9 years ago Valve put out a Beta of Steam for Linux

9 years to the day, Valve officially put up a limited Beta release of the Steam Client for Linux. It's safe to say it's been a rather bumpy but exciting ride.

Want to know the history of how things happened? Back in July 2021 we wrote up a detailed look into it all titled "Faster Zombies to Steam Deck: The History of Valve and Linux Gaming". Based on that we'll refrain from going over it all again, we suggest you grab a quick coffee and give that a read.

Now we're pretty much on the eve for the Steam Deck releasing (for some at least…ours comes in 2022), powered by the Arch-based SteamOS 3, we're about to see a real explosion in the amount of people carrying around a full Linux device. Exciting times ahead that's for sure.

We're also currently seeing the highest Linux user share on Steam in multiple years, fuelled by excitement surrounding Steam Play Proton and the Steam Deck. 1.13% might not sound like a lot of course, and compared with Windows it's certainly not, as it's at least 1,360,520 monthly active users based on the last time Valve mentioned their figures (January 2021).

At 10 years it will mark around nearly a year after the Steam Deck released, who knows what things will be like then.

Happy Birthday, Steam for Linux Beta.