuntu 12.04. "Our goal is to have L4D2 performing under Linux as well as it performs under Windows," Valve wrote on its new Linux blog.

The Linux team - formed in 2011 - is prioritising getting a fully-functioning Steam running on Linux, optimising L4D2 to run at a "high" frame rate with OpenGL and "porting additional Valve titles".

Given the open source nature of Linux, Valve's also really keen for your input on this Linux embarkation.

"We want this to be a community of game developers, communicating with each other and talking about current efforts and future efforts in a powerfully creative environment," Valve wrote.

"After all, isn't that what open source is all about - the idea that collaboration and teamwork achieve amazing things?"