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Steam Linux Beta Is Getting Closer!

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Subscription 16549 has appeared in the Steam Content Description Record (CDR) database. Mirrors such as thebronasium.com, portal-2.fr and marlamin.com have the listing as being titled "Steam Linux Beta".

For anybody not familiar with Steam's CDR stuff, it's like a directory listing of every application and subscription provided by Steam.

From what I can see, the CDRs for the recent Steam Community Beta were added mid July, and the first round of 100,000 beta keys were thrown out to Steam members with the Pillar of the Community badge on August the 21st, eventually going live on the 5th of September.

Whilst it probably wouldn't be a good idea to expect that a Linux Steam client (or the games it would be deliverying) would work to the same timeframe as the new Steam Community features, it does give some food for thought.

Be patient, and don't jump to too many conclusions ;) Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc
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Anon Sep 6, 2012
Well, I'd imagine they will start with throwing it at the people who actively use Steam under Wine and/or have lots of Linux compatible games (or Source games to test). Hopefully, this will mean I'm getting mine soon, because I can't wait to play Portal 2, TF2 and Left 4 Dead 2 natively. It's almost perfect under wine, but almost is not good enough.

Anyone have any idea how long it took from adding the Steam Community Beta to the CDR to it being handed out?
Anon Sep 6, 2012
Oh, and also: [URL='http://cdr.thebronasium.com/sub/16521']1[/URL], [URL='http://cdr.thebronasium.com/sub/16522']2[/URL], [URL='http://cdr.thebronasium.com/sub/16523']3[/URL]. Looks like a new Humble is coming. And it might be an Indie one, although they marked the first two Androids like so and later changed it.

Just seems too soon. Too damn soon.
Cheeseness Sep 6, 2012
Quoting: "Anon, post: 5339"Anyone have any idea how long it took from adding the Steam Community Beta to the CDR to it being handed out?


That was in the news post (of course as I say, there's no sensible reason to expect that timeframes between a client beta on a new platform and an update to Steam's web services are going to be even remotely similar) ^_^

So far as beta access goes, there was a comment from Valve that said that anybody who was interested in being involved with the beta could get "on the list" by replying to that comment, or by sending an email to [email protected] (there's a summary of Valve comments on that blog post [URL='http://gamingonlinux.com/index.php?threads/new-valve-linux-blog-post-talks-about-performance.972/#post-5174']here[/URL] if you're interested.

Quoting: "Anon, post: 5340"Oh, and also: [URL='http://cdr.thebronasium.com/sub/16521']1[/URL], [URL='http://cdr.thebronasium.com/sub/16522']2[/URL], [URL='http://cdr.thebronasium.com/sub/16523']3[/URL]. Looks like a new Humble is coming

It's been there for a few days. It's going to be very interesting to see how this shapes up.
Anon Sep 6, 2012
No, no. What was in the news post was how long it went from closed beta to everyone. What I'm asking is how long it took from CDR to closed beta. Could give us a timeframe for that.

After looking further, a bunch of others also have 5th September as the date there. They must have been doing some cleaning up. Although the new one is still over the number of bundles. They'll probably be releasing another one. Too bad, it's too often now.
Hamish Sep 7, 2012
Quoting: "Anon, post: 5345"After looking further, a bunch of others also have 5th September as the date there. They must have been doing some cleaning up. Although the new one is still over the number of bundles. They'll probably be releasing another one. Too bad, it's too often now.


I have to agree, but then again, I have been thinking that for awhile now.
Anon Sep 7, 2012
I've started to think so after the Music bundle. Less than two weeks and there's Android.

Also, they added Portal to the Linux subscription. So everyone gets Portal again, like the million times before.
Cheeseness Sep 7, 2012
Quoting: "Anon, post: 5345"No, no. What was in the news post was how long it went from closed beta to everyone. What I'm asking is how long it took from CDR to closed beta. Could give us a timeframe for that.


Actually, I had both. CDRs on the 10th of July, August 21st for the first round of PotC beta participants (we have no information on any other/internal beta stuff), and September the 5th for general availability ^_^

Also, somebody has pointed out that Portal has been added to the Linux sub. I haven't had a chance to look into it, but that's interesting news.
Anon Sep 7, 2012
Ah, I missed it first, thanks for answering. The Portal stuff is listed on Marlamin. I hope two weeks at most. I can't wait that long!
Cheeseness Sep 8, 2012
Quoting: "Anon, post: 5350"Ah, I missed it first, thanks for answering. The Portal stuff is listed on Marlamin. I hope two weeks at most. I can't wait that long!

Better to expect that it'll be a month or two away and possibly be pleasantly surprised than assume it'll be sooner and potentially wind up disappointed, I say.

I would anticipate that there would be a longer, slower staged beta than the Steam Community enhancements received, as the underlying technical hurdles are more significant, and the variables more external (with the Steam Community update, the boundaries of technical problems are within the scope of the Steam website and client. At worst, the least 'controllable' aspect would be end user browser variations, whereas there's a lot of potential stuff that could create problematic experiences for beta testers of the Linux Steam client).

There's also the aspect of the Steam client's full functionality not being usable without some titles to play, so the time for testing/deploying betas of a handful of native titles seems like it would be inherently within the scope of the Steam client's beta.

I'm not saying that it won't happen within a couple of weeks, it's just that most of the stuff involved seems to point to a longer timeframe than a shorter one (that said, we don't really have an accurate idea of how far along Valve are with native development, and we don't know what kind of beta launch events they might have planned - either of which could severely truncate or extend the time to a beta launch).
Anon Sep 8, 2012
That's why I said I hope and not expect. ;)

In the least, Serious Sam games will be there quite soon (the devs said so themselves). But that's pretty much it from non-indies.
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