I'm starting to feel old. I remember a time before Steam for Linux, back in the dark days even before the first set of Humble Indie Bundles, it's truly crazy how far Linux has come overall as a platform for gaming. 10 years ago today, Steam for Linux left Beta and released officially and what a difference it made!
Many issues along the way, a number of missteps from Valve directly too (hello Steam Machines), but we got there in the end didn't we? Linux Gaming is no longer a thing that people will constantly laugh about. It's here, it's a thing and many people now with a Steam Deck likely don't even realise they're using Linux — that's just how good it can be.
Life changing of course for me too, GamingOnLinux is my job and 99% of that is thanks to Valve's effort.
I'm not going to rehash everything, since I've gone over many milestones before like my previous article Faster Zombies to Steam Deck: The History of Valve and Linux Gaming from 2021, which is worth a read if you're somewhat new to Linux gaming (and Steam Deck!).
Happy 10 years, Steam for Linux! Cheers! Here's to the next 10 and many more.
What do you expect over the next 10 years and what have been your favourite moments?
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I only found out about it by chance at the end of 2014. Before that, I hadn't played commercial games for over 15 years. I've been using Linux since the mid-90s and at some point I got tired of the dual boot installation. It was a weird feeling for me at first to pay for a game. My first game was Tropico 5, which I even bought at full price. I can still remember hovering over the buy button for a while, wondering whether I should really do it.
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Dana Souly Feb 14, 2023
Great to see, that Linux has evolved over the years.
So much, that I decided to came back and can still use 99% of all games.
So much, that I decided to came back and can still use 99% of all games.
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apocalyptech Feb 14, 2023
Before that, I hadn't played commercial games for over 15 years. I've been using Linux since the mid-90s and at some point I got tired of the dual boot installation.
Hah, yeah, that was more-or-less my experience as well. There was the occasional Introversion title to buy, and I'd spent some time on Minecraft by that point. I think the first few Humble Indie Bundles had been out by that time as well, which was kind of exciting, but not having games available on Linux was a pretty nice way to Not Have To Exercise Self-Control in regards to buying games. For the most part I just didn't 'cause it was an awful lot easier to not have to jump through hoops (dualboot, then-less-globally-useful-Wine, etc).
It's a bit of a shame that what seems to have really broken the floodgates was Proton. I was cautiously optimistic for awhile that we were headed into a renaissance of native ports, but that proved to be mostly short-lived. Ah well! I'll take what I can get. :)
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Iirc closed beta started in October 2012 and open in November or December. But yeah Official release was in February 2013. Its been a long time. I didn't even use Steam much before as it was a hassle to launch it with wine.
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Whom here remembers happypenguin.org ?
That was awesome some 15 years ago...
That was awesome some 15 years ago...
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what have been your favourite moments?
From a gaming perspective for me, was when i concluded that Linux could finally play very graphically advanced native games That i had previously imagined only windows would get releases for. And this was before proton,
the game was Dying Light.
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And in September it is going to be 20 years for Steam overall.
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Happy birthday, Steam on Linux!
Over the next 10 years I'm hoping for a 64-bit build with the Gtk2 dependency swapped out for Qt6. Also, they could drop the legacy 'ubuntu12' name from the runtime path.
Over the next 10 years I'm hoping for a 64-bit build with the Gtk2 dependency swapped out for Qt6. Also, they could drop the legacy 'ubuntu12' name from the runtime path.
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Steam ended pirating games for me, that was a big thing.
Same, though I'll always be fond of the hours spent tinkering in PlayOnLinux/Lutris whilst digging through the WineHQ forums trying to get the latest cracked games working. Essentially my middle/high school experience.
Wolfenstein (2009) sticks out in my mind.
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I only found out about it by chance at the end of 2014. Before that, I hadn't played commercial games for over 15 years. I've been using Linux since the mid-90s and at some point I got tired of the dual boot installation. It was a weird feeling for me at first to pay for a game. My first game was Tropico 5, which I even bought at full price. I can still remember hovering over the buy button for a while, wondering whether I should really do it.
I had a kind of similar experience. Didn't start Linux quite as early; I dunno, around 2000 or slightly before. Somewhere in there I came to the conclusion that Linux on the desktop wouldn't become a thing until there were games, so I started following GoL even though I didn't actually play computer games much. Then a year or two after I started paying attention at GoL, suddenly there was Steam on Linux; I didn't really understand at a gut level how important that would be because I knew nothing about Steam. But it was only once Steam was available that I started actually buying games (other than a couple of Loki ones way back). And it definitely felt weird the first time or two.
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I shunned it at first. I think it was 2016 when I first installed Steam on Linux. I didn't have much available (a few games in my library that had Linux ports). I bought some more of Valve's stuff (e.g. Left4Dead 2 and more of the half life 2 episodes) just to have more games.
Then I shunned Proton at first in 2018. Bollocks, thought I, Wine is an abomination. Native Linux or GFY :-)
(Of course things are different now... I don't even have a Windows install anymore except for a Windows 7 qemu VM)
Happy Birthday, Steam.
Then I shunned Proton at first in 2018. Bollocks, thought I, Wine is an abomination. Native Linux or GFY :-)
(Of course things are different now... I don't even have a Windows install anymore except for a Windows 7 qemu VM)
Happy Birthday, Steam.
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StoneColdSpider Feb 14, 2023
what have been your favourite moments?Finally a truly viable way to get away from Windows for gamers...... Proton has been a godsend as well.....
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Kuduzkehpan Feb 14, 2023
it was only the begining of gaming on linux. Little miracle for gamers on linux.
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Love the little achievement in the article!
Now, to celebrate with (no lie) cake and a (Steam-ing) cup of tea!
Now, to celebrate with (no lie) cake and a (Steam-ing) cup of tea!
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10 years already? I'm starting to feel old to ... old but happy 
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Dana Souly Feb 14, 2023
Whom here remembers happypenguin.org ?Oh yes, that was my favorite website in my young days.
That was awesome some 15 years ago...
We need an emoji with beard.
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hello Steam Machines
Hello from a Steam Machine :D
Still working after all these years but known with Linux instead of the preinstalled Windows... and still waiting for Valve OS 3.0 to try it out :D
Happy birthday Steam on Linux.
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Same, though I'll always be fond of the hours spent tinkering in PlayOnLinux/Lutris whilst digging through the WineHQ forums trying to get the latest cracked games working. Essentially my middle/high school experience.
Wolfenstein (2009) sticks out in my mind.
However actually some cracks still required (still with gog games) specially when you need modify exe, example if you need modify aspect ratio in exe
this is needed in my case for change aspect ratio, recently works with bulletstorm first version (cracked exe), inversion (cracked exe) if you try modify steam exe game dont run show steam error 51, personally think this error appear if steam check exe
however in other steam games works case dragon ball xenoverse, god eater resurrection, mirrors edge, ori and the blind forest and maybe others
Last edited by mrdeathjr on 14 February 2023 at 10:54 pm UTC
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My first game was Tropico 5, which I even bought at full price. I can still remember hovering over the buy button for a while, wondering whether I should really do it.
Love Tropico 5 on Linux. Great performance too. Tropico 6 is also great especially since the base game has most of what you get in 5 but with dlcs.
Good Linux ports are rare but they do happen. dxvk makes up for the rest.
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