About SteamLUG

Hi!

SteamLUG (Steam Linux User Group) is a community of Steam gamers who are also users (old and new) and fans of GNU/Linux - GNU based Free Software operating systems which use the Linux kernel, which we sometimes refer to as just "Linux".

We are a multilingual community which aims to be a fun, welcoming space for people of all backgrounds and aptitudes.

We also cover Steam for Linux news (Valve news, Steam news, and native Linux games), as well as host game servers and regular gaming events.

The SteamLUG community operates the #SteamLUG IRC channel (click for details and webchat), runs a Mumble voice chat server, and a Steam group with over 5,000 members.

Our rich and diverse community consists of people ranging from first-time Linux users through to developers, long-time gamers through to industry commentators. You may even see a Valve person hanging around from time to time (if you do spot one, we ask that you respect their desire to be a normal part of our community and not bombard them with questions, complaints or bug reports - there are other channels for that).

We always aim to be as welcoming of newcomers as possible, so please feel free to join us! :)

There are several ways to contact the SteamLUG administrators:

General

steamlug ( at ) gmail ( dot ) com

SteamLUG Cast

cast ( at ) steamlug ( dot ) org

Events

@steamlug

Servers

@steamlug

Projects

Cheeseness (@ValiantCheese on twitter)

The SteamLUG community is an amalgamation of several communities which previously existed independently.

Steam Group

The Linux User Group on Steam was created by vorot93 as "We Want Linux Client!" in April 2010 as a petition-like effort to gain Valve's attention. It gained popularity and quickly achieved the critical mass needed to sustain its position as the biggest Steam group of Linux users on Steam, and continued to grow in spite of its dormancy. In 2012, the current group admin Zenitur handed ownership of the group over to Cheeseness, who brought the group back into an active state and merged it with the existing SteamLUG IRC community to coincide with the release of Steam for Linux.

In March 2013, a SteamLUG community member from Valve offered to assist with changing the group name.

SPUF Thread

Prior to the introduction of Steam for Linux, discussion of Linux on the Steam Powered User Forums was confined to a single thread, bringing together people of varying backgrounds and creating engaging discussion. The current iteration of the Linux Thread was created by madrang in May 2011, and accumulated over 4,000 posts before the end of 2012.

IRC Channel

Registered in 2011 by meklu following discussion in the SPUF Linux Thread, the #SteamLUG IRC channel became a place for the active members of the SteamLUG community to gather and plan their respective projects. As activity in the SPUF Linux Thread slowed, the IRC community continued to grow. When the Steam for Linux beta was released, the average number of users more than doubled, bringing in a swath of Linux gaming enthusiasts.

SteamLUG.org

In March 2013, through the efforts of swordfischer, meklu and Cheeseness, SteamLUG.org was launched to provide a hub for SteamLUG's many faceted community, giving centralised access to community news, upcoming event information, details of SteamLUG's game and Mumble servers, webchat access to IRC, and a portal for upcoming SteamLUG projects.

Whilst developing SteamLUG.org, several libraries were created, which can be found in SteamLUG's repositories on GitHub. Forks and contributions are welcome.

SteamLUG.org also makes use of xPaw's PHP-Source-Query-Class library, Vojtech Semecky's lastRSS, and edmundask's MurmurQuery.

After long standing rumour and speculation, official news of Steam for Linux finally made an appearance in a 7 Day Cooldown interview with Valve CEO Gabe Newell, who mentioned he had been personally working with Valve's Linux team.

Valve later launched a Linux oriented blog to cover their progress in developing Steam for Linux and porting their games.

An official Steam group for the Steam for Linux beta was created in October 2012, accompanied by a hub for the Linux client app. Both rapidly gained popularity, with the group quickly reaching membership in the tens of thousands.

A survey was also launched in October to gather details of people interested in participating in the Steam for Linux beta (with a recommendation that inexperienced Linux users be patient and wait for a later release). According to a Valve press release, over 60,000 people responded within the first week.

In November 2012, the closed Steam for Linux beta launched with 25 playable titles, expanding over the following weeks to allow further participants, until the open public beta release late in December.

At the same time that the Steam for Linux beta opened up to the public, Valve launched a GitHub repository to track bug/issue reports after the official Steam Community group discussions proved to be difficult to manage.

Steam for Linux was fully released in February 2013 with over 60 titles (more than the Steam for Mac launch), accompanied by a Linux title sale and a promotional item for anybody who played Team Fortress 2 during the following two weeks.

Valve continue to release additional titles, and the catalogue of non-Valve games continues to grow.